“Shhh. Don’t. It’s okay. Don’t apologize. Just let me be here for you.”
My wife turns in my arms, her hands fisting the front of my shirt, inconsolable.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whimpers, barely able to catch breaths between sobs. “Will you call Roger?”
“He’s not reachable,” I say honestly.
“Please, Gavin, I just want to know if he’s okay. Please.”
“I’ll try, Katy. I swear to you.”
Another sob bursts from her chest as I carry my wife over to the couch. For the first time since returning home from war, she allows me to cradle her into my arms. I hold her while she cries for him, her pain echoing my own. And once again, we’re both lost.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Katy
The sound of my phone buzzing on the coffee table rouses me from a restless slumber.
I’m in that place between sleep and awake, where I know there’s got to be a significant reason I’m waking up on the sofa, fully clothed—why my eyes are sticking together with dried tears—but I’m not yet cognizant enough to remember what that reason is.
“Hello.”
“Katy.” The alarm in my sister’s voice has me bolting upright. It all comes back like a ton of bricks crashing down on my heart. Immobilizing me. Suffocating me.
“Sammy, I can’t talk. I can’t talk, okay?”
“I’m on my way,” she says, just as I end the call.
I reach for the remote on the coffee table, turning the television on and flipping through all major networks. When there’s no immediate news on Briggs, I move to my laptop left open on the kitchen table, muting the classic country still wafting from the speakers from my date with Gavin last night.
Sergeant Briggs…shot in the chest…critically wounded…touch and go.
My eyes scan dozens of articles, all reporting the same thing. Nothing more recent than the initial reports, when all I need to know is how he is right now.
After searching only a few minutes, I discover the name of his grandmother, Susan Briggs. Those damn Wikipedia articles on Chris and me finally coming in handy for something. Thanking God for modern technology and the fact that his Gran has been slow with the times and still has a landline, I manage to find her number in a matter of minutes.
Hello, you’ve reached Susie. I’m unavailable at the moment, but please leave your name and number, and I’ll call you back. God bless.
“Hi, Susan. This is Kathryn Scott. I’m the woman who—” would walk through fire to get any word from your grandson. “The woman who was captured with your grandson in Baghdad, and I was really hoping to talk to you. To—to check on Br—Chris. Please, if you get the chance, could you give me a call back?” I rattle off my number and end the call with, “Thank you so much.”
Goddamn it, Briggs, why? Why’d you have to play with fire?
His voice rolls over me like a shock wave.
He gets you, and I get war.
In this moment, I feel toxic.
Racing to the half bath downstairs, I purge myself of the guilt, retching out the fear before washing my face in the sink. In a matter of minutes my son will be up, and I know without a shadow of a doubt, he’ll see what I can’t possibly hide.
I’m not your soldier.
Let me go.
“Never,” I reply, as my heart begins to thrum with the love I’ve been keeping at bay. It’s rushed back full force—the gravity of it threatening to knock me down as I scramble to keep myself upright.
Moving toward the kitchen, I hear a tapping at the back door.
“Gavin,” I croak when I unlock it, finding him standing on the porch. The defeat in his posture brings it all back. My reaction last night to the news about Chris, and the way he held me, crying over the man who came between us. Guilt consumes me once again. I’m begging my heart to stop. But I can’t. I can no longer deny a damn thing I’m feeling because my heart refuses to be stifled.
“Can I come in?” His eyes are rimmed in red like he hasn’t slept in days. He lifts his right hand to cup my face, his thumb tenderly brushing away my tears.
“It’s your house,” I reply, letting the guilt run down my cheeks. “I’m so sorry. Jesus, you must hate me so much,” I say, wiping at my nose. It’s the resignation on his face that scares me the most as I take a step back and he slips past me with gentle words. “I’m not here to guilt you. That’s not why I’m here, Katy.”
Nodding, I move to sit on the couch, knowing he’ll follow. The couch dips with his weight as I stare at the pattern on the throw pillow in my lap, worrying the fringe between my fingertips. Anything to avoid facing the pain I know I’m inflicting upon him.
We sit in an endless silence before I manage to lift my eyes to his.
“I love you.”
“I know,” he replies quickly. “And I know how much.”
“I don’t know what to say; I’m mortified with what I’ve done to you.”
“I got to hold my wife in my arms for the first time in eight months, Katy. I needed that more than you.”
“Not the way it happened.”
“Maybe not,” he agrees, “but I’ll stay selfish about it and take it for myself.”
“Can you ever forgive me?” I ask, knowing the task is impossible.
“I already have. I think I forgave you the minute you let me back in.”
“Gavin, I—”
The sound of his throat clearing forces my eyes to his. “I did something.” He pulls an envelope from his slacks and puts it in my hand. “This is for you.”
Inside is a plane ticket. A ticket to Zweibrucken, Germany. I’m overwhelmed at the implication of what it means before he puts a voice to it.
“I’m letting you go.” A lone tear drips down his right cheek. “Go to him, Katy.”
“I don’t understand.” But I think that I do. I just don’t know why he’d do this, or what it means for us.
“When I left here this morning, I took Noah to the neighbor’s house and got on the phone. Made a few calls. You’re cleared to visit. Your flight leaves tonight.”
“Gavin, I can’t j-just g-go to Germany—” I’m hysterical because my heart is grateful and every part of me wants to be on that plane, but I also know I can’t keep straddling this place between worlds, between lives.
“Katy,” he says, cupping my face and stroking my tears away, only speaking once they’ve quelled. “I want a divorce.”
“I won’t go.”
“But you want to. I think we both know you made your decision before you got home; you just didn’t want to live with it.” He pulls his ring from his hand as I let him see me break for him, for the pain of losing him. “It’s time to live with it. And if I’m honest, I’ve known this was coming since I saw the two of you together in New York. I just hoped that what we had would overpower it somehow, and now I know that what we have is lost. My Katy is never coming back.”
“I’m still me.” I squeeze his hand as fresh tears line my cheeks. These tears are for him and for my marriage. For the family I’ve tried so hard to salvage.
“This,” he says, placing a hand over my heart, “this no longer belongs to me, and I don’t want to share my wife with another man. I deserve more than this. I want more than this.”
I can’t argue, because I realize then my heart tipped over long ago, and every word he’s saying is truth—I’ve known it— but living it is far harder to deal with.
“This feels like death,” I sob as he places the ring in my palm and closes my hand over it.
“On our wedding day, we promised to give each other the life we deserved.” His thumb whispers over my knuckles gently. “I’m giving you the life you deserve, Katy. Take it.”
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Katy
“Baby, breathe,” Sammy says as the rain pounds down on the hood of her sedan. “They won’t let you on a plane like this.”
She grips my hand over the console, and I clutch onto it with both of mine. Shuddering breaths escape through my sobs as I try to put words to the agony I’m feeling.