Writer's Note: I don't have a clue what I'm doing when it comes to short fiction, so thoughts/feedback/tips are much appreciated. Even if you just want to say you read and (hopefully) enjoyed the story, that's very much appreciated too! : )
Someone New
I
The hangar appeared in the distance, a flattened semicircle of white light that flared out, hazed at its edges and bled into the surrounding night, obscuring the stars that pinpricked the indigo sky above. The men fell silent. In the vacuum left by their voices, the engine droned, the tyres roared over the concrete and a jitter of excitement sparked in the air. The flight out had been filled with trash-talk and testosterone, posturing and bravado, but now, as the bus strained closer and closer on the final leg of their return journey from Aviano, they were boys again, shining with gratitude and hope.
That excitement didn't reach Henry though, and the fear he felt now was far greater than the fear he'd fought to hide when they'd left for Italy what felt like years, not months ago.
His wife was leaving him. Of that much he was certain. What he didn't know was why.
oOo
The shadow that sprawled across the base of the hangar dissolved into a cluster of black dots, then into the outlines of individuals—loved ones, all bobbing up onto tiptoe in an effort to catch that first glimpse of the men on the bus. The last time he'd been home on leave, Elizabeth had stood at the far edge of that crowd. An outlier. While the rest of the wives, mothers, fathers, siblings and children rushed forward the moment the bus door opened and engulfed the other men of his regiment, Elizabeth hung back and waited for him to come to her. She'd buried her hands in the pockets of her black woollen overcoat, and a cryptic smile played at the corners of her lips.
That smile should have been his warning.
He strode over to her, as quick as the fatigue that weighed down his muscles would allow, dropped his duffel bag to the ground with a heavy whump, and went to swamp her in his embrace.
But she stopped him with one hand to his chest, her fingertips spread into a star.
Before he had time to process what was happening or ask her if everything was okay, why she had stopped him, she slid her hand down to his waist, pulled him towards her, and leant in, so close that her breath fell in a hot ruffle against his cheek and the heady scent of her jasmine-laced perfume intoxicated him.
I'm not wearing any underwear, her whisper unfurled in the shell of his ear and shivered down his spine, and she slipped something into the pocket of his cammies.
With that, she was gone, sauntering her way towards the exit at the far side of the hangar, the hemline of her coat swaying with each step.
He stared after her for a long moment, his brain stuck on the brink between a stall and a free fall, and then he dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a slip of cobalt blue lace. The fabric was still warm…and damp. Evidently, planning her attack hadn't left her unaffected.
He stifled a groan. God, that woman was going to kill him.
Perhaps sensing that thought, she shot him a look over her shoulder, her eyes alight with an evil glint, and her pace quickened.
So that's how she wanted to play it?
Right then. Game on. He grabbed his bag and chased after her.
When he finally caught up with her in the parking lot and pinned her against the passenger door of her car, she squealed. He trapped her wrists at her sides and pressed himself against her, so she could feel just how unaffected he was, while he launched his own attack on her lips.
If it weren't for the security guard blinding them with a flashlight and warning them they needed to move on—Come on now, kids, no one wants to see that. There are littluns around.—he doubted they would have made it off the base.
Military base, that was. In high school parlance, they were heading straight to third.
The rest of that weekend was lost to a haze of sex. The only time either of them had worn any form of clothing was when she'd insisted that being naked in the kitchen was a health hazard—more so than the breakfast she intended to cook him. So, to save them from the perils of both, he'd donned an apron and sent her to wait in bed.
The end of leave came around all too quickly, as it always did.
I'm not crying, she said through her tears as they stood in the hangar once more, amidst the pods of families and couples who had gathered to say their goodbyes.
He brushed away those tears with the pad of his thumb, one side and then the other. Then he clung to her and cradled her head to his shoulder, both to comfort her and to hide his own tears as they threatened to spill out. Promise you'll write me every week.
She nodded against him. I promise.
And she did write him…at first.
But then something changed.
Every week became every two weeks, every two weeks became every four. The letters that used to be filled with details of her feelings and thoughts and their plans for when he finished this final tour were replaced with reports on the neighbours' cat, the availability of spaces at the Langley parking lot, how it had rained non-stop last Tuesday. The more he pushed—How are you? Tell me about your week. I don't care that the Wilsons' cat killed a squirrel, that someone someone stole Juliet's parking space, or that it rained in Virginia in May—the more vague and evasive she became.
Then finally, the letters stopped.
So, yes, his wife was leaving him. Of that much he was certain. What he didn't know was why.
oOo
The bus strained through a wide arc and turned onto the stretch of concrete that ran parallel to the hangar. The glow that spilled out from the open front of the building shone through the bus's windows on the side opposite to where Henry sat and it enveloped the men in white light and shadows. The men crowded the glass, so close that they fogged it with plumes of their breath. Some of them waved to family members they'd managed to pick out from the crowd; others murmured, perhaps to themselves, perhaps to those on neighbouring seats, That's my boy, that's Danny, as though they needed to say it out loud and have others bear witness to it in order for it to be true.
Normally, Henry would be amongst those men at the window, searching the hangar for Elizabeth, but now he wasn't sure he wanted to find her—to find what expression she would greet him with this time. Would she put on a face full of false cheer, peck him on the cheek and wait until they arrived home to tell him that they were done? Would she at least give him a chance to win her over again, knowing that there would be no more tours, no more active duty from now on? Or would she tell him straight away, return her rings, drop him off at a motel and let him know when he could come by to collect his belongings?
The bus groaned to a stop and gave one final lurch. The air brakes squeaked and hissed.
