CHAPTER 32
Aidan
I drove into Williams, Arizona with a heavy heart and found a quaint hotel to stay in. I’d been there before, and I looked at the key as the clerk handed it to me with relief that it wasn’t the same room. Elsa was quiet as she looked around the yellow building and took it all in with dull eyes. I knew that I’d been an asshole after the incident at Angela’s house, but it just added to my sorrow. This would be the hardest goodbye for me, but I told myself I needed the closure. I unlocked our room, and she took in the fancy bed with the canopy and the pretty Jacuzzi in the bathroom with a small smile. I knew that she’d love this place, and I liked her smile, but I wanted it to be bigger. I wanted to feel it inside of my heart.
I let her settle in before I asked her to take a walk with me. I slipped the key into my jeans and took her hand as we left. She held it as we walked towards the car and I memorized her warmth. We drove the car into the small town as I told her that we’d be taking the train to the Grand Canyon for a change, and she nodded. I knew that my attitude was affecting her more than I wanted it too, but I suspected that some ice would be broken shortly. I stopped in the parking lot near the cemetery and looked over at the grassy hills for a long moment. I had not been here in a year, and I slowly got out of the car. Elsa stepped out when I opened her door and took her hand. I needed her here even if I couldn’t tell her yet. She walked with me as I slowed down and looked the headstones over with soft eyes and I could feel the curiosity radiating off of her. I stopped and took s ragged breath. “This is the last person that I needed to see.”
I looked at her name on the beautiful headstone with the flowers etched on it and some words that her mother had chosen. Marion Wolcott. Elsa read it and looked at me with wide eyes as I pressed my lips together. “She was my wife of two years. I married her after I returned from my second time in Afghanistan and I thought that everything was going to be perfect. I thought that I had it right.”
“What happened to her?” Elsa asked as she wrapped her arms around my waist.
“Complications from medicine. Prescription.” I replied as she stared at me. Was she going back to what I’d said before? This was what changed me and made me feel the worst that I’d ever felt.
“What pills?” Elsa asked as I felt my throat close up tightly.
“I was taking pills for post-traumatic stress, stuff from Afghanistan. I think that it was a combination of both of the times and I’d just been diagnosed with it, and it helped me sleep. It helped me get through the days. I tried for Mar, and I acted stronger than I felt most days.” I paused. “I know that it got to her, just like this awful trip got to you. I realized that she suffered and then she started buying wine and having a glass to start at night. One turned into two, which turned into three. One day, I’d been to the store to get some food for dinner, and I found her in the kitchen.” My voice shook, and I forced the memory to remain in my mind. “She was on the floor, and I saw that a glass had broken in her fall as well as one of my bottles opened and spilled over on the counter. She’d been sipping wine all day, and I just wanted to have a nice dinner and find a way to fix things, since I saw her falling apart before my very eyes. I was trying so hard to hold myself together.” Elsa hugged me tighter, and I took a slow breath that hurt my body. “I called 9-1-1. I did everything that I knew to do, but it killed her fast, more than likely before I even got home. They tried to save her, but it was too late. There was no note, so it wasn’t a suicide for certain but all of the signs pointed to that. I had to call her parents and tell them as they took her away and they live here, so they came to Virginia where we were living in an apartment. They tried to help me through it but they were grieving, and I couldn’t get past the guilt.” Pain washed over me, and I dropped to the grass and started to sob in a way that I’d never done for Mar. I wanted to go back so many times and cry for her instead of acting so strong like men tend to do. “I was the reason that she was drinking the wine that combined with the pills, regardless of the fact if she took them on purpose or not. I sometimes think that she just wanted to shut off, and…it just didn’t work out, or it did too well. I don’t know what she wanted and I never will.” I cried harder and felt arms around me as she cried with me. We stayed that way for a while as I let out all of my pain in between things that I wanted to say to Marion. I told her that I was sorry for not dealing with my problems the right way. I told her that I wanted it to work with her and how hard I tried to fix myself even as I looked like I was struggling.
I apologized to her for taking her away from her family. I knew deep down that they didn’t blame me as much as I wanted them to but they were devastated nonetheless. She was their only daughter, and when she’d impulsively said yes to my proposal after six months of dating, they went with it because she was so happy. I started as a hero with them that fought for my country, and I ended as a disappointment. I had finally failed someone to the point that I could not apologize to them face to face. I finally killed someone with my own pain.
