We shared a driveway with my friend Maryanne and her husband, Tom, who was a part of Adam’s unit, and their four kids. Tom called, “Hey, Sarge!” and gave Adam a double thumbs-up. We were all still basking in the glow of Adam’s promotion to sergeant first class. There were a lot of perks that came with the job.
But hands down the perk that meant the most to Adam was the respect, the feeling of a job well done. Junior enlisted soldiers would come to him, asking for advice, wanting his opinion. He always said he was raising men, and he didn’t just mean his sons. Those boys were his now, even though he wasn’t much older than some of them. It was his job to protect them, to instill in them morals, values, and a sense of pride in their country and in themselves.
Adam was an imposing man, a strong leader, but he also had a kind heart. Maybe the Army didn’t care about that. But I had to think his empathetic nature was a factor in his promotion.
We loved living there, surrounded by other military families, the only ones who could truly understand the life we had chosen.
Four of our favorite couples and their small children were scattered around our postage-stamp front yard, each of them, from the largest officer to Maryanne’s newborn baby, wearing a Mickey Mouse party hat. AJ was attempting to ride his new mini scooter through the grass, the red Keds and white Jon Jon with the red fire truck Mom had sent him for his birthday seeming more than a little out of place amidst the other children in their shorts and T-shirts.
My husband had protested the outfit, but I had simply kissed him and said, “Oh, sweetheart, he’s only little once. Let me have this.”
Adam had pulled me to him then, kissed me longer, and said, teasingly, “If you get the girly outfits, I get buying him a BB gun for his sixth birthday.”
This was a common joke between us. I was, ironically, very anti-gun. He was a soldier, a card-carrying member of the NRA, a proud Second Amendment supporter. We would never agree on this. We would never agree, in fact, on a number of things. But that’s what made us work.
Back on the screen we were all singing, “Happy birthday, dear AJ! Happy birthday to you!”
We cheered as it took him not one, not two, but three tries to blow out the three candles on his cake.
“Third time’s the charm?” Adam asked me, looking into the camera.
We both laughed, sharing that private moment, my favorite man in all the world holding one of our sons, his arm around the other.
Adam smiled into the camera, that special smile he reserved just for me, a secret we would never let the rest of the world in on. I hit pause on my sticky remote. Sticky from what I couldn’t say. Popsicle? Go-gurt?
I pulled the two down comforters I had wrapped around me up closer to my chin, trying to soothe the perceptible chill that ran through me as my mind pulled out of that world, where Adam was here and we were happy, and back into the present, the real world where life was bleak, empty, and so cold it felt like the depths of the arctic instead of a seventy-eight-degree night in Georgia.
My bed was covered with letters Adam had written me over the years, the ones I carried in a leather portfolio my mom had gotten me when I was accepted into art school. Whenever I traveled, it was the first thing that went into my suitcase. This trip to Peachtree had been no exception. A few of the letters fluttered when I disturbed the comforter.
I glanced over at the nightstand to see my dinner untouched on its tray. My mom was trying, bless her heart. I almost smiled because nothing ever changed, not really. I did the same thing with my sons now, putting the broccoli on their plates even if I knew they wouldn’t take a single bite.
The mere thought of eating turned my stomach, made bile rise up the back of my throat. I couldn’t remember the last time I had even gotten out of this bed or had a sip of water. I certainly hadn’t bathed in far too long. How long had it been since I heard Adam was MIA? Two days, a week, a month? It terrified me. Who had been taking care of my children? Even if I couldn’t eat, I would bathe tomorrow. I would face my boys. But this was something I thought every day.
I looked back at the TV, studying Adam’s smiling face, so joyful and alive. He was my home. He was my everything. I sank even deeper into the covers, and the sobs, so powerful they seemed like they were in danger of stealing the very life from me, overtook me as I realized it: I may never be home again.
TWO
red sky at night
ansley
The sun had nearly set when I sank into the plush cushion of the outdoor sofa on my front porch in Peachtree Bluff. Despite my exhaustion, anxiety, and sorrow, there was something about this porch and this particular sunset, a burning red and hot orange, that always soothed my mind.
My grandson Taylor’s fever from the day before seemed to have finally broken, and I hoped beyond hope that AJ, snuggled safely in my bed instead of his own, wouldn’t be woken again by nightmares.
I looked down at the piles of sand on the front porch, the clumps that had fallen out when AJ decided to strip
