CHAPTER TWO The Life Of An Army Wife

BPOV

Nights for most are a time for people to think and reflect. But for an army wife, like myself, nothing could be worse. Days are reasonably easy to get through. Between four kids, my job and the house, there just wasn't enough time to think and reflect. But eventually, like all things inevitable, night would come and your left with your fears and the sometimes overwhelming loneliness.

The fear is constantly there. Creeping just underneath the surface. When your husband and the father of your children is over in some foreign country fighting a war, how could you not fear the outcome. During the day you can ignore it. But at night there is no escaping the truth. Your reminded of it every time you climb into your bed at night and his not there and the resounding silence is your only companion. The fear of him not coming home, of never feeling his warmth again or the possibility of raising your children by yourself is painful pill to swallow.

Edward and I started dating when we were fifteen years old and I had known from the very beginning that Edward wanted to be a soldier. I had hoped he would change his mind once the time came. But Edward was committed to serving just like his father and brother. I had grown up with a father who served and a mother who had sacrificed everything to stand by him. I knew exactly what my future with Edward would be. But at the time I was too in love to care.

When Graduation rolled around, we faced the reality, that we were going to be miles away from each other. Edward would be at Fort Lee and I would be at Dartmouth. I had gotten a scholarship there and I was really looking forward to going. I didn't want to lose Edward, but the distance meant that we were never going to see each other. That night, at the high school graduation party, Edward asked me to come with him to Fort Lee. He said that if I stood by him while he lived out his dreams, he would do everything within his powers to make sure mine came true too. Then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. My love and fear of losing him clouded my judgment and the next day we were married at the local courthouse.

We didn't get a real wedding, but Edward promised that someday we would renew out vows and he would give me the wedding and honeymoon that I deserved. I didn't want a fancy wedding, but I would of liked my family and friends there. Due to Edward's basic training, we had to leave straight away. So Edward and I moved to Fort Lee and we have been there ever since.

We didn't get much of a chance to just enjoy being married, as Edward had to start training right away. So he trained and slept most of the time and I was left to make our home by myself. We hadn't even been married three months when Edward received his orders that in three weeks he was to be deployed. The night after his orders were issued, we found out I was pregnant. We hadn't planned on having a family this early, but sometimes life is funny that way.

Edward had needed me to be strong, but when he wasn't around I was absolutely terrified. Edward wasn't going to be here for any of it and I was out in the middle of nowhere, with no family or friends. I was going to be completely alone. Edward was so excited about being deployed. This was his dream for nearly eighteen years. It hurt me sometimes that he seemed more excited about being deployed, than he was about being a father.

When the day came that Edward deployed, I wanted to beg him to stay. To be here for me. But the look on Edwards face told me that this was what he wanted to do. What he needed to do. So I drew on all the strength that I had me and did the army wife duty. I smiled and told him I loved him, while I watched him leave on the bus that would be taking him to war.

For several weeks after his deployment, I didn't know what to do with myself. I was pregnant and alone. My husband of four months was over fighting a war and I didn't know if I would ever see him again. I was in a catatonic state by the third week, when a knock came at my door. Dragging myself out of bed, I slowly and cautiously answered the front door. Fear griped my whole heart. Would that be the men from the black car that would give me the news that my husband was dead already.

But standing beyond the door was not the men from the black car, but Edward's twin sister Alice and his sister in-law Rosalie. Jasper had been transferred here for his basic training and Emmett had requested a transfer to be close to his brother and sister. Things were better know that they were here. I didn't feel so alone anymore and it was good to have Alice and Rosalie around. They were two people who knew what I was going through. And over the years they had become my strongest support system.

I kept Edward updated of pregnancy through constant letters and the occasional phone call. As much was Edward loved being over there, he always became sad whenever I talked about anything that had to do with the baby. He wished that he could be there with me. I told him about the doctors appointments, the nursery and sent ultrasound photos of the baby. We debated baby names through short phone calls and long letters. I wanted to make sure that even though he was thousands of miles away, he was still very much a part of this. But no amount of phone calls and letters could replace the fact that my husbands was not here.

My pregnancy was not hard, but the labor was long and painful. My mother had flown down to stay with me during the last couple of months at the request of Edward. He didn't want me to be alone, just in case I went into labor. So with Alice, Rosalie and my mother by my side, I gave birth to our first born son. Anthony Charles Cullen came into the world weighing 7'4OZ. I tried to get through to Edward over there through the Army channels, but I ended up having to leave a message with one of his commanders who promised that he would pass the news onto Edward. Three days later Edward phoned.