That was why I thought I had the disease that was killing me, the one that hurt right now as I cried harder than I ever had in my life. In addition to all of the killing I’d performed at war, I ended my own wife’s life without pulling any trigger. I felt better apologizing to Melissa and Angela face to face, but I couldn’t do that with Marion.
“I did a lot of thinking on the drive here. I have never shared this with anyone and in fact, Melissa and Angela don’t know anything about her. I never told them and just went back to Afghanistan. I ran and ended up losing my best friend and a few other guys, and I have the scars to remind me permanently of that. I thought it was because I’d finally done the worst thing that I could do…I believed that I deserved everything, and I gave up after I got home. I just stopped living apart from visiting my family and pretending as best I could, but I didn’t talk to anyone from the Army at all. We’d all been so close at one time, together every day and suddenly I could not face them. They wanted me to do things and take care of myself, and I couldn’t find the strength to do any of that.”
“Aidan?” A voice interrupted him, and he turned with a gasp. “I didn’t expect to find you here.” Elsa turned to watch the pretty brunette woman carry flowers to the grave and tuck them into the vase as she fussed over the pink tulips. “What brings you to Arizona?” He stood up and placed his hand on his hearten as I joined him and dropped my arms to my sides.
“I wanted to talk to Mar. I wanted to tell her…so many things,” I replied as she looked at me with Marion’s eyes and then at Elsa. “Kathy, I am so sorry for what happened. I will never stop feeling guilty for it.”
“Aidan, you went through so much in the Army. You saw so much, and I understand we don’t know the details, but even I saw the haunted look in your eyes. I saw that you went to the doctor and tried to talk and take those pills. Mari told me about your dreams, your nightmares, and even she knew that you took them to try and get a good night’s rest. She understood that you were doing what you could. Now, what happened to her…well, it’s on Mari. She could’ve tried to get her own help, but she went to the bottle.” A tear slid down her cheek as she shook her head. Marion was a mirror image of her when she was alive, and I never saw her cry. “She was a stubborn girl even as a child. She rarely cried be it a pet dying or when a friend would move. Mari always just powered through it even though I tried everything to get her to talk. Everything.” She gazed at me and searched my face. “She barely spoke about you, Aidan. I heard a few things, but she stopped calling to talk to me after a time. What could we do if she wasn’t willing to reach out to us?”
“I don’t know. I just wish that I could’ve done anything to save her. She was too young to die and I can’t…I can’t stop thinking about all of it.” I shook my head. “I want to tell her that I’m sorry to her face, not the wind.”
“Talk to her. I do all of the time. I yell at her, I cry when I have a bad day, and I tell her that I love her. I believe that she hears me somehow even though her father just shakes his head at me. He won’t come here too easily as I do.”
Does he hate me?” I asked in a hoarse voice as Kathy shook her head slowly.
“She was his princess, but Frank knew that she had her quirks. He accepted that they got to be too much, though he doesn’t like to visit or even talk to her. Their relationship was different than ours,” Kathy looked back and Elsa and surveyed her curiously. “How are you, Aidan? Moving forward?”
I glanced at Elsa beside me and moved my hand to stroke her back. “I am trying. I ended up back in Afghanistan, and it was…bad. I am finally done, but I have some thinking to do.”
“You’re a good man, Aidan. Mari would want you to be happy as much as Frank and I do. Let all of this go because it’s done and it isn’t your fault.” Kathy waved her hand, and a tear slid down her cheek as she looked at Marion’s headstone. She turned to leave before she spun back around and hugged me tightly before she wrapped a shocked Elsa in her embrace. “Take care of him. Heal him.”
She walked away, and I watched her in silence as my hand gripped Elsa’s. “That was a surprise.”
“So I could see. Do you feel better?” Elsa asked in her soft voice as I frowned thoughtfully.
“They never treated me like I was at fault, so I am not surprised in that sense. It helps to hear her say that, though. It helps a lot.” I looked at her. “There’s more that I need to tell you and Mar if you don’t mind staying a little while longer.”
“Are you sure?” Elsa asked as I nodded. We made a spot on the grass, and I leaned back as I watched the sky darken above me. The evening was setting in soon, and I looked at her.
