Chapter 8
Trent sat. Outside the house he and Laura had bought years before, he sat and stared at the tiny orange bottle of pills in his hand. Emily had said take as needed. He was afraid a pill would zone him out but he was more terrified of his own reactions without it.
He was going home for the first time in forever. He couldn’t screw this up. But the pressure was back on his lungs and he sat there until the door closed and Laura turned on the outside light. The scar over his heart ached.
He looked up as Laura ushered the kids into the house. There was curiosity in her eyes but no judgment.
Damn it, he was not going to live like this. He took a deep breath, then killed the truck and headed into the house they’d bought before the war had broken him and he’d broken his marriage.
They’d closed on the house the day after Laura had found out she was pregnant with Ethan. She’d miscarried a few months before and the new pregnancy terrified them both. It had made both of them see the house in a new light. That night, on an air mattress in their new living room, he’d simply held her, knowing her fear was as real as his.
The house today was so different from the house they’d bought all those years ago. It was the same four walls but it was the little things that Laura had done that made it a home. A wall was decorated with pictures of the kids, some black and white, some snapshots. He listened to the noise of them in the kitchen as he looked at the new pictures. Ethan’s first day of kindergarten. Emma in front of the giraffe at the Waco Zoo.
He stopped, though, in front of one picture that made his heart hurt. It was a black and white snapshot of him. He hadn’t known she’d taken it. He was sitting on the swing in the backyard, with Emma on his lap, her cheek resting against his chest.
She’d snapped him in a moment when he’d rested his head against his little girl’s cheek. He’d forgotten about that day until this moment. Seeing it now was proof that he hadn’t always been closed off and distant. That at some point, he’d been a good, present father.
If he’d done it before, he could do it again. Right?
“Daddy!” Emma rushed him and he unconsciously stiffened for the impact before she skidded to a halt a foot away. “Fluffy is glad you’re home.”
Emma held up the fat brown hamster, straining her little arms until he crouched down to her level. The hamster’s fluff spilled over the edge of Emma’s hand. “Hi, Fluffy. You haven’t escaped recently?”
“Last week was the last time she got out. She can open the cage,” Emma said seriously.
“Hamsters can’t open their cages,” Trent said.
Laura leaned out of the kitchen. “She’s either figured out how to open the cage or someone forgets to close it.”
“I do not. Mommy!” Emma said fiercely.
Trent laughed and stroked his index finger along the hamster’s back. It flinched and if he didn’t know better, he could have sworn it was trying to bite him. “Cute. Antisocial hamster.”
Emma took off, streaking toward her brother’s room.
He watched her go, still crouched down. He rubbed his hand over his mouth. He’d laughed. For the first time in as long as he remembered, he’d laughed with one of his kids. Dear God, how screwed up was his life that something as simple as a laugh was a monumental event?
He straightened and tried to latch on to the fleeting, unfamiliar sensation.
Trent padded toward the kitchen, soaking in the details that had changed. He hadn’t noticed that she’d painted the walls a pale golden yellow. It was a nice subdued color that made the house feel warm and inviting. For whatever reason, being here tonight felt fresh and good, even if he did feel like a piece out of place. It was less than it might have been, though.
He didn’t know what he should be doing right now. He didn’t know what Laura did, what she needed help with. He didn’t even know what questions to ask.
He was a stranger in his own home. It was his own fault, but still. He didn’t know how to fit and he was afraid to ask her. Afraid to ruin the tentative truce between them and bring the harsh reality of the court-martial, their divorce and everything else, between them.
He stopped just out of sight. He could see her in the kitchen. She had two lunch boxes open on the counter, baggies next to them. Steam rose out of a pot of water on the stove. She was in constant motion but it was motion with a purpose. She had a system.
Watching her then, the scar over his heart ached. He didn’t know when the thing inside him had broken, just that it had. And that break had pushed him away, back toward the war. He’d thought she’d be okay without him.
He’d thought he was protecting her from what the war had done to him.
War wasn’t some glorified camping trip. It was violent. It was dirty.
And Trent had lived and breathed in that violence and that dirt for so long, he didn’t know how to enjoy the feeling of simply standing in his house. He rubbed the scar absently. He remembered the first time she’d seen it.
