Back in the Soldier's Bed

“I didn’t tell her.”

“You what?”

His earlier geniality evaporated. The hard edge of his voice was matched only by the thunder that boomed. The first cold droplets hit her skin and Shannyn looked at the path of the storm. She could only see perhaps half a kilometer away; farther than that was a gray curtain of rain.

“We’ve got to get inside,” she exclaimed, thankful for the temporary diversion.

Everyone who’d been outdoors was suddenly scrambling for shelter. The lighthouse, really a museum, was already filling up with tourists. “My truck’s parked on the street. We can make it if we run.”

Heavy drops of rain marked the path as they jogged towards his pickup. Jonas reached the vehicle first and unlocked her door before running around the hood to the driver’s side and clambering in just as the skies opened up.

For a few seconds the only sound was the drumming of rain on the roof of the truck and their heavy breathing.

Jonas rested his hands on the wheel, picking up the conversation where it had left off, much to her dismay.

“You didn’t tell her. We agreed.”

“No, you demanded. You said I could do this my way and then you ordered me about like one of your privates. Which I am not.”

“Fuck.” His fingers gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned white.

Shannyn straightened her back and half-turned on the seat. “I’m not in your command. I’m the mother of your child and perhaps you should remember that.”

“You’re right. How could I possibly forget something that has happened so recently.”

Embarrassment bloomed in her cheeks at the acid in his tone. He was never going to let her forget this. “Look. I tried, I really did. But I just didn’t know how to tell her. How to answer the questions she’s sure to have. Can’t you understand that?”

“You had no trouble with the decision not to tell me. What have you told her about her father, anyway?”

Shannyn looked at the windshield but saw nothing but water streaming down the glass. “I told her you didn’t know that she was born and that I didn’t know where you were.”

She felt his eyes on her, condemning.

“Now that was a bit of a lie, wasn’t it? Because you could have found me quite easily if you’d tried.”

“Does it really matter now?” She sighed. “There is no point belaboring what has or hasn’t been done.”

“Convenient for you.”

Shannyn snapped her head around at the arrogance of his tone. “I beg your pardon, for trying to find the best way to tell our daughter that you are here now! For trying to find the way to explain things that will cause the least hurt and confusion. She’s five, Jonas. Five! If I need an extra day or two to do that, then you’re going to have to deal with it! What if she asks why you left in the first place? Why you didn’t care enough to stay? What am I supposed to tell her then? That your precious army was more important than we were?”

Her lower lip trembled slightly as emotion overwhelmed her. Her cheeks flamed hotly at what she’d revealed in her outburst. It didn’t take great powers of deduction to realize that a good part of her decision had been based on her own feelings of abandonment.

“I don’t know what you tell her,” he answered. “But you know as well as I do that your last statement isn’t quite accurate.”

She didn’t know what he meant. Whether it was the part about the army being more important or that fact that he couldn’t have chosen the army over them because he didn’t know there was a “them.” The straightness of his body, the way his eyes blazed at her kept any thought of clarifying it at bay.

“But I know two things,” he continued after a moment. “I know you want to be the one to tell her, and I know that you’re the one that got us into this whole situation and you are going to have to work it out.”

“Why do you even want to be involved in her life?”

Jonas gripped the steering wheel. Why indeed? He wasn’t happy, he knew that. He had a permanent limp, he was a single man in the military.

But none of that mattered because he was now also a father. And surprisingly, that seemed to carry more weight than all the others. He stared at the rain streaming down the window as he answered.

“Because I am her father. Because I missed out on her first five years. I didn’t get to see her as a baby, or watch her first steps, or hear her first words. I didn’t get to help her on the school bus on her first day of school or put a band-aid on her bumps and bruises.”

He stopped, turned his head, and met her eyes. The aqua-blue eyes he’d once loved now didn’t understand anything about him at all. “I missed all of that, Shannyn, and I missed it because you thought it was ‘best’ not to tell me. And I’m sure about one thing. I am not going to miss out on anything more. She is my daughter. I am her father. She is a part of me whether you like it or not. And I agreed to let you tell her in your own way. I trusted you to do that. It appears I misplaced my trust.”