icy thread of fear curled in her gut.
“Jonathan, go to your room.” She tried to smooth out the jagged edge in her voice.
Her child peeked around her waist and looked up at the men. “Do you know my daddy? He fixes cars, only now he does humzees. I have a picture.”
“Humvees,” one of them corrected, a man with fair hair clipped short enough to show his reddish scalp. He swallowed hard and looked sideways at his partner.
The other, older man folded his arms and studied Jonathan with sympathetic eyes, muscles in the corners of his jaw knotting. “We didn’t have that honor, son. Heard he was a good man.”
Was.
Was.
Was.
Was a good man.
Not is. Not present tense. Past. As in no longer existed. As in... Claire’s entire body felt hollowed by the bright white light of a nuclear blast. Yet she didn’t shake. Her legs didn’t give way. She remained perfectly still. Funny how that could be.
“Jonathan, go on now,” she gasped.
“But, Momma...” he wheedled, his admiring eyes running over the uniformed men. Their stripes. Medals.
“Now,” she snapped, and remorse jabbed her when he flinched, unused to that tone from her. But he’d get familiar with all kinds of pain now, she thought, dazed. He just didn’t know it yet. Her mind raced. Poor baby. Poor her. Poor Kevin. Oh. No.
Jonathan scurried to his room, slammed the door, opened it again, then shut it properly, his attempt to behave making her eyes sting. Like that mattered.
Like anything mattered anymore.
“May we come in, Mrs. Shelton?”
She nodded automatically and stepped back, letting the large men inside. A bitter taste curdled at the back of her throat, as if she’d spent the morning drinking old coffee out of a rusted can. Her eyes felt gritty. Her body numb. Or was that her heart? She couldn’t tell.
They studied each other for a long moment before she gestured them toward a flowered sofa and collapsed into Kevin’s mammoth recliner.
“I’m Army Chaplain Edward Caston and this is Corporal James Finkly.”
She opened her mouth and started to say “nice to meet you,” only nothing came out. It wasn’t nice to meet them. In fact, she wished she’d never laid eyes on either of them. That she was dreaming this, and that the buzzing in her head would morph into her alarm clock, waking her up.
The officers exchanged glances and the younger one rubbed his hands on his thighs. “We regret to inform you...”
Claire watched his lips move, her peripheral vision growing dark, tunneling, until the soldier grew smaller and more distant. With a blink, she could make him vanish. Disappear. Dissolve this nightmare.
A hand gripped hers and she shook her head clear.
“Ma’am. Did you hear what I said?”
She dragged in slow, deep gulps of air from her diaphragm, as she did when she led her yoga classes. It didn’t help.
Calm down, she scolded herself, as her thoughts careened in hot, helpless circles. Be strong. Kevin had always been her rock. The man who carried her through the minefield of her old life. She needed to be that for him. For Jonathan. Claire took a deep, shaky breath and pulled herself together with all the strength that she had, as if she were heaving herself back up from a cliff edge.
“How did it happen?”
“His vehicle passed over an IED. He and another member of his unit were killed instantly. Take comfort that he didn’t suffer.”
Pain seared the center of her chest and she pressed her palm to it. The chaplain fell silent. Was that supposed to ease her agony? Did he think some kinds of loss were easier to bear than others?
“His remains?” she managed.
“Will be here tomorrow. Another officer, Captain Traynor, will help you make the funeral arrangements.”
“Funeral,” she repeated, trying the word. It tasted like dirt. She wanted to spit it out.
The younger officer shifted on the sofa and leaned forward. Earnest. “Ma’am, we deeply regret your loss. Kevin’s commanding officer wanted us to share his and your husband’s fellow guardsmen’s condolences with you.”
“But they’re alive,” Claire murmured, trying to imagine how they could be sorry when they still lived. When they would be coming home soon, like Kevin. Only...not like Kevin. He’d be in a box.
She shivered, her skin shaking over her bones at the image. She replaced it with his kind, honest face that broadcast “what you see is what you get.” And what you got was the sweetest, most honorable, bravest man she’d ever known. A childhood friend who’d stepped up when she’d been left pregnant and brokenhearted by a callous ex. A hero who’d made her feel wanted again. Safe. Loved. And in return, she’d given him her heart. Forever, they’d promised when they’d married just after Jonathan’s birth.
She gritted her teeth.
Death didn’t change anything. She’d never stop loving him. Only now he wouldn’t be here to love her back. The thought dropped straight into Claire’s head with a thud.
“May we call your pastor, ma’am?” The chaplain’s eyes scanned her face, his gaze assessing. “Someone to stay with you?”
How many times had he done this, she thought wildly. How many more? She pressed two fingertips to her forehead and closed her eyes, unable to look at him any longer.
“My father. I’ll call him.”
“If you’re sure. We’re more than happy to—”
She shook her head, suddenly needing them gone. The sight of their gleaming, intact uniforms made her ill. What did Kevin’s uniform look like? Claire opened her eyes and felt a hard ball of fury lodge at the back of her throat, almost choking her.
“Please go.”
She nodded stiffly at their murmured apologies and goodbyes as she stared at her lap, grateful when the door clicked shut behind them.
The refrigerator hummed in the sudden quiet. Outside the house she could hear the soft weekend sounds of her neighborhood: the twitter of sparrows, the far-off buzz of someone’s lawn mower, the slam of a car door. In the distance, children’s laughter bubbled. Life went on. Except Kevin’s. She’d never hear his voice again.
The thought shoved her to her feet and hurled her down the short hall to their bedroom. She jerked open Kevin’s sock drawer and yanked out the letter she’d discovered ten months ago. She stared at the front, mouthing his scrawled words. The ones she’d hoped to never read again.
To Claire: Open if I don’t come home.
A wet splotch fell from her cheek and blurred his
