I shook my head. “Great. That’s just great. So now I’ll have a husband killed by terrorists, a son-in-law killed by terrorists, and a brother killed by terrorists.”
He grinned at me. “On the bright side, you don’t have too many different things to hate. Simply saying you hate terrorists pretty much covers it.”
I couldn’t help but smile. He reached over our tiny mother and squeezed my shoulder. “I won’t die, sis. I didn’t die in that avalanche on Mont Blanc. I didn’t die from that green tree viper bite on Machu Picchu. I didn’t die those nights we played Edward Fortyhands in college. I’m gonna be all right.”
I smirked. “So what about our brother?”
“Ans,” he said. “You’ve got to let it go. You can only control you, and John can only control John.”
It was an inopportune time for our mother to wake up, but with her eyes still closed, she said, “I love all of you unconditionally. If he doesn’t come here to tell me good-bye, I’ve made my peace with that.”
I believed her because I had no other choice.
I whispered, “But you love me the best, right, Mom?”
I winked at Scott. He leaned down too and said, “Mom, just tell her she’s your favorite daughter. That will appease her. Don’t break her heart by admitting I’m your favorite child.”
We smiled at each other, and though her eyes were closed, our mother smiled too. This was a game we had played with her nearly our entire lives. A game we would likely never play again. It was so small, so simple, so insignificant, but even the insignificant becomes terribly important when you know it’s going to be over. I squeezed Scott’s hand, and I realized it didn’t matter now who won or lost, didn’t matter who Mom’s favorite was. This was a pain Scott and I would share, a pain only we could truly understand. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I would worry about that when she was gone. For now, I was going to savor every second we had left.
TWENTY-SEVEN
the lifetime movie version
sloane
August 5, 2011
Dear Sloane,
I know you said you weren’t upset earlier on the phone, but I can’t express to you how much I wish you had gotten pregnant before I left. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the baby we want so badly. But when I get home, we will try again, and this time it will work. This time, we will get everything we have ever wanted. I already have you, Sloane. This baby will just be the icing on the cake. Wonder if the icing will be pink or blue?
All my love,
Adam
IT WAS ONLY A few months between the time Adam and I had started “trying” for a baby and the time he was deployed again. It wasn’t enough time for us to be worried—or for him to be suspicious. It was very unlike me, this big lie. I was never one who could keep a big secret, but I had managed to keep this one quite splendidly.
It wasn’t until Adam was gone that the gravity of what I was doing really set in, that the level to which I was compromising my marriage hit me. My adoring husband who trusted me implicitly believed that when he was making love to me, we were trying to make a baby. Only I knew he was alone in that.
It was that letter that really did it for me. All I could think was, here is my husband halfway around the world, fighting for my freedom, and I have betrayed him in the worst possible way.
I thought about writing him a letter, explaining to him my position and that I was sorry. I would try to make him understand my reasons for what I had done, explain that I wanted to make him happy but I did not want children, under any circumstances.
But I knew this wasn’t something I could write. I couldn’t hide behind a letter. I had to tell him in person. So, for the six months he was gone, I wrote to him under the pretense that I, too, couldn’t wait to have a baby. I reasoned that if, God forbid, something happened to him, he should get to be happy just a little longer. I never told anyone what I had done, how I had lied to my husband, how the secret I kept from him had nearly cost me my marriage and the love of my life.
Now, sitting on my mom’s screened-in back porch with my two sisters, that seemed a world away. I could hardly remember a time when I didn’t want children, couldn’t imagine I had ever envisioned my life without these little people who, while frustrating at times, made my world go around.
Earlier that night, for the first time in weeks, I hadn’t rushed through putting my children to bed. I didn’t feel the urge to get back in my pajamas as quickly as possible to get the day over with. Maybe that was the gift in this whole thing. I remembered this was the only life I was going to get, and one day I was going to be gone and wouldn’t get to spend time with my boys. I read to them, snuggled into my side, until Taylor fell asleep and AJ could barely keep his eyes open. Then I sang their favorite songs until AJ drifted off as well. I stared at them, trying to remember them as babies, trying to memorize them now, as though I could tuck this perfect moment somewhere deep inside myself and save it, like Adam’s letters, for a time when I really needed it.
The screen door squealed open, breaking me out of my thoughts, and as it slammed shut again, Scott appeared, a beer in his hand. “Nothing will make you want to
