Chapter One
Brenna
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Ugh.
It can’t be six thirty already. I swear, I just fell asleep.
I roll over, check the clock, and sure enough, it’s time to get my ass up. My hand slides across the sheets to feel the cold, and I want to cry. Over the last eight months, I’ve felt like I’m living the same day on repeat. I look for him, ache for him, try to feel the warmth that was once there, but it’s gone.
Just like he is.
“Mom!” Melanie’s voice screeches at the end. “Get up!”
I sit up in the bed, drape my legs over the side, and close my eyes.
I can do this. I’ve been doing it this long, and I’m doing the best I can. The kids need better, and I have to be that for them even if the pain is still so intense I want to give up.
Ten days ago, we moved into this new house, which is a simple house in the middle of nowhere, but it’s close to my husband’s—my now-gone husband’s—family and the place he’s buried.
I’m struggling to breathe, to find something to hold on to that will let me know that life will be okay again. It will be. I know this, but I’m alone, and it hurts. I don’t have Luke or his steady faith to remind me that I’m a warrior and I always find a way. I’m the one having to push myself up and remind myself that this isn’t just a deployment. It’s forever. He’s gone. He’s buried in the ground, and I’ll never hear his voice again.
When I closed on this place, it should have been a time of joy. Instead, I sat in that cold chair, signing the mortgage papers with just my name. There were no smiles or jokes as we notched another address on our list. It was tears that filled the space as my pen swiped along the final black line.
My head tilts back to the ceiling and the hurt in my heart grows.
“Mom! Sebastian won’t get out of the bathroom! I have to do my hair!”
I release a deep breath. “I’m coming.”
Clenching my teeth so hard they may shatter, I get to my feet, pull a robe on, and shuffle out the door.
Melanie gets one look at me, and her eyes bulge. “Oh my God!”
“I look that good?” I joke. Sure, I haven’t slept in a week and was up crying half the night, but I don’t think I look that bad.
“No, it’s . . . your eyes are swollen. If Miss Cybil were here, she’d be screaming.”
“It’s been a rough few months.”
Plus, Cybil wouldn’t say shit. When I met her, we were two lonely military wives, stuck in Pensacola without any family or friends, and I was pregnant. Cybil was a sweet Southern girl with a thick accent and a heart of gold. We’ve been best friends for twelve years.
She’s a peach. On the outside, she’s soft, sweet, and you think she’s easy to bruise. But on the inside, there is a pit. A hard shell that’s impenetrable and able to withstand almost anything. She’s my rock, and I miss her more than almost anything.
Mel sighs and then looks at the bathroom door. “I know.”
And she does. It’s been rough on all of us and we wrestled with the idea of coming to Luke’s hometown. Not because we don’t love it here or want the family close but because it meant another life altering change.
We were a military family. Always close to a base, stopping the car at sunrise and sunset to hear the national anthem, and living in cramped houses that had more issues than we could count, but it was our life.
After having held Sebastian in my arms as he sobbed hearing the jet fly over the house, I knew we had to go. It had gone from being a source of joy, of knowing his father could be in that plane, to an ever-present reminder that Luke is gone and will never fly again.
I left, stayed with my in-laws as we looked for somewhere to live. This house came on the market, and thanks to one of the teachers I met at my new job, I was able to grab it quickly. The only issue is that it’s small and the kids don’t have their own separate bathrooms.
“He has to get out of there!”
“You will be totally fine, Melanie. I promise that no one will care if your hair isn’t perfect.”
“You don’t know that. What if these girls are mean? What if the boys don’t like girls who don’t wear makeup? Why can’t I get ready in your bathroom? Why won’t you let me put eyeliner on?”
The life of a preteen girl is always so dramatic.
“Well, I need to get ready in my bathroom. To answer your other questions . . . you’re twelve, your father said he didn’t want you to do it, and I’m going to abide by it because he’s dead and I’m tired.”
Her eyes meet mine, and then she sighs. “I’m sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have said it . . .”
My sweet girl, always the caretaker. She may only be twelve years old, but you’d never know it. She’s sometimes more grown up than most of the adults I know, but that’s the life of a military child. They grow up too fast, understanding that a family is its own unit and everyone needs to do just a bit more.
Then she lost her father, and her childhood became nonexistent. Gone was the girl who spent hours on fashion and beauty. Instead, she has been trying to be an adult and I’m doing everything I can to stop that progression.
“Don’t be sorry, sweetheart. I am. I shouldn’t have snapped. I was wrong.”
She waits for me to breathe normally and chews on her lower lip. “I’ll get Sebastian and me off to school.”
“No, that’s not necessary. I just need to get going. It’s a first day for all of us.”
Luke’s favorite saying was that everything happened for a reason. He felt that kismet was real, and that it was the reason we met. I don’t know if it’s true, but I never argued. I was eighteen years old, met a man who was a pilot, and I fell—hard. Within a few months, I was pregnant with Melanie and we were married.
No one thought we’d last—in a way, I guess we hadn’t, but it wasn’t the ending anyone had in mind.
“Did Grandma make our lunches?”
I really freaking hope so. I was unpacking while she helped get things ready for today. “She said she did last night.”
“Did she make Sebastian’s sandwich without the crust?”
“I gave her all the instructions.”
She sighs, knowing that, most likely, it didn’t happen. “She’s as bad as Daddy. He doesn’t make the sandwiches right either.”
Her body tenses at her slip. She never mentions Luke. She pretends that he’s just deployed and that we didn’t suffer the most unimaginable pain a family could feel. Melanie has taken it horribly. Luke was her world.
Her hero.
The father that every little girl dreamed of. He may not have always been there because of his job, but neither she nor Sebastian ever felt neglected. His job came first, yes, but kids never felt that. It was only me who got shafted in the time department when it came to Luke’s job, and I accepted my role. I was to handle everything at home—the kids, appointments, moves, and shuttling them around. I ensured that our home was a well-oiled machine, and if something broke, I got it fixed.
However, no one told me to plan for me being the broken piece or what happened when the plane went down.