THIRTY-SEVEN
the meaning of life
sloane
July 18, 2017
Dear Sloane:
I am coming home to you!!!! Wow, I didn’t think I would ever see your face again. Or kiss my boys, throw a ball with them, feel your soft body snuggled up next to mine at night.
I am weak and exhausted. My leg and a few of my ribs were badly broken in the crash, and my shoulder was dislocated. Of course, I’ve had no medical care, so there is work to do. But I can’t comprehend how lucky I am to be alive. We lost one of our men here, and I’m not sure I will ever be able to come to terms with the fact that I made it while he did not. How can that be?
I am rambling now when all I want to say is this: Sloane, you got me through these months. The thought of you, the memory of you, the warmth and the love of you is what pushed me forward when it would have been so much easier to succumb to the death that was so close I could almost feel it. I live for you, Sloane. I would die for you. And everything in between. And now, I get to see you again. Words do not exist to describe how much I have missed you, how I have longed for you in the darkest, deepest parts of me. I should warn you that once I come home to you, I may never leave your side again.
Counting down the moments, my beautiful wife, until I am in your arms again. Until then, I am, faithfully, lovingly, eternally . . .
Always and forever yours,
Adam
HOLDING TAYLOR IN MY arms for the first time was the last time I’d had this feeling that everything in my life had changed, like everything I had believed to be true was insignificant compared to this moment. To think I had lost my true love only to find him again . . . It was nothing short of rebirth.
I had looked at my watch every three minutes for the past few days, willing the time forward. I had gotten to Skype Adam and hear his voice, proving to myself he was alive.
And now, every ounce of me was buzzing with the pure thrill and unbridled joy that I would get to touch him, kiss him, and hold him close to me once again.
I was standing on the runway at Joint Base Andrews. Normally, I might have been excited to see Air Force One or been making small talk with Major Austin, the rear detachment commander who had kept me abreast of everything for the past few months. But I couldn’t. I had never felt this level of anxious excitement. A C-17 Nightingale flight would be bringing my husband from Landstuhl and landing right here in a matter of moments. I would get to ride in the ambulance with him to Walter Reed, where he would be having surgery and receiving treatment before I could take him home for good. This was the moment I had envisioned for all those long, painful weeks. And now it was here.
As the jet came into view, I had the sickening feeling it was coming in too quickly. But I should have known better. As it landed, blowing everything in its path including my hair and the cream sundress Caroline had let me borrow, I squinted to keep the debris out of my eyes, but wouldn’t dare close them all the way. I would get the first glimpse of Adam. When I saw the door open, I started running. There he was. My husband, my world, everything I wanted and needed.
He was in his combat uniform and boots, his arm in a sling and a cane in his hand. I ran to him, my tears nearly blinding me. I threw my arms around him, he threw his one good arm around me, and I kissed him like I’d never stop. He might have been pick thin and badly wounded, but he was still Adam. He was still that strong, confident man I had fallen in love with in line at the post office.
I could feel my tears and his tears mingling together like ingredients in a saucepan, could taste them between our kisses. I wrapped my arms around his middle so tightly he groaned, which is when I remembered his broken ribs. Poor guy. “Sorry,” I said.
But he smiled at me. “I don’t care,” he whispered into my ear. “You’re here, Sloane. I’m here. We’re together.”
I barely remember the ambulance ride or entering Walter Reed. I know there was paperwork and rustling and doctors and nurses, and then Adam was in a bed and a doctor was talking about taking him into surgery in the morning. I couldn’t process any of it, because he was home and we were going to spend the rest of our lives together just like we had planned. I had never felt a glee this pure. It was a high I didn’t know a human could experience.
At last, when we were alone, I finally noticed how gaunt and gray Adam looked, the exhaustion in his eyes, the new lines in his face.
I ran my hand along his sunken cheek. “Honey,” I said, “what happened to you?”
He shook his head. “Sloane, I’m alive. One of my men lost his life. An innocent kid lost his.” I had never, in all his deployments, seen my husband this raw, this vulnerable.
I felt myself bristle when he said “innocent kid.”
“What do you mean?” I whispered, my stomach already turning, not truly wanting to know the answer.
