I nod. He’s right. That’s what they always say. It often comes as a surprise to the people who are close to them. It frightens me greatly. “But she didn’t even leave a suicide note. Don’t they say that people usually leave a note for those they leave behind?”
Everything inside me is screaming to let it go, to stop talking about it, but I can’t. Ryan fiddles with his cup. He doesn’t look at me when he answers.
“I don’t think there’s like a rule for that. Clarice didn’t leave one either before she shot herself at the base.”
He suddenly lifts his glance and looks directly at me. It feels like he’s looking straight through me. His hand is gripping the table.
“Why are you asking about this?”
“I don’t know. I was just wondering,” I say, my face reddening. I sense I have overstepped a line here and made him uncomfortable.
“You can’t do this,” he continues. “You don’t have any right to ask these questions, do you hear me? You weren’t there. You don’t know what it’s like to come home. You don’t have any idea what we’re all going through, what I’m going through. Geez, Laurie. I really thought you were smarter than that.”
I shake my head, feeling ashamed. He’s right. I haven’t been to war. I don’t know what it’s like to be a depressed soldier with PTSD. I don’t know the weight of what they’re carrying around. But I am married to one, and I would like to know just a little more about what signs to look for, what to be aware of, so I can act before he might kill himself. I don’t find it that strange to ask these questions. But I have angered him. I can tell. This is his territory, and I am not allowed to enter.
I don’t say another word. I don’t want to ruin his mood, but I do keep thinking about it for the rest of the weekend—especially about Clarice, Vera’s sister, the girl who killed herself while they were deployed. When Ryan mentioned her, I suddenly remembered something that Vera had told me at the funeral.
I ignored it then, but not anymore.
Chapter 11
I call Vera and ask her to meet me for lunch the following Monday. It’s her day off, and she can be a civilian for once, not wearing her uniform. We go to a café outside the base in downtown Dundee Beach. I have a salad and then a piece of chocolate cake for dessert. I also have a large latte and a strawberry smoothie. Vera has a ham and cheese sandwich with pesto sauce on sourdough bread. We sit outside since it’s seventy-three degrees out, and the air feels really nice. It took me a while to figure out, but January is probably the time of year you sit outside the most in Florida. From April to October, it’s too hot to be anywhere that isn’t the beach. Right when we moved there, I met people who’d say to me how wonderful it was when the temperatures dropped in January and February when the wind blows from the north, and I thought they were silly because why would anyone like that? But now, I get it. Once the temperatures drop, it becomes really nice, and even on the few days when it is in the fifties in the mornings, you learn to enjoy that because it’s so rare that you just can’t help but want to be outside and feel it nip at your skin. Usually, by afternoon, it’s back in the sixties, so you gotta enjoy it while it lasts. To me, temperature around the low seventies is just perfect—cool enough to wear jeans, and that is a treat when you live where I do. We usually say that by the time you find your winter clothes in the back of the closet, Florida winter has already come and gone.
But I haven’t asked Vera to meet me in order to enjoy the weather. I am not there because I enjoy her company either, even though I really do. Vera is fun and always pleasant to be around. And even though she is enlisted, and has been deployed herself, she doesn’t have that thing where you can’t talk bad about the Air Force that most of the people on base have—at least the ones who are around me.
“It’s like a cult,” she’ll often say. Then she’ll laugh, but you can tell she means it. “Or it’s like that song, you know…uh…you can check in any time…but you can’t leave, or something like that. You know which one I’m talking about?”
Vera dreams of becoming an author one day when she’s done with the airforce and will often refer to famous characters in books or talk about stories that I have no idea about because I rarely read. Not that I don’t want to—I just don’t have that kind of time with the kids and all that. Especially not with Ryan gone so much. I, for one, think she’s gonna make an excellent author one day. She has that quirky mind, you know? Slightly crazy, and you’re never quite sure if she’s telling the truth or pulling your leg. She likes to exaggerate a lot, and everything is a potential plot. Everyone she sees or meets reminds her of some character from a book. She’ll often go: “Doesn’t that guy over there look just the way you’d think Rand from Gone Girl would look? He does to me.”
Usually, I’ll just nod and play along, even if I have no idea who she is talking about. Again, I don’t read as much as she does.
“So, what’s up?” Vera asks as we’re halfway through our meal. She knows me well and knows something is going on with me. “I hear Ryan is back.”
I nod, my mouth full. I chew, then wash it down with my smoothie. “Yes. He came back Friday night and has stayed home all weekend.”
“I bet you’re happy about that?” Vera asks, her eyes scrutinizing me. “Or are you?”
Vera is probably the sharpest mind around here. I can’t hide anything from her. She sees right through me.
“I ought to be, right?” I say.
“It’s what you’ve wanted for a long time,” Vera says, then shrugs. “But maybe it’s not what you wanted it to be? Just like when he came home? I, for one, am worried about you. Remember how it ended last time.”
I feel my neck and can almost sense his fingers around it, tightening their grip. Fear rushes through me, and I shiver lightly.
“But that’s not why you wanted to see me, is it?” Vera continues, finishing her sandwich. “Something is troubling you.”
I tell her I’d rather talk to her somewhere a little more private. The café is a popular hangout for people from the base, especially around lunch, and there are more than a couple of others in uniform sitting near us. I don’t feel safe talking about this here. So, we pay and take a stroll through downtown till we reach the beach. We take off our shoes and walk across the warm sand, then plunge our toes into the blue water. It feels good, a little chilly, but good. I finally relax a little. I don’t feel like I’ve been able to relax at all, all weekend. I have been careful, constantly worrying that I might upset Ryan and ruin everything. I have been tiptoeing around him, trying so hard to keep him happy. I want him there; I want him to stay with us badly, mostly for the children’s sake, but also for my own. And I certainly don’t want to anger him. All weekend, I have been so careful about what I said, and even though I desperately wanted to, I haven’t asked him more about Sandra and their meeting. I haven’t told him I know.
Not yet.
“So, tell me what’s going on?” Vera asks as we begin to walk. The sand and water feel wonderful between my toes, almost like therapy. I look up at her, biting my lip.