The You I've Never Known(59)

Such Loyalty


To family is humbling,

and also completely alien.

The only family I own

is Dad, and though of course he loves me, I’m sure of that, sometimes he makes me feel like a burden

he’d rather not shoulder.

Yes, he stepped up when my mother deserted us, but should he ever actually fall in love again, would he put me first? Could he love Zelda?

I don’t know, and thinking back over the years, it’s odd he hooked up with so many women, but never connected on a deep emotional level with even one. Is my father really capable of falling in love?





Maya


For Casey


I haven’t updated your journal in a while, but it’s been a hard few months. Your daddy was transferred to a new army base, so we’re just getting used to life at Fort Bragg. North Carolina is a long way from Texas, and part of me doesn’t mind that so much. I left a lot of bad memories in Texas.

In North Carolina, the weather is different. The people are different. The twang of their voices is different from our gentle drawl. And there’s new stuff to see when Daddy puts us in the old Chevy he bought and takes us for drives. There’s even an ocean—the Atlantic.

We’ve been to the beach a couple of times. You’re so cute when you sit on the sand and it shifts under you. Your eyes go wide, you coo surprise, and try to grab a handful. Of course Daddy cusses about that. “Keep her on the blanket, would you? That crap’ll get everywhere!”

He uses worse words, but I’m cleaning up his language here in your journal. Too bad you have to hear it sometimes. I’ve asked him to please not swear in front of you. He tells me I’m “f***ing” crazy, that you’re too little to understand. To be totally honest, I had to scrub my own vocab, too. You listen to everything. I want your very first word to be “mama,” not the f-word.

Our new house is a little bigger, a little newer. But it’s still just like the one right next door. Soldiers might be creative in how they fight, but not so much in how they live.

I did change things up for you. Instead of the yellow I painted your first bedroom with, I chose bright green for this one because it reminded me of new grass. We moved here in March, right before the official first day of spring.

Spring in Texas meant bluebonnets stretching as far as you could see. One day I’ll show you bluebonnets, but they don’t have them in North Carolina. Here there are columbines and bleeding hearts and wild geraniums. I hoped the blooming flowers would ease my growing depression, but they haven’t helped much.

I’m so lonely, only you and your daddy to talk to.

I never made a lot of friends at Fort Hood, but here I don’t even have Auntie Tati nearby. She isn’t your real aunt, just my very best friend in the world. Austin was only an hour away, and sometimes she’d drive out to the base. Boy, did she ever love you!

As soon as she walked through the door, she’d beg, “Let me hold her! Please?” You’d snuggle right into her arms, look up at her with your huge brown eyes, and smile. Pretty sure she got your first real smile. That only made me a little jealous.

Tati’s favorite thing was buying you pretty dresses, something I can’t really afford. You’re wearing one of them now, in fact, as you push across the tile in your walker. I’ve read it’s not good to keep you inside it too long, but you love moving so much! You’re seven months old, and not quite ready to walk yet, but I can tell how much you want to.

Oh, Casey, you are such a beautiful little girl, and always happy. Tati says it’s from all the good breast milk you scarf, and I think that’s probably true. I don’t think your daddy likes sharing, though. He keeps saying, “That baby’s getting too big for boob sucking. Time to take her off the teat.”

But I can’t stand the thought of weaning you. Not yet. You’re eating cereal and mashed bananas and applesauce, and we’re working on carrots, too. You should see what that does to your poo! Is that gross to say to a baby?

I don’t know what’s right or wrong. I’m running totally on instinct. Well, instinct and love. The connection we have is amazing, and you are the one thing keeping me sane. I hate military life. Some people like the order, the routine, the sameness.

Your daddy loves all of that. I think he wants to be the handsome soldier in magazine pictures. He likes polishing his boots and cleaning his rifle. He makes me keep his uniform spotless, and ironed. I never used an iron in my life before I married Sergeant Jason Baxter. But I don’t dare argue with him. He isn’t nice when he’s angry. Sometimes he scares me a little.

I’m supposed to feel safe here. You know, because soldiers with guns behind fences provide lots of security. But soldiers flip out sometimes. Just a few years ago, right here on this base, one of them went off and shot nineteen people. Only one unlucky officer died, but you never know where a stray bullet lost in a barrage of gunfire might go. Maybe even through our living room windows.

“You’re nuts,” Daddy says. “There isn’t a more secure place on the planet.”

I try to believe him. Try not to worry. I take you out for walks in your stroller and put you in a baby seat on the back of my bike. You even have a baby helmet, just in case. If anything ever happened to you, I would take the easy way out.

But you’re here, and safe, so I’ll keep going for you. You’re really all I have. I don’t count your daddy, but I wish I could. Once upon a time I thought I loved him and that he loved me. But even after I knew that wasn’t true, I married him anyway. It was my only chance at escape. I figured one way or another we’d make it work.