I’m not quite sure if it was a Tuesday or a Wednesday. I know it happened on one of those days because since we got most of our business on the weekends, Connor took his two days off on Tuesdays and Wednesdays while Faye took it on Mondays, and I on Thursdays. And the day Matthew Duffy walked into the bookstore, Connor wasn’t working. So it had to be one of those days, but for the sake of this, let’s pretend we are sure it was a Tuesday.
The bookstore had been opened for business for almost four months. Faye and I were on the office since there were no customers on a Tuesdays at that hour. She had me pinned against the wall while she kissed me. She let go of my mouth as her hands went for my jeans. I felt her fooling around with my pant’s button when I complained. “Faye, come on!” I said pushing her hands away. “We’re working!”
Her hands went back to my jeans, but this time I didn’t stop her. “Oh, come on. It’s Tuesday afternoon, it’s dead at this hour. Relax.”
As she dropped to her knees to undo my pants, I dropped my arms and sighed giving up. She always gets her way with me. She undid my jeans and began to pull them down along with my underwear. I closed my eyes while feeling her tongue come closer to my crouch.
“Hello?” we both heard someone opening the front door.
“Shit!” she said standing up and leaving the office to assist the person who’d just walked in. As I pulled my jeans up I heard Faye ask, “Hey, looking for something in particular?”
“Uh, actually… I’m looking for Captain Brenan, ma’am. I was told she worked here,” I recognized that voice.
I buttoned my pants while Faye replied, “You looking for Riley?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I walked out of the office and towards the front door to find the person speaking to Faye. He was tall, over six feet tall. Dark hair, brown eyes, muscular.
“Matt?”
Private Matthew Duffy. As soon as he saw me, he placed his hands behind his back, lifted his chin up and stretched his legs to the width of his shoulders to put himself in Parade Rest. “Captain.”
I smiled. “At rest, soldier.” He relaxed and smiled as I walked up to him and hugged him. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You, too.”
“What are you doing here?” I said pulling away.
“I wanted to see you, ma’am.”
“Matt, come on, no ‘ma’am’. It’s just Riley.”
“I know, sorry, it’s just… old habits die hard.”
“Tell me about it, I once stood in Parade Rest while standing in a supermarket line.”
He laughed and added, “It is really good to see you… Riley.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Well, actually I’ve been looking for you for some time now. I’m on this… homework from my therapist.”
“You’re seeing a therapist?”
“Yeah, well. My wife told me ‘You either get your ass to therapy, or I’m divorcing you’. So here I am. It turned out to be a good idea. She’s really been helping.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Yeah, anyway, she wanted me to… well, to get to grips with what happened, and suggested I should see how you and the Colonel were doing so that I could put that behind me. I looked you up on the internet and this bookstore came up. It wasn’t that long of a ride.”
“I see. How’s the leg by the way?”
Matt pulled up his jeans to let me see the prosthesis on his left leg. His leg was gone from the knee down, but he’d replaced it with an artificial limb.
“I keep telling my wife this is better than my old leg.”
“Wow, you got the prosthesis. That’s great, Matt.”
He let go of his jeans and asked, “What about your arm? I heard you almost lost it.”
“Almost but not really.” I rolled up my sleeve and showed him the scar. “I can move it, but I can’t feel much with it.”
“At least it’s still attached, right?” We both laughed. “So you are OK?”
I thought about it. I was. “Yeah, I think I am. It hasn’t been easy but I do think everything is fine for me.”
Matt let out a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad to hear that. I was a little worried. Especially after seeing the Colonel I didn’t even want to imagine you’d be in a bad place, too.”
“Wait, you already saw the Colonel?”
“Yeah, his not too far away. Like a couple of hours heading south.”
“But I thought he lived in California.”
“He did, but his kids put him in a Home for veterans. It’s so sad. You raise them yourself so they can abandon you when you come back… broken. Hey, you should go see him!” he said with a smile.
I know he meant well. He really thought going to see the Colonel would be a good idea, maybe for the Colonel, maybe for me. How could he possibly know he’d pressing the button that would eventually detonate this bomb?