“A seventeen-year-old kid, one of the sons . . .” He trailed off, and I waited patiently. “He helped us escape,” he said, his eyes filling with tears.
“What?” I asked, truly stunned. “I thought it was a Delta Force operation.”
Adam bit his lip. “Well, it was, technically. And thank God. If they hadn’t been on their way, we’d all be dead. No question.” He swallowed hard, and I took his hand, rubbing it. He teared up and said, “I’m sorry.”
I kissed his forehead. “Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“If we’d just waited ten more minutes . . .”
I wasn’t surprised by his emotion necessarily, but it unnerved me all the same. I had never seen him like this.
“This brave little kid got us out.” He looked around and continued. “If we had just waited, if we had just been patient, that kid would still be alive. His father wouldn’t have killed him for being a traitor.”
I put my hand to my mouth. I felt sick. Sicker than sick. But my job here was to soothe my husband. “You don’t know that, Adam.”
He nodded, tears in his eyes. “I saw him fall. And it will haunt me forever. I can’t help but feel like it was my fault.”
I remembered the drone footage, the man running and falling. That wasn’t a man at all. He was a child. A teenager. A son. I wondered if his mother was grieving, if she was alone in her grief. “It’s not your fault, Adam,” I said. “It was God’s plan. We can’t control it.”
“It was a sucky plan,” he said under his breath.
“Adam!” I scolded.
“I thought we were all dead, Sloane. I swear I did. And I wanted to stay alive and be there for you and the boys, but I knew I’d rather be dead than spend another second in that hellhole.” He cleared his throat. “I felt the vibration even before I heard it. I thought I was hallucinating. But then I started to hear it and I knew it was real.” He paused. “I looked up, and there it was, a Black Hawk. We were being shot at and running for our lives, but when I saw it, I knew we were saved.”
My heart was pounding in my chest now, torn between the terror that my husband had nearly died and the swelling pride that God had saved him. I knew there had to be a great purpose behind that moment. Adam was here for a reason.
“They saved me, Sloane. They saved us all. I wouldn’t be here.” He rubbed his chin and kind of half smiled. “Those guys from the 160th and Delta Force are such badasses.”
I laughed. “They have great hair, too.” Members of Delta Force needed to blend in with their surroundings and, as such, generally had longer hair and beards. They stuck out like sore thumbs when compared to the clean-shaven faces and clipped heads on post. “I should make them cookies.”
He looked up at me and really smiled now, and it was as if the filter of those negative memories was washed away and he was seeing me with fresh eyes. I leaned down and kissed him, remembering how he used to sweep me up in his arms and carry me up the stairs. I considered that that was a thing of the past. But life is one big series of surprises, inconveniences, and things not working out like you thought they would. And so, we press on. We choose to fight into another day. That’s what Adam and I would do.
“I love you,” he said. “Have I said that? I love you so much. You kept me alive, Sloane. I fought through every day for you.”
I nodded. “I love you too. I can’t believe you’re here.” I paused, and I could feel the tears in my throat. “But you’re going to leave again. You’re going to be deployed again and leave me.”
He tucked my hair behind my ears and shook his head. “Babe, this leg healed enough on its own that I can hobble on it. But even after the surgery, I will never be able to be back out in the field.”
“I shouldn’t be happy about that,” I said, feeling terribly guilty. I didn’t want my husband to have a terrible injury that would never heal just to have him stay home with me. But, truthfully, I’d take it. “I’m really sorry.”
Then there was silence.
I was used to this; I remembered it well. After a deployment, it took a few weeks for Adam and me to get back in our groove. He didn’t want to talk about where he’d been or what had happened. I didn’t want to talk about anything else, because nothing would possibly compare to what he was dealing with. I understood he was trying to protect me, and in some ways, was grateful for what he didn’t say. I couldn’t imagine how I would feel if I knew what he had been through when he was gone. But there was no doubt that his other life I knew nothing about created a bit of distance between us.
Eventually, as the days wore on, we would fall back into our rhythm. He would wake up early and work out before the kids got up. We would all have breakfast together. These small moments would weave themselves together in the way of a beautiful yet simple tapestry.
