The Home...

The Home

         “Yes I know Mom…”  Her voice trailed off the phone as she looked at the calendar on the wall.  She had circled June 19th in a big red circle.  Everyday for the past eight months she looked at the calendar counting down the months, weeks, and days.  Everyday apart from him was a day where part of her died on the inside.  It wasn’t the distance, they had spent so much time apart, it is how their relationship had started, it was the fact that her time was drawing close.  Her husband had enlisted in the military a year prior to them meeting, he said it was his civil duty, to protect the country he loved so much; what he meant was, it was his duty to protect her.  She never could understand why he had to serve in the military to do it, he could stay at home and provide for her, her and the family they now had.
*          *          *
         The screen door was pushed open, as he walked into the house.  Brown boxes littered the floor of their living room.  A smile spread over his face, the idea of their living room still swelled his heart of joy.  Only a few weeks prior they had gotten married.  All the money he had been saving had been spent on two things, her ring, and the down payment on this house.  But none of that seemed to matter anymore.  He got his request today from the government.  It wasn’t really a request, it was an order, in a few weeks time he was shipping out.  Not to another base, not for further training, but for war.  A simple sheet of paper that outlined that he was to report in two weeks to leave for Iraq.  He put his hand back into his pocket and felt the worn letter.  It had been read a million times already, he folded it into a small square in hopes it would vanish but it didn’t.  His country was now calling for him to serve his duty and all he wanted was to run away from it.  The soldier wanted nothing more than to run away into the arms of his wife.
         As the screen door slammed shut his wife quickly ran into the room.  Her blonde hair reflected brightly in the sun pouring through the living room windows.  Her face was illuminated and the smile spreading across it couldn’t be bigger.  She ran to him and through her arms around his neck and gave him a huge kiss.  He could feel his body start to melt against hers as he pushed with all his love back against her.  They remained there in the doorway, lips locked, until they both needed air.  Taking a chance to look back into her eyes, he could tell there was something she wanted to say to him.  Smiling, he raised his eyebrows.  The excitement was tearing through her right now and she couldn’t contain herself any longer.  “I’m pregnant!” she yelled.  Within the span of seconds, every feeling of happiness and guilt washed over him.  A smile spread across his face as tears fell from his eyes with only one word echoing in his brain, please.
*          *          *
         “For the last time Mom, he is in the 3rd Battalion of the Rangers.”  She began pacing up and down the kitchen now.  Every time the news showed new footage of soldiers in combat her mother would call her, sometimes it seemed as if her mother was more worried than she was.  She ran her hand over her stomach and could feel the child kick.  She did not know the baby’s gender, she wanted the thrill of finding out at birth.           “Yes mom, that means that he is seeing combat.”  She hated having to explain her husband’s position in the military.  Most people were aware of the Army Rangers but having to explain the fact that he was seeing combat was horrible.  Every reaction she received was nothing but must placed empathy.  As she walked out of the kitchen and into her bed room she continued her chain of “yeah’s and uh huh’s” to her mother.  As soon as she entered their room she knew what she was going to look at.  Next to her side of the bed was a photo she had memorized, she had cried countless tears over, and still had the power to get her heart racing.  It was the photo from their wedding.  Her husband was picking her up over his shoulder while spinning her around.  Her dress was hiked up, his face was beat red, and we both held the largest smiles.  I could feel the tears in my eyes begin to swell up as I choked back a sob.  I miss you so much.
*          *          *
         “I guess it is my turn to talk here…”  I walked across the stage and tried to straighten my suit.  My sleeves were rolled up and my pants were ruffled, dancing will do that to you.  I couldn’t believe that this day had really just come and gone.  Here I was standing at my wedding, a recently married man, the gold ring on my finger that felt like a band of fire that was sending warmth through my heart and soul.  I looked out at the crowd and my speech I had been preparing for the past fifteen years of my life and now all I wanted was tear up. 
         “I’m looking right now out at all of you and all I can think about is how much I love all of you…the fact that each of you are here right now with us,”  I looked down at my wife and I could see the tears glistening in her eyes, “means the world to me and I wish that all of us could stay here and play.”  I stepped down from the stage and walked over to my wife and held out my hand.  She looked at me and outstretched her left hand and immediately I felt the heat of her hand and the cold metal of her ring.  “I know it is clichéd but finally I feel like I have direction in my life.  Here I am with truly my better half and I can not express to all of you how truly perfect I know my life will be.”  I looked around the room and then back at my wife, “Sweetheart, those three years ago when we first met, I knew you were for me.  I knew that this day would come.  I knew you were the only one for me.”  I leaned forward and kissed her for the beginning of the rest of our lives.
*          *          *
         “No mom, I’m not crying.”  I lied, I tried to fought back the sobs that were creaking up my throat.  I kissed the lips on my husband in the photo.  I had done this everyday since he had left.  I felt ridiculous doing it for the first few days but ever since then it has been my therapy for the day.  I walked back into the living room and could see a few of our choice boxes littered around the floor.  I began to sift through one of the boxes looking for some of the old articles of our old apartment, I was looking for something in particular.  As the phone began to slip from my shoulder pinned against my ear, I could hear a car come to a halt outside our house.  My heart took an immediate lurch forward as I began to peer out of the window.  It was a black Cadillac.
*          *          *
         Her tears wouldn’t stop and I couldn’t help but feel my heart tear into a million pieces for her.  She cried on my shoulder, her body heaved, and was beginning to shake horribly.  She held a flag clutched in her arms.  Her husband, my husband’s best friend had not returned from Iraq.  A simple black sedan had arrived at her house to deliver a letter and a flag.  Her husband had fought for her, for all of them, and was taken from her.  The pain she was feeling had changed from emotional and psychological to physical.  Cries of pain were mixed with her sobs of sorrow as she felt her heart being removed from her chest.
         Her pain had begun to transfer itself into me.  All I could think about right now was trying to reach out to my babe, my life.  All I wanted was to call out to him, hear his voice, and know that everything was alright.  A black car, a letter, and a flag.
*          *          *
         The car had come to a complete stop and I noticed the two people in the front seats.  Their silhouettes were dark and foreboding and I could feel my pulse begin to race.  The driver side door opened first and I could see the uniform.  The dark green of the Army coupled with the array of colors from badges and medals.  My heart began to beat sporadically and I could feel my throat begin to tighten up.  The passenger side door opened and priest stepped out.  He could not bring himself to look at the house at first as he attempted to hide what was in his left hand.  My vision began to blur and my head felt as if it was filled with water.  As the priest turned I could see what was in his left hand, a letter.  My legs failed to hold me and I fell to my knees.  “John….” Was all I could remember myself saying before my soul realized that half itself was gone.  I was incomplete now and would remain that way.  I could hear the sound of my heart tear itself apart.  “You promised me…”