Edward was gone for 14 months that first tour and Anthony was already 6 months old by the time Edward got to even hold him. Of course I sent photo graphs and let Edward talk over the phone into Anthony's ear, but that was only good enough for so long. When Edward returned once those 14 months were up, he was moody and surly all the time. He slept fitfully and for short periods of time. He would get angry over the smallest things and I would become the target for that misplaced anger.

One day I had enough and called my father to come down and talk to him. Two days later Charlie arrived and he proceeded to take Edward out for the day. I don't know where they went or what my father said to Edward, but when they came back Edward kissed me and apologized for the way he had been acting and just like that he was my Edward again.

Edward was home for two years after that, besides a couple of small missions in between that would last a week, sometimes two. But he was home for the most part. He was working as a recruiter on base and it meant that I got to have my husband back for while.

Nearly a year and half after Edward returned home and Anthony was 19 months old, we found out that I was pregnant again. Edward was over the moon with happiness. He had been on my back for sometime about having another baby. He didn't know how long before he would be returning to a second tour of duty and he wanted to be home for our second child for as long as he could. And for 5 months of my pregnancy he was.

Edward was convinced from the very beginning that we were having a girl this time. Edward had been wishing for a baby girl, from the moment that we started dating. He used to say that he wanted a daughter who looked just like me, with my brown hair and brown eyes. With Edward not being there for my first pregnancy, I doubted that his predictions had anything to do with the subtle differences in my pregnancies. I just put it down to blind hope.

We had been enjoying my pregnancy, until at five months along, Edward received his orders for deployment and once again I was faced with the reality that I was doing it alone again. I almost wished that he had been deployed from the very beginning and at least then I wouldn't know what it felt like to have him here. Like with Anthony, we phoned and sent letters and I kept him up to date with everything. But I never got used to the feeling of him being gone.

At 4.59AM, Billie Elizabeth Cullen joined the world. Edward's wish didn't come completely true. He got his daughter, yes, But instead of being brown haired and brown eyed, she was the spitting image of Edward. She had a mess of bronze hair and her eyes changed from blue to green after a couple of months. When Edward phoned, after I left my message with his commander, his joy and sadness was palpable.

Edward was gone for 18 months and my loneliness started to grow. Every day that Edward was gone, the more distance I felt growing between us. There was a time when Edward and I would talk and never run out of things to say to each other. But now we found that the silences over the phone were increasing. Billie was 13 months old when Edward came home. It broke my heart to see that my little daughter was afraid of her own father, no matter how many times she heard his voice over the phone or how many photo's of Edward I showed to her.

Over the next 6 years Edward was deployed two more times. His third tour lasted 9 months and his fourth was 14 months long. Three years after Billie was born I gave birth to our twin sons Matthew Rowan Cullen and William Michael Cullen. They were Edward's coloring, but one looked like me and the other Edward. Having the twins was particularity hard, due to Edward being stationed in some remote area in the middle of nowhere. Till this day I still don't know where he was and he doesn't know how much I struggled. After the twins were born I suffered from post natal depression and it took Alice and Rosalie to get me out of it.

They had wanted me to tell Edward, but I didn't want to worry him over there. Something like that can get a soldier killed. So I kept it to myself, like so many other things I kept from him to protect him. That's what we Army wives do, we hold the fort and protect our husbands.

But after eight years of this life, plus the eighteen years before that, where I endured the same with my father, I was tired. I was tired of being alone. Sometimes I felt that I was the only one in this marriage. Edward was gone so much of our marriage that there were times that I felt that my life wouldn't change all that much, if something did happen to Edward.

What kind of wife can say that? That there wouldn't be a change in there world if they lost there husband. I love my husband and wouldn't want anything to happen to him, but I was already doing everything on my own. What would change?

Where did it say in our fate together, that only Edward would get his dreams, that only he gets to have everything? I had dreams, I had aspirations. What happened to them? And what happened to the man that I fell in love who wanted me to have the world?

Just as I was contemplating this, I felt the shifting of the mattress underneath me. I just assumed it was one of the children, wanting to sleep in the big bed with mummy. But when a long body, pressed up against the length of back and my nose was assaulted with that Edward smell that I love, I knew instantly who it was.

I didn't know what to do our say. It had been so long and when we parted last it was not on good terms. Did he still love me? Could things get better for us? Would me and the kids ever come first with him? I couldn't answer those questions and I was always too afraid of the answer, if I ever gained the courage to actually ask them.

I felt his lips running up and down my shoulder and I couldn't help the pleasurable tingle that ran down my spine and into other places. But we needed to talk, not be physical. So I took a breath and turned around in his strong arms. Opening my eyes, they rested on a sight I hadn't seen in 14 months. Edward's face.

"Edward?"

And then he spoke the only words at that moment in time that could hope to bring me happiness.

"Hi Love, I'm home"

Lets just hope it lasts.