Page 37 of Reclaimed Dreams

Chapter11

9 years ago

“What do you mean, you and Seth joined the army?” Jo’s voice rose over the din at the Friday night supper table. Everyone else at the table quieted down, clearly stunned as well.

“Just what I said, Ma. We’re going to serve our country for a few years, make the world a safer place, and then they’ll pay for grad school. I’ve got it all planned out.”

“No. No! Absolutely not. Dom, you’ll get this straightened out Monday morning.”

Dom’s shoulders dropped, and he refused to look her in the eye. “Jo, he’s an adult now. I can’t stop him if this is what he wants.”

Jo’s jaw dropped as she stared at her husband. Was he serious?

“Mom, it’s already done.”

She swung her gaze back to her eldest son—the boy who’d made her a mother, who she’d worked so hard to birth and raise, now trying to go off to war—and then back to her husband who looked more defeated than she’d ever seen him. Her eyes filled to the brim. “Dom…”

“He’s made up his mind, Jo.”

Jo swallowed hard. Her imagination was busy spinning every possible worst-case scenario. How? How could Dom say they had to let him go? This made no sense. While her brain tried to make it make sense, her heart was breaking.

Her other children began to pepper Gabe with questions that filled in some of the blanks. He spoke of business school and grand dreams, paying off debts, and adventure. But to her mind none of it balanced the scale against the possibility of losing life or limb.

Shaken, Jo remained uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the evening, even when she and Dom turned in for the night. She didn’t understand how Gabe could have come to the conclusion that this was the right decision for his future or how Dom could be on board with it. Everything inside her told her to fight, to argue, to convince these two bullheaded men that they were wrong. And yet she bit her tongue. She knew it would be useless to argue once they’d made up their minds, and she couldn’t bear to send her son off to war with angry words between them.

2 years ago

Jo followed Dom outside and sat beside him on the stairs of the deck he and Gabe had built for her years ago. He stared out into the darkened yard, his face full of regret.

“So, another baby…” Jo dropped her conversational gambit into the darkness between them.

Dom didn’t reply. He just gripped his hands between his spread knees and sighed. She let the silence deepen, giving him space to say what he was struggling to put into words.

“I really fucked it up this time, didn’t I?”

Jo didn’t say anything. She’d said all the things that needed saying months ago.

He pressed on. “You know, my whole life all I ever wanted was to make things good for you and the kids. Provide a good life, keep you all safe and happy, give you what you needed. And I failed.”

Dropping his head into his hands, he pushed on.

“I couldn’t protect Gabe. Sofia and Enzo aren’t happy working with me. I haven’t given you the life I promised.”

Jo still didn’t say anything, afraid that harsh words would slip past her filter and break the tenuous thread holding them together. But she put her hand on his shoulder and let him feel the weight of her support at his back. When he finally turned to look at her, tears in his eyes, she didn’t look away. She held his gaze as tears filled her own.

“I’m not giving up,” he whispered hoarsely.

“I’m not either,” she whispered back.

“I was afraid you already had.”

His shoulders relaxed under her hand. She wasn’t ready to forgive and forget, but she could hold space in her heart for hope. Maybe this would be the wake-up call he needed.

“This isn’t how it ends, but we can’t go on like this.” Jo dropped her hands to her lap, mirroring his stance.

“I know.”

“So where do we go from here?”

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