“Yeah, I’m here. Sorry, we’re just?—”
Static interrupts him once again, and I’m so tired, so overwhelmed with my injury, with our relationship, with him being deployed that the tears build faster than I can pull them back. “I just want to talk to you for five seconds. Please? Can you go somewhere? Could you call me back? “
“No, sorry. I was meaning to call you. I uh … I have some news.”
Me, too, buddy. Me, too. “What kind of news?”
“I’m signing up for another tour.”
I sit up, spine straight, my mouth falling open. “You’rewhat?”
This deployment has been hard enough on us. Something has happened to Lukas, that’s obvious, but when I can’t see him, can’t talk to him, can’t hold him, it also means I can’t truly reachhim. “How can they ask that of you? You’re not even done with this one. Aren’t there other Marines that could deploy?”
“There are…” his voice fades out, and I can’t quite hear what he’s saying at first. “They asked us if anyone volunteered, and … uh, I said yeah.”
“So, they aren’t requiring it, you … youvolunteered?”
“Things have happened out here, bad things, and I want to finish what we’ve started. There’s … just trust me when I say I need to see this through til the end.”
“So, how much longer will you be gone?”
“Seven months. Shouldn’t be as long as my current tour.”
Which should’ve ended four months ago. He will miss the summer, the fall, and have to spend another winter overseas. Nearly twenty-one months deployed. Almost two years of a strained relationship where I spend every day wondering what he’s doing, and most nights wondering if he’s alive. And the time in between is spent wondering what he’s gone through that’s caused him to change so much from the man I once knew.
I slump back against the bench, letting the phone drop to my lap. Raymond reaches his arm across my shoulders, pulling me to him to plant a kiss on my temple.
“Magnolia?” Lukas calls out from my lap, and I bring the phone back to my ear.
“Well … I guess the choice is yours. But I hope you’re making the right one.”
“I am. I think someday you’ll see that.”
I scoff, probably more obnoxiously than I mean to, but the pain is starting to kick in. All I want to do is go home, crawl into bed, and pretend that this is all just an awful dream.
“You wouldn’t get it, Mags,” Lukas starts, and I shake my head, not needing to hear this conversation for the one thousandth time.
“I know, I know. No one gets it. No one gets you, Lukas.” It’s a speech I’ve heard many times before. And to some extent, yes, it’s true. But I don’t get it. I don’t know what he’s going through because he won’t tell me. Won’t tell his family. We’re all kept in the dark and all worried for him.
“I don’t have time for this,” he bites. “Did you need anything else? Otherwise, I gotta get going.”
I look down at my foot, then at the pair of crutches next to me. What difference will it make to tell him now? His mind is elsewhere; the version of Lukas I need to care for me isn’t the version that he shows anymore. “I just … I hurt my foot last night. It’ll be fine … I’m just sad, that’s all.”
The line is quiet, and I can’t tell if he even heard what I said, or if the call dropped.
“What? Did you say you're hurt?”
I nod, tears burning against my throat.
“How bad? Do you need surgery?”
“No, no surgery. Fractured part of my foot, the doctor—” Another rush of static fills the line, and it cuts me off, zapping what energy I had left from my body. “Are you there, Lukas?”
“Sorry, reception sucks right now. And I’m sorry to cut you off, sweetheart, but I need to go. But you’re going to be okay? Your foot will be alright?”
“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” I’ll make it through this without him, just like I’ve had to make it through everything else.
Sometimes, I’m so angry with him. Angry for the choice he made, angry for whatever is happening to him that’s caused him to change.