The other men grabbed their duffel bags from the metal rack overhead and flooded the aisle, waiting for the door to push out and slide to the side. The moment it did, the queue jostled forward and the excitement in the air turned to a teeming bustle. A few of Henry's buddies stopped to let him out as they filed towards the front, but Henry gave them a taut smile, shook his head and motioned for them to go first.
By the time he strode down the last step and onto the concrete, with the strap of his duffel bag slung over one shoulder and gripped tight in his fist, the rest of the regiment were wrapped in their loved ones' arms, sharing watery smiles and kisses and hoisting their kids onto their shoulders.
Henry halted at the entrance to the hangar and watched them for a long moment.
An ache bled through his chest.
He wanted that.
Not just the reunion, but the family and the future he and Elizabeth had planned.
That's why none of this made any sense. Elizabeth had talked non-stop about her hopes for their life together once he'd finished his final tour. Sometimes it felt like she used those words to mask her fears, as though the more she spoke about it, the more she forced that future towards a 'when' and away from an 'if', but that didn't make those words any less sincere—she wanted him to come home, she wanted those plans to come true. So what could possibly have happened while he'd been away to make her change her mind?
Had she met someone new?
He tried to silence the thought, but it continued to chip away beneath the surface of his consciousness, just as it had done for the last few months. Each time he managed to force it back down and seal the crack, it would find a new place to break through.
Life as a military wife had never been Elizabeth's dream, they both knew that, and there had been a time before they married and before he first deployed when he'd wondered if maybe it would be best for them to put things on hold. It wasn't that he wanted her to be with anyone else—the thought alone made him feel like someone had plunged a corkscrew through his heart—but he didn't want her to be on her own, worrying about him and waiting for him to come home. But Elizabeth had insisted she was all in, that he was the only man she wanted, military or not, and though she hated it whenever the time came for him to go away and he knew that she lived with the second-by-second fear that she would lose another person she loved, she had taken it in her stride, as she did every challenge that she faced.
No. He refused to believe that she would find comfort in the arms of another, especially when he was so close to returning home for good.
But then again…
His gaze drifted away from the men of his regiment and swept through the rest of the building, past the three boys who had escaped their mothers' arms and chased after a bright blue ball that bounced along the fringe of the crowd; past the row of hard plastic chairs someone had set out for those too old, too tired or too pregnant to stand; past the semicircle of electric heaters at the far edge of the room that churned out a steady wave of dry heat and fought off the November chill.
…what other reason could there be for her not showing up to welcome him home?
His wife had left him. Of that much he was certain. And maybe what he didn't want to know was why.
oOo
II
Henry tried his best to ignore the look the guards on the door gave him as he stepped through the exit alone and out into the parking lot behind the hangar. It wasn't their fault; they'd probably never seen a soldier leave on his own before. He didn't want their pity, though. Nor did he want to admit that without someone there to collect him and without any cash on him, he didn't have a clue how he was supposed to get home. Could he even go home? Or would he have to go back to Pittsburgh and put up with his father's smug smile and taunting chimes of 'I told you so'? He knew about the bets they'd placed on his and Elizabeth's wedding day. Just less than five years. That meant Maureen was due some winnings. It almost made him want to lie and say he and Elizabeth broke up before he left for Aviano—at least Shane would feel somewhat guilty about the money and would buy Henry enough beer to drown his sorrows. And maybe once he'd drunk his weight in beer, he'd be willing to sacrifice all his pride, call Elizabeth and beg for her to let him come home.
But maybe the 'someone new' would answer. What then?
He strode through the mist of white light that filtered down from the poles stationed every thirty feet or so, and headed towards the guard post in the middle of the wire mesh fence on the far side. All the parking bays nearest the hangar were occupied, but the further he walked, the more spaced out the cars became—one bay between each car, then two, then three, then four, until only the open expanse of concrete and the lamplit night stood between him and the guard post. He didn't know what he'd do once he reached the post, where he would go. Part of him felt like maybe he would wake up before then and he'd find himself back in the barracks at Aviano.
But the icy breeze that whistled across the parking lot and rattled the perimeter fence and bristled up the back of his neck felt too real for this to be a dream, and Elizabeth's letters, with their lightweight content, weighed heavy on his mind.
A car had pulled up on the other side of the guard post, its way blocked by the red and white striped barrier. For the flash of a moment, Henry hoped it might be Elizabeth, that she was simply running late. What with the demands of her job, especially with the events in Iraq over the last few months, it wasn't impossible. Maybe that's why she'd failed to write recently, too.
But it was a man's voice that shouted out of the driver's window, and work had never stopped her from writing him before.
At first the voice was an indistinct garble of sounds, the only intelligible thing being the frustration in the man's tone. But as Henry neared, the sounds coalesced into words that the driver continued to yell at the guard out of the open window.
"I'm his brother-in-law," the driver shouted.
"…" the guard replied.
"Elizabeth Adams McCord. I'm Will Adams."
"…"
"I know Adams is a common name, but in this case, we happen to have the same parents."
"…"
Henry stopped on the opposite side of the barrier to the car, engulfed in the glare from the headlights. He frowned, both at the brightness of the lights and at his brother-in-law.
What the hell was going on? What did it mean that Will had come instead of Elizabeth? And, more to the point, did he really want to admit to the guard that he was, in fact, related to Will?
But then Will glanced towards him, did a double take and stalled mid-shout at the guard, and then waved Henry over. "Henry! Get in." And that choice was taken out of his hands.
Henry's frown deepened. His grip on the strap of his duffel bag tightened so that the edge of the canvas dug into his palm, and he stayed a safe few strides away from the car. "What's happening?" he called out. "Where's Elizabeth?"
"Just get in," Will shouted, and he leant across the passenger seat and popped open the door.
Henry hesitated a second longer.