“I don’t know about that. You know the Colonel was never too fond of me.”
“I know but after what you did… you saved our lives, ma’am.”
“You lost a leg…”
“But I kept my life! I’ll get to see my boy grow up, marry and nice girl and have kids of his own. I owe that to you. I’ll never forget it and I don’t think the Colonel will either.”
Matt couldn’t know how right he was. I smiled at him. “I’m so glad you are okay, Matt.”
He smiled back and hugged me. “Just think about it. He doesn’t get any visits so I’m sure seeing a familiar face will do him some good.”
“I’ll think about it. I promise.”
He let go of me and said, “Thanks. I should be going but it was so good to see you, ma’a― Riley.”
I grinned. “It’s good to see you, too, Matt. Take care, brother.”
“You, too. Take care.” Matt headed for the door and I turned around to walk back into the office, when he said, “Captain Brenan?” I looked back at him as he gave me a forehead salute and said, “Thank you for your service, ma’am.”
Then he left. I stood there, in the middle of the bookstore with Faye’s eyes on me, in complete silence.
“Riley? Are you alright, baby?”
Visit the Colonel. I wasn’t really contemplating it, but it was truly sad that his own children had abandoned him. Still I didn’t believe seeing me would make him feel any better, he didn’t appreciate me much and after all, what happened that day was… well, my fault.
“Baby? Are you okay?”
I turned to Faye, she seemed worried. I kissed her. “Yeah, everything is fine.”
“Alright.”
“Faye? Why haven’t you asked me about what happened? I told you you could, and I would tell you everything.”
“Because if you wanted me to know, I would know. I don’t want to go around opening any type of wound in you. Whenever you are ready to talk about it, you will. And I’ll be there to listen.”
I kissed her again and we held each other.
But I swear to God. I didn’t really consider going to see the Colonel, nothing good could come out of it. So even when I promised Matt I would think about it, my mind was already set. But with Matt’s visit, something triggered in the back of my brain.
The next few days went on as usual, until the Scott Conversation came out again. For the first time, it was Faye who started it while we were eating at the grill next door and Connor took care of the store.
“I think it’s time I admit that I’m not getting my house back,” she said taking the burger for another bite.
I lowered the lemonade glass I was holding and asked, “What?”
“I’m not getting the house back, so I think the next best thing would be to find another place. Would you help me with that?”
I couldn’t help but smile. She really was leaving him. Not that I doubted her, but since Scott was such a sensitive issue, we never talked about her leaving him much. It had been four months since she’d promised me she’d leave him, and now she was making plans to get a place.
“Just your mom or your mom and you?”
“Both, I think. Because I doubt you’d be willing to move in with me so quickly.”
I tried not to act to excited by the idea, so I shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind. I mean, as long as you no longer snore when you sleep.”
“I do not snore!”
“Yes, you do!” I retorted. “It’s super cute but sometimes it just didn’t let me sleep.”
She puffed and before taking another bite, added “Liar.”
“By the way, have you thought what kind of place you’d like?”
“Well, an apartment, I think. It’s not like we can afford something like our house. A two bedroom apartment would be nice. Hopefully close to work.”
“And your mom? Do you know what she wants?”
“Well, when I asked her, she said as long as I was happy, we would figure something out.”
I put my burger down and reached out for Faye’s hand. “Are you ready to let go of that house?”
“No, I don’t think I’ll ever be, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.”
“I know. I’m sorry, I wish I could do more…”
She smiled. “You’ve done plenty.”
She reached out to hold my hand but then, her phone rang. I rolled my eyes thinking it was probably Scott. When she answered, the smile in her face let me know it wasn’t.
“Hey, Mikey.” She stayed quiet for a moment, then her eyes opened wide she looked up at me. “We’re on our way!” she hung up and said, “Louise is in labor.”
“Shoot!”
We ran to the hospital and to our surprise, Scott was waiting. As soon as he saw Faye, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to kiss her. He didn’t have the heart to ignore me, so he said, “Hey, Riley,” without looking at me.
