Cindy Gerard - The Way Home

Then and there, she made a promise to do whatever it took to help heal him and heal their marriage.

Filled with new determination, she went to his side, folded his limp hand in hers, and softly said his name.

Minnesota, late November

JEFF SAT IN FRONT OF THE T V in the new recliner Jess had bought for him, the dog asleep by his feet.

“To keep that leg up,” she’d said with an overbright smile when the chair had been delivered shortly after she’d brought him home to this apartment above a store he’d apparently frequented but didn’t remember. “Don’t think I don’t notice that it swells up on you if you’re on it too much.”

He’d been back in Minnesota for two weeks. And everything about the Crossroads General Store and the lake where he’d grown up fishing and hiking and hunting and camping remained as foreign to him as a moonscape.

“Did we live here?” he’d asked Jess after he’d painstakingly climbed up the stairs from the store to the apartment for the first time.

“We didn’t, no. I lived here with my parents. You spent a lot of time here, though.”

“Why? Did I work here?”

“No. I did. You hung around so you could flirt with me,” she’d said easily and with a shy smile. “After we got married, you and I lived on several different Army posts. We were at Bragg when you deployed and…” She let the thought trail off.

And went to Afghanistan and got killed, was what she was going to say. Maybe he should have gotten killed. Maybe he should have died over there.

“But then you already know you were at Bragg,” she added inanely.

Yeah. He knew. After he’d been discharged from the hospital three weeks ago, they’d put him and Jess and his brother up at the Fisher House that had been built specifically for rehabbing soldiers and their families so they’d all have someplace to stay during his debriefing. All of them had been relieved when there’d been three bedrooms.

He’d hoped returning to Bragg would help jog his memory, that maybe he’d remember the good times. Instead, it had been pure hell. The debriefing sessions exhausted him. Worse, though, was when his teammates—the ones who weren’t deployed—dropped by to see him. Men he’d fought side-by-side with, drunk beer with.

Men he didn’t remember.

He didn’t know who had been more uncomfortable, them or him.

Maybe I should have died there.

He stared blankly at the TV. Look at the lives he’d ruined by living. Rabia. Her father. His brother, Brad. Jess.

It hurt him to watch her try so hard to be natural with him. So he didn’t watch. He watched TV instead. For hours and hours on end, even though he couldn’t say what he’d seen an hour ago, let alone the day before. Mostly, he watched it so he wouldn’t have to deal with the pain in the eyes of a woman who was still a stranger to him.

Sometimes he looked out the window. He couldn’t see much except the tree line, but he passed time watching the wind blow and the snow fall. In northern Minnesota, the snow fell early and often. The fact that he knew that didn’t count.

What counted was what he didn’t know.

At first, she’d brought him high school yearbooks and photo albums. It made his head hurt to look at them, to see himself as a boy he still didn’t recognize. So he asked her not to bring them anymore.

With a patient but sad look in her eyes, she’d understood. “Sure. No problem. I didn’t mean to bombard you. I thought maybe… I don’t know. Maybe I hoped seeing the photos might trigger a memory.”

“It’s OK. It’s nice of you. I appreciate it. But nothing’s happening. I’m sorry.”

She’d knelt down beside him, covered his hand with hers. “You don’t have to be sorry. It’ll either come or it won’t. There’s no pressure, J.R.”

But there was pressure. Every time she looked at him that way, every time she drove him to a doctor’s appointment in Hibbing or a counseling session in Duluth, or every time she called him J.R. in that automatic way that said she’d called him that since they’d both been little kids, he felt the pressure.

I can’t come with you, Jeffery.

Rabia.

Another pressure. One he couldn’t get out of his head.

He rose stiffly from his chair. “I think I’ll turn in.”

That hurt look again. “Don’t you want dinner? I fried chicken. Your favorite.”

Maybe it was. He didn’t know. “Sorry. It’ll still be good tomorrow, right?”

“Sure. You go ahead and go to bed.”

So polite. They were so polite to each other. Like strangers meeting on a train, passing through each other’s life to get back to their own lives. Only the train never stopped and dropped him off where he was supposed to be. It kept going and going, and he kept searching and searching.

He forced a smile for her, because she tried so hard, then got up and walked into the bedroom that was supposed to be theirs. Only he slept there alone, and she slept in another room on another bed.

Two strangers on a train.

He lay down, covered his ears with the pillow so he couldn’t hear the soft sounds of her weeping, and thought of Rabia again. Always. On a rooftop under the stars. Bringing him back to life with her soft hands and healing heart.

The soft clicking of paws on the hardwood floor, then the slight dip of the mattress, told him the dog had followed him. Eyes closed, he reached out and found the Lab’s soft muzzle. Bear immediately moved in next to him, lay down, and, with a contented sigh, laid his doggie head on his chest.

“You don’t care, do you, buddy?” he whispered into the dark bedroom. “You don’t care who I am or if I remember. You’re a good dog, Bear. A good dog.”

“WHERE’S J.R.?”

Jess sat down with Brad at her kitchen table after pouring them each a mug of coffee. He’d brought the scent of fresh snow and winter cold with him, even though it was only early December.

“He’s in the shower.”

“Any change?”

He asked the same question every morning when he stopped by to check on J.R. It was the same question her mom and dad asked every day when they called to check on her and on J.R. And Shelley, who’d been so generous to keep Bear for her while she’d been in Texas.

“Physically, yes. The vertigo and the headaches are much better. But mentally, no. Basically, he sits in his chair and watches TV. And he hasn’t remembered anything.”

“He just needs time, right? Just like he needs a lot of sleep. Like the doc said.” Brad nodded his head as if trying to convince himself as much as her. “He’s put on a little weight, though, don’t you think?”

“A little, yes. I think he’s up five to ten pounds since they brought him back to the States.”

Brad glanced over his shoulder, as if checking to see if J.R. was in earshot, but the shower was still running. “I want to thank you, Jess. I… I’ve been meaning to say something. I know this is tough for you… what with your plans with Brown and all.”