She’d cried. He remembered he’d stripped off his shirt and stood there, her fingers dancing up his ribs. She’d tried to touch it but he’d stopped her.
He’d never let her. He never realized that until right then. He’d always turned her hands elsewhere when they’d made love.
He wondered what that said about him. He turned away, taking his bag into the master bathroom. He had no illusions that he would sleep in Laura’s bed tonight but short of sharing a bathroom with the kids, he wasn’t really loaded with other options for personal hygiene. He figured she wouldn’t mind sharing the bathroom even if she wouldn’t invite him into their bed.
He had no right to ask her for that, no matter how much he missed her. It went beyond sex into something more. Something that might break through the emptiness inside him.
He dropped his bag inside the closet then stripped off his uniform jacket before heading to the kitchen to see if he could make himself useful.
* * *
Laura knew what she risked tonight but that didn’t make walking through that front door any easier with him at her back. She’d agreed to put on the happy face for the hearing. She’d agreed to let him come home, to pretend that everything between them was wonderful and fine. But she hadn’t been prepared for the strength of her own emotions when he stepped across the threshold of their home.
Suddenly, the disarray she’d grown used to stood out in stark relief. Did Trent notice the socks and shoes scattered by the door? Or the Star Wars toys lined up in mock combat on the fireplace? Was he thinking about how she’d let the place go because there were tire marks on the baseboards?
The kids’ clutter had naturally overtaken their modest home, creeping into the corners, on top of the couch and between the cushions. The carpet was worn in places where Ethan rode his bike through the house. The wide-open living room was used daily as a staging area for Star Wars battles and pillow fights. The old couch was long past needing to be replaced but Laura refused to buy new furniture until the kids were old enough not to spill food and drinks on it every other weekend.
Plus, she kind of loved that couch. It was one of the first things she and Trent had bought together as a couple. It was older than both kids and they’d spent many a night cuddling on it together.
She glanced at him as he disappeared into their bedroom, wondering how this was impacting him. He hadn’t noticed her scrutiny, nor did he seem to care about the mess. He was more focused on studying the kids like they were two little aliens. Strangers who belonged to someone else.
She stopped suddenly. They were strangers. She’d been home with them when they learned how to walk, when they said their first words. She’d lived through all of it. He’d only heard about it. The things she knew about them on an instinctive level he simply didn’t, and that knowledge could not be gained in a few minutes or days or even weeks.
She needed to be patient with him.
But he was here. The least she could do was allow his children to welcome him home, no matter how awkward it might be. The kids, at least, would not have to pretend they were happy to have him here. Still, that welcome came with a cost. She knew what she was risking. So why did it feel so overwhelming, like she was teetering on the edge of out of control?
She focused on the things she could control. She had to cook dinner, get the kids bathed and in bed, pack their lunches, and then get ready for the next day. There was never enough time to get it all done, but she was used to doing it on her own.
She moved through the kitchen as though today was any other day, doing everything in her power to shut down the maelstrom of emotions that threatened to break her. Trent was really home, really walking toward her from their bedroom.
And they both were trying to pretend that the word “divorce” wasn’t standing in the room with them as he searched for and found a beer in the fridge and twisted off the cap.
Trent stood uselessly by as the kids attempted to steal cheese sticks from the refrigerator. “No more snacks. It’s almost dinner,” Laura said, shooing them out of the kitchen.
A few minutes later, Ethan tore through the living room on his skates and nearly crashed into the TV. Emma squealed as she chased him, demanding a turn. The fight faded as they raced into the garage.
“You let him skate in the house?” Trent asked.
Laura tipped her chin at him. She sucked in a deep breath, biting back the harsh retort that was on the tip of her tongue. He was only asking a question, not criticizing her. “It lets him burn off some energy. He doesn’t sleep well if he doesn’t play. A lot.”
“Mom-my! Ethan’s climbing the bookshelves again.” Emma’s singsong voice rang out from the living room.
“That was fast,” Trent mumbled. “He must have gotten those skates off in record time.”
Laura raised her voice so it would carry through the house. “Ethan! If I tell you one more time to get down…”
Frustration started to twine its way around her. Trent was home. He could be the bad guy for once. It would do him some good, too. Maybe help him fit back into their lives rather than just standing there looking lost and out of place and ripping her heart apart.
