(no subject)
I was married. Once. Fresh out of the service and back home. My feet on familiar ground and a new job to start. A beautiful woman that loved me, a child that I lived to come home each day and hold in my arms. A little girl, with hair the color of honey and a smile that was mine.
I still have this dream. No matter how long it has been or how far away on the calendar it gets. I still wake up sweating, screaming. Fingers tearing into the sheets, or anyone that is unlucky enough to be sleeping beside me.
No amount of drugs seem to keep it away. No amount of alcohol or physical activity or time or exhaustion. It comes upon me when I least expect it and reminds me, fucking slams into me, how very fragile our existence in this world really is.
It's Saturday. I'm off and although there are a thousand things I could be, should be doing, I'm home with my family. My wife is round with our second. A boy this time. She still moves as gracefully as she ever has, even reaching down to scoop up our daughter in her arms and spin her about as I pull on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.
Gracie's bright eyes and laughter as she runs to leap on my lap make me forget about work.
"A picnic! A picnic!"
"Yes, baby-girl. A picnic."
She smells of soap and powder and milk. And she holds tight to my arms as I stand up, automatically reaching for my shoulder holster and gun that hang high up in the closet.
"Not today, Seeley, please. Leave your work at home."
My wife, her hand on her swollen belly, hair falling over her face. She brushes errant strands back and even from here I can feel her jealousy. Over a piece of metal and a job.
"Okay."
I shut the closet door.
I can still hear the knob clicking home in my mind. Louder than it should have been. But then we're in the park. Near our house. The grass is green and the flowers are blooming at the same time the leaves are falling.
Grace is on a swing, her mom is stretched out on a blanket. The almost empty basket beside her and I'm between them. Arms pleasantly sore from pushing my daughter, my belly full of good food and one or two beers. I'm reaching for my rumpled pack of cigarettes and lighter stuffed down in the front pocket of my jeans. My last vice. Going to quit before the boy is born, I promised.
I've got one eye on Grace and one on my wife when I hear the squeal of tires from the parkway. Two cars, one running, one chasing. Going way over the speed limit and in my dream they are both black. Both hearses. Coffins spilling out the back as they crash between parked vehicles and I can smell the gun powder burning in the air. Even though, I know, that day, I couldn't and they weren't.
My wife screams. My child screams.
I'm moving, but not fast enough. Reaching for what is not there as I run to my daughter and catch her in midair out of the swing. Her arms are tight around my neck and she's sobbing in my ear. My face drenched with her tears. By the time I get back to my wife and the blanket the noise is gone and she is quiet and the front of my shirt is wet. Too wet. Too warm.
Too red.
Our divorce was final not long after my son was born. We share custody, but it's always a fight. It's never easy.
Our love seemed to have died with our daughter that day.
And I never leave my house without my gun.
Ever.
"Not today, Seeley ..."
The dream never lets me forget.