“Hey, Scott.”
“Where are they?” Faye asked.
“Mike’s with Louise, she about to deliver.”
Scott made sure Faye sat by him, and he made sure I didn’t seat anywhere close to her, so I just stood there. As we waited, Scott asked.
“How was today, baby?”
“Fine. The week’s been busy.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad.”
Faye didn’t reply to that. He was trying to make me understand that she was his, and that I was nothing but a problem that kept refusing to go away. He put his arm around her shoulder. Faye shook it off, so he put his arm around her shoulder again and pulled her closer to make her understand that he wasn’t asking.
When did Scott become like this? He was my friend, sweet, caring, compassionate. Now everything he cares about is getting what he wants, regardless of how much people he’s hurting. I guess I couldn’t really say anything, I was sleeping with his wife so who am I to give moral judgment.
Faye stood up and said. “I’ll go get us some coffee, alright? Riley, you want something?”
I grinned and shook my head. Faye walked down the hallway and I was left alone with Scott. At the beginning he made a clear effort to ignore me while I walked from one place to the other. Finally, he crossed his legs and stretched his arms to put them in the back of the chairs, as if he were threatened by me and by sitting like that was the only way he had to try and assert dominance.
“So, how is it going, Riley?”
I turned to him. “Can’t complain. I’m doing fine.”
“Great.” He said, uncrossing his legs and spread them.
As someone who spent a shit-ton of time with mostly males, I can tell when someone is trying to intimidate me. It happens a lot, Scott was trying to occupy a lot of space with his body as a passive-aggressive way to appall me. Like most of those men, he also confused aggressiveness with dominance.
It reminded me of the Colonel.
Which was unnecessary, I wasn’t trying to frighten Scott or buttheads with him or to make him feel like I was better and he had to prove himself for some reason. But I guess when your wife’s ex is present, you try to act like you are more than you are.
“I was actually hoping to talk to you,” he said.
He stood up, shoved his hands in his pocket and pushed his chest up. When did we become this? He was like a brother to me. Now he was trying to make me feel small compared to him.
“Really? About?”
“Faye.”
I swallowed, does he know? It wasn’t like it mattered much since Faye was leaving him, but dumping her without a house for her mom to live in would be so ruthless. “Okay,” I responded.
“I want you to stay the fuck away from my wife.”
I didn’t mean to, but I laughed. “Really? Why don’t you ask her to stay the fuck away from me?” he stayed quiet. He could try to act like I didn’t, but I still knew him. My smile became wider. “You already have, haven’t you? What did she say?”
He came close until our faces were about six inches away. “I mean it. Stay away from her, or you’ll see.”
Well, now that got me angry. I took my hands out of my pockets and came another inch closer to him and with the calmest voice, I replied. “Don’t threaten me, Scott. You have no idea what I’m capable of,” After that I pulled away and added. “Maybe if you were a better husband, Faye would rather spend time at home than at work with me, hasn’t that occurred to you?”
“Shut up.”
I grinned. “You were my brother, Scott. A good person. Now your own wife can’t stand you.”
He grabbed me by the neck and tried to push me against the wall but I pushed him away from me, as the curious stares of people focused on us.
“Hey! No, no!” Faye yelled from the elevator. As she came closer she asked, “What the hell is wrong with you two. We’re here for Louise and Mike, not so you two can measure the size of your dicks. Now sit down and shut up. The both of you.”
I sat at the opposite end of the waiting room while Scott asked Faye to seat next to him. I hated the power he had over her. How she just does everything he asks. We waited for another fifteen minutes when Mike came out, he was wearing normal clothes and walked up to us to hug each of us.
“It’s a girl,” was the first thing he said. He’d clearly being crying.
“Oh, look,” Faye joked “Big boy is crying like a little girl.”
“You bet your fucking ass I am. I just… I can’t believe I helped make something so… beautiful. She’s gorgeous. It’s all Louise.”
“Are they okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, Louise is just a little tired and they took the baby to change her and dress her up. Once they move her to the room, you can see her.”
