THREE
the light
sloane
June 16, 2010
Dear Sloane,
I will be home in ten days. Ten days until I get to hold you and kiss you and make you my wife, ten days until we get to stand in front of our family and friends and say how much we love each other, how we fell in love in this most unusual way that we will both cherish for the rest of our lives. I don’t know how you’ve done all this while I was away, planned this entire wedding for me, for us. I am so grateful to you, my beautiful girl. And I am the luckiest man alive that I get to spend the rest of my life proving it to you.
All my love,
Adam
june 16, 2017
“GET UP.” I VAGUELY heard Caroline’s voice breaking through my dream, where Adam and I were driving down the road, singing to the radio on the way to our favorite hotel in the North Carolina mountains, a small bed-and-breakfast in downtown Blowing Rock that had a fireplace in every room and amazingly reasonable off-season rates. His parents knew how much we loved it and every Christmas, they gave us a gift certificate for two nights at the hotel—and two nights of their expert child-care services. It was my favorite gift. “You’ve been wallowing in here for thirty-four days,” Caroline said. “And you kind of stink.”
Ah, yes, Caroline. Always the tactful one.
I opened one eye, and it all came flooding back to me. Adam wasn’t in the car beside me. Adam wasn’t in the North Carolina mountains. Adam was gone. Adam was lost somewhere in the Middle East, somewhere I couldn’t find him. My heart began to race with panic.
My sister threw open the curtains, and I thought I might go blind from the harsh brightness. How had I ever relished the feel of the sun on my skin or lain in it to warm my body? I wanted to tell Caroline to close the curtains. Then it hit me. Was Adam in the sun? Was he being scorched alive by the very thing that was supposed to give him life?
It had been thirty-four days since those uniformed men came to tell me my Adam was Missing in Action, my mind filled only with terror and dread, worst-case scenarios that pinged day and night like a loose ball on a racquetball court. The death didn’t scare me; the torture did. The starvation, the pain, the indignity. For years, ever since the night we met only three weeks before his deployment, I imagined I could feel Adam, that my heart was connected to his the way the moon is connected to the tide. That connection controlled our world.
Looking back on those thirty-four days, I don’t remember my sons’ laughter. I don’t remember them snuggling in bed with me. I don’t remember my sisters taking turns sleeping with me, my mother feeding me, my grandmother singing to me. It is as though my mind is a bloody crime scene that has been wiped meticulously clean. The only thing I can recall from all those days is my memories of the past, my videos of the happy times, my letters from Adam.
Day thirty-four and still, every time my bedroom door opened, I felt a jolting panic that someone was going to tell me he was gone. My mom had come in just before Caroline and paused my video, which terrified me at first, but I was too weak and exhausted to protest. “Darling,” she said, “time to get up. The boys are having a very hard time without you. If we need to get you to a doctor or on some sort of medication, we can and we will. But you have to get out of bed.”
I thought of my children. I felt like I was crumbling from the inside out. I loved them. I needed them. They needed me. But I was so numb, my heart a desolate desert where nothing could live, nothing could grow. My children were better off without me.
When I didn’t say anything, Mom left. But now Caroline was here, playing bad cop to Mom’s good cop. It was a pretty proven strategy, but it wasn’t going to work on me. It was clear they had decided today was the day for the intervention. But I wasn’t ready to be intervened upon, so it didn’t much matter. Caroline lay down beside me in bed but abruptly got up and moved to the chair—she had forgotten how badly I stunk. If you stink too badly for even your sister to lie beside you, that’s a problem.
She crossed her arms. “Sloane, you are neglecting your children, and quite frankly, you’re neglecting me.” I think she was trying to be funny, but I was past the point of finding anything funny. “Your kids need you, Sloane. They’re miserable and angry and they don’t understand what’s happening. It’s your job to be there for them.”