But then when the guard reached for his radio, squeezed the push-to-transmit buttons on either side and raised the microphone to his lips, 'Hey, Jon, we've got an incident…', Henry's pulse quickened with a flurry of alarm and he strode towards the barrier. He ducked beneath it, slung his duffel bag into the passenger-side footwell and climbed into the car. Elizabeth would never forgive him if Will got arrested, and who knew, maybe one Adams sibling might lead to the other.
He looked to Will. "Where's Elizabeth?"
With one arm slung behind the headrest of the passenger seat, Will twisted around and stared out the rear window while he sped the car backwards and then swung it through a tight arc so that they pulled out of the entrance to the base and onto the main road. He slammed on the brakes, shifted the car into first, and then raced off.
"Will?" Henry prompted, while Will cranked the car up through second, third, fourth.
"She's in hospital."
"What?" Henry's heart dropped. A chill prickled down his arms. "Is she all right?"
Will gave a slight shake of the head as though to dismiss Henry's concern. "She's fine." But a worried frown gripped his brow.
"What do you mean, she's 'fine'? If she's in hospital—"
Will shifted the car into fifth, and shot Henry a sideways glance. A glint lit his eyes. "You're about to become a father."
oOo
"She's pregnant?" Henry stared at Will, while through the driver's side window, highway barriers zipped past in flashes of luminous grey against the black backdrop. "How can she be pregnant?"
"Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much…" Will smirked.
Normally that smirk would have irritated Henry, enough for him to consider letting Elizabeth get a couple of jabs in before he called a timeout and hauled her off her brother, but right then his brain couldn't process anything as complex as irritation, or reaction, or thought—it was stuck on a loop, and a short one at that.
Elizabeth, pregnant, baby, baby, pregnant, Elizabeth.
Still he stared at Will. "She's really pregnant?"
"Last time I checked." Will glanced at the mirrors, up and to the left, flicked on the turn signal, and then pulled out into the passing lane. "Though, she won't be for much longer."
Henry's gaze drifted to the duffel bag wedged at his feet. The car bumped and lurched as it sped over a dip in the road. Elizabeth, pregnant, baby, baby, pregnant, Elizabeth.
He looked to Will again. "But…why didn't she say anything?"
Will shook his head slightly, while beyond him, the white flare of headlights strobed past the window. "She had a scare at the beginning, then there was something about not wanting to jinx it, and of course there was the whole thing about the fighter pilot needing to concentrate when he's in command of an aircraft at 40 000 ft, pushing Mach 2, not being distracted with worrying about her."
He shot Henry another glance. His tone and the look in his eye suggested it was a topic Elizabeth had lectured him on many times over the last several months.
Which meant that while he had been wondering why she hadn't written, worrying that she had found someone new, fearing what would await him when he returned home, she had been too scared to tell him about their baby for fear of being a distraction, of causing him to make a slip, of being the one to blame for losing him, and so she'd felt forced to go through everything on her own.
Henry's jaw tensed. "I should have been here."
"She said you'd say that." Will let the car drift back to the right. "She also said that when you're serving in the Marines, you can't just drop what you're doing, tell them you're finished with your tour and catch a flight back home, so it would have made no difference if you knew or not, all it would do is distract you…and you can't have a fighter pilot being distracted when he's in command of an aircraft at 40 000 ft, pushing Mach 2."
Henry stared distantly at his hand where it rested atop his knee and he nudged his wedding band with the tip of his thumb, causing it to tilt and glint. It was true: he couldn't have quit, packed his bags and come back home. And it was true: he would have been thinking and worrying about her to the point of distraction. But still…he should have been there.
Will's gaze grazed Henry's cheek a couple of times before he spoke. "She's happy, Henry. She's really happy." A smile lifted his tone. "And look at it this way, at least you were spared the wrath of morning sickness and pregnancy hormones. Now you can just enjoy being a father."
Being a father.
Being a father.
He was going to be a father.
Maybe Will was right. He was there now, and that's what mattered. He should just let it go.
But wasn't being there for the so-called wrath of morning sickness and pregnancy hormones, being there when she first thought she might be pregnant and when she received that positive result, being there when she had a 'scare' and feared she might lose their child, being there for all the other things he had missed out on and didn't even know about, part of becoming a father?
And if so, was a father really what he was about to become?
oOo
Adrenaline jittered through Henry's veins as he dodged and weaved his way through the handful of people who milled around the waiting area at the main entrance to the hospital, and hurried towards the reception desk that curved across the far end; it returned his thoughts to that same urgent loop as before—Elizabeth, pregnant, baby, baby, pregnant, Elizabeth—and it reduced the hospital to a blur of beige and bleach and fluorescent light. Will had dropped him outside the revolving door less than a minute ago and had gone to find somewhere to park—but not before reminding Henry that he'd better hurry if he wanted to make it there in time.
Henry came to a halt at the desk. He rested his hands against the ledge, leant his weight into them, and peered over the top at the grey-haired woman who sat on the opposite side.
"Hi. I'm looking for a patient. Elizabeth McCord. I was told she's giving birth."
The woman had been jotting down obscure symbols on a thick spiral-bound notepad, but when he spoke, she paused and looked up at him over the rims of her glasses. Her eyebrows arched as she studied his expression, then his fatigues, and then returned her gaze to his. "You the father?"
Henry was about to say 'yes', when a voice came from the seating area to his left.
"It's debatable."
Henry startled and spun around, only to find his father slouched in one of the hard plastic chairs near the middle of the row, his arms folded across his chest, his lips downturned in a somewhat bored expression.
That was another reason to hurry: Will had warned him that his mother was currently with Elizabeth and that his father was lurking somewhere inside.
His father shrugged, utterly nonchalant. "Well, it's either him or the UPS guy."
