Page 4 of Service and Sacrifice
“Did you know he was going to join beforeyou married? Or was that a decision he came toafterwards?”
“Oh, no. I knew from the time we weresophomores he would be in the military. It was what he’d plannedand worked towards. He diddelayedentry oursenior year, and we’d planned on waiting until he’d gotten out ofbasic to get married. None of this made it through to anyconversations with our parents, of course.” She laughed.
“Of course.” He smiled at her, a fullspreading of his lips that changed his face entirely, making himmore approachable, softening the hard lines he wore most of thetime, and turning up his good-looking level by several notches. Shewasn’t immune to the fact he was handsome, in that bad boy way thathadn’t ever been her go-to for desirability. But this, what theywere doing by sitting here to honor Martin, turned any idea thatthe meeting might be seen as tawdry into a lie, showing insteadthat it was a brilliant sign of respect for her dead husband. Thatsmile on his face, however, turned the corner from attractive tosmoldering hot in a moment. She stared at him until he frowned,losing the grin to an expression of puzzlement. “What?”
“Nothing.” She turned away, back to theheadstone, feeling as if she’d somehow betrayed Martin by noticingthe attractiveness. Which was stupid, because he wasn’t around tobetray. He was gone, long gone, and the permanence of his not beinghere struck herhard,like it always did outof the blue. It took her breath away,andin amoment she was crying hard, shoulders shaking as she wrapped herarms around her knees, tucking them close to her chest to try andstop the pain flooding through her.
As he had at the gas station, Alex gatheredher into his arms and held her. Wordless, gentle, and with an airof patient understanding that reassured her this was normal, thiswas grief, this was having to live without the one person youalways thought you’d have. This waspainandanguish. This was sadness because of all the firsts Martin wouldnever see. All the firsts stripped away from her future, dropped tothe bloody earth in a faraway land.
Shecried, as she didon every anniversary, unable to speak or breathe, choking on themass of impotent wishes that swelled inside her chest.
This year, unlike the ones that had comebefore, she wasn’t alone.
Four
Monk
Alex waited for her tears to slow, for thesobs to become less heartbreaking. It took a long time, buteventuallyshe stopped shaking, and herbreathing evened out. He’d adjusted his hold on her a couple oftimes while weariness overtook her, Amanda’s body slumping againsthim as her muscles weakened.
He didn’t try to tell her it would bebetter, or that she’d get over it. He took the waves of grief thatemanated from her body and absorbed them as best he could, givingher a safe place to pour out her pain.
Instead of telling her it would pass, heshared how his family had dealt with a loss like, and yet unlike,hers.
“When I was twenty-five, my younger sisterwent missing. I was deployed overseas in the sandbox, about to headhome on leave, and got a text from my mom asking if I’d heard fromTracey. She was twenty-one and finishing up college, and my folkstried not to treat her like anything other than the grownup shewas. They didn’t keep tabs on her; it wasn’t like that. ButTracey’s roommate had called. She hadn’t come back to the dorm,anda quick check with her professors foundher absent that day. I looked back at my messages from her andfound the last three had been a week earlier. Funny pictures andjokes that I hadn’t responded to.” Amanda made a sound and went topick up her head, but he cradled her skull close with a quiet,“Shhhh,” until she settled against his chest again.
“My folks got the runaround from the cops.Some song and dance about her being an adult, and sometimes peoplejust got tired of their lives and left. She wasn’t in arelationship, didn’t have kids or a pet, didn’t own a car or ahouse. A prime candidate to just pick up and vacate, at least intheir eyes. Me and my folks, we knew different.” He strokedAmanda’s hair and knew by her stillness she was listening intently.It was good to take her out of what she’d been stuck in for solong, and even if it hurt to tell this, that’d be worth theeffort.
“She was the good kid.” He snorted. “Notlike me, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
Amanda did interrupt him then, and he smiledat the determination in her voice. “You seem plenty nice tome.”
“Nice, sure. But good? Not always.” Hestared at the flagpole yards away, at the center of the graveyard.“Not hardly ever.” With a quick breath, he pushed past thosememories and continued on. “Tracey was the kind of kid who texted,even away at college. She kept the ’rents in the know with herlife. Voluntarily, probably because they didn’t demand it of her.Those texts, random things about food and friends, announcementsthat she was going out to parties, or made it home safe—theystopped the night she went missing.”
“Oh no.” Amanda pulled away,andhe could feel the weight of her stareonhim, even as he refused to meet it.
“Oh yeah.” He cleared his throat, suddenlythick with tears. “Two weeks wentpast,andnothing. I got home finally, just in time. I was over at theirplace, helping organize the stuff volunteers needed, about to headout and put up posters when I looked through the window to see myfolks’ pastor pull up at the curb, followed by a cruiser. It waslike I was frozen in the spot. I saw the men get out, watched thethree of them cluster at the end of the sidewalk. I didn’t get tothe door before my mom, but I was there to catch her as she fell.Tracey’s body had been found in a copse of woods close to theschool’s campus. Their best guess, she’d been dead before she’deven been reported missing.”
“Oh, Alex. I’m so sorry.” She patted hischest gentlyandhe nodded, the movementsrough and jerky.
“I don’t know what was hardest on my folks.Knowing she’d been dead for so long, or the fact they didn’t knowshe was already gone. Mom kept saying things like a good mothershould have known.” He shook his head. “Took the whole family along time to come to grips with the fact sometimes bad thingshappen to good people.”
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated, and he duckedhis chin to stare into her eyes. Red and swollen, they were wellingwith tears again. “So, so sorry.”
“Sounds trite, I know.” He shook his head.“Trust me, I know how it sounds, because I’ve bitchslapped myselffor saying it to my folks, to mothers and fathers of men and womenwho served with me, but it’s true. We can’t control the bad thingsthat happen, but we can work to get to a place where thatacceptance doesn’t tear us apart.” He stroked the fall of her hair,smoothing out the tangles from when she’d been pulling and yankingat it. “You aren’t there yet, but you gotta do the work and getthere. You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
She moved back, and his lap felt emptierthan he expected. There was a biting chill all along his front,even in the heat of the evening. “I can’t. I miss him so much.”
He pushed up from the ground and dusted offhis ass, then looked at the gravestone with the single name, noroom for a spouse, and he wondered if she understood what that hadmeant when she’d purchased it. “Youwill,because you deserve to.”
The rumble of his bike’s engine and pipeswas loud in the cemetery,andhe sat for amoment fiddling with his glasses and bandana, settling everythingcomfortably into place. Numbing routine helped when the memoriesthreatened to overwhelm.
Alex took a deep breath and turned to lookat Amanda, still seated on the blanket beside her husband’s grave,loss and confusion on her features. He offered her a brieftwo-fingeredwaveand idled out to the road. Adifferent car than the one she’d driven yesterday sat in theparking lot, listing to one side on a low tire.
He pulled out onto the road and rolled thethrottle, easing into the first gear change before laying into itand rocketing through the rest. He told himself that even with theglasses, it was the speed and wind that teased tears from his eyes,andhe blinked hard.
Five
Amanda
