“Are all of your letters to me like this one?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, looking down at my hands. “I needed to tell someone.”
“I would have written back. I would have sent you care packages. I would have sent smiles. I would have been waiting for you the minute you got back. If you think I’m not angry that I didn’t receive those letters, Brett, you’re wrong. It eats away at me all the time, knowing I could have been there—knowing I would have jumped through hoops of fire to be there for you. All I can say is, I’m here now, and I hope it’s never too late to talk to me or ask for a smile.”
I kiss Melody’s forehead. “I shouldn’t have written all that stuff in the letters. You didn’t sign up for that kind of truth. I did. Maybe there’s a better reason you didn’t get those than Ace being a bastard.”
“Yes, you should have,” she corrects me. “I’m glad you did.”
“If you wrote back, I would have fallen in love with you right there and then. I would have thought about you morning, noon, and night, more than I already was. I would have gotten distracted and it could have ended badly.”
“You know, I thought about you all the time too. My parents told me you had gotten deployed, which made me watch the news every night, scared to hear something happened to U.S. troops. I never knew anyone who enlisted, you were the only one, and the more I learned, the scarier it became. You were over there fighting to stay alive and to help others do the same, and there were people here who had no clue what was really going on.”
“I think the reporting was skewed a bit too. There was more happening than even the press knew.”
“Well, if there was one thing I could change, at the very least, it would be that I was waiting there for you when you got home safely.”
The thought brings a smile to my face. “Oh yeah? What would you have done?” I ask.
She twists around to face me, wrapping her legs and arms around me from the front. “I would have searched through the crowd of Marines, waiting to see your face amongst the rest of the Marines. It would have been like one of those movie scenes where there isn’t talking, just cinematic, uplifting music. The second I spotted you, I would have run like hell to you. I would have thrown my arms around you and kissed you like I knew of all the times I might have lost you. I wouldn’t have let you go, Brett.”
“I can almost see that moving playing in my mind. You would have been running toward me, the most beautiful face in the crowd, in slow motion. I would have lifted you up and spun you around as your hair wrapped around my neck, and then I would have looked you into your stunning green eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, and that it was really you. I would have told you I loved you and asked you to marry me right then and there.”Melody kisses me sweetly, folding her arms around the back of my head. “And yet, here we are: in love, married, with a second child on the way. I don’t know, Sergeant Pearson … it looks like we might have made it after all.”
“I love you so damn much, Mel,” I say.
“I love you even more than that,” she says. “All parts of you—the secrets, stories, and the memories.”
28
A Year Later
A year of therapy.A son, Quinn, who has fire-engine red hair like his mom and a great giggle, a sassy ten-year-old who might or might not have a boyfriend (still up for debate), and the most incredible wife in the world. Some might say I’m doing pretty damn well.
It looks that way from the outside.
Those people don’t know that I read my old letters every single night before I go to bed so I can revisit the war in my dreams to do over what I did in another lifetime. I’m positive I’m not okay, but that’s only one part of my life. The other parts make up the difference. Melody knows the pain I sleep with, and for some reason, she continues to love me through it day after day.
Even days like today.
A car accident at a four-way intersection in the middle of our suburban town plays out in front of us from three cars back. I blink, and the collision consists of an armed vehicle and a U.S. hummer. I jump out of the truck to help the innocent.
I help the drunk instead.
The innocent is rushed away in an ambulance.
I screwed up again.
The scene is being cleared up, and I tell Melody to take the kids home. She doesn’t ask any questions; she just does as I ask after kissing me on the cheek.
I’ve been sitting here on the curb of the intersection, trying to understand how I saw something completely different than what happened. How did I get things so wrong? Why was someone drunk in the morning?
I open the box full of memories because it is supposed to heal me, but I don’t know how long this healing process takes or how many people will be affected by it. The therapist says we can’t put a time limit on mental healing, but I wonder if he says that as a milder way of saying “never.” I’m not a stranger to what wars have done to men and women in the past. The battered souls live among us with faces made of bravery and courage, hiding the pain buried so deeply inside.
If I close my eyes, I can feel the sand scuff beneath my boots, and I smell the rotting flesh float through the thick air, smoke filled air. There’s dirt on my hands, and they feel like they haven’t been washed in a month. Maybe someone is coming up behind me for a surprise attack. Perhaps the accident was a distraction to punish me for all I’ve done in the past. I shouldn’t just sit here. I should keep moving. It’s the only way to survive.
I stand up from the curb and walk for over an hour until I reach the hospital. I want to check on the innocent man from the accident.
I don’t know his name.