“Will you go make sure Ethan isn’t climbing?”
Trent stared at her for a long moment. Silence hung between them as he simply watched her, his eyes partially hidden behind the glare of his glasses. It felt like an eternity before he turned and walked into the living room.
“Holy crap, Ethan, get down!”
He sounded so startled that she set down the cutting board she’d just pulled out and rushed to see him pluck Ethan from about midway up the bookshelves.
“Put him in timeout,” she said simply.
“What’s that involve?” Trent asked as Ethan howled in protest.
“Fireplace. Five minutes. Timer starts when he stops crying.”
Ethan, apparently, decided that tonight would be the night he would break the sound barrier. On any other night, Ethan would have stopped with a sniffle and been done with it. He threw himself off the fireplace onto the floor, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Normally, she would let him go until he wore himself down. She glanced over at Trent. The muscles in his neck were bunched, his fists tight by his sides. He was breathing hard and looking at Ethan like he was a monster.
“Is this normal?” he asked harshly.
“No,” she said gently, “not usually.”
He looked over at her like she’d grown two heads. “What’s the special occasion?”
“This isn’t normal—you’re home,” she said warily and saw him flinch. She reached out, placing her hand on his upper arm. “I’m not saying it to be mean. But it’s true. Their entire routine is being thrown off by having their daddy home.”
“Lovely.”
Laura took a deep breath, then scooped Ethan up off the floor. “You don’t get to stop listening just because Daddy’s home,” she said to her son as she carried the screaming banshee to his bedroom. “When you decide you want to act like a big boy, you can come out.”
That set him off on a whole new tantrum, dialed all the way up to eleven. She closed the door behind her as he kicked and screamed on his bed.
The kitchen was a disaster, too. The water for the spaghetti had boiled over, steaming off the hot stove. Trent yanked his hand away. “Here,” she said, handing him a dish towel. “Don’t burn yourself.”
He shot her an inscrutable look, then lifted the pot so she could wipe the stove before turning down the heat. He moved out of her way as she stirred the pasta and heated the sauce. She wondered if he was going to like it. It was a recipe she’d found from Food Network and she usually made a massive pot once every few months then froze it.
She tried not to see Trent studying the pieces of the dishwasher and felt a creeping sense of failure that she hadn’t managed to fix it as easily as she’d hoped. Embarrassment crept up her neck that she had to keep moving parts around to make room for dinner. “Hopefully, I’ll have it fixed soon,” she mumbled.
She drained the pasta and tore open the cheese packet, trying not to be self-conscious. Trent said nothing. He stood near the sink, nursing a beer, looking out of place and uncomfortable.
She wished she hadn’t noticed. Wished she hadn’t seen the strain in the hard set of his back when Ethan had kicked off into his tantrum. Tantrums were part of life with kids.
But he wouldn’t know that because he hadn’t been there. A wave of sadness washed over her. There was nothing she could say to make this easier. Nothing to do to turn the screaming in the other room off.
She simply prepared dinner with a stranger in her kitchen and tried to pretend everything was normal when it felt like nothing would be normal again.
* * *
“Hey?”
Laura’s voice interrupted the violent introspection thrashing around in his brain. He looked up at her from where he’d been studying the beer in his hand. Some tendrils of hair clung to her temples now from the steam. Her cheeks were flushed.
God, but he wanted to see her cheeks flush from his touch instead of something as mundane as cooking dinner. Would he ever have a chance to touch her again? To feel her body move with his?
He cleared his throat, redirecting his thoughts away from the bedroom. “Yeah?”
“Can you go tell the kids dinner is ready?”
He frowned slightly. “Think Ethan will talk to me?”
“I heard Emma go into his room a little bit ago. They’re remarkably good at not holding grudges.”
Trent glanced toward Ethan’s bedroom, a deep unease twisting in his guts. He wasn’t sure he could handle another tantrum. The last one had crawled up his spine and attempted to stab him in the brain. “Really?”
She walked over to him and patted him on the shoulder. Funny, how she never tried to touch his chest. He’d done that to her. He’d made a part of himself off limits to her touch. He was such an idiot. He thought he was protecting her from the ugliness of the war. Instead, he’d only managed to cut one more piece of her out of his life.