Henry stared at his father for a long second, a frown creeping to his brow, and then he turned back to face the receptionist. "I'm her husband. Where is she?"
A woman in pale pink scrubs guided Henry through the labyrinth of corridors, double door after double door, and then pressed her pass to a sensor on the wall and let them onto the maternity ward with a low bleep from the sensor followed by the clunk of the lock disengaging. She handed him over to another woman, in lilac scrubs this time, who dragged the capped end of a ballpoint pen down the column of a chart, murmuring to herself, "Elizabeth McCord, Elizabeth McCord," before she dumped the clipboard atop the desk and beckoned him to follow her. She strode towards a room at the far side, twisting around to speak over her shoulder as she walked. "She's just this way."
The woman rapped her knuckles against the door on the right, waited half a second, and then pushed it open just enough that she could lean through the gap. "Elizabeth…your husband's here."
"Thank God." Elizabeth's voice shot through the doorway, followed by a deep, elongated groan. "Now will you please send him in so that I can kill him?"
The woman gave Henry a warm smile, as though she hadn't heard the death threat, or she had heard it but thought it perfectly normal, and she motioned for him to go inside.
Henry hesitated, not quite sure if he wanted to go inside or what might await him.
When he did venture into the room, he found Elizabeth knelt on the bed, facing away from him, the too-bright glare of hospital lights blazing down on her from above. She clutched the top of the bed's upright back, her forehead rested to the gap between her hands, her long hair scooped up into a messy ponytail-bun, though countless sweat-straggled strands had escaped and plastered themselves to her neck. She turned her head to the side, just enough that she caught his eye, and then she reached out one hand, and her fingers clawed at the air, beckoning for him.
"Henry…"
He got the feeling he ought to do something, soothe her somehow, perhaps take over from his mother and rub her lower back, maybe just offer her his hand to crush. Saying 'hi' would be a start. But the whole thing felt so surreal. A couple of hours ago he had been on a military plane flying across the Atlantic, certain that his wife was going to leave him; now, he found himself stood at the edge of a delivery room, about to witness his wife give birth to their child, a child he hadn't even known existed.
The mental whiplash left him frozen, his mind drifting in a fog of silence.
"Another contraction, Elizabeth." A woman in navy blue scrubs, presumably Elizabeth's doctor, studied the waveform on the monitor at the bedside and then returned to Elizabeth. "I want you to push again, just like you did before."
Elizabeth turned away from Henry, buried her face against the top of the bed and clung so tight to the foam mattress that her knuckles sprang in white peaks through her skin. She let out a groan, followed by a series of pants, and then another long groan, far more strained this time.
"I can't do it." She slumped forward against the back of the bed. "I can't do it. I can't do it. You need to make it stop. Henry, tell them I can't do this."
But Henry couldn't tell anyone anything. His mouth had turned dry, possibly from hanging open, and his mind was vast in its blankness. He continued to stare at his wife, until—
"Henry!" Elizabeth cried out.
He tore his gaze away from her and forced it towards the doctor. His throat caught as he swallowed. "Can't you do something? Can't you give her something? For the pain?"
The doctor shook her head, her focus on the monitor. "It's too late for that."
Henry's mother shot him a look, her eyebrows arched, and she said in an exaggerated aside, "Someone thought that crossing her legs and not telling anyone she was having contractions was an effective way of making sure the baby wouldn't arrive before you did."
Elizabeth whimpered. "Please make it stop."
Henry wasn't sure whether she was talking about the pain or his mother. Either way, he didn't know what to do. He hadn't been to classes or read books or prepared for any of this, and though he knew Elizabeth would probably prefer his mother wasn't present for the birth, he didn't want to send her away. Not when that would mean he would be left to deal with this on his own.
"You're doing well, Elizabeth," the doctor said, her voice loud and low and slow, as though she were speaking to a foreigner. "Focus, and with a few more pushes, Baby will be out."
"You said that an hour ago," Elizabeth moaned into the mattress.
Henry's mother turned to the doctor while she continued to rub tight circles across Elizabeth's lower back. "You know, I barely had to push with my Erin. Just one go and she slipped right out."
"Good for you, Linda," Elizabeth said through gritted teeth, "but my uterus hasn't had the chance to practise with three others."
His mother's hand stilled and she gave Elizabeth an unimpressed look. "Well, if you stopped griping and groaning so much and just focused on pushing, you'd have this baby out no problem."
"What the hell do you think I've been doing for the past God knows how long?"
"Complaining." His mother paused for emphasis, and she eyed Elizabeth like she had eyed Henry so many times before, when he had grumbled over his chores as a child. "And if you keep up all this noise and don't push that baby out, you'll find yourself having a C-section."
"I could section you right about now," Elizabeth muttered.
"Another contraction, Elizabeth," the doctor said as she watched the waveform on the monitor. "Now, I want you to take all that anger and channel it into your pushes, okay?"
Elizabeth braced herself against the back of the bed. Her face twisted with effort and pain as she pushed and pushed and pushed and another strangled groan escaped her. Meanwhile, Henry stood at the side of the room, as far away from the bed as possible.
The doctor coached Elizabeth through, contraction after contraction, while Henry's mother alternated between goading jibes and bursts of encouragement.
Still, Henry watched on in silence.
Part of him knew that at some point he would regret this moment, regret that he had stood there and done nothing, not held her hand, not stroked her hair, not shared kisses between contractions. But right then, he found himself too numb to do anything about it. If anything, he wished he had arrived an hour later—or the baby an hour sooner. Not just because he hated to see Elizabeth in pain, hated himself for being the cause and having no solution, but because maybe that way he wouldn't have felt so detached, so lost, so…redundant.
