Chapter 3
~TWO MONTHS PRIOR~
The sound of the bus that will take Cade's unit to the plane is drowned out by the sobs that are wracking my body. I promised myself that I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't send him off to war with the memory of me with a tear-stained face. We've been here before, this isn't his first deployment. But, I don't want to be here again. I don't know what I would do if I lost Cade, and that's all I've been able to think about for days.
My husband just finished training for his latest promotion at Lackland Air Force Base and now he's being sent back to Iraq. Because this base is close to both of our parents, when we decided to start our family, Cade wanted me to be closer to them—especially knowing accepting his most recent promotion meant he would be deployed soon. He wants our child to be closer to its grandparents than he was to his own growing up. We never considered the possibility that I wouldn't get pregnant right away, or that we'd still be trying years later.
Getting pregnant has been so much harder than we thought it would be. It's simple, right? Decide to have a baby, go off birth control, and boom—you're pregnant. Yeah, not so much. It's been a never-ending cycle over the past year of both hope and disappointment. I'm almost thirty-one years old and I'm afraid I'm never going to be a mom. Each time I've had to say goodbye to my husband, I panic thinking of stories I see all the time about other soldiers who’ve been killed in the line of duty. Losing Cade isn't the only thing that terrifies me. The idea of losing him and having nothing left of him? That's enough to break me for good.
Tears run unchecked down my cheeks as we prepare to say goodbye. A military goodbye is nothing like a normal trip goodbye. Each time he's deployed, we've said goodbye as though we'll never see each other again and it's so damn hard. Nothing is going the way it should lately, and him leaving so soon after finding out once again that I'm not having his baby makes it ten times more difficult.
"Oh, sweetheart, come here." Cade pulls me into his arms and hugs me tight. I wrap my arms around his neck as though I could keep him here with me by never letting him go. Inhaling deeply, I try to commit his scent to memory; it's a cross between his favorite cologne and the body wash he's been using since high school. It's my favorite smell in the world, and one I never want to forget.
Cade rubs my back soothingly as he murmurs, "It's okay, Genevieve. The next six months are going to fly by, and before you know it, you'll be back here picking me up so we can go home. This is nothing. Now, no more tears."
Reaching up, Cade pulls my arms away from the death grip they have on his neck and backs away from me slightly. Shaking his head, he smiles softly at me as he frames my face in his hands, using his thumbs to wipe the tears from my cheeks. Leaning forward he presses his mouth to mine. His tongue traces my lips and I open them in response, tangling my tongue with his, savoring our last kiss for the next few months.
Cade releases me and steps away. One corner of his mouth creeps up as he adjusts the sand colored bag on his shoulder. Looking at my husband standing in front of me, wearing his flight suit, a bag on his shoulder and another, bigger bag at his feet, I'm struck by just how handsome he is. He's tall, taller than me by about four inches, with blonde hair and eyes the color of melted chocolate. He's thin, just muscular enough to be hot but not too muscular, and his look hasn't changed much since we got married. He's filled out in some places, thinned down in others. He's definitely not that eighteen-year-old boy, but you'd never guess he was over thirty either.
Taking my hand, Cade pulls it up to his mouth and places a gentle kiss on my wedding rings. He bought them for me just after basic training and he was so nervous to propose. The engagement ring is white gold with one large stone in the middle, a smaller stone on either side and then tiny stones around the band. The wedding band matches, part of a set, and is covered in the same tiny stones. The kiss he places on my rings is our good luck charm. He's given me the same kiss on each deployment and he’s come home every time.
Leaning in one final time, Cade wraps his arms around my middle, kissing my neck softly. Turning, I place my lips against his ear and whisper, "Maybe next time." It's been just over two weeks since the last negative test, and knowing he was going to be gone soon, we didn't try again.
Pulling away, he smirks at me, "Next time. And, even if it's not, we'll still have fun trying, babe." He runs the backs of his fingers down my cheek, his smile faltering just a little. "I love you, Genny. Don't ever forget that."
"I love you too, Cade." Then, together, we say the same thing we've said every deployment for luck. We have so many rituals for these goodbyes. "Twice as much as yesterday, but not half as much as tomorrow."
As he turns to grab his other bag so he can board the bus, my mom's arm wraps around me and hugs me close. Sighing, I lay my head on her shoulder, trying to smile for my husband. I don't want his last memory of me for the next few months to be tears running down my cheeks. I force the corners of my mouth up, though it probably looks more like I have gas than anything else.
Mom elbows me in the side and mumbles, “Smile, Genny.”
I elbow her back, gently. “I am.”
“You look constipated.”
“So do you.”
My mom’s jaw drops mid-wave as she stares at me, which makes me smile.
Cade laughs. "Take care of her for me, okay?" He asks my mom. "Don't let her worry, and make sure she stays busy. The next few months will fly by." She agrees, and before he walks away, he leans in for one last kiss. Mom blushes as she looks over her shoulder at us, like we shouldn’t be so intimate in public.
Cade turns to me, kissing away one of the tears rolling down my cheek, "See you soon, baby."