Stolen September: A Military Romance
Mom hums to herself and puts away sandwich meats.
“The craft room?” She’s moving items in the fridge and I’m getting angrier at feeling ignored.
“No. My room.?
??
She shrugs. “I changed some things around.”
“All my stuff is gone.” My arms rise and fall, and my hands slap my thighs. This is unbelievable.
“Don’t be dramatic. I put it in the attic when you moved out. It’s not like you need a bedroom here—you have your own house now.”
If there was a mirror in front of me, my face would look like I was catching flies.
“I got married, Mom. I didn’t die.”
“I know, darling.” My mother rolls her eyes and I’m speechless.
I sniff back tears. “I don’t have a bedroom anymore?” I don’t have a place here in my own house, and I don’t feel like I have a place with my husband.
“Sweat Bea.” She sighs in that mom way that tells me I’m the exasperating one.
“Mom.”
“Beatrice, you live with your husband. There’s a pull-out cot in the closet, or you can put sheets on the couch.”
Unbelievable.
I spend the night on the couch tossing and turning. At breakfast I ask my dad what to do and he tells me this is my moment to be a grownup and face the choices I’ve made. He doesn’t say Tank doesn’t love me—quite the opposite, in fact. He explains that unless I tell Tank how unhappy I am, it’ll be hard for him to discern what’s going on. He places the blame for holding out on my shoulders, and the blame for rushing things on us both. Dad fills me in that Tank was pretty clear about how he felt about me, but that I was the one who had wavered. It was true: I had let fear cloud my emotions and expected things to be rosy when marriage takes the work of two people.
It’s eye-opening to realize I haven’t put the work into trying the way Tank has. We aren’t perfect—far from it—and I need to give him a chance to try as much as I have to try to figure out what I need to stand on my own two feet.
There’s nothing quite as humbling as having to ask your parents to drop you off at the bus station to head back home—the real home I’ve made with Tank. I suppose Mom is feeling sympathetic, as she packed a few dozen of her cookies in my bag. Dad reminds me I could come home anytime I liked, to visit, and next time to bring my Marine home with me.
10
Tank
I wake up with a crick in my neck. This old chair has to go. Another hand-me-down while I figure things out. It doesn’t match the rest of the furniture, but I’m still leery to part with it since we own it outright—unlike the sofa, which I’m still paying off. My dad had a good decade in this chair and I had hoped the luck would pass down to me, but it hasn’t—not yet, anyway. Everything in my body hurts, but my heart hurts the most. Keys jingle in the door and I sit up just enough to see the glint of light as it creaks open. I missed Beatrice the way an amputee sometimes misses his limb. I could still feel her in my chest, a phantom pain, a bubbling ache left wondering. Not knowing if she was coming home was the worst feeling in the world—worse than getting my deployment assignment and not knowing if she would follow me to base.
The door slowly swings open, bringing with it cool outside breeze. I reach for the cake on the coffee table, slowly sliding the box under the couch. If this isn’t my wife, I definitely don’t plan on sharing this cake from back home with anyone.
“Honeybee? Is that you?” I call out, forcing myself to stand up. Under normal circumstances I might have been alarmed hearing the doorknob jangle, but living in base housing lends a certain element of safety I take for granted.
She doesn’t answer me, but I watch her walk into the room. A slow shuffle of skinny legs covered in dark denim and slip-on flats. Moonlight catches the set of keys in her fingers. Her shoulders slump as she lets her bag fall to the floor.
“I was kind of hoping you’d be jumping into my arms by now.”
Bea glances around the living room. It’s empty, the exact way she left it three days ago. No streamers twisted in pinks and bright yellow are strung up—the only colors I could find at the commissary. No bright-colored balloons either. All the party supplies are tucked away in the closet, unopened.
“Honestly, I’m afraid I might pee myself if anyone jumps out at me yelling ‘surprise.’ A few hours on a bus will do that.” Her voice goes husky, her face pale, and I notice her usual thick bun of wild hair is less perky—a casualty of riding the bus back.
“Surprise.” I shrug, kicking the bottom of the rug and nudging it back in place. Thanks to Rhonda there was no one to send home as she kindly handled the rescinding of invitations. I didn’t even have anything to clean up.
“I don’t suppose this’ll be like our wedding.” There was so much leading up to the big day. All I wanted was to give her something that expressed how I felt about her. So yeah, a little like our wedding, but not quite.
I match her smile, recalling the aunts and all the shenanigans those ladies got into around the wedding. If those girls had it their way we would have had a parade and fireworks. I remember fondly a few details from the rush of that day. The way she looked as her dad walked her down the aisle, and the last smile she gave me as Beatrice Brennan turning into the first kiss as Mrs. Beatrice Andrews. No. I had hoped this would be better, but now it’s only the two of us and no one to witness our folly.