“He’s six. He doesn’t bite. Go. Get your children.”
A few minutes later, Trent found himself in the middle of an argument over who got to sit on Daddy’s lap.
“I want to!” Emma said, standing with her fists on her hips and glaring up at her brother.
“I called it first!” Ethan said.
Trent had no idea how to mediate this one. Who did he pick? How did he stop this fight?
Laura stepped in to save him. “Neither of you will sit on Daddy’s lap because Daddy needs to eat, too. Each of you pick a side and eat.”
Trent glanced over at Laura, who was focused almost entirely on getting dinner on the table. How had she managed to diffuse that one so easily? Everything felt strange, unfamiliar. He didn’t have a battle rhythm for the kids, not like Laura obviously did. But the night was young. Maybe if he kept trying he could get through this. And maybe tomorrow, it would be a little bit easier.
* * *
Except for the tense set of his jaw, Trent was doing his best to make them laugh and let them be the center of his world.
He was trying. She had to give him credit for that. But that didn’t stop her heart from aching as she watched him carefully divide his attention between the kids. He laughed and talked with them and she had to keep reminding herself that he wasn’t going to stay. That this was just a temporary fix until the court-martial was over and he could run off happily back to the war.
Part of her was so angry with him for leaving her to raise them on her own and not giving her a choice. She knew Army spouses would argue all day long that she needed to suck it up because they were at war and this was what she’d agreed to when she said “I do” to a military man.
And the sad part was, there was another piece of her that was so incredibly, stupidly happy to have him home. When Laura looked at him, she wished she saw the man she’d loved enough to have two children with. The man she would have waited for as the years came and went, until the war was over.
In that man’s place sat a father who did not know his children. A husband who was a stranger to his wife.
Sadness ached behind her eyes at everything they’d lost. She got up and walked to the sink, needing something to do with her hands. They weren’t going to stay a family, so longing for the past wasn’t going to do her a damn bit of good.
If he beat the charges against him, he would leave again. She harbored no illusions that this brief interlude spent at home would end his relentless need for deployments. She knew without a doubt that Trent would deploy again, and she would have to deal with Ethan crying his eyes out because he wanted his daddy. Or with Emma crying just because Ethan was.
She was doing this for them. Maybe, just maybe, Ethan and Emma would remember this one moment of happiness before Trent left again.
A chair scraped against the floor and then he was there behind her. He leaned against her to place his plate in the sink, his body hard and lean against hers.
Months of eating crappy chow at the National Training Center had eliminated any shred of softness he had ever had. Months of lonely nights sliced away at any hint of rational thought.
She froze at the first brush of his body against hers. It was a simple embrace. Nothing the kids would have noticed. Before, the space between them had been filled with awkward silence. Now it snapped and hissed like a live wire.
His breath stirred her hair and sent a chill down her spine.
Laura couldn’t have moved if she’d tried. A long-ignored need settled between her thighs and tingled over her skin. In all the years she’d spent alone, she’d never once thought of another man. Never looked at anyone else the way she looked at her husband. Never felt the desire to assuage the deep, abiding longing she carried inside her for him with someone else.
Sex between them had always been good. He’d always made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. And damn him, he had no right to do this to her now.
She shifted and pulled free from the embrace a moment before Emma shrieked. The mood disintegrated like a puff of baby powder.
She paused, avoiding his gaze.
“Laura—”
“Don’t, Trent.” She held up her hand, forcing space between them. “Don’t try to make me feel something that isn’t there.” She swallowed the hard lump of emotion in her throat. “We’re going to get through this hearing and then you’re going to walk away.” Just like always. “We’re over, Trent. We’re just playing the happy family. We’ll never be one again.”
The sooner he accepted that, the better off they would be.
He gripped the edge of the sink and hung his head like he was in pain. She was sorry for that, really she was.
But all the sex in the world couldn’t fix what ailed them.
* * *
Trent’s body was so tight it hurt. He held his head under the steaming water, willing his cock to soften. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt the heat of her body against his. Frustration clawed at his insides.