I was used to Caroline’s insults, her judgment, and her harshness. I braced myself for what she would say next. So when she took a deep breath, softened, composed herself, and said, “Sweetie, I want to read you this essay Vivi wrote for school,” it was actually worse. If she had yelled at me or told me I was being selfish, I could have taken it. But her sympathy meant I was even worse off than I had thought. Changing her tactic from forceful to soft meant something was shifting between us. I didn’t like that.
“It’s titled ‘My Hero.’ ” She cleared her throat, and I knew this essay was about her uncle Adam, her hero. I wasn’t sure I could take it. But I knew how she felt. He was my hero, too.
So it caught me off guard when Caroline read, “My Aunt Sloane is my hero. Her husband, my Uncle Adam, is a sergeant first class in the Army, which means he fights hard for our country and goes on special missions that no one else can do. When he is gone fighting, my Aunt Sloane goes on special missions too. She takes care of my cousins AJ and Taylor all by herself. She even homeschools them. They are really smart. AJ can already read, and even little Taylor knows his alphabet. She cooks all their meals and sings lots of songs and she always remembers to buy me a birthday present even when she’s really busy. She calls my mom every day to make sure we are OK, so we always remember how much she loves us. My Aunt Sloane prays hard to God every day to keep my Uncle Adam safe.
“That’s how I know he is OK, even though he is Missing in Action in Iraq because his helicopter crashed and he was captured by insurgents. Everyone is worried, but I know he is OK because my Aunt Sloane knows he is OK because she prays about Uncle Adam every day. She prays hard and she works hard and she loves her family and is the best mom. That’s why my Aunt Sloane is my hero.”
I’m not sure when I started crying, but I felt something shift in me when Caroline read my eleven-year-old niece’s words that I knew her Uncle Adam was OK because I prayed for him every day. Was that true? Did I know? I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Caroline said.
I nodded. I wanted to say something. I wanted to thank her or tell her to hug Vivi for me, but my mouth wouldn’t work. So instead I let her feed me a little chicken soup. I didn’t want it, but I didn’t want to feel this way anymore either. That was progress, I thought.
“I would kiss you,” Caroline said, “but you smell worse than the crab pots on the dock.”
As Caroline was feeding me, AJ burst through the door, my mom on his heels, with so much energy that I felt even more tired. “Mommy, Mommy,” he said urgently. “Mommy! I’ve got to ask you a question,” he said, peering up into my face from the floor below. Caroline smiled at him, a laugh in her throat.
“Is Daddy dead?”
I froze, the few bites of soup I’d eaten growing heavy in my stomach.
“Oh, honey,” Mom said, taking his shoulders gently and saying, “Let’s go play while Mommy finishes lunch.”
“Is he, Mommy? Because Billy down the street says Daddy is dead.”
I felt something stir inside me, something that felt a little like fight, a little like hope. “No,” I eked out, my voice sounding rough and rusty, like a screened door that hasn’t been opened in far too long. “No, sweet boy. Of course Daddy isn’t dead.” It was then that I realized I believed it. I believed my husband was alive.
“Oh, good,” AJ said, his voice laden with relief. “Because he’s going to get me a BB gun for my sixth birthday.”
Mom and Caroline chuckled, and I almost smiled. Almost. The simplicity of children, the wonder of it all, was one of the great joys of life. I had forgotten that.
It wasn’t until after they had left, until after I hit play again, that I realized Mom had set up an easel in the corner of the room with a single canvas, a paintbrush, some paint, and a small palette. But I didn’t paint anymore. And she certainly wasn’t going to get me to paint now.
I looked back at the screen where Adam was talking, videoing me as I gave AJ his first bath. Then I looked back at the easel. There was something about it that seemed inviting, that tugged me toward it.
I tried to sit up. My eyes got starry and everything went black. I persevered, though, putting one foot on the ground and then the other. I held onto the wall as everything went black again. With my past flashing on the screen beside me, I picked up that brush.