At last, there came a cry. An indignant squalling sound that cut through everything else.
And, just like that, he became someone's father.
oOo
III
"Hey, I need you to watch her a minute while I call Juliet."
Henry had been staring out through the condensation that fogged the window, watching the father and son in the parking lot across the street as they hauled a Christmas tree down from the roof of their car, their faces flushed from cold and effort, their breath puffing out in great white billows from beneath the cocoons of their scarves, but at Elizabeth's voice coming from behind him, he flinched and twisted around and his gaze darted back and forth across the living room until it landed on Elizabeth, crouched before him, nestling the baby into the centre of the plush, red play mat that had taken over the room.
Elizabeth tapped the baby on the end of its nose, then chuckled to herself as its eyes widened and its arms flung out in a startle. "You, be good for Daddy."
She staggered to her feet and brushed her hands down against her sweatpants. Well, his sweatpants. Those had been taken over, too. Then she turned towards their bedroom, ready to walk away and leave him alone with the baby.
"Wait. What?" Henry said, the words sharp, thrust out by the surge of panic that had seized his chest. "No. I can't. I'm—"
He halted. I'm staring out the window? I'm wishing I were back at the barracks at Aviano? I'm looking for any excuse not to be left alone with our child?
"I thought you were on maternity leave."
"I am," Elizabeth called over her shoulder as she strode away. "But, turns out, all those would-be terrorists didn't get the memo." She shot him a sharp smile.
"Elizabeth, no, wait—"
"I'll be ten minutes tops." She stepped into the bedroom and closed the door.
The silence that followed echoed.
Henry's heart thudded against the wall of his chest and pulsed through his ears.
On the mat, the baby squirmed.
He eyed it warily and stuck close to the window, while the draught that escaped around the edges of the glass prickled up the back of his neck and shivered through his shoulders. It wasn't that he hadn't been alone with the baby at all since they'd come home from the hospital. Of course there had been times when Elizabeth needed to pop to the bathroom or disappear for a quick shower. But he'd never been alone with the baby while it was awake before. And now that he was, it felt like it was a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off, and when it did, he didn't know what he was supposed to do.
He couldn't actually admit that, though. Not without sounding more than a little ridiculous: he could fly a fighter jet, he could override a navigation system at 40 000 ft, he could make a split-second decision and recover from an uncontrolled roll when there was no room left to bail, but he didn't know how to look after his own child.
Didn't know how to love his own child…
Perhaps it was because it still didn't feel real, like he'd been wading through this bizarre dreamscape ever since Will had given him the news. He had hoped that maybe things would be easier once they got home, maybe things would start to feel more normal and he would adapt, but if anything, coming home to find boxes of diapers stacked all over their apartment, piles of freshly laundered baby clothes in the dresser where his clothes used to go, an array of gifts from family and friends scattered throughout the living room, had just made things worse. This whole world had been going on without him knowing anything about it and suddenly he was thrust to the centre of it.
The baby continued to wriggle on the mat, its tiny legs flailing while it gnawed on its fist.
Surely he was supposed to find it cute or feel some kind of affection towards it, but he felt about as attached to it as he would a baby that they found abandoned on their doorstep. Maybe less so, seeing as this particular little bundle of joy came with a heavy dose of inadequacy and guilt.
He watched it for a while, still staying close to the window. It flung one arm up above its head while it sucked and chomped on the fingers of the opposite hand, and it turned its head from side to side, its movements becoming more and more agitated as the seconds dragged on.
Surely it must have been ten minutes by now.
But then the baby whimpered, and a fresh wave of panic flooded his chest, rather than the spark of warmth he'd hoped to find.
Please don't let it cry. Please don't let it cry.
The baby's face twisted up, its eyes scrunched shut, its lip quivered…
Please don't—
Then came the wail.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He stared towards the bedroom.
He waited.
He waited.
He waited.
But the door didn't open and Elizabeth failed to emerge.
Still the baby cried, the sound more shrill and persistent with each second that passed.
He had to do something. But what?
He crouched down at the edge of the play mat and stared at the baby while his mind raced at a frantic rate. Was it wet? Did it smell? Did it not like being left on its own?
He eased himself forward onto his hands and knees, planning to unsnap the fastenings on its romper and check its diaper, but as soon as he neared, its cry turned to a scream, so loud that its face flushed crimson and its tongue trembled.
He shrank back, his hands held up like he were being robbed at gunpoint, while the bedroom door clattered open and Elizabeth hurried through.
"I didn't do anything," he said, as she rounded the end of the couch, her gaze fixed on the squalling infant, which was still balling its fist at its mouth. "I swear I didn't do anything. I just— I thought—"
Elizabeth squatted down and scooped up the baby so that she held its head to her shoulder, her other hand wrapped beneath its bottom. "You are a man of many talents, Henry McCord, but lactating isn't one of them."
Then she settled into the armchair opposite him, and with the baby cradled across her chest, she lifted up the hem of her t-shirt and unfastened the clasp at the top of the cup on her nursing bra, exposing her breast. The baby stopped crying, snuggled against her, and immediately latched on.
She smiled down at it and stroked its cheek with the back of one finger, her eyebrows raised, widening her eyes, as she cooed, "Is that better? Were you trying to tell Daddy you were hungry?"
So that's what it wanted: Its mother.
The realisation sank over him with such weight it felt like he'd been plunged to the bottom of a leaden ocean, and as he watched the two of them together, totally absorbed in one other, he couldn't help but think that maybe Elizabeth would be better off if she had left him. Maybe she didn't need him. Maybe he just wasn't cut out to be a father.
oOo
"It doesn't like me." Henry lay on his back, staring at the shadows that flickered across the ceiling. The words that had been crawling at the back of his mind escaped in a murmur and they drifted up into the darkness like a wisp of grey smoke spiralling away into clouded skies.