“I am not really going back to Afghanistan, or anywhere for the Army for that matter.” I decided that being completely honest from the beginning would be the best way. Her face twisted as she looked at me and I saw the emotions play through her eyes. “I wasn’t planning on telling anybody at all. I was just going to…”
“Disappear?” Elsa asked in a pained voice as I felt the tears start all over again and Elsa stared at me with sad eyes. “You were just going to spend these days with me and leave me behind to go where?”
“Hell. I’m going to hell, Elsa.” Her eyes widened, and she pressed her hands to her mouth as she started to cry. “Shit, I don’t mean that. I do but not like you think.” I forced the words to play through my mind as I realized that I didn’t want this for my ending. Not anymore, not since I’d found her. “I am dying, Elsa. This, all of this, it was a big goodbye to the people that cared about me the most. My family, Mel, and Angela. Finally, Mar. I just wanted to tie up loose ends because I was alright with it. Hell, more than that I thought that I deserved it. I knew how much hurt I’d caused people and losing Mar the way I did finalized all of that. I killed someone, Elsa. I had hurt people in the past but killing her was too much for me.” I felt her arms around me as they held me tight and I leaned against her shoulder. “I wasn’t supposed to meet you. I was just passing through after seeing my family and the damn car broke down. I pulled into the driveway and figured I’d be there for a few hours at the most. I was going to fix it at best. I didn’t even really understand where I even was since my mind was racing so much.” I shook my head. “Then I’m sitting there at the table, and you walk in all blue eyes and innocence. I wanted you from that moment on, but I thought that it was nothing. I wasn’t going to treat you like I’d treated the other recent women. You were different, Elsa. You were so damn different.” I slipped an arm around her and pulled her close to me. “I wasn’t going to touch you. I just watched you laugh at my stupid jokes and really listen to me as you took it all in. I could see how much life that you had in your eyes. I was jealous. That died years ago for me, Elsa. I gave up on trying to find my spark, and there you were wanting to see everything, do everything.”
“I wanted you from the beginning. I wanted to know everything that you’d seen,” Elsa told me as I kissed her hair. “Why do you want to die?” She was crying, and I stroked her through her shirt. “Why would you take me if you were just going to abandon me?”
“I didn’t want you out there with anyone else. I didn’t want you in this world; this fucked up world alone. I don’t know, Elsa. I was stunned when you told me that you wanted to go with me, and suddenly we’re in the car together. I decided that I’d see this through with you, but I didn’t intend for anything to happen between us at all, but I wanted to keep you safe.”
“You made it wonderful. You showed me such beautiful places and made me feel justified in enjoying it,” Elsa told me as I chuckled and held her closer. “I don’t want to lose you, Aidan.”
“The guys I knew…they have the same cancer that I do. We all got it from exposure to a chemical during a search. All different ages and situations, Elsa. They don’t deserve that.”
“Why do you think that you do?” Elsa asked, and I closed my eyes as tears slid down my cheeks. “Why, Aidan? Nobody feels that except for you. Don’t you see that? Her parents want your happiness and so would your wife.”
“I don’t know anymore, Elsa. The guys have been sending me texts and calling me this whole time. I shut down for a while once we all knew to make my decision. I turned everybody away.” I took a deep breath. “They’re getting the treatment for it. It’s like chemo on steroids.” I felt her pull back, and I looked at her. “That means nothing to you, Elsa. I’m sorry.” I explained cancer, chemo and radiation to her as she nodded and focused on my words. “My aunt died from breast cancer, and I watched her do the chemo and the radiation. I watched her waste away to nothing, so sick that she couldn’t even enjoy her final days. I swore that I’d never let that happen to me the day that she died. She weighed under one hundred pounds, Elsa.” I pulled her close again. “My treatment is stronger, Elsa. It could be so much worse.”
“So what? You’re so young, Aidan. You deserve to fight for yourself, for me.” Elsa wept as she spoke and threw her arms around my neck. I heard her whisper that she loved me as I closed my eyes.
“I want to, now. I never did before I met you,” I admitted as Elsa pulled away and found my lips with hers. We were both crying and sloppy, but I cherished the feel of her mouth against mine.
“I will fight with you. I’ll stay by your side, Aidan. I won’t leave you, Aidan,” Elsa promised me before she kissed me again. I held her close and let her warmth take me over as a faint beat of hope filled my heartbeat. I wanted to stay here for her. I wanted life.