I don’t know how long I sat there, but when I looked at what I’d created, I felt a little better. It was an abstract piece of blacks and grays with hints of silver.
As I examined my work, something inside me felt a little lighter, a little less closed off, as if maybe the world as I knew it wasn’t ending. Maybe.
My little sister Emerson came through the doorway quietly. She was the tall one, the most beautiful one, the nearly famous one. Even still, Caroline and I both felt the need to protect her. There was such an innocence to her, even at twenty-six. We couldn’t help but want to shelter her.
She stood beside me, studying the painting, and said, “It’s sad. But it’s beautiful.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, realizing there was paint all over me. I set the brush down on the palette. Emerson took my hand and said, “Come on, sweetie. Let me get you into the bath.”
Was this what my life had come to? People had to bathe me now? I thought of my grandmother downstairs, who had come to live with us, whom my mom was taking care of. My grandmother. Caroline and her two kids. Emerson. My own two kids.
It had started out as so much fun, all of us in the same house, playing and laughing. That was me then. The me I was now couldn’t imagine ever smiling again. Ever laughing again. Ever . . . Adam, oh Adam. Where was he? What was happening to him? Would I ever know?
It was September 11 all over again, knowing my dad was in that tower, knowing it had fallen, not knowing if he was alive but feeling certain I would never see him again. I had believed I knew what my mom went through in the wake of my dad’s death. I felt like I understood her, that losing your father had to be equivalent to losing the love of your life. But I hadn’t, not really. Not until now. I remember overhearing my mom telling her friends it still haunted her that she couldn’t remember telling my dad good-bye, that she couldn’t remember if she had kissed him before he left that day, that between packing lunches, making sure Emerson had her costume for her play, signing my permission slip, and telling Caroline she had on too much makeup, she couldn’t remember if she told him she loved him.
At the time, I had thought that was silly. He was dead. We would never see him again. Who cared if she had kissed him good-bye? But now I understood. All I could think about was what I said the last time I had talked to Adam, what I wished I had done differently. It wasn’t a good feeling.
I heard the water running, and I let Emerson help me to the bathroom. I couldn’t believe how devoid of energy I felt, as if every ounce of the person I had been was running out of me like the bathwater down the drain. As Emerson helped me with my shirt, I realized I wouldn’t have been able to do this without her. I glanced at the mirror and didn’t recognize myself. My face was gray and drawn, making my brown eyes hollow. I’d been worried about losing the last ten pounds of baby weight. Now my skin was taut over my ribs and belly.
I lowered myself into the tub, allowing the water to cover my face. I opened my eyes under the water and watched the bubbles coming out of my nose, the light from the chandelier above me wiggling and distorted. For a moment, I considered not coming back up for air. I could let the water take me away, where I wouldn’t have to feel or think or fear anymore. I could just leave. Quietly, without a struggle.
As my lungs grew hot, I heard an echoed, faraway “Mommy.”
If I didn’t take that next breath, my children would be all alone. I lifted my head out of the water, gasping for air. Taylor, my twenty-month-old, laughed at the sight of me. “Mommy!” he said again with glee. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”
He leaned his face over the tub and planted a sticky kiss on my cheek, wrapping his warm arms around my wet neck. I remembered Vivi’s essay. I remembered I was someone’s hero. I had promised Adam, had vowed to him, that when he was away, I would be here, raising our babies and continuing our life. It was my job as a military wife to make good on that promise. This was my role, the one I had chosen. Or maybe it had chosen me. It was hard to tell now.
I closed my eyes and saw my painting again. I felt its strength. I thought of Vivi again, of her belief in me.
I believed in Adam. It was going to be OK.
It would be easier to retreat back into my cocoon of memories, my home videos, my letters, my sorrow. But Caroline was right. Mom was right. Emerson was right. I had my boys to live for. I had to carry on.
Instead of succumbing to the dark, if I was ever going to come out of this, I had no choice but to look for the light.
My son’s blue eyes were a perfect start.