One Hot Summer

Gilly stands in the foyer, staring down at her sneakers, her small body dwarfed by the cheerful pink backpack on her slim form. She looks so little, I’m reminded that her efforts to act like a teenager are just that: an act. She’s closer to babyhood than adulthood, and her bravado has got to be exhausting sometimes.

“Gilly? Come on, honey.”

That’s when I notice the slight shaking of her shoulders, which tells me she’s crying. I squat down before her.

“Hey, Gilly-bean,” I say gently, looking up at her to find fat tears spilling onto her cheeks. “I know it’s not perfect, but I’m doing my—”

“I miss mommy!” she cries, throwing herself against me, her forehead landing on my uniformed shoulder.

My heart clenches as I draw her into my arms.

This is what hurts the most.

I loved Wendy and I miss her like crazy, but the worst of it is seeing my kids suffer. It tears my heart apart.

My youngest, Meghan, doesn’t have many memories of Wendy: she was only three years old when her mother died. There must be a deep chasm in her life where a mother should be, but she doesn’t necessarily know what she’s missing. She doesn’t complain much. She’s agreeable and young, and mostly just rolls with the punches.

My oldest, Chad, keeps his sorrow bottled up, trying to help me in every way he can: looking after the girls, getting dinner started, tucking Meghan in on the nights I need to work late. He cried at his mother’s funeral, but he’s been a rock since, and even though I’m grateful for his help, it worries me too. A thirteen-year-old kid shouldn’t have this many responsibilities; he should be more carefree, biking around town with his friends after school, not babysitting for his sisters and cooking dinner. I know it’s wrong to lean on him as much as I do, but sometimes I feel too overwhelmed to turn down his help.

As for my middle kid? Gillian? She’s the most emotional of the three. At least once a month she has these desperately unhappy moments when she cries about her mother, mourning Wendy’s loss in such a real way that it flattens me on the inside while I force myself to stay strong for her on the outside.

“I know you do,” I say softly. “I do too.”

“She would’ve p-picked me up every d-day. She would’ve b-been here when I got home.”

“I know it.”

“I h-hate it that she’s gone,” she sobs near my ear. “I w-want her back.”

“Can’t help you there, bean,” I say, squeezing her tighter. “I wish I could.”

As she cries, her sweet, sobby-breath falls softly on my throat, and my mind speeds up to two or four or six years from now when Gillian is going to need a lot more than a big hug from her father when her hormones are going crazy and she’s trying to become a young woman without the guidance of a mother. I know that Bonnie will do anything possible to be sure that Gilly and Meg have a positive female figure in their lives, but Bonnie will have her hands full with her own kids, her own concerns. Who will be there for my girls? It’s a question that plagues me in quiet moments, but I’m not interested in meeting someone new. My sister has tried throwing eligible women in my path, but I’m not ready to get back out there yet.

“I tell you what,” I say, pushing her back a little and reaching forward to wipe the tears from her cheeks with my thumbs, “when I get home tonight, how about we watch a movie together? You, me, Meg and Chad?”

“With p-popcorn?” she asks, sniffling.

“Sure. Real buttery too.”

She nods. “Okay. I’ll go to stupid after-care.”

“And go easy on Chad, huh? He’s just trying to help me out.”

“I know,” she says, taking a deep, wobbly breath before looking up at me with glassy eyes. “Sorry I got sad. Love you, Daddy,” she adds, heading out the door.

When I look up at the SUV, I see Chad standing by the passenger door, opening his arms to give Gilly a hug before she gets in the backseat beside her little sister.

They’re good kids, I think, feeling my chest tighten with pride. They would have made you so darn proud, Wendy.

Standing in the front doorway, I watch them for a moment, knowing that they need more than me, that we can’t continue on like this forever.

I just don’t know where to start, or how to make it better.

As a sergeant, and the second-in-command, at the Department of Public Safety Academy in Sitka, Alaska, I work with State Trooper recruits all day every day. They undertake an eighteen-week, live-in course at my school, and I, in conjunction with other commissioned officers and civilian instructors, teach them how to serve the great state of Alaska.

When my phone rings mid-morning, I glance at it to see who’s interrupting a class on weapon safety, then turn the class over to another officer when I realize it’s the nurse at Gillian and Meghan’s elementary school.

“Hello?”