When I See You (7 page)

Some tourists and Thais were curious as the water swept out of the bay at Kata Noi Beach. The unusual ocean life suddenly left behind—an amazing sight to behold for the curious. A gift of nature holding mysterious wonder, some of the tourists and Thai people ventured farther and farther out, exploring nature's surprising bequest on this otherwise ordinary sunny day. But, the birds must have stopped singing and the reed-like rustling sound of the Palm trees must have served as the only prelude to the main event. Soon, a wall of seawater estimated as high as a hundred-feet in some places rolled in from far across the Indian Ocean. Its onslaught toward the shore built with forward momentum was unstoppable. Its destruction unforeseen. Its devastation so final. The tsunami swept over virtually every living being and inanimate object in its path. Death came to the beachcombers first and swept them out to sea. Then, the tsunami took virtually everyone else along the seashore and long into the city of Phuket—five thousand eight hundred souls in all. Later, the world would learn of the tsunami's human toll: destruction over Indonesia, Sumatra, Africa, even as far away as China. The official number of people that died from the tsunami: two hundred, twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and ninety-eight people. One third of the deaths were estimated to be children, perhaps, too small to escape the destructive waves. Fourteen countries were severely impacted by nature's devastation that day. The indiscriminate destruction and loss reverberated around the world touching people in some way, everywhere.

My day starts out, ordinary, just like that one. It is more than six years later. Max plays in the backyard, his blond head visible from the kitchen window. I pour a good measure of cream into my coffee, take a seat on the back deck steps, and casually watch him. I marvel at his good nature which is so like Ethan's.

He chases down a butterfly and strays towards the white picket fence gate and the beach that leads down to the sand and the Pacific Ocean below. One stern call of his name brings him back and he flashes me a smile as if to say, I know, Momma. I smile back at him and sip my coffee.

There isn't a cloud in the true blue sky and I lean back, resting against the sun-kissed warmth of the steps. Ethan was here just a month ago and I have this twang of heartbreak. Fourteen more months and we are done with this tour. Fourteen more months and he'll be home for good. He promised me this time.

My heart aches for him; I miss him so much. Six weeks together, between tours, is not enough time, not enough time for me or Max.

I bite my lip in vexation and try to forget my varied temper tantrums over his leaving again. How much time did I waste fighting with him? On his last night here, we stayed up all night making love and plans. I told him I was off the pill and he had just smiled and said, "Come here." We worked on future children the entire night. I smile at the memory now. I'm more than a week late. Two days ago, I wrote to Ethan, telling him I might be pregnant. I'm still in shock that I would get pregnant so easily, even though the same thing happened with Max.

Max calls out to me. I smile at my towheaded blond child and he grins over at me with this mixture of mischief and adoration. The fact is I miss Ethan terribly, but Max makes it bearable. Max saves me from dwelling on the aching loneliness I carry deep inside for Ethan. The recurrent heartbreak I battle, this recurrent heartbreak in missing Ethan on a daily basis and attempt to combat this overwhelming loneliness. The truth is no matter how many people I surround myself with; I still miss Ethan. I look up at the sky and see the misting remnants of last night's moon. Can Ethan see it? Is he thinking of me at this very moment? I blow a kiss at the sky and manage a wan smile, though I can still feel the sadness reaching for me.

I can't decide if it's worse because I might be pregnant, or worse, because of this weird melancholy that I have been unable to conquer for the last day or so.

I glance at my watch. Ashleigh will be here in another four hours. Louis is running things tonight at Le Reve. I have the night off, for once, which is probably why I'm experiencing all these wayward disconcerting thoughts.
I'm not busy enough.
I grimace and look for Max again.

I close my eyes and try to clear my head of this pervasive worry over Ethan. Instead, I try to enjoy the morning sun that attempts to warm me all over. I hear nature's concert with the musical wrens flitting from our Palm tree and the distant crash of ocean waves from the Pacific. The light breeze caresses my face and lifts the tendrils of my hair from my face. I pull the band out of my hair and run my fingers through it and let it hang freely. The reassurance of Max's small voice as he talks to himself stirs me from my reverie and reminds me of what's important.

I am here. I am blessed with this amazing child, Max. And, there may be another on the way. I love a man who loves me back. This is a perfect life.
Almost.
If he were here, it would be perfect.

But does he see you?
The strange conversation with Brock drifts back to me.

"Yes. Yes. He does."

I hold Ethan's latest email in my hand and re-read the part where he tells me he loves me, misses me, and reminds me that we only have four hundred and two days to go. He wrote this two days ago. I shudder and chase away the thoughts as to why he hasn't written back to me.
Maybe, he's out on a secret mission. Yes, but he always finds a way to write to me.

This time he doesn't.
I shake my head to clear these menacing thoughts and close my eyes.

"Ethan, where are you?" My whispers go unanswered.

The wind makes an eerie sound. I open my eyes and anxiously watch Max as he carries a bucket of sand up the slide ladder and prepares to go down. Less than a minute later, he's coming down the slide. I keep from crying out a warning to him to be careful by holding my breath and silently chastise myself about being overly protective. I breathe a sigh of relief when he lands on his feet at the bottom. I close my eyes again; luxuriate in the serenity of the warm sun, my child's laughter, and thoughts of Ethan.

≈ ≈

An hour later, the sound of a car coming up the drive doesn't really register with me, until I hear the subtle whir of the car's engine shut off and then two car doors slam almost simultaneously. I get up from the back steps and peer through the front window. It is the color of the car. A dark blue color with dark tinted windows. The kind of car meant to be nondescript. The black tires without the white stripe. Whitewalls. The absence of whitewall tires is the second clue. The kind of car whose appearance is meant to be unobtrusive and not noticeable and yet, because it is not flashy, because it is dark blue and the tires are plain black——it actually calls attention to itself. People
do
notice it.
I notice it
. I stand behind the screen door now and watch it settle in my driveway and try to ignore the significance of the two men in all full dress white uniforms alighting from this nondescript dark blue car. I glance at the last hint: government-issued plates. I have ten seconds of remaining naiveté before full comprehension comes over me and takes away my smile for good.