Today I said, “Caroline and James bought a house in Peachtree while you were away. She said we can live there as long as we’d like.”
Adam smiled and shook his head. “Sloane, we can’t live in their house.”
I understood where he was coming from. But, in my eyes, it wasn’t even a question. Caroline was my sister. I had always thought of what was mine as ours. Emerson’s, Caroline’s, and mine. We were as good as the same person. Granted, Caroline had a lot more to give than I did. But that didn’t mean that, in her heart, she felt any differently.
“She’s going to move over with the kids and Emerson into Mom’s guesthouse. James has to go back to the city, but she wants to stay in Peachtree a little longer.”
Adam nodded. Then he wrapped his arms around me and held me there for a long time.
I finally got the nerve to whisper, “Tom?”
“He made it,” Adam whispered back. “I don’t know if they will be able to save his left arm, but he made it.”
I was dually sad and relieved. I couldn’t wait to call Maryanne.
Adam cleared his throat. “So fill me in,” he said. “What’s been happening since I’ve been gone?”
“Oh, nothing much,” I said, fluffing his pillow. “Just the usual. James had an affair and was on TV with his girlfriend, who Emmy then played in a movie. She is back together with her high school boyfriend and may have aplastic anemia or something equally as horrible, but Mom doesn’t know. Mom is back together with her first love. Grammy died . . .”
With a very straight face, Adam nodded and said, “You’re right. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Then we both laughed with everything we had inside of us, with the happiness that Adam was home, the knowledge that our little world was coming back together, and the elation that we were us again.
I thought about all I had to catch Adam up on. It was time to come clean about the credit cards, brag a little about my paintings, and tell him about Mother’s Morning Out. But there would be time for that. Thankfully, joyfully, there would be time.
TEN DAYS LATER, WE were settling into a routine. Caroline and James’s house had been the perfect place to come home to. Adam was undergoing physical therapy and struggling, not just physically, but mentally. But I had been prepared for this.
Even so, it terrified me when Adam woke up in the middle of the night ranting that he had to go back there and get his men. He cried almost daily for the friend he’d lost, lamented that he was the leader, that he should have been the one that died. There were times when I noticed the dullness in his eyes, the pain behind them, the haunted look.
It scared me, but it made me strong, too. As they had always been, Adam’s problems were my problems. We were married. After what I had been through over the past few months, I could handle being in charge now. I could take care of Adam. And, amidst the pain and suffering, there were still moments of normalcy between us, and better yet, glimpses of the great love we had always shared.
As I served breakfast that morning, Adam already sitting at the head of the table, he scooped me into his lap and kissed me. “It’s strange,” he said, “how one minute I can feel like everything is completely meaningless, how all that matters is what’s over there, and how this life we lead is so trite and so insignificant. And then, the next moment, I see you and think everything that matters is these small things, these eggs and strawberries, the stories we read to the boys.”
I smiled at him. I didn’t understand. I never would. But I tried and would continue to.
It wasn’t the perfectly choreographed moment I had planned, but it somehow felt right.
“Adam,” I said, “speaking of the meaning of life . . .” I paused, kissed him, and added, “What would you think about my going back to work, showing my art, and continuing to help Mom at the store?” He didn’t say anything, so I kept going. “I mean, I know I’m an Army wife and my role is to take care of my family—”
Adam cut me off. He pulled me closer. “Sloane. You’re not just an Army wife. You are my wife. You are the most perfect woman in the world. Your role is what makes you happy. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Yeah?” I asked, swallowing hard.
He looked at me almost sadly, as though I had underestimated him in some way. “Babe, yes. Of course. I miss your art. Nothing would make me happier than to see you go back to it.”
“Really?” I could feel the tears in my eyes, and it wasn’t until I felt them that I realized how much this truly meant to me.
Adam wiped my tears and laughed. “Sloane, are you serious?” He shifted. “I want you to be you. I fell in love with you and all your complexity. My favorite thing about you is how you keep surprising me.”
As the boys ran to the table, I thought my heart would burst. “Bacon!” AJ practically sang. The boys were beside themselves to have their daddy home. I stood up just in time for Taylor and AJ to crash into Adam, and there was no other way to describe it: life was as it should be. Life was perfect.
