Chapter 1
Lucy
March 24, 2006
Screams fill my ears and I jerk up in bed with my heart pounding. The moonlight shines through the bedroom window, illuminating Fisher’s body as he kicks at the covers and punches his fists into the mattress on either side of him. His screams are so loud and painful that I want to cover my ears and cry for him.
“Fisher! Fisher, wake up!” I shout over his yells and curses.
His eyes are squeezed shut and sweat drips down his chest, soaking the t-shirt he wore to bed. I quickly reach over and flip on the lamp on my nightstand, yank the covers away from us and move close to him, pressing my hands to either side of his face to turn his head towards me.
“Please, baby, wake up. It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream,” I chant softly, running my hands soothingly down his face.
He stops screaming, but the words that come out of his mouth next are almost worse than the screams.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to kill him, he got in the way. Oh, God, I’m so sorry!”
I sob for him and the agony that rips through his voice as he continues to thrash against me and cry out, shoving my hands off his face and pushing me away from him. He’s lost in another world, another time, and I can’t stand seeing him like this. He’s hurting so much.
God, please make him stop hurting.
“Please, Fisher, wake up. Come on, baby, open your eyes,” I cry, throwing my leg over top of his and using all my strength to get him to calm down and wake him up from this nightmare.
His hand flies out and connects with my cheek and I let out a yelp of pain, but I keep going. This isn’t Fisher; he would never hit me if he was awake and in his right mind. I have to wake him up. I need him to wake up.
Oh, God, I don’t know what to do!
As quickly as I can, I climb on top of him, straddling his waist and taking hits to my arms and chest before I can grab his wrists and hold them down at his sides. I kiss every inch of his face, my tears dripping down off of my nose and onto his cheeks as I whisper his name over and over and beg him to come back to me.
He suddenly goes completely still and his eyes pop open. I hold myself above him and stare into his eyes until they finally focus on me.
“You’re okay, baby, you’re okay,” I tell him softly as I rest my forehead against his.
I let go of his arms and he quickly wraps them around me, pulling me down fully on top of him. His heart beats like a drum against my chest as he tries to slow his breathing. After a few seconds, I pull back and look into his eyes. They immediately go wide and he gasps in horror, bringing his hands up to my face.
“Oh, God, what did I do? Baby, what did I do?” he cries as he examines my cheek and the bruise I’m sure is forming there.
I cover his hand with mine and shake my head at him. “It’s okay, I’m fine. I promise, I’m fine, Fisher.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he softly sobs as he leans up and gently kisses my cheek. “Lucy, my Lucy. I’m so sorry.”
I move down to rest my cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat as I wrap my arms around his body and squeeze him as tightly as I can.
“You didn’t mean it. You were just having a bad dream. It’s okay, I’m fine,” I whisper again.
We’ve only been married for two of the six months he’s been home after his second deployment, but this isn’t the first nightmare he’s had. Each one is worse than the last and I don’t know what to do to help him anymore. I want to take away his pain, to stop the hurt that fills his heart and his mind, but I feel like I’m so far out of my depth that I’m drowning.
“Please, talk to me, Fisher. I want to help you, but I need to understand,” I speak softly against his chest.
“There’s nothing to understand, Lucy. It was just a bad dream. They’ll go away after a little while, just like they always do,” he promises me, running his fingers gently through the long strands of my hair.
“I need to know, Fisher. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
He slides out from under me and pushes himself up to lean his back against the headboard. I get up onto my knees and scoot closer to him, hating the distance he’s trying to put between us.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to,” he speaks softly, thumping his head against the headboard to stare up at the ceiling.
“That doesn’t make any sense. Of course I want answers. I want to know everything. That’s why I’m here. I’m your wife, Fisher, and I love you more than anything. We’re in this together, every step of the way,” I remind him.
He’s quiet for a while and I see every emotion from sadness to frustration skate across his features before finally settling on anger. I don’t want him to be angry with me for asking him to share his troubles, but I don’t know what else to do. How can I help him shoulder his burdens if he doesn’t share them with me?
“So, what do you want to know?” he finally asks, the sarcasm lacing his voice making the hair on my arms stand up. “Do you want to know what it’s like to find the mutilated body of the little girl you brought food to yesterday lying in the street? What it’s like fighting a war against people who will kill children to drive home a message? Or do you want to know what it’s like to be walking down a deserted street on foot patrol, making sure it’s clear for the convoy, talking to one of your friends about football and then mid-sentence his head explodes and his blood and brains are splattered all over your face?”
He speaks in a monotone voice that is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Tears flow down my cheeks and I have to hold my hand against my mouth to stop myself from sobbing. I shake my head back and forth, wanting him to stop, but knowing that I asked for it. I wanted to know everything and now he’s giving it to me.