Silence followed, interrupted only by the soft snuffle of the baby from the bedside sleeper that pushed up against and opened onto Elizabeth's side of the bed, and for a moment, he thought maybe Elizabeth hadn't heard him, maybe she'd fallen asleep the second her head touched the pillow—he could understand that seeing as feeding the baby every two or three hours, night and day, day and night, ever since it arrived had left her sleep-deprived.
But then her voice drifted up too, a low mumble.
"She's a baby; she doesn't like anything yet. Just milk and boobs."
Henry shot her a sideways glance. She lay on her back as well, her eyes closed, her hair fanning across the pillow, her skin almost luminous with the moonlight that slunk in around the edges of the curtains. He let his gaze linger on her.
"She likes you," he said.
"Once again…" She wafted one hand, gesturing vaguely to her chest. "…milk and boobs."
"I'm serious, Elizabeth." The words burst out, his tone far harsher than he intended.
Elizabeth startled. Her shoulders jumped, her eyes blinked wide and her hand groped across the covers towards where the baby slept. When that split-second of panic had settled, she turned her head to face him. A worried frown pinched the middle of her brow and her gaze skittered back and forth, darting along every line of his expression.
He pursed his lips and bit down on the inside of his cheek. Hard. Then, when a hint of pity crept into her eyes and her lips parted over unspoken words, he rolled away from her, onto his side, and clutched the covers around him as he stared distantly at the wall. The alabaster paint had turned grey-blue in the dim light and a black crack fractured the surface.
Seconds passed. Then the mattress shifted behind him, as though Elizabeth had eased herself up to sitting and braced her hand against the bed, the heel of her palm pressed into the mattress. Her gaze prickled over him and caused the back of his neck to tense.
He imagined her chin dipping, the curtain of her hair quivering as she shook her head and said, "Maybe if you tried spending some time with her, maybe if you tried holding her—"
"She cries whenever I go anywhere near her."
"That's not true. You're just not used to each other yet, that's all."
"And whose fault's that?"
He regretted the words the moment they thrust themselves from his mouth. But he clung to the anger behind them. It felt easier somehow. Easier to blame her, easier to blame the baby.
There came a small clunk as Elizabeth swallowed, the sound magnified to echoing proportions in the stillness of the night. The mattress trembled as she shook her head again. "I never wanted you to feel left out, I just didn't want you to—"
"To worry. I know." Fighter pilot, 40 000 ft, pushing Mach 2, one ill-timed manoeuvre…
He took a deep breath and willed the irritation that festered in his chest to settle.
It didn't, though. Instead, it seethed and swelled and bubbled over again.
"I thought you were leaving me, Elizabeth, I thought I didn't have a home to come back to, and then I get here and find out you're having a baby, literally giving birth to a child that I didn't even know about."
"I know it wasn't ideal—"
"Ideal?" He scoffed.
"What did you want me to do, Henry? Not have her…? Risk losing you…?"
He stared at the wall. The rational part of him knew that she was right—even agreed with her decision, especially when everything she'd done had only been to stop herself from losing another person she loved, to make sure that he returned to her and their daughter. But right then, rational eluded him, and he muttered, as sullen as a scolded child, "You promised you'd write me."
"I did write you—"
"Oh sure. About parking spaces and the weather and cats with squirrels."
Her whisper strained. "And will you keep your voice down?"
"Why?"
"Because she's sleeping," she said. "As should I be. Especially seeing as you won't so much as hold her, let alone help me look after her, so I have to do everything by myself."
"You've done all right so far."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He said nothing, just stared at the wall.
"Henry?"
Still nothing.
"Henry…talk to me." She laid a tentative hand against his shoulder.
He flinched away her touch.
The mattress shifted behind him again, as though she had retreated, recoiling at his rejection.
He stared at the crack in the wall for a moment longer, his gaze running along the fracture lines as though seeking out their source, and then he tossed back the covers, swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and strode towards the door.
"Henry?" she called after him.
He stopped in the doorway. He turned his chin towards his shoulder, but not enough for her and the baby to be any more than a shadow at the periphery of his vision.
"Maybe you'd be better off without me. Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a father."
oOo
Henry perched at the edge of the bed in the spare room, his head in his hands, his back to the door. He'd switched on the lamp that crowded the bedside table, but the bulb was old and dim and the light it cast drew the shadows that lurked around the fringes of the room closer somehow. He'd always wanted a family, he'd always wanted to be a father. People said they could feel things in their bones, but that desire permeated his heart, his body, his soul. And meeting Elizabeth had only strengthened his conviction. He'd never truly felt like he belonged in his family, and Elizabeth had lost her family far too young, but together they could make a family of their own—a fresh start. He would support his wife and children in ways that his father never had, he would make sure Elizabeth was surrounded so that she'd never be alone again.
Yet when Elizabeth had given him that family, when she had made him a father, he'd walked out.
Sure, he'd only made it as far as the spare room, but that had more to do with the fact that all his clothes were stuffed in storage crates at the bottom of their closet and that he had nowhere else to go than it did with him actually wanting to be there.
He wanted to want to stay, he wanted to want to look after the baby. But for some reason, it just wasn't clicking. He didn't feel that warmth that he ought to feel when he looked at their daughter, and when he looked at Elizabeth and saw how she'd grown into being a mother, how she'd become this new person, so capable and so deserving of a good partner, it made him feel like a failure.
