“They came to give us some really bad news,” I said. Then I took a deep breath and told my children that their father would not be coming home. I had to tell them that life as we knew it would never be the same.
We did watch the casket as it was removed from the airplane when they brought Jeff’s body back to the United States. It was almost as though time stood still. Soldiers who were there slowly saluted, their arm movement so precise that it looked almost like someone had slowed time. The airline employees doffed their caps, and when I looked up toward the area where passengers patiently awaited their flights behind a solid glass wall, they too were honoring my husband’s life. With their tears, with their reverence, and with all the feelings in their hearts, they paid their respects to my husband and to our family.
After the casket was loaded into the hearse, we followed it to the funeral home, where I would undergo the worst and best two days of my life. Family and friends showed up in droves, their fear and their worries thick enough in the room that it could choke a mortal person. But I was no longer a mortal person. I was the widow of a soldier. I was no longer a wife. I was a widow. I was suddenly super-human. But beneath it all, I was also flawed. Though I didn’t find that out until much later, a little more than a year, when the loneliness consumed me and someone new entered my life.
Cole was confident and charming. He was nice to my children and they had fun with him. He brought me flowers, and more important, he took me out of my grief and made me feel like a woman again.
Until the day he didn’t.
33
Jake
Katie wipes a tear from her eye. “Cole was a mistake I made, and I tried to undo it.” She lays a hand on her belly. “But there was a little more involved than just having him as a boyfriend, once this happened.” She jabs a finger into her belly, and then she soothes it with a warm stroke of her palm. “Jake,” she says on a heavy sigh. “No matter what happened with Cole and what a monster he turned out to be, I loved my husband. I never betrayed his memory. I honored it, or so I thought at the time, by moving on with my life.”
“You can love more than one person in a lifetime, Katie,” I say.
The ambulance arrives at the hospital, and the police and Katie’s family have already arrived. They meet us as Katie is getting settled in. I stand in the hallway. “Did they find him?” I ask Pop quietly as everyone bustles around.
Pop shakes his head. “They found a blood trail leading into the woods, but no body.”
I nod. “They should be checking the local hospitals.”
“They won’t find him,” Pop says. “Not until he wants to be found.”
I knew that.
A nurse steps into the hallway. “Is the father here?” she asks, staring down at her clipboard.
Dan and Adam look at one another and then at me and Pop.
“Yes,” Pop says. He claps me on the shoulder. “Right here.”
“I’m not–” I start to say. But Adam talks over me.
“We’ll be right here if you need anything,” Adam says.
The nurse gives me scrubs to put on and booties to cover my shoes. “You can change once you’re in there,” she says.
“Gabby,” I protest. “Where’s Gabby?” Gabby was with her mother when she had Trixie. Certainly, she wants to be there for this one too.
“Gabby’s already in with Mrs. Stone,” the nurse says. “They’re just waiting for someone to hold her hand.”
“That’s all you need? Someone to hold her hand?”
The nurse nods. “Yes.” Her brow furrows. “You are the father, correct?”
Not even close.
“She’ll need someone to curse and scream at. Someone to hate. Someone who can push her through this.” The nurse waits impatiently.
“Someone else should be there.” I look at Dan and Adam.
“We’re grandparents. We’re more useful out there.” Dan is holding Trixie’s hand, and Adam has his hand laid upon Alex’s shoulder.
“Sir, if you’re coming,” the nurse snaps. She turns abruptly on her heel and walks into the room.
“I’m coming,” I call out. I follow her.
Katie is sitting up on the bed and sweat beads her forehead. “Jake,” she says. “What are you doing here?” Another contraction hits her, and the doctor looks up from between her legs.
“It won’t be long now,” he says.
“That quick?” I ask.
“Baby number four tends to come a little quicker.”
The contraction eases and Katie settles back against the pillows. “You remember what you said about them just walking out after you’ve had so many?”
“I was a fool, huh?”
“Yeah,” she mutters.
“Here we go,” the doctor says.
Katie holds out her hand and stares into my eyes. “Hold my hand, Jake,” she says. I don’t hesitate. I grip her hand tightly and sit down on a stool close to the head of her bed. “I got this, right?” she says.
“No,” I say. Tears sting my eyes.
“No?” Her gaze flies up to meet mine. “No?” she barks at me this time.