Wherever She Goes(53)

“Aubrey?” he says, and there’s a note in his voice, as if I’m not the only one who is confused, finding me here. Then he shakes off sleep and comes down the steps. “Is everything okay?”

“I had a nightmare about the gun,” I say. “I was just making sure it was secured.”

He nods, and that sleepy confusion lingers in his eyes. He gives my arm a squeeze and leans over to kiss the top of my head. Then he stops, as if realizing what he’s doing, simple reflex.

I squeeze his arm in return and murmur something as I slip back to his office to sleep.



I wake on that futon and . . . God, this is hard. Harder than I would have ever imagined. I haven’t been back to this house since I left, and I didn’t think that was intentional, but I realize now that it was. I stayed away even when I had reasons to come there, when I’d need something for Charlotte on the weekend and Paul wouldn’t be home, and he’d say, “Just go grab it. The key’s in the usual place.” I went without rather than set foot in this house.

I remember once, as a child, we got a home off base. Dad didn’t care much for the base housing options, and there were good places to rent elsewhere. I had a house with a yard and a pool and a purple bedroom with sunflower curtains. I made friends with a girl next door and a boy down the street, my first nonmilitary friendships. We spent the summer exploring the ravine and forest behind our house. When Dad got transferred, I ran away. After we left, I cried every night. He painted my new room purple. He bought me sunflower curtains. And I hated them, because I’d wake up and think I was back there.

That’s what this felt like, only ten times worse. I’d been happy in that other house, but I’d never been an unhappy child. I’d just found something special there. In this home, with Paul and Charlotte, I’d been unbelievably happy. Now I wake on the futon, and I want to grab my overnight bag and run, still wearing my nighttime sweats.

I don’t, of course. That’s as childish as running away from my father, and I’m no longer a child. I suck it up, and I slip into the kitchen, and I make coffee. I notice Paul has bought one of those K-Cup brewers, and I have to smile at that. He never could make proper coffee, and he’d happily given up his K-Cup bachelor machine when we moved in together. Now the old brew pot is shoved back on the counter, dusty and unused. I find coffee in the freezer, right where I kept it. The same coffee I left there. I push back pangs of grief, and I brew a pot. I open the cupboard, and I reach for his cup and . . .

It’s gone.

We had a set of Lady and the Tramp coffee mugs, ones we bought at Disney World. When you pushed them together, the handle cutouts formed a heart. Couple mugs. Tossed out, I presume, until I spot them at the back of the cupboard. I take out two generic ones. Fill them. Feel another pang as I add his cream, never pausing for a second to remember how much he takes. I fix his coffee by motor memory.

When I lived here, I’d get up early to make coffee and wake him with his mug. Once I have this one ready, I’m halfway up the stairs before I remember this is no longer my place. Our bedroom is definitely not my place. It’s the one spot in this house I shouldn’t enter. I’m heading back down when I hear his footsteps in the hall. Then, “Bree?”

I hold up the mug. He comes down. He’s pulled on sweatpants, but that’s it, and I notice he’s lost weight. That thickening through his middle is gone, the early stages of a spare tire reversed, and I feel a stab of pain even at that. It’s a sign he’d made a conscious effort to lose that extra weight in preparation for dating.

Can’t blame him for that, can I?

He takes the coffee, and I’m about to head down to the kitchen when he says, “Do you want to wake Charlie?”

I frown, thinking it’s too early. Normally I’d get him up and off to work and then relax with a second coffee until Charlotte wakes around eight, maybe even nine if I’m lucky.

That’s how we did things when Mommy stayed home. Mommy no longer stays home, and Daddy needs to drop Charlotte off on his way to work.

I nod and slip past him. I climb the steps to my daughter’s room, for the first time in six months. I open the door, and I see her sleeping and . . . The crib is gone. She’s in a bed. Her own bed. My baby sleeping in a regular bed. My baby growing up . . . without me.

I’ve been so careful, stifling the pangs of grief, feeling my eyes well, allowing no more than a single tear to slide down my cheek. Now that self-restraint snaps. It starts with a burst of tears, and then I’m sobbing.

“Bree?”

It’s Paul. He’s right behind me. He must have been there the whole time, and when I turn, he quickly puts his coffee mug on the bannister.

I close Charlotte’s door. “I-I can’t,” I manage between heaving breaths. “I-I’m sorry. I need . . . I need to go.”

I bolt for the stairs, tears blinding me. I hit his coffee mug, and I hear it crash. I let out a gasp and a frantic apology. Paul’s arms go around me. I think he’s just keeping me from tumbling half-blind down the stairs. Then he pulls me against him.

At first I resist. I smell the faint scent of night sweat, and I feel his skin against my cheek, and I hear his heartbeat, and my brain screams that this isn’t mine, not anymore. It’s like seeing Charlotte in her new bed. I want to flee while I still can. But Paul pulls me into a tight embrace, and he whispers in my ear that it’s okay. I collapse against him. He pats my back with one hand and holds me with the other, and he tells me it’s okay, and I hear permission to break down, to fall apart. So I do.