Only the Rain(53)

“I’m getting older every minute—what can I say?”

“Donnie was still alive, wasn’t he? What did you have to do?”

He looked up through the blurry windshield awhile, just sat there staring at the darkness and the watery neon lights. The rain kept drumming down and I realized suddenly how much I liked the sound of it. How grateful I was for the sound itself and the coolness of the air and the fact that Pops and I were sitting there together listening to it.

And I couldn’t help myself, Spence, but I started crying. And I started shaking. And I kind of collapsed up against the steering wheel and felt these rolling bubbles of pain coming up from my chest and out with every sob.

This went on for maybe thirty seconds or so with Pops not saying a word. Then he leaned toward me and pulled me away from the steering wheel. He clamped my cheeks in those thick, rough hands of his. And he put his face close to mine.

“Cindy,” he said.

“Dani,” he said.

“Emma,” he said. “And one more on the way.” Then he looked at me and asked, “You need to hear those names again?”

“No, sir,” I said. “I don’t.”

He gave me a little pat on the cheek and smiled at me. “Just go on about your business like nothing’s happened,” he told me. “We’ll talk after all this blows over.” Then he climbed out and walked his crooked walk straight up the sidewalk.

I let him get inside the store before I drove forward again. I drove real slow, barely moving, and watched him give a little wave to the guy behind the counter. Watched him cross over to the hot chocolate machine and put a cup under the spout. Watched the guy behind the counter talking what looked like a blue streak, and Pops standing there nodding and smiling with his back to him, watching his cup fill up to the brim.

Back home a little while later, I parked in the garage and used the remote to put the door down behind me. What I wanted was to just sit there awhile by myself. My clothes were soaked and I was shivering again despite having the heater on. But I knew that if I stayed in the garage too long, and if Cindy had heard me pulling in, she’d be out to check on me. So I grabbed up my wet socks and tiptoed inside as quiet as I could. In the kitchen I wrung my socks out over the sink, then went to the girls’ bathroom, stripped down naked and toweled off. I stuffed my wet clothes in the girls’ laundry hamper, tiptoed into my bedroom, and thank God Cindy was sound asleep. I slipped a drawer open, got out a pair of underwear and a T-shirt. Cindy didn’t wake up till I was crawling in beside her.

“How’s he doing?” she said.

For a moment my mind went blank and I didn’t know who she was talking about. Then I said, “He’s okay. Just needed some company for a while.”

“That’s good. Night, babe.” She reached out to lay her arm across my chest. I was afraid she might feel how cold I was, but she didn’t. She went right back to sleep.



I have a question for you, Spence.

Wherever you are these days, do you ever feel alone?

If you do, you know what an awful feeling it is. It’s the absolute worst. I remember feeling it when my mother died, and for a long time afterward. Then one day I woke up happy to be with Pops and Gee, happy to have the life they were giving me, and after that I didn’t feel alone anymore. And thought I never would again.

Lots of times in Iraq I felt it too. Despite the closeness of our unit, despite the friendship I felt with you, it was easy to feel alone over there too. At night in my cot. On patrol. In the latrine. First thing in the morning when I’d wake up to the heat and noise and remember where I was.

Then I came home to Pops and Gee, then Cindy and the girls, and suddenly it seemed like I didn’t have the time to be lonely anymore. Except at night sometimes, like when I was dreaming I was awake and the air was too hot to breathe and I thought I could hear somebody creeping around outside, looking for a way to pitch an IED inside.

Then things finally smoothed out for me around the time I got my degree. I never told anybody, not even Cindy, but that graduation meant a lot more to me than being out of college. It was a turning point, I guess. I walked across that stage, then down onto the floor, then outside into the cool spring air, and I felt like I was finally back. Like I had left all that awful loneliness behind.

But it’s been pounding me a lot lately, and at the oddest of times. I’ll be watching TV in the living room with Cindy and the girls, all of us snuggled up together so close we’re half on top of each other, and out of nowhere it will hit me like a shock wave, how all alone I really am. It will be all I can do at those times to keep the tears out of my eyes. At times like those, all I want to do is crawl off into some dark corner and hide.

Does that make any sense at all, feeling so miserable for being alone that I want to hide from everybody? It makes no sense to me.

Back in Iraq when the loneliness got to me, there were always my brothers to turn to, you most of all, but even the ones I didn’t particularly like. Even they were my brothers. We ate together, slept together, shit together, whined and moaned and bitched and sometimes even cried together. We were a fucking unit, you know?

I’m in another unit now but it’s different. I’m the one the girls all look to. The one who’s supposed to provide everything they need and keep them safe from all insurgent forces. I have to keep secrets from them. I have to hide my emotions sometimes. I have to sugarcoat all the ugliest crap going on outside our FOB. And I’ve got nobody but you to unload on.