I call to Max in a daze. "Mommy has to answer the front door. Stay there, Maximilian."

My heart pounds fast, now. I can't catch my breath because I realize that the fissure from the earthquake inside of me has already opened up.

I open the front door with trembling hands and take in the clean-cut looks of the two full dress white uniformed officers with their white hats in their hands. They don't even have to speak any words because I already know who they are and why they're here and what they''re going to say to me.

The we're-so-sorry-for-your-loss speech barely registers. The tsunami wave of heartbreak inside of me is so great it has already done massive destruction and damage to my human spirit. I hear these distant piercing screams that will not stop.

"Make them stop," I say at some point. One of the uniformed officers comes over to me and puts his arm around my shoulders.

"Mrs. Holloway, is there anything we can do? Anyone we can call for you?"

"Make the screams stop," I beg.

"We're so sorry for your loss."

The officer's blond crew cut looks so much like Ethan's and the blue eyes. He's not as tall, but the reminders are all there.

I reach for his outstretched hand, trying to remain steady, but the tsunami—the giant wave of dark grief just keeps coming. I can't escape it. I fall into his arms in the awkward hug he offers me.

"Is there anyone we can call?" The officer whispers in concern.

"Ethan," I say in a faraway voice.

He repeats his question. I see this sympathy for me in his eyes when I supply him with my husband's name again.

"Ashleigh," I finally say.

Dazed, I look over at my three-year-old, who has come in from outside bearing a yellow pail of wet sand and trailing some sort of sodden blue rope from his swing set and can only stare. One of the officers bends down to him and rescues the pail of sand from spilling onto our bleached hardwood floors and carries it back outside.

I watch all of this from some closed-off place of detachment, while gasping for air.

"Max."

It's all I can say as I suddenly forget how to form words.

I hold out my arms and he runs into them. I bury my face into the crook of my young son's neck and smell the sweet scent of him—the remnants of Johnson's baby shampoo, freshly-cut grass and wet sand from this morning's outside play adventure. I pull him close to me. Then, the wave of grief takes over. All I can see is this dark abyss. It circulates through all of me. I can feel myself get swept away.

≈ ≈

Ashleigh drops me off in front of the funeral home in Washington D.C. and promises to be back in a few minutes. Impatient, I gather enough strength to open the front door of the building and step inside. The gloom envelops me in the first thirty seconds.
Fuck.

I introduce myself to the hovering figure before me and register his first name is Igor. Incongruent with his last name, Dasher. The funeral director.

Perfect.

"Can I see him?" My voice is clear, resolute. It rises above the cloaking din of the mortuary.

"No," Igor Dasher says to me.

"Yes."

I wave my hand. As if, my hand, alone, can intimidate this beady brown-eyed man into helping me. Saving me, really. I have to see Ethan. I have to hold his hand no matter how cold it might be. I have to. I have to see him, so I can make sense of this thing. I have to say good-bye. I've begun speaking aloud, apparently. The little man before me has gone a vanilla shade of white. His pallor is all the more natural in this depressing circumstance.

"The Navy has specific instructions that prohibit such requests—"

"Fuck the Navy. He belongs to me, not them. He's mine. Do you hear me?" My voice goes up by two octaves and Igor Dasher takes a step back from me. He looks me over, taking in the simple black dress I'm wearing, not knowing its significance for both Ethan and me. Our first date. I'm wearing the cocktail dress I wore on our first date. I wipe away a stray tear. Igor Dasher continues to study me.

"Fine," he says with resignation. "Don't say I didn't warn you though. This is not what we normally do for gunshot victims."

I wince at his words, but wave my hand again, convinced now that such gestures give me some kind of superpower with the man. "Fine."

"Fine," he echoes back to me. "Give me a few minutes." His voice is curt. I stare him down as he backs out of the room away from me in his hideous green velvet suit. When he's gone, I fight for breath and sway a little and grab the nearest piece of furniture, which ends up being a wood table with an open coffin on display all done up in white satin.

"Fuck," I whisper in the still room.

The sunlight pierces the dim space through one of the few windows in this front parlor. I watch the dust particles in quiet interest float throughout the room in its stubborn illumination.

"Fuck," Ashleigh echoes as she enters the room. "The God-damn rental car is parked. Only in D.C. would they make you fucking pay twenty bucks for parking ten blocks away."

"Well, it just adds to the happy occasion, don't you think?" My retort is sharp and I immediately apologize by putting my arms around Ashleigh. "I'm sorry. I'm not myself."

"Who would be?"

She hugs me back and I try to draw solace from her embrace. I feel as if I'm living in a strait jacket weighed down by invisible constraints I'm unable to undo and half drowning. I have felt this way, since the first day. The first day of knowing he was gone.

"The guy's going to let me see him."

"What? We talked about this. I'm not sure it's a good idea."

"So you've said." I pull away and cross my arms and lift my head in defiance. "I've got to see him and say good-bye in my own way."

"Jordan, it's not—" Her voice trails off at the sight of the funeral director's green velvet suit. The incredulous look on Ashleigh's face is priceless. Her fashion sense is even more perfected than mine. I begin to laugh in this inappropriate way at the comedy of our circumstances. The mortician continues to make his way towards us and I stop laughing all at once and begin to experience this extreme panic that my husband will be touched by this loathsome man. Has been touched by him.