I could always tell when it was just me in bed, instead of the two of us. I opened my eyes to the darkness and the alarm clock glared the time at me. 1:46 in the morning was no time to be awake on a week day but all too often, I found myself awaiting his return that never came. Lying on my back, I looked over to the mess of sheets and comforter next to me that harbored the absence of my husband.
The house was quiet and I couldn’t tell what room he was in, if he was in a room at all, but rather casing the walls, his invisible gun between his fingers as he secured our fort. I threw the covers off of me and stepped cautiously into the night. He had closed the door after leaving the bedroom and when I opened it, I could see the dull glow of the light above the stove coming from the kitchen up the stairs.
I was careful walking down the stairs as not to scare him if we both came around the corner at the same time. Peering over the railing, I could see Kenny at the dining room table. He was shirtless and hunched over with his forehead resting in his palms on the table. The dull yellow bulb softly illuminated the kitchen and Kenny’s shadowy figure paced on the floor next to him with each breath he took.
My bare feet were quiet against the hardwood floors as I stepped off the final step. I heard the faint sniffle of Kenny’s nose as I stepped into the yellow light. I took a deep breath and leaned against the counter next to the sink.
“Kenny?” I whispered and when he didn’t answer, “Baby?”
He stayed quiet but I knew that he could hear me. I watched his back rise and fall; his breathing steady, letting me know that he wasn’t in the middle of a flashback. I walked over to him and squatted beside his chair at the table.
“Kenny, baby,” I said quietly, then cautiously rested my hand on his bicep. “Baby, talk to me.”
“I don’t know what to say,” He said, “it’s the same thing every time, Maggie.”
He kept his head in his hands and I saw a few tears drip to his thigh where his boxers didn’t cover.
“I want this ******* ringing in my ears to stop,” he said a little louder, “when I close my eyes, I don’t want to see someone’s body torn to shreds.”
“I know,” I whispered, “I wish I could help.”
“I wish every time you rolled over in bed, I wouldn’t roll over too and almost choke you because I think you’re an enemy.”
I’d never heard him admit to almost hurting me. I’d known that he’d sometimes thought I was the enemy and almost pinned me down to choke the life out of me, but he always realized what he was doing. He’d never gone as far as putting his hands on me.
“Maggie,” Kenny whispered to me, bringing me from my thoughts, “sometimes I wish I would’ve died over there.”
“Don’t talk like that,” I said, interrupting him quickly.
“It’s true, Maggie,” he said, “I can’t stand living like this. I don’t want to live like this anymore.”
A car door slammed outside, a teenager arriving home late and Kenny pushed his chair back, stepping around me to look out front through the living room window. I sat back against the cupboard of the kitchen, feeling the cold floors beneath my bare thighs where my underwear didn’t cover. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I wrapped my arms around my legs, hugging them as tightly as I wish I could hug Kenny.
I could hear him walking through the house, looking through different windows, before he finally returned to the kitchen, peeking through the small window above the sink. I looked up at him from my spot on the floor as he leaned against the counter.
“I think it’s safe now Maggie,” he said.
I didn’t bother trying to tell him that we weren’t in any danger. I wasn’t looking for an argument at two in the morning. I looked up at him again as he stared into space, focusing on something, if anything across the kitchen.
“Do you want to go back to bed?” I asked him softly, touching his shin that was beside me.
“Sh, no Maggie, I think I hear something,”
I wanted to tell him that there was nothing outside, there was nothing inside, nothing was going to harm us but before I could, he gripped his head and ears, and his face displayed his pain. I could tell that his ears were ringing and in his head, he’d told me before, it sounded and looked like bombs going off.
“Make it ******* stop,” he said, “please make it stop.”
He was gripping his head harder as if trying to get inside his skull. Slowly, he slid down the side of the counter to where he sat beside me, his knees folded up as he tried to get the ringing to quiet down. He was beginning to surrender. I unwrapped my own legs and put my arms around him, stroking the side of his head with my thumb. After a few minutes, he began to relax and lean into me. I hugged him tighter and felt his entire body begin to loosen as he rested against my chest, tears landing on my T-shirt. A few more minutes passed and he’d completely laid down against the hardwood flooring on his side, his cheek now on the thigh of my outstretched legs. I continued stroking his shoulder, his neck and his head. I could feel his tears coming one at a time, landing on my bare leg. Kenny rested his hand on my thigh, hanging on as if he was about to die in the battle of his own head.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Me too.”
short story for Veteran's Day
