They load Katie into the ambulance.
“We need to go,” the paramedics say. “In or out?”
“In,” Katie cries. She wants me.
I climb in with her and she takes my hand in a grip so tight it hurts.
“We’ll follow you in the car!” her dad yells. “The kids are fine! And we got the dog!”
Katie finally takes a deep breath. “Did you kill him?” she asks.
“I don’t think so.”
She lies back against the gurney and heaves out a breath. “I was hoping you did,” she says on a tired sigh.
“Me too.”
32
Katie
I can still remember vividly the day I was notified that my husband had died. I was sitting at the kitchen table supervising a game of Monopoly the kids were playing with a few of their friends. Gabby was playing too, so I didn’t have to pay a ton of attention. She’d partnered with Trixie, who was too little to do math or read the cards, but she loved the camaraderie. She also loved to heckle her brother and his friends.
I took a sip from my glass of wine and hitched a hip on the corner of the counter. I was the luckiest wife on the face of the planet. After our youngest two children were born, we’d decided that only Jeff would remain active in the military. I still was in the reserves, and I had to give one weekend a month to my country, but I didn’t get deployed the way Jeff did. He was on his second tour, and it got harder every time he left.
I walked to the calendar on the wall and marked off another day. Jeff would be home in two weeks. I couldn’t wait.
I bent over to take a baking dish loaded with chicken nuggets out of the oven. I started to flip them all over with a fork and would have to put them back in for a little more cooking.
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Gabby said as she set Trixie on the chair they both had been occupying.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“Mom!” Gabby yelled a moment later. She was always so composed. She’d grown up way too fast. It was the bane of having two younger siblings and a parent who was absent; she’d taken on way too much responsibility, but she always handled it gracefully. Until now. “Mom!” she yelled again, and I heard her feet pounding down the hallway. “Mom…” Her voice quivered. “There are two men at the door.”
I kept flipping nuggets. “What do they want?”
“They’re military,” she said. “In class A’s.”
My hand suddenly felt numb. I dropped the fork I was holding and it clattered to the floor. “Stay with Trixie and Alex,” I said quietly to Gabby as I walked past her.
She grabbed onto my arm. “What do they want, Mom?”
“Probably nothing,” I said soothingly. “Just wait here. Watch your brother and sister.”
One of the officers introduced them. “May we come inside?” the chaplain asked. I identified him by the insignia on his uniform and the Bible he carried in his hand. I stepped to the side and they walked past me.
“I have been asked to inform you that your husband has been reported dead. He was wounded by a roadside bomb and died en route to the hospital. We regret having to impart this news to you. On the behalf of the Secretary of Defense, I extend to you and your family my deepest sympathy in your great loss.”
I wanted to drop to my knees and sob, but I had three kids who had just lost their dad. They’d lost their hero. They’d lost their future as they knew it. There would be no father to walk my girls down the aisle; there would be no father to straighten Alex’s tie before he stood at the altar. He wouldn’t teach them to drive a car. He wouldn’t be with me to supervise dates. He wouldn’t teach Alex to carry a handkerchief or to open doors for ladies. He would never arrange Trixie’s hair in uneven pigtails again.
He would never call me in the middle of the night just to say hi. He would never hold me again, because his body was being shipped back to the United States. His dead body.
“Is there anyone we can call for you?” the uniformed officer asked.
“I can do it.” I needed to call my parents, and I needed to call Jeff’s parents and his sister. They needed to know. But first, I had to tell my children.