A Love of Fate

I've been thinking of posting this for some time now, and Kelly says I should go ahead and post it. For any military wives who read this---well, not all of course, maybe I'm the only one who ever feared losing the mind while keeping the body. Anyways, this story came from a fear I had during Kelly's deployments. It is very emotional, especially, in my mind, to military wives.

To: Wife@ homeinAmerica.com
From: Husband@ war.com
Subject: Re: Come Home..

I wish I could say soon, I miss your arms around me at night. I never thought it could be so cold in the desert. I miss your smile, the pictures I have aren't helping. We should be leaving next week, I hope to be there before you receive the letter I mailed you.

Yours Truely,
The Man Who Stole Your Heart.

On Feb 14, 2003 Wife@ homeinAmerica.net wrote:

> Dreams are intense.
> I woke up screaming your name last night.
> It seems like lately I can't stop thinking about you...when are you coming home?
> I miss you.
>
> Love in Eternity,
> Your Wife

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It was Valentine's Day, the letters that they wrote were from miles away. Years seem to pass in between a family when they're seperated with no way to touch. Dreams are lost in time, lost beneath the changes time always brings.

He returned home safely, when the war was through with him. She feared for a while, he didn't write because he had been taken prisoner on the way home. He was tortured, tormented, and was clinging to the mere thought of his wife for survival. But what did it give him but images of who she was? He returned home to a woman who had grown. She was used to his not being there, and his presence made her nervous and edgy now. He needed her touch, but her touch was hesitant.

A wedge was driven between them, and their love- as strong as it was- could not survive. She left him, scared of who he was now- the man who had nearly died and had killed to live for only her touch. The pain was so much, to know he still lived and she could hear his voice, but the loving touches with a worshipful taste so hungry for her that it scared her, the midnight tears that soaked his pillow, and his withdraw so completely into his own tormented hell; she could not longer stand it. The love of your life changed beyond recognition, beyond hope of redemption. What kind of God lets love like this run dry?

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He was sitting in the living room as she left. His eyes were bleek, muted pain veiled the laughing glimmer they once held. She couldn't even look at him, her bags were packed and sitting by the door.

"I'll - uhm - be at Mom's," her voice trailed off uncertainly, waiting for him to ask her to stay. Begging him silently, but nothing, and her mind clicked back on, "My Mom's I mean. If you need anything," and again her voice trailed off as she stood staring at the broken man she once loved so passionately. Leaving him didn't hurt her, because he wasn't the man who left to become a hero. He had come a hero, no doubt about it--but she couldn't even stand to be in the same room as the stranger that replaced her beloved husband.

There was a tightness in her chest that told her that her heart was breaking, and a stinging in her eyes that let her know the tears would come again very soon. It was a cruel joke, and fate wouldn't let them go for a long time.

He didn't even acknowledge her words, he just sat there. His eyes were unfocused, though the tv was on in front of him; but even she knew better than to think he was watching it. In his mind he was still in that cell, he was still being hurt. She wished he could let it go, that he could heal and come home to her for real; instead of living in this ghost-like shell so shut off from her. Even then, she knew, the damage had been done and he would never be the same again.

Slowly, she turned and opened the door letting in a violent riot of sunlight that cascaded over the tile entryway, pooling atop the terra cotta tiles and splashing against the grout between them carelessly. Memories of the installation haunted her, teasing her as laughter echoed around her and she saw them again, happy and in love as they set the tiles and smeared one another with grout.

"Eek!" Her squeel echoed in the empty house, "You can't do it like that! It'll look crooked!" She slipped on an ill-placed tile and stumbled, paint brush in hand as she fell and grabbed his shoulder. He fell with her, catching her and cradling her in his arms as she splashed paint everywhere.

They lay in a pile on the floor, the tiles only half installed and yet completely forgotten as his lips met her's. The passion of their love reignited by even the simplest of things.

The remote location of their house made it a perfect spot, the sun hot across their nude bodies as they made love, clinging to eachother as if for life itself. The room faded to hot pinks and oranges as the sun set, and beyond the doorway they could have seen such spectacular colors as God painted the sky for them alone.

But as they were for so many years, they were lost in each other. The beauty of nature was lost for their enrapt attention to eachother that lasted until long after the sky had become an inky blue.

He still hadn't moved, and she shut her eyes more against the tears that were burning them than the familiar sunset that bathed her face in golden sunlight. She stepped out into the fresh summer breeze, and slowly stumbled her way to the car climbing behind the wheel in an emotional wreck. How can I ever live without him? she thought, through her sorrowful tears.