For a moment, Scott forgot he hated me and patted me on the back, happy because his friend was now a father. Faye wanted to hug me, but she didn’t, instead she went to Scott and he grabbed her to kiss her. In case you are wondering; yes, that fucking hurts. She tried to apologize but there was no way Scott would let her near me.
We waited until Louise was given a room, then we walked in to see her. She looked tired, her hair was messing, but she also seemed happy.
“Hey, guys,” she said.
Mike ran to seat by her side and hold her hand. He immediately asked her if she needed anything, that he could just go out and get her whatever she needed. She said she was fine. Now, that is a husband.
“When do we get to see her?”
“I’m not sure,” Louise said. “The doctor will come to see how I am before they bring her to me.”
We stayed with Louise sharing how the delivery had being. She wasn’t in pain but she didn’t have much strength either. The doctor came by an hour later, asked us to leave the room while she asked Louise some questions and made some recommendations, then said the nurse should be bringing the baby anytime now.
Thirty minutes after the doctor left, while we were all back in the room again, the nurse came in holding a tiny little person.
“Hello there, mommy, hello daddy.”
She placed the baby in Louise’s arms, and left.
“Wow,” I said. “You were right, she really is beautiful.”
“Guys,” Mike said standing next to Louise’s bed, “I want you to meet Emily Ross Fletcher.”
“Hi, Emily. You are so cute.” Faye said.
“Yeah,” Mike added. “And I’m gonna love you so much that I’m gonna kick every single boyfriend you’ll ever have and you’re gonna end up resenting me for it.”
“Honey, what if she doesn’t like boys?” Louise asked.
“No worries, I’ll kick your girlfriends, too. Nothing is too good for my babygirl.”
After a long while of watching Emily sleep, we left Mike and Louise alone with their newborn so that they could spend time together as a family. As we got into the elevator to get to our own respective homes, Scott said. “She’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, she is.” Faye agreed.
I stayed quiet in the back on the elevator while Scott turned his back on me and Faye tried not to be too attentive of me out of fear Scott would not be happy.
“Maybe it’s time we think of having some ourselves.”
I saw that one coming. You don’t tell your partner ‘Babies are beautiful’ without a dark intention hidden somewhere.
Faye turned her head towards Scott quickly and asked, “Sorry?”
“Yeah, maybe one day we could have some little Scotts and little Fayes of our own.”
Faye’s eyes left Scott’s and focused on the elevator door. “I don’t want them,” she sentenced.
“Well, it doesn’t have to be now but in a few years…”
“You’re not getting the point, I don’t want children.”
As she said that, the elevator doors opened and we walked out of it. I shoved my hands in my jeans and remained quiet, while they had a very private conversation in public because Scott had never thought that maybe Faye didn’t want kids with him. And she must’ve been very sure of that, because she never refused something Scott asked with such a resolve.
“You will, eventually,” Scott retorted.
“Yeah, because you know me better than I know myself, don’t you? You can predict the future and your super enhanced prediction abilities tell you I’m gonna want a baby eventually, don’t they?”
“You said the baby was cute.”
“Of course she’s cute! Every baby is cute! Doesn’t mean I want to spend the rest of my life taking care of them while they become resentful teenagers!”
“That’s what you say now, but give it a few―”
“Oh, don’t you pull the ‘You’re a woman, of course you want kids,’ on me. Don’t you fucking dare.”
“You know what? I’m not having this conversation here, once we get home and you are done with your little tantrum we can talk. I’ll get the car.”
Scott left towards the parking lot, and Faye stayed frustrated.
“That’s just what he does! Every time he wants something and I don’t, he just doesn’t listen and finds a way to get whatever it is he wanted. Well not with this. I am not bringing a kid into this hellhole of a home!”
After Faye married Scott she’d made a very conscious decision she didn’t want children, not with him. Outside of that scenario, she was very neutral about whether or not she should have them. Like me. If she ends up wanting children, we can have them; if she were to decide she didn’t want them I would be fine with that, too. I was never the one to believe that the point of marriage was children, nor that a family is incomplete without them or that since you are a woman you must want them. Having kids should be like anything else; a decision, not an expectation.
