Some nights I thought I heard his key in the lock and it was only the neighbor on the floor above us. Some nights he came home and was almost normal. Tired, quiet, the edges of him sanded down. Those nights I made eggs at midnight and watched him eat because chewing was proof he was still here. I touched his shoulder, light, like static might jump between us. He reached up and squeezed my fingers and I wanted to believe that squeeze contained everything I needed to know.
If I’d been a different woman, I would have prayed. Instead, I folded laundry. I wrote down groceries we didn’t need. I polished the faucet he’d tried to fix last month and hadn’t finished because the part was wrong. My hands needed something to do besides hold my head.
When the door opened, it was three in the morning. I was half asleep on the couch, the bed having felt too empty. Too cold. I startled awake because I hadn’t been expecting him home. His shoulder bumped the jamb. Keys hit the wall and bounced. He took two steps in and stopped like he’d lost the next instruction. I could smell the alcohol from half way across the room.
“You drove,” I said. No hello. No where were you. “You drove like this.”
He looked at me. His eyes were glassy and old in the same moment. “It’s fine.”
“You could have killed someone. Could’ve killed yourself.”
“Tried that already. Devil gave me back.” He said it like a fact, like the weather or a broken light bulb.
“Don’t you dare,” I said, and my voice broke like a plate. “Don’t you dare make that the story.”
He swayed a little. I reached out and took his arm because that’s what you did when someone was falling. I steered him toward the couch and sat him down hard enough that he grunted.
“Shoes,” I said. He didn’t move. I dropped to a knee and untied them because rage and love are apparently cousins. The laces were wet. Mud flaked and stuck to my fingers. He watched my hands like they belonged to someone else. “You don’t get to do this to me,” I whispered when I got the second boot off. The words fell out like a secret I didn’t want to keep.
He didn’t seem to hear me, just tapped his forehead. Hard enough to leave a red mark on the skin. “I can’t turn them off,” he said.
I think I heard my heart shatter on the floor. I was losing a good man to his demons. And I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. You couldn’t stop a soul hellbent on its own destruction.
I covered him with the throw blanket we kept at the edge of the couch and started to walk away. But when I glanced behind me and saw him watching me, I couldn’t stop myself.
“You used to tell me you wouldn’t be like her. You promised yourself you wouldn’t end up like your mother. You fought every day of your life to prove you were stronger than that.”
Even in the dim light, I saw him tense. When he spoke next, his words sounded terrifyingly sober. “Don’t go there, Holly.”
“I didn’t,” I shot back. “You did.”
“You don’t get it.”
A laugh ripped out of me. Broken. Sharp.
“Really? I don’t get it?” I stepped closer. “After they found him not guilty all those years ago, I swore I would never let a man touch me again. Ever. Then you showed up.”
My voice wavered but I didn’t let it fall.
“I tried so hard not to love you. So fucking hard. But you climbed every wall I built. Letters and stolen kisses and promises.”
I swallowed.
“Then I buried you. I mourned you. I let that grief almost kill me. So don’t stand there and tell me I don’t get it.”
“Malibu—”
“You survived a war,” I cut him off. “You survived a crash. You dragged yourself across a desert to get home.”
My throat tightened.
“And now you’re in our home with the same glassy eyes she had.”
I paused, swallowing and clenching my jaw so hard it hurt.
“I am not going to sit here and watch you disappear one drink at a time,” I said. “I love you too much for that.”
I turned and forced myself toward the bedroom without looking back. I didn’t sleep. Not then. Eventually I went back out into the living room and sat on the floor with my back against the wall until my legs went numb and my lower back throbbed. I watched him. I watched his chest for the rise and fall. And realized this was almost as bad as watching them fold that flag over an empty grave.