Well, perfect except we were still waiting for test results from Emerson’s New York doctor’s visit. We were still waiting to find out what exactly was wrong with her. The fact that Mom still didn’t know anything about her illness gnawed at me, perhaps more than it should have. But I couldn’t imagine something being wrong with one of my children and having everyone keep that from me.
Later that morning, Mom came to get the boys for a little Gransley time, and Adam’s physical therapist arrived. I was attempting to fold laundry and trying to ignore my husband’s pained groans and muffled screams.
Afterward, Adam lay down for a nap—he was still regaining his strength slowly, day by day. I sat down to open the mail and pay the bills, but the way the sun was glinting off the water inspired me so much that I couldn’t concentrate. I had to paint. It felt more satisfying than it had in some time. This was a piece that would make someone else happy. This was a painting I would sell.
Two hours later, I walked back into Mom’s house, which was buzzing with activity. Mom was in the kitchen making snacks, Vivi, who was home from camp, was helping AJ with a particularly intensive car-building project, and Taylor was napping upstairs in his old room. It was a calm yet electric time.
I hugged Caroline, who was flipping through product photos on her computer, shopping for Mom’s store. “It is beyond sweet of you to let us stay at your house. We can never repay you.”
Caroline and I both looked at Mom. She rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes,” she said. “What a gift that someone would just take you in off the street.” We all laughed.
Caroline put her arm around Mom. “I missed Mommy Dearest’s guesthouse. It’s quite fabulous. I’m happy to be living there again.” She paused and whispered, so Vivi couldn’t hear, “And you won’t believe it, but I kind of miss James.”
Mom whispered, “So do I.”
We all laughed.
Jack walked through the door and kissed Mom on the cheek. We all made gagging noises, but really, it was sweet. She was so starry-eyed over him that she could hardly put one foot in front of the other.
“I’m glad you’re here, Jack,” I said. “The painters finished, and Caroline and I volunteered to put your house back together for our darling mother.”
“You two are peaches,” she said, grinning. “Have I told you what they are making me pay them per hour?” she asked Jack, eyebrow raised.
“I’ll help you move the furniture,” Jack said.
I put my hand up to stop him. I needed Caroline to myself to talk about the thing that had been gnawing at me for almost two weeks. “No, no. It’s all on sliders.” I paused and said, “Plus, that hourly rate thing.”
As we closed the back door, Caroline said, “What’s going on?”
I bit my lip. “I’ve been thinking about some things, and I want your opinion.”
She nodded, and I realized she was wearing six-inch wedges. She might not have been the best choice for furniture moving. “You know the man on the beach that day? Who was fighting with Mom?” I asked.
“You mean when we were kids?”
I nodded.
“Yeah,” she said. “What about it?”
“It was Jack.”
Caroline stopped cold between the two houses. “Keep walking,” I scolded. “You’ll look suspicious.”
I opened the back door and Caroline said, “How do you know that?”
I shrugged. “I have such a clear memory of it. When Mom and Jack were on the plane, the light hit his hair a certain way. Then it dawned on me it was him.”
Caroline nodded. I was shocked that she didn’t argue with me, but she probably knew I wouldn’t bring this up unless I was sure. “OK. So what does that mean? What would Mom and Jack possibly have been fighting about on a beach when we were little girls?” She gasped. “You don’t think they were having an affair or something, do you?”
I shook my head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Mom would never do something like that.”
Caroline scrunched up her face. “Yeah. She’s pretty vanilla. So what, then?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” I said. “So, a few weeks ago, I was in the store, and I said something about getting my artistic talent from my father and Jack said, ‘No. You definitely got that from your mother.’ ”
Caroline opened Jack’s refrigerator, removing a Smart- Water and handing me one too. “So what? He was complimenting Mom.”
“We just eat out of Jack’s fridge now too?” I asked.
“Why not?” Caroline said. “At the rate things are moving between them, I think it’s safe to say he’s our almost-daddy.” Then she dropped her water on the floor, her hand frozen in midair. “You think Jack said that because he’s our sperm donor and he knows he doesn’t have any artistic talent?”