The door creaked open behind him, and the bottom edge of the wood scuffed an arc across the carpet. Footsteps pad, pad, padded through the room, around the end of the bed. Then the mattress dipped as Elizabeth sat down beside him. She held a manila folder in her lap, her fingers wrapped around the open side. Someone had emblazoned a red ink stamp 'CLASSIFIED' across the front and it was so crammed full of documents that the cover strained to contain them all.
She was going to tell him someone had called, she was going to tell him she had to go into work, she was going to tell him she needed him to look after the baby, and he'd have no choice but to let them both down again. — The thoughts whipped up a panic that caused his chest to flitter and tighten, like his heart were a hummingbird tangled in a net.
But she didn't.
Instead, she laid her hand against his knee and spoke softly, her head turned towards him and her gaze seeking out his own. "I never wanted you to miss out on any of this. And I really don't want you to miss out on everything that comes next." She tilted her head, gesturing to the file. "This is for you. I haven't had time to finish it yet, and I was going to stick it in a book or an album or something, but you know I've never been that organised. Plus—" Her shoulders shimmied upwards in a kind of shrug. "—the stamp sorta feels apt."
She held out the folder for him, the thick wedge of documents bowing away from her grasp. When he just stared at it, not quite sure what he was supposed to do with it, she twisted around and placed it behind them instead. Then she turned back to face him.
"I love you." She squeezed his knee. "And I know you'll make an amazing father if you just give yourself a chance."
She paused for second, perhaps waiting to see if he would respond, and then she squeezed his knee again and pushed herself up from the bed.
Rather than walking away and retreating to their bedroom as he expected, she stood in front of him and leant in until the talcy waft of baby powder and the almost sweet scent of her milk laced his every breath, and her words ticked his cheek as she whispered, "I told you I'd write you."
With that, she drew back, clutched his head in both hands and kissed his crown. Then she padded away again. A moment later, the door closed with a scuff and a soft click.
He twisted around and stared at the door for a long second, not quite sure what had just happened, why she hadn't told him he was right—she didn't need him—and that he should collect his things and leave.
Eventually, his gaze drifted down to the file. What did she mean it was for him?
He gripped the bottom corner of the cover between forefinger and thumb. Then stopped. His gaze flicked up to the door once again, as though he expected her to reappear—or the FBI; after all, it was marked 'classified'. When no one busted down the door, he peeled back the cover to reveal the first document: a narrow-ruled sheet of paper covered in line after line of Elizabeth's cursive handwriting. The date at the top said she had written it several weeks after he had left for Italy.
Dear Henry, I'm pregnant! I guess this is what you get when your husband hasn't seen you in months and you greet him by telling him you're not wearing any underwear… That was fun, though. The morning sickness not so much. So, where to begin? I'd been feeling off for a few days and I thought I'd caught that bug that's been going around, but then when I had to run out of a meeting and puke in a cardboard box in the supply closet, that's when Juliet suggested…
He thumbed through several pages, his frown deepening as he delved further into the folder.
Dear Henry, I had my first proper doctor's appointment today. I know that writing it all down like this isn't the same as you being here and I know how much you would want to be here—I want you to be here, too—but I thought sharing it all with you might help. It helps me, talking to you like this. The appointment was pretty basic. We started with a few questions about my general health, and that was all okay, but then when we moved on to family history, I found that more challenging. I answered everything as best I could, but I kept thinking about how my parents will never get to meet her—I feel like she's a she—and that made me feel…
He thumbed through a few pages more until he came across one where the writing stopped halfway down, the paper crinkled and warped as though droplets of water had fallen on it, soaked into the fibres and then dried.
Dear Henry, I started bleeding today. I don't know what else to say. I was at work when it happened. Juliet came to the hospital with me. The nurse said that I'm young and that there'll be others. But I don't want others—I want this one. And there won't be any others if you don't make it home. They all think it's just expendable, that I should just get over it and move on and not care and I'll have another one and that will replace her and I'll forget that I lost our baby…
The writing dissolved into a rambling mess, the words illegible, due both to the frantic pace at which she must have written them and to the ink that had smudged as the side of her hand swept her tears across the page.
He turned over to the next letter.
Dear Henry, This morning they found a heartbeat. I think my heart almost stopped when they told me that. Dr Miller said my blood tests were good, too. She thinks things are going to be okay, she says we can be 'cautiously optimistic'. You know I never pray, not anymore, but I found myself praying today. I know that's what you would do…
He flicked through several pages more.
Dear Henry, We just heard that a plane went down. I'm terrified Conrad's going to come in here any minute and tell me that it's you, or that I'm going to get home and there's going to be someone waiting at our door. I can't go through that again. I can't bury another person I love. I need you. Our baby needs you. So please, please, please don't let it be you…
He gripped the bottom corner of a thin wad of pages and turned them over.
Dear Henry, I felt her kick today. It's so strange. You can see her little foot poking out from my stomach. I'm getting fat, by the way. Juliet's thrilled. She wasn't so thrilled when I pointed out that at least I have the excuse that I'm growing another human being. She still agreed to take a photo of the bump each week, though. I thought you might like to see how…
He gripped another wad, much thicker this time, and jumped ahead again.
Dear Henry, Socks are now officially a struggle. You'd laugh if you could see me. I wish you were here to laugh at me. And to help me. I can't wait for you to come home. And I can't wait to see the look on your face when you see the bump. So long as you don't pass out or have a heart attack or something. That wouldn't be good. I had another appointment today. I think Dr Miller is getting tired of me asking her to repeat things so that I can take notes for you. But I don't want you to miss out on any of this…
He thumbed through to the letter at the end.