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Knowing she was leaving, he could hear her coming downstairs, he wondered if maybe he had acted too soon. Surely she wouldn't come to kiss him good-bye. Not this time, of course.

He heard her speaking, but was too drained to even turn to give her the attention she deserved from him. The dull pain pulsing from his wrists gave the only sensation he felt in these final moments, the crimson stain crossing the couch they picked out together.

Will she miss me, his mind tormented him now of all times. Will she miss me as much as I will miss her?

He was drowning now, falling into oblivion, and it was far too late even if she did come to him. He could hear the shudder crisp and clear as she took a ragged breath. He heard her murmer of love and eternity. His eyes fell shut, but his life didn't flash before his eyes as he had thought it might: only her face. Her smile, her golden hair washing over her shoulders as she leaned over him and a smile painted across her beautiful face. The sunlight in her hair was like a halo, and he knew he had never deserved such a love. But her lips, those rosy full lips, how they called to him--even with his last breath, as he felt himself dying, he heard her words and felt her breath against his ear.

"I'll never leave you," she was whispering, "not until the day we both die."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Tears were stinging her eyes as she drove, and she blinked hard trying to focus on the road and where she was going. Finally she stopped, pulling over to the side of the road where she cried. For hours she cried, letting out the pain she had held inside since he returned home. He may have lived physically, but he died so long ago, and without him she was dead inside as well. She couldn't stand his face, that placid mask that used to be so animated with life and love. Seeing him made her remember the loss, to feel it so much more keenly than she had during his deployment. She remembered the promises, her mantra she chanted as she prayed for him while he was captive. It was so long ago, lifetimes ago, their naive promises of forever.

Without looking she opened the door of her car, and stepped out into the road. She felt the cool breeze against her face and leaned against her car, shakily lighting a cigarette as an afirmation of her new habit to soothe the pain. Her hand shook as her chest heaved with left over sobs that weren't ready yet to subside. A soft rain began to fall, making the pavement his and steam and she stood there, letting the rain wash her tears away and plaster her hair to her face and neck. Not even the lightening or thunder rumbling through the sky shook her from her shock.

She may have seen the headlights veering uncontrollably as a drunk driver slid dangerously along the road slick from the fresh rain. The driver couldn't control the car from drinking so much, and she snapped into reality just in time to hear the final squeel of tires, the blinding flash of a light---and then she was knocked down, and under and over...

She could have survived.

Fate didn't let her. Her death was quick and painless, and as she took her last breath staring up at the storm and the raindrops she saw only his face, smiling and radiant as it had been when she first met him.

He held out his hand to her, and she found herself reaching up to accept her death.

"I thought you'd intended to lay there all day," his voice was saying from far away behind that blinding light.

There was no rain.

He was moving away from her -- but no! Wait! She wanted to call to him but her voice was thick and uneven, and she couldn't form the words to express her fear.

But then she wasn't under her car, and there was no night pierced by headlights. She was sitting in a grassy field, vibrantly green and alive. There was a faint imprint of where she'd been laying tracing her head, and arms, and no doubt her legs which were still lost in the green.

"Sally?" Dave's voice came again, and she looked up to see him a few steps away. "Are you coming?" He was facing her now, concerned.

"Is..." she looked around at the sun, the beauty of nature and the park around them filled with happy and laughing people. "Is this heaven?" She was hesitant, and confused.

"Don't be a goose, you didn't get hit that hard did you?" he was walking back to her, and running his fingers through her hair to check for contusions. "Come on, you don't even have a bump!" He picked up the baseball that was laying several feet off, and this time lifted her to her feet and led her to a crowd of their friends they had known for years. "This is Memphis, no where near heaven."

She shook her head as she followed him, then stopped him short of the crowd waiting for them and kissed him cautiously. "I guess I'm just worried about the war..."

"What war?" He looked at her again, arching an eyebrow and only the depths of serious concern for her was shining in his eyes back at her. "There hasn't been a war since the Clinton administration, since the Iceland Pact. You know that."

Once again Sally shook her head, lost in his eyes as she so often found herself. "I, uhm...nevermind. I love you." And the fog in her mind that was telling her this was wrong was dissipating, and she felt warm again as if she had just had a great burden lifted from her shoulders.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, just a bit too much sun maybe? I think I need a drink."

He smiled now, still concerned as he dashed off to get her a drink.

She stood watching him, the confusion fleeing from her mind as she remembered the Pact, and their plans to play baseball today. Surrounded by their family and friends she had thought lost so long ago- she wondered idly if time could stand still for a love that fate was bound to get right.

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~Fin~