The Husband Hour(68)

Next to her, Rory lay still, his back to her, inches from her own listless body. They’d had sex before going to sleep, but she had been too much in her own head to enjoy it. She spent every second trying to memorize him, the way the crook of his neck smelled, the thrill—still!—of his hands on her hips, the first few heart-racing seconds when his body pierced hers. But was there any true pleasure in it that night? For her, no.

Maybe it was different for him. When he shuddered inside of her, his cry muffled in the long tangle of her hair over her shoulder, she felt very, very alone.

Now, with that weighted, emotionally overburdened act punctuated by some sleep, she reached for him.

He pulled her close, and she could feel his heart pounding through his T-shirt.

“Are you okay?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he said. Then: “Laur, I’m sorry that this is hard on you.”

“It’s okay,” she said, because in that moment, in his arms, it was.

“I’ve made some mistakes,” he said. “I want you to know I’m sorry.”

She kissed him. “You make fewer mistakes than anyone I know.” Was this about the hockey stuff? Why was he so hard on himself? Or was the mistake he was referring to that very moment itself, the fact that they were awake in the middle of a rainy night, in Tacoma, Washington, getting ready to say good-bye for six months?

“Are you having second thoughts about this?” She didn’t want the answer to be yes. Then it would all be for nothing, because there was no turning back now.

“No,” he said, and the smooth directness of his voice told her he was being truthful.

“Okay, well, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“I love you, Lauren,” he said.

She pulled back, ever so slightly, so he would not feel the sob catch in her chest.



“Are you okay?” Matt said.

Lauren looked at him, startled to be dragged back to the present.

“What? Yes, I’m fine.” She unclenched her hands.

“Tell me about when he came home.”





Chapter Thirty-Six



He came home to LA in August. I can’t even fully describe the excitement of knowing he would be back. It was different than any other time we’d been apart, not just because of how long it had been, but because of my relief. For the first time in half a year, that constant worry in the back of my mind was turned off. He was safe.”

“How much communication did you have while he was gone?” Matt said.

“We were in touch more than I’d thought we’d be. He e-mailed a lot—called when he was able. But I never knew exactly where he was or what he was doing.”

“When he came home, did you notice any changes?”

“I did. And I was prepared for it. At the end of deployment, family members had reintegration meetings. They told us about some challenges we could face, and with Rory, well, it was textbook. The insomnia. His detachment. How irritated he seemed most of the time. Snapping at me. But then, that had started back with the head injuries, so it wasn’t new.”

“How long was he home before he had to return to post?”

“He had thirty days’ leave.”

By the second day, he was drinking during the afternoon as he sat on the couch watching the news. Sometimes she made dinner, but more often she wanted to get him out of the house, tried to get him to drive to Santa Monica to eat by the water or go to a new place in Venice. But big, open spaces made him jumpy.

Lauren looked at Matt, the camera all but forgotten. His eyes, colored green and gray and gold, were steady on her. She grasped the arm of the chair, her hand slick with sweat.

“We argued a lot more,” she said. “We argued in a way that scared me.”

“Scared you…how?” Matt asked.

She heard him, but she didn’t. Her mind was completely locked in the summer of 2012. It was as if she were talking in her sleep. “I thought maybe we needed a change of scenery,” she said slowly. “Maybe a trip east would be good for him.”

Lauren would be packing up and moving to Washington State with him until his next deployment. But at the midway point of his time home, she thought maybe a trip to Philly might lift him out of his funk. Rory’s mother hadn’t been able to visit because of recent hip-replacement surgery, and she knew if Emerson could also arrange to fly to Philly, Rory would agree to the trip. She didn’t particularly want to see the Kincaids—they hadn’t spoken at all during Rory’s deployment except for a few perfunctory checkins. But she imagined taking a walk with Rory in Narberth Park, having pizza at Boston Style. Maybe they’d go for a run around the track at Arnold Field. Going home was a chance to remember who they had once been. Who he had been—still was.

She arranged for them to stay at her parents’ house. There was plenty of space, and she was more likely to be able to see little Ethan if Stephanie could just bring him by the house rather than Lauren having to wait for an invitation to go over to Stephanie’s. Her relationship with Stephanie had never recovered from whatever had derailed it years ago, and only her mother would be able to broker a temporary peace so Lauren could see the baby, who wasn’t so much of a baby anymore.

She never made it to Philadelphia.