Faye hugged me, she felt fragile. She knew that Scott didn’t actually care for what her opinion was. He was just telling her that’s what he wanted, and anything other than ‘yes’ from her was a tantrum.
“I will not have a child with him. One thing is him ruining my life, another is bringing a kid into this mess.”
“Faye, just leave already.”
“I haven’t found a place to stay.”
“You can stay at my house.”
“No offense, Riley, but your mom and your dad have things of their own to sort out. I don’t want us in the middle. I’ll be fine, we should be finding a place soon.”
She kissed me in the cheek and went to the parking lot to follow her husband.
As I walked towards the exit to go grab a cab I walked passed a man, he was on the phone, with his free hand covering his eyes. His breathing was agitated and superficial.
“He’s gone,” he said. “He’s gone… Damn it! I should’ve been there. I should’ve been there to protect him!”
“I should’ve been there,” I sentenced. “I should’ve been there to protect them.”
“There was nothing you could’ve done,” said Lainey, the nurse removing the dressing from my arm to replace it. I was laying on the bed, with the curtain closed as she also needed to change the dressing on my chest.
“You don’t know that,” I replied.
“I know what you did. You saved their lives.”
“I wouldn’t’ve needed to save anyone if I hadn’t put them in harm’s way in the first place.”
“That is not true.”
Lainey had been kind enough to listen to me complaining and whining throughout my stay in the hospital. I had seen her a few times already, but nothing as big as this. I didn’t reply to what she said, I just stayed quiet as she rubbed an antibiotic ointment on my arms, made sure the stitches were still in place and tried to have me move my arm. My arm looked like something out of a horror movie, it was bruised and black all over, with lumps close to the stitches and the fingertips.
As she finished with my arm’s dressing and began to take my shirt off to change my chest dressing someone came into the unit yelling.
“Where is she? I wanna see that bitch!”
Not too long afterwards, the woman who’d come yelling moved the curtains from my block, as she saw me she asked, “Where is he? Where is Sammy?”
I recognized her, she was one of the surgeons, and had been rumored to be dating Sam Goldman. One of the man who died. I couldn’t face her, tears were about to burst out of her eyes and I just couldn’t. “I’m sorry… He’s gone… he’s gone.”
She took time to process what I had said, she knew he was dead, but she wanted me to be the one to say it to her face. As she began crying, she launched herself at me to hit me with the side of her fists.
“I hate you! I hate you!”
I used my healthy arm to protect myself from her. Lainey and another soldier close by came to get her away from me.
“Please, ma’am,” Lainey said. “This is not the moment nor the place.”
“Get off me,” the woman replied. “You fucking bitch! He’s dead because of you!” She yelled while tears fell down her eyes. The soldier managed to get her away from me and out of the room, but not before she said, “This is your fault! I hope you never have a moment of peace in your entire worthless life!”
Once she’d left I sat by the bed and stared at the floor.
“Captain?” Lainey said, “You’re bleeding.”
I hadn’t notice. Because of the force she hit me with, my chest wound opened and began to bleed. I was dripping all over my gown.
When I looked up again, I was at the hospital, but not three days after the ambush, but almost seven months after I’d gotten back home. I was standing in the front entrance of the Hospital after visiting Mike and Louise when they had baby Emily.
That flashback, it brought so many things. Did I deserve that? That peace, that contentment? Did any us of us deserve it? Matt and me? Was it fair that we got to come back, and Samuel Goldman didn’t? None of the others did.
I should’ve noticed that Matt had triggered something in me. But I didn’t. Maybe if I wouldn’t have avoided it, if I would’ve confronted the fact that seeing Matt reminded me of all the people that hadn’t gotten the chance to go home, things would’ve been different. Instead I brushed off that memory and crossed the street to get the cab.
But it wouldn’t go away. And throughout the next couple of weeks, I started having nightmares again. A lot more often.
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