It Was All Done
Truth to tell, he had never imagined saying the words to her at all. Of all the scenarios of their new life together that he played through his head on restless nights or idle moments in the afternoon, he had never once thought of this. Buried, that's what he had done to the whole thing; his…episode, the smells, the roar of the planes and the guns, their eyes those young, lost boys, the mud and gore, the whole bloody, pointless, cruel disaster. He buried it and it became his problem to manage, the wounded beast in his chest that he daren't let see the light of day.
Margaret had asked, just once, what it had really been like. She saw through the bravado, the way he dodged questions from others, skirted around anything but inconsequential responses and had looked him in the eyes one night and asked. It had been terrible. He broke a plate, the remains of his dinner scattered across the kitchen floor and he paced like a trapped cat through the rooms of their narrow flat until he couldn't take it anymore and stalked out into the night the whole time replaying the sorrow he saw in her eyes. It had been too dangerous, to let it out, and that night as he steamed his way through the streets, he vowed never to let it out again. He had come back and she was sitting on their bed, still in her clothes. She didn't move when he came in so he went to her and on bended knee, her knight, he vowed to never scare her like that again. It was done, he promised. The beast, the war, those boys, it was all done.
And so it had stayed. Done. Through everything, through Timothy, the practice, their first house, the first pain, the way she left them, the hollowness that followed, the wandering and making-do, the road in the mist, everything right up until the moment on their couch. Their couch. His and Shelagh's. When he heard that woman say the words through a fog as though she were terribly far away, not sitting right there in their armchair. When Shelagh sucked in that minute knife-sharp breath before she had tried, in her gentle way, to build over the abyss that had just opened in front of them.
Shelagh did not come right back. The living room rang in tinny silence after the front door closed and it was a moment until he heard her return to him. Ever since she had first handed him that ream of paperwork they had to fill out, he had felt the beast rising, had to fight harder and when he met her blue eyes, sharp and hurt, he felt it leap into his throat. Panic fought with fear and cold seeped in as he heard her spill out her hurt to him and heard himself stammer the well-worn excuses. It was when he could hear the concern in her voice, the love under the hurt that he fled. Out, out. He knew he would do it again, he would shout, he would scare her, he would break something. As he sucked lungfuls of gritty air, flinging himself into the MG, he realized he already had broken something. After everything they had faced together, it was he who had ruined it. He, the old, shoddy, wreck of a soul had drug his beautiful, loving, kind, wonderful wife into the muck and the blood and the screaming.
It took him such a long time to come back to himself. The streets were emptied when he made his way back into their silent house. He stood for a long time in the entryway, unable to move further. He wanted to stay away longer, get the beast back fully under control. It would be better, he considered taking a step back towards the door, to leave them out of it, his darling, bounding son and his heart, his wife with her shimmering blue eyes. Patrick shook his head. What was he even thinking? Shelagh would be out of her mind with worry if he just left and people were depending on him. People needed him. He swayed as he closed his eyes, there in the entryway. There it was – the first logical thought. It was getting better. He let out a slow breath. It would just take a couple of days now, he would be here, go through the motions, but it would get easier.