She leaned over and picked up the bottle, not even the slightest bend in her knees. I was so envious. I could barely touch my shins.
“I mean, it’s kind of a stretch.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just wondering.”
“And she didn’t want to date him.” Caroline nodded her head furiously. Then she swallowed and said, “And you overheard her telling him she had so much to lose if they were together?”
“We are a lot to lose,” I said. My head was spinning now. I felt totally sure Caroline was going to talk me out of this and tell me I was insane. Then I could put this out of my mind as a series of odd coincidences. But now that Caroline thought what I thought . . . My mind was racing. What did this mean?
“Do you honestly think he’s our father?”
She walked into the living room, where all the furniture was covered with sheets and pushed to the center of the room. “Let’s get this moved.”
“Oh, right,” I said. Then I added, “How would we feel about it?”
“I feel kind of weird,” Caroline said. “Although strangely better than if my father was a random test tube, which is how I’ve always imagined it. How do you feel?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’re just trying to come to terms with Mom dating again, a new man being in her life, so we’re projecting all these feelings onto him?”
I nodded, gesturing to a large secretary that had to be moved, thankful it was on sliders. Caroline obviously didn’t know that because as I started sliding, she started lifting. Three drawers rushed out of their slots and crashed onto the floor, their contents dispersing wildly throughout the room. “Nice,” I said. “One priceless antique, totally ruined.”
Caroline pulled the sheet off and said, “This thing made it over on a ship from England like two hundred years ago. Surely it can take a little bump.”
I knelt down to pick up the drawers and stopped cold. Heat rose through my body. Caroline wasn’t moving either. She was flipping through a stack of pictures in her hand.
But when she looked up at me and what I had in my hands, she gasped.
She handed me the pictures, and I handed her the bag. Tears sprung to my eyes, but I wasn’t sure why. The pictures were of us. Caroline and me and then Caroline, Emerson, and me. Each had the date on the back in Mom’s handwriting.
“They could be Christmas card pictures?” I said hesitantly, knowing they weren’t Christmas card pictures. “Maybe he’s really organized about them?”
She opened the pink bag that had our monograms on it and handed me a fairy stone. I looked up at my sister and I thought of Grandpop and his words of encouragement to us that day. “I guess he needed them more than we did,” I whispered.
The door slammed shut, and Caroline and I got the photos and stones put away just as Jack appeared in the doorway. As if he were reading our energy, Jack seemed flustered. “Everything OK?” he asked.
I looked at Caroline, and she looked at me, but neither of us said a word. I could feel the heat in my face and my racing heart. Could Jack be our father? I couldn’t ask. The look on Caroline’s face told me she couldn’t either.
I looked at her again, helplessly, urging her without words to take control like she always did. I could sense Jack was about to say something when I heard, from the backyard, “Sloane! Caroline! Come quick!”
I wasn’t sure I could make my feet move, but when Caroline grabbed my hand, I did.
“Do you think?” I asked her when we were back outside in the yard.
She shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know. Let’s not read too much into this, OK?”
All these years I had wondered who my biological father was, but now that the truth was potentially right in front of me, I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.
As we reached the front porch, I looked out over the sparkling water, the sun setting hot and vibrant, warming our little patch of earth.
Emerson looked as if she were about to burst wide open as she called, “Mom! Hurry up! Get out here.”
I looked at Caroline again, and I wondered if we had done the wrong thing in walking away, if we should have stayed and learned the truth.
But maybe it didn’t matter. What would it change, really?
I wondered again if we should have asked Jack about our suspicions. I felt in my heart that he wouldn’t lie to us. I felt in my heart that we were connected more deeply than our brief encounters would allow. And I had to admit that connection, that voice in my head that recognized that I relied on and trusted Jack far more than was reasonable, was something I had been ignoring for a long time.
Caroline squeezed my hand, and I wondered if she felt that with Jack too. I squeezed back, but I didn’t say a thing.
And I realized when it comes to matters of the heart, when it comes to love, no matter what form that takes, sometimes there really are no words. Sometimes, the right answer, the only answer—the truth—is something you have to feel.