Dear Henry, I can't believe there's just a week left until I see you. I swear she can tell what I'm thinking, because every time I think of you, she kicks. And I know that's impossible, but I thought it impossible that I'd ever have a family again, and now I do, thanks to you. I can't wait for you to meet her. I know this isn't how we planned to start our family, and I wish you'd been here to experience all of this with me, but having her with me the last several months, knowing that I'm carrying a piece of you, has helped me more than I can explain. I can't wait for us to start the rest of our lives together, for us to be together, the three of us…
Henry stopped.
He eased himself onto the bed until his back rested against the hard oak of the headboard and his legs stretched out in front of him. Then he pulled the folder into his lap. He flipped back to the beginning and read through the letters one by one, taking time to absorb each and every word, to run his fingertips over the fallen teardrops and the subtle ridges left by the pen, to stop and study the photographs that Elizabeth had slotted in between the pages—one for each week, just like she'd promised.
She'd written a letter for every day, every appointment, every event big and small. (A few weather-cat-parking lot letters dated from the last months of his tour had ended up in there too, rather than being sent to the base in Aviano, and she complained enough about 'pregnancy brain' in the other letters for him to surmise that that might have been the cause.) Reading about those nine months wasn't the same as living them—no words would ever capture the moment she first felt their baby kick, would ever enable him to experience the sensation of a tiny foot or fist prodding against his palm—but somehow, witnessing her thoughts and feelings and hopes and the details of each day made him feel closer both to her and to the pregnancy, each sentence a secret that the two of them alone shared, and realising that she had carried him in her thoughts, just like she carried their daughter, and that through those letters she had leant on him, made him feel present, like in some form he'd been there for her throughout it all even though he'd been away.
By the time he finished the final letter, the sunlight that flooded in around the edges of the curtains was so bright that it drowned out the glow of the bedside lamp, and the echo of her last words, 'Yours always, Elizabeth', died away and gave rise to a silent spaciousness of mind that he hadn't experienced since before he first thought she might be leaving him for someone new. Though the baby must have stirred several times during the night, he'd been too absorbed in reading about the journey from that first bout of morning sickness to her birth to hear her. He could hear the sound of Elizabeth's laugh now, though. A chuckle. Then silence. Then another chuckle. Over and over.
He placed the file down on the bed and then eased his legs over the edge of the mattress and padded across to the door. He followed the sound of Elizabeth's laughter all the way to the living room, and then stopped behind the couch and watched her and their daughter.
Elizabeth had laid the baby down on the plush, red play mat at the centre of the room and she sat on the carpet beside her. The baby kicked her legs and flailed her arms, her expression so serious and intent, but the moment Elizabeth placed her hand on the baby's tummy, the baby froze and her nostrils flared and her eyes widened, only for her to start kicking and flailing again the second Elizabeth lifted her hand. Elizabeth chuckled to herself each time, and Henry got the sense she would play that game all day if their daughter let her.
He continued to watch them for a while, until Elizabeth paused with her hand starred against the baby's tummy and then twisted around and smiled up at him. After a second, her smile softened and she tilted her head towards the space next to her, inviting him to join them.
He hesitated for a moment, that first lick of panic flaring in his chest once again. But then he remembered Elizabeth's words 'give yourself a chance'—And didn't Elizabeth and their daughter deserve that chance, too?—and so he eased closer. He sat down next to Elizabeth at the edge of the play mat, his gaze fixed on their daughter. The baby stared back at him, (or in his direction, at least), her eyes a crisp blue-grey, just like her mother's.
"You okay?" Elizabeth asked.
Henry nodded.
A second passed.
"Here," Elizabeth said.
She took hold of his hand, gently, like she were dealing with a horse that easily spooked, and then she guided it to where her other hand rested, so that his hand lay on top of her hand and her hand lay atop the baby's tummy. She looked to him again, checking that he was doing all right so far, while he continued to stare at the baby.
"Ready?" she said.
He nodded again, though he wasn't quite sure if he was.
Then she eased her hand free from beneath his so that his fingertips brushed against the soft cotton of the romper, and for the first time since she was born, he was touching their daughter.
He froze, perfectly still, and then he swirled his fingertips gently over the baby's tummy, drawing small circles as he watched her. "Was your mommy teasing you?"
He stilled, and then lifted his hand, and instantly the baby started kicking and flailing again. He smiled to himself, and then let out a small chuckle. He had to admit, it was kind of funny.
His expression sobered and he looked to Elizabeth. "Can I…?"
She smiled and nodded.
He shifted onto his knees, leant forward and carefully lifted the baby from the mat, just like he'd seen Elizabeth do so many times before, and then he nestled her against his shoulder, one hand supporting her bottom, the other cradling the back of her head. With her settled against him, he closed his eyes and breathed in her scent—she smelt of calm and talc and clean cotton—and as he did, his heart warmed and melted and reformed all over again.
He held her close for what felt like hours, letting her softness and warmth and scent soak in.
When he opened his eyes, he found Elizabeth perched on the couch in front of him, holding a plastic bottle fitted with a rubber teat and half-filled with milk.
"I expressed some earlier," she said. "I thought you might like to try feeding her, seeing as how much she loves milk and boobs and all."
He smoothed one hand over Stevie's back, his gaze fixed on Elizabeth, while tears pricked at the corners his eyes. "You're incredible. You know that?"
Her shoulders wriggled upwards in a shrug and she tried to rein back her smirk—with little success. "Well…it has been said…"
He gave a small huff of a laugh that caught in his throat. He swallowed, but his voice still came thick. "I'm going to do better. I'm going to be better. For both of you."
"I don't know," she said. "I think you're already pretty incredible just as you are."
She placed the bottle of milk down by her feet, eased off the edge of the couch, and kneeling before him, she dabbed away his tears with the cuff of her sweater sleeve. Then she cupped his face in both her hands and drew him in for a gentle kiss, as sweet as the scent of their baby girl.
"Welcome home, Henry."
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