“Maybe you want to know what it’s like to get orders to take out an enemy sniper and right when you pull the trigger, a nine-year-old boy runs in the line of your shot. I’m sure you’d like to know what it’s like to watch his mother hold his lifeless body in her arms while she screams and cries and tries to hold together the hole in his head with her hands. Do you know how hard it is to try and shove someone’s brain back into his head after you’ve blown a hole in it the size of a softball?”
He finally stops talking and I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to block out the visions of what he’s told me from my mind. I can’t breathe, I can’t make my heart stop hurting and I can’t stop crying. He warned me and I didn’t listen. I just wanted to live in his mind for one second, learn more about him so I could be a better wife and give him whatever he needed, but I can’t help him with this and it kills me. I can’t take away these memories because they are burned into his brain and his soul. I’ve always known he lives an entirely different life when he’s away from me, but this is almost too much to handle. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to get him through this. I don’t know if I’m enough to make him forget.
“Oh, Jesus. Fuck, Lucy. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that. What the hell is wrong with me?”
When my sobs break through the hand clamped over my mouth, he suddenly comes back from whatever trance he was in. He moves towards me, sliding his legs around either side of my knees and wrapping his arms around my body. He cradles the back of my head and brings it down to his shoulder, smoothing my hair down my back as he rocks us back and forth.
“I shouldn’t have asked. I’m so sorry I made you tell me. I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through that,” I cry softly into his shoulder as he continues to slowly rock us from side to side.
I’m ashamed of myself for crying. I have nothing to cry about. When he’s gone, doing all of these awful things to protect our country, I’m safe and content in my own little bubble on this island, surrounded by the ocean and family and friends.
“Don’t, Lucy. Don’t ever apologize for something like that. I’m going to be fine, just give me time, okay? Just keep loving me and being here, that’s all I need.”
We fall asleep in each other’s arms and Fisher doesn’t wake up again that night or any night for the next few months. I try to tell myself that everything is fine and he’s getting better each day he’s home, putting distance between himself and the war. For a while, it’s an easy enough lie to believe. For an entire year, I have him all to myself, and we’re so happy and settled that I actually believe he’ll never leave me again.
Then he tells me that he volunteered to go back there for a third time.
“I don’t understand, Fisher. Why? Why would you go back there?” I ask, trying not to let him know that this decision is killing me. I choke back the tears as he paces around the kitchen like a caged tiger. I should have known this was coming. Each time he sees something in the news about the war, he gets so anxious that he can’t sit still.
“I have to go back, Lucy, I have to. I can’t be here when my friends are over there fighting for everything I believe in and risking their lives,” he explains.
Hearing him say that he can’t be here breaks my heart. Why isn’t our life together on this island enough for him? I love that he has this need to protect our country and our freedom, but at the same time, I hate it because it takes him away from me.
And sends him back just a little more broken every time.
After all the things he’s been through, he asked to go back. I want to be angry, I want to scream and cry and beg him not to leave me again, but I can’t do that. Deep in my heart, I’m still so very proud of him for fighting for our country. I admire him for doing something so scary and selfless, and the very idea that he would willingly return to that hellhole reminds me of how strong and amazing he is. It also makes me dread what will happen the next time he comes home, makes me fear which pieces of the man I love will be claimed by this war. I worry things will only get worse, and that scares the hell out of me.
“I just don’t understand why you keep doing this to yourself. Why you keep putting yourself through this. What about us? What about our lives? We talked about starting a family, but how can we do that if you aren’t here?” I ask him, hating the weakness in my voice.
“Jesus, Lucy! How can you even think about bringing children into this world right now? What kind of future would they have if this shit never ends?” he argues.
There’s no use in trying to hold back the tears at this point. They fall down my cheeks and Fisher immediately comes over to me and pulls me into his arms.
“I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to yell,” he tells me softly as he kisses the top of my head. “I just need you to understand how important this is to me. I can’t stand the idea that my men, my brothers, are over there without me. They leave their families and they put their lives on hold to fight this war and I need to do the same. I HAVE to do the same. I love you, Lucy, but I need to do this. Please, tell me you understand.”
I hold onto him as tightly as I can as we sway back and forth in the kitchen and I give him a silent nod. He loves me, we’re building a life together and nothing else should matter. We’re strong and we can make it through anything. We will make it through anything because Fisher has always promised me that he will find his way back to me. I believe him with every piece of my heart and I will support whatever decisions he makes because I have faith in him and in us. This is just a tiny bump in the long road of our lives together. We’ll get over it and everything will be fine, I know it.