“He’s been sleeping on our couch the past couple of days,” Lotty tells the other women around the table, to justify her question. Like she at least deserves to know what she’s dealing with here, how long he’s going to stay. I am happy to hear he’s at least been sleeping somewhere safe. I fear he spends the nights in bars or maybe even sleeping on the street downtown. I know he goes off base a lot since I have this app that I use to spy on him. It gives me his location, not a completely accurate one, but enough for me to know a little about where he goes. I downloaded it last year on all of our phones to be able to track my teenage daughter. I could never have guessed I’d need it for this. But watching him on the app has made me more paranoid, and I realize it is doing me no good. Yet, some nights, I can’t seem to stop. I worry whether Ryan is hooking up with someone…if he’s hanging out with women. I don’t think that is what he is doing, but the worry lingers in the back of my mind; of course, it does.
Lotty tilts her head as she looks at me. “Really? Isn’t it the same? Don’t you think he just left because he didn’t feel welcome?”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean…well, now, don’t get me wrong, but maybe you should think about creating a more…uhm…welcoming environment.”
I don’t know what to say, literally. Okay, maybe I have a lot of things I’d like to say, involving lots of bad curse words, but I hold it back. I have never been good at comebacks, and more than often, I regret the ones I do sling out. It’s better to keep my mouth shut. I have learned that the hard way.
Vera comes to my rescue.
“Are you serious right now? How can you even say something like that? You don’t know what Laurie and Ryan are going through.”
I send her a grateful look. Vera is the only one I have confided in. I’ve told her everything about how Ryan felt different, how he changed when he came back, about the nightly bar visits, and the fists planted in doors and walls at the house. I even told her about the day when he grabbed my throat. But I have a feeling that Lotty knows these things too. I went to her husband, who is Ryan’s superior, right after, and told him everything. I even asked him for help. I asked him if he could talk to Ryan. Tell him to get help.
He told me to deal with it myself. This was above his paygrade. “Everyone else deals with these things within the four walls of their home. Why can’t you? Why do you have to tell everyone your private affairs?”
So, I went to a mental health professional on base and told him everything too, thinking he’d know what to do.
He gave me a Valium and told me to go home.
That’s when I realized that the Air Force doesn’t want to deal with wives.
“I’m just saying that I believe it is our duty as wives to make sure our husbands feel welcome once they get back from deployment,” Lotty continues.
As she speaks, I can’t—for the life of me—understand why she is still talking. How is she even from this century? She can’t be serious about what she’s saying. No one stops her, and she just yaps along about how important the wife is to her husband’s good return and how her Chip has never had any issues coming back. The more she talks, the more she makes it sound like it is my fault that my husband has ended up the way he has. I don’t want it to, but it still gets to me.
Because that’s also what I fear.
“I just think that if you try a little harder, then I’m sure Ryan will be able to come home. That’s all.”
That’s all, huh? It’s that easy? Why didn’t I think of this earlier? Thank you for enlightening me. From now on, my life will be a lot easier.
As she folds her hands, finishing her sentence, I rise to my feet, grab my kids, and tell them we’re leaving. Damian complains because he’s playing with Lotty’s son, while Isabella is relieved to go home finally. The men are playing football now, and Chip is in the grass fighting with Ted.
“You’re leaving?” Lotty says. Her voice is shrill, and it makes the hair rise on my arm. I hate her right now; I hate her so much I want to punch her. Instead, I walk away. I don’t even say goodbye. I just send Vera a look, so she understands. I know she does.
“Don’t be like this, Laurie,” Lotty yells after me. “We’re only trying to help.”
Chapter 6
I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about Sandra and those deep cuts in her wrists. I keep thinking about Joe, Jr. and his dad, and how no one even mentioned them at the barbecue or even talked about Sandra. Was it because it was simply too unpleasant to even think about? Because it hit a little too close to home for so many of us? I keep wondering if the same thing would happen if Ryan had killed himself. Then, I wonder where he was. Why he didn’t show up. I don’t know why I expected him to. Because they were his buddies, his friends? Why did I assume it was easier for him to be with them and not me? Because I feared Lotty was right? That I scared him off? Made him feel unwelcome in his own home?
I get out of bed, sick of staring into the darkness. I know I’m not getting any sleep anyway, so I grab the laptop and turn on Netflix. I want to watch an episode of The Crown. I am halfway through the last season. I hope it will get my mind off things and maybe make me sleepy. I am about to open Netflix when I decide to go on Facebook instead. Just a quick check to see if anything is new.
Then I do what I promised myself I wouldn’t. I go to Ryan’s page and see if he posted anything. He hasn’t. He never does. The last picture is of him and me as he said goodbye to me at Orlando airport, kissing me. That was more than a year ago. The picture makes me feel sad. I remember that day so vividly. It was the last time he was himself.
I touch the screen gently while smiling softly. I wonder if he’ll ever be that guy again—the one who was completely devoted to me and our family. The one who’d post pictures of me from the gym, then tell the world he was a lucky SOB—the guy who made a picture of him and the kids his profile picture—because they were his everything. We were everything to him.
Where did he go?
Will he ever be back?
I sigh and lean back, thinking about the last time I saw him a few days ago. Did he seem better? I wonder about the leave they gave him for being wounded in combat…if that is a blessing or a bad thing for him. He isn’t right; he isn’t himself. But the fact that he doesn’t have to get up for work every day, does that maybe make it worse? I know he goes to physical therapy at the medical center, and he shows up for that a couple of times a week. He has also started running again; I’ve seen him on the tracks by the landing strips, driving by one day, so I know he is keeping himself in shape. But what does he do all day? I was happy to hear he is sleeping at Chip’s place. Those two are close friends and have been through a lot together. Ryan was the one driving the squadron commander on a ground mission when the truck hit a powerful mine that blew off its rear end and flipped it over. Ryan was the first one out, and he helped Chip escape while under heavy fire. He earned the Purple Heart after sustaining a back injury and a possible concussion in the explosion.
He wouldn’t talk about the incident when he got back, and after a while, I stopped asking. I don’t know if that is what is bothering him still, or if it is just the fact that getting back to everyday life rather than life-or-death situations is getting to him. Is it the trauma from the explosion? He won’t tell me, and he gets so angry if I ask. At least two of the holes in the doors in our house are from me asking about it.