I was living out of a duffle bag and sleeping on a mattress on the floor, which was pretty pathetic at age thirty-four, but I still wasn’t sure where I was going to end up ultimately, so I didn’t see the point in buying a bunch of furniture.
Sometimes I wasn’t sure I saw the point in much of anything.
In the kitchen, I set the plate on the counter, reached beneath the foil for another cookie, and shoved it in my mouth before deciding maybe I’d take a run before eating dinner, then lift a little. Mack had given me an old bench of his and a few weights, which I kept in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
I changed into running clothes, traded my work boots for Nikes, and scarfed one last cookie before taking off. Starting off at an easy jog down the sleepy small-town road I lived on, I thought for a moment about all the things I’d missed like crazy while I’d been deployed.
Sweets. Steak. Snow. Sex. Things that at one point had made me glad to be alive. Things that had kept me going through horrible loss and bone-crushing exhaustion and not knowing if the next step I took would be my last.
When my first four years were up, I’d gone home and reveled in the novelty of all of it—the home-cooked meals, the sting of winter in my lungs, the softness of a woman’s body beneath mine—for about a week.
After that … nothing. Life was flat. Colorless. Quiet.
I missed the adrenaline. The life-or-death rush. The danger.
I missed the powerful sense of responsibility I felt for my buddies and the knowledge they had my back.
I missed the certainty in knowing who I was—a United States Marine—and what I was supposed to do—serve and protect.
It’s not that I didn’t attempt normalcy. I did.
I got a job. I married a girl. I bought a house. But I still didn’t feel alive.
So I went back.
As I pumped my legs harder, lengthening my strides and picking up the pace, I wondered how different my life would have been if I’d just stayed home and worked harder to fit in. Would I be a different person? Would my marriage have survived? Would I be a father? Would Sunday afternoons be spent grilling burgers, drinking a beer with the neighbors, watching our kids run through the sprinklers?
I tried to imagine it but couldn’t. That life wasn’t meant for someone like me, someone who’d made the choices I’d made, done the things I’d done.
The second time I came home, my life fell apart fast.
Over and over again I’d apologized to Brie, who’d felt abandoned when I re-enlisted, betrayed when I returned a different man, and angry at my inability to “get over it and move on.”
I took the blame, stood there silently while she screamed at me to fucking say something when she told me she was in love with someone else and wanted a divorce.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked.
“How you feel!” she yelled. “I just fucking told you I’ve been cheating on you for the last year and a half and you’re standing there like it doesn’t even matter to you!”
“Maybe it doesn’t.”
Her mouth dropped open and her cheeks flared red. Then she crossed the kitchen in three angry strides and slapped me hard across the face. “You’re a heartless fucking bastard. You never loved me. You’re not capable of love.”
I flipped the switch and the scene went dark in my head. I pushed myself to run even faster. I concentrated on the rhythm of my feet hitting the road, the tightness of my muscles, the quickness of my breath.
The truth was, losing Brie hadn’t really mattered to me. I’d felt nothing when she walked out the door, and I didn’t miss her once she was gone.
That’s how I knew she was right about me.
Five
Stella
I spent Monday morning rescheduling clients with individual sessions during the week and securing other therapists to run my group sessions. At noon, I grabbed a sandwich and cup of coffee from Starbucks and hit the road.
Hadley Harbor was a small bayside town in Leelenau County. In the summertime, the population swelled with tourists and what Grams called “summer people,” but by fall, it was pretty much dead. The area was picturesque, dotted with farms and vineyards and evergreens, and the foliage was beautiful. The highway bordered the western edge of Grand Traverse Bay for a while, and the water glittered in the afternoon sun. As I approached Grams’s small town, I was inundated with childhood memories of visiting my grandparents during the summertime and begging my mom and dad to stop the car so we could get out and swim as soon as we saw the water.
I pulled up to the curb in front of the house just after four o’clock, and nostalgia washed over me again. It seemed like only yesterday I was jumping out of the car and running up her front porch steps or zipping around the house to beat my sisters to the swing that used to hang from the branches of a birch tree in the yard.
Today, I moved a little slower as I pulled my small suitcase up the front walk and took in the house’s familiar appearance. It actually looked pretty good—I’d been a little nervous driving up that Grams’s questionable mental state might mean the house and yard had been neglected. But other than some peeling paint and perhaps a slight tilt to the entire front porch (to be expected on a house nearing a hundred years old), her home looked as welcoming as always, and the front yard looked beautiful. The leaves had been raked, the grass recently cut, the rose bushes pruned.
The front door was open and I knocked twice on the old wooden screen door before pushing it open. It creaked, and the familiar sound made me smile, as did the delicious smell of something savory in the oven. “Grams?”
“Stella?” she called from the back of the house. “Is that you, dear?”
“It’s me.” I let the door shut behind me and looked around the living room. Same flowered sofa and faded red easy chairs. Same cherry wood tables. Same parade of photos on the mantel and bookshelves. While everything had a slightly shabby look to it, I saw no layers of dust on the furniture or other signs Grams couldn’t keep house any longer. There were even fresh flowers in a vase on the coffee table.
“Well, hello!” Grams came into the room with her arms open and I went into them. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.”
I embraced her small frame—I’d been taller than Grams since the sixth grade—and though she felt tiny, she didn’t necessarily feel frail. Her hug was as strong as ever. When she let me go, I took her hands and gave her a quick inspection. Her color was good, her eyes were clear, her smile was genuine. “You look good.”
“Thank you, dear.” She looked me over too, from head to foot. “Did you bring anything other than blue jeans to wear?”
I laughed. “Why? Are we going someplace fancy?”
“No, no.” She laughed merrily and shrugged. “You know me, I’m old fashioned and I like to see a lady in ladies’ clothing.”
I rolled my eyes and reminded myself she was ninety-two—from another generation entirely. Her beliefs about men and women were not the same as mine. “I have other clothing. Do you want me to change now?” I teased.
“Well, maybe.” She sized me up. “You have such a cute figure. I’d just like to see you in something that … emphasizes that a bit more. Shows it off.”
“I was kidding, Grams. And I’m not much of a show-off.”
“Oh, I don’t mean anything tawdry,” she said quickly. “Good heavens, no. Just something a little more feminine. Something to draw attention to your physical assets.”
I sighed heavily and held out my arms. “This is me, I’m afraid.”
“Never mind.” She waved a hand in the air and smiled. “I’m just so happy you’re here. How long are you staying?”
“Until Friday.”
Her face fell. “That’s not very long.”
“It’s five days.”
“Can’t you stay for the weekend?”
“I’m sorry, Grams. I really can’t. I have things to catch up on before work Monday, and I promised I’d help Emme with something for the wedding.”
She sighed dramatically. “I suppose I should be grateful to have any of you here at all. Oh well. Why don’t you go upstairs and settle in? I put fresh sheets on the bed in the front bedroom and clean towels in the bathroom.”