He didn’t know what had made him lean close enough to feel the warmth of her skin. The soft flesh of her neck had been within reach. A faint wisp of her skin had wrapped around him, urging him closer, and he’d surrendered to the impulse to touch her. Just feeling her body against his had nearly undone him. She’d been soft and warm against him. He’d almost wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, just so he could feel her breathing.
But she’d moved before his lips could touch the gentle swell of her ear. And he was paying for it now.
Could a man die from a constant erection? It was one thing to dream about his wife while he was deployed and thousands of miles away from her. But being near her and not being able to touch her? It was hell.
Screw Viagra. Back-to-back deployments were enough to fix erectile dysfunction.
He was so hard he thought he’d tear out of his skin. He could solve that problem easily but he wanted it to be Laura’s hand stroking him, not his own. He grasped the nozzle and turned the water from hot to ice.
His flesh puckered, and his dick finally cooperated, a little too well. His balls retreated and tried to climb back inside him. Good. Maybe he could think about something other than laying his wife down on their bed and sinking between her thighs.
He was home. For however long it took the Army to finally decide whether or not he would face charges, he was home. Really home, beneath the roof he and Laura had bought together years ago. He just needed to figure out how to make this something more than just a roof over his head.
Toweling off, he walked into the bedroom and pulled out a pair of sweatpants from his duffel bag. He wasn’t sure how much of his clothing she’d left out, if any. He wasn’t really willing to dive in and ask, either—he was afraid of the answer. He didn’t like the idea of her boxing his things up.
He closed his eyes and instantly, the weight was there, pressing against his lungs, refusing to let him get enough air. He pinched the bridge of his nose and focused on breathing. Slowly, the disquiet in his soul eased back as his breathing evened out and he padded over to his duffel bag, pulling out the small orange bottle.
He didn’t feel a damn thing as he tossed back the tiny round pill, chasing it with water from the bathroom sink. The anxiety medication would be a little stronger tonight since he was mixing it with alcohol. But maybe it would help him get through the evening relaxed. Maybe he could read a story to his kids without feeling like he couldn’t breathe.
He closed his eyes and reminded himself that he was home. He was safe. He was going to wake up tomorrow and have a nice, normal breakfast with his family. And do it all again the next day. And the day after that.
If he kept repeating it, it would be true.
“Hey?”
He turned suddenly, feeling like he’d been caught with his pants down.
“Are you okay?” She nodded toward the bottle in his hand.
Trent swallowed and looked around for his glasses, buying some time while he searched for the right words. She looked at him with cautious expectation in her eyes. No judgment, just curiosity.
He cleared his throat. He watched her, searching for any sign that she was freaked out. There was no movement on her face beyond a single glance at the orange pill bottle. “I don’t have PTSD or anything,” he said when he could speak. “They’re just…Doc said my normal is a little jacked up.”
“You’ve been back in the States for more than a year since your last deployment,” Laura said quietly.
“I know.” He looked down at his hands, shame twisting inside of him. “I can function okay enough at work and all. I’m used to that stress and everything. I just, ah, have a hard time with anything else.”Like being a husband. Or a father.
She looked away, biting her lip and pushing her hair off her forehead. But she didn’t speak and her silence hung around them like a heavy, wet blanket. “Oh,” she said finally.
“Laura.” He felt vulnerable, exposed. Embarrassed that she’d discovered what he hadn’t even realized that he’d hidden out of shame. He didn’t want her to think he couldn’t be around his family without medicating himself into a false state of calm, no matter how close to the truth it skirted. “I just need time to get used to everything back here.”
“Okay.” He wished he didn’t see disappointment shimmer in her eyes a moment before she turned away. “I’m glad you’re talking to someone, Trent.”
He heard what she did not say. That he wasn’t talking to her. That once more, he was
cutting her out of some vital part of his life, pushing her to the periphery.
For a brief moment, she’d looked at him with expectation in her eyes, like she’d been waiting for him to open up and start pouring out his fears and nightmares. But it didn’t work that way. He didn’t want her to see the man who woke in the cold sweat on the off times that he did sleep. Didn’t want her to know about the fear that he hadn’t done enough, that he could always be doing more.
That no matter what he did, nothing would ever be enough to bring his boys back.
He didn’t want her to see that.
But she had.
And he didn’t know what to do next.
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