Page 44 of The Infinite Light of Dust

“Can I come in? I don’t have anything on me.” He shook his pockets of his jeans and patted them all.

“Why should I let you in here after what you did?”

His eyes went down to the porch. “I don’t have anywhere else to go and I need my battle buddy.” He hadn’t called me that in so long that it sounded foreign to me.

I looked him up and down, trying to remember the things I used to respect about him, but was at a loss after he’d put Karina in danger.

“You don’t have a battle buddy anymore,” I told him, point-blank. He visibly shuddered at my words. That was one of the worst things a soldier could hear.

“Martin, I know what I did was beyond fucked up. I came to apologize.”

“I thought you came because you don’t have anywhere else to go,” I reminded him, not buying his apology bullshit yet. He’d pulled out a fucking gun in a yard full of people I care about.

“That, too, but the apology is the first reason. Please, let me in.”

Phillips had changed so much since I met him. I had always tried to ignore the subtle shifts in stability, the mood swings, and how easily angered he could become, and put the blame on our circumstance, being at war and trying to stay alive and all.

I stepped aside and let him pass.

In jeans and his gray PT shirt that saidArmyin black font, he stood in the center of the living room, looking like a teenage boy about to get scolded by his parents. Speaking of parents, I wondered if his parents even knew he was home. I should have called them. But then again, he was a loose cannon now and not my problem. Not anymore.

“Did you tell your parents you’re back?” I asked him, keeping a few feet between us for both of our safety, especially his.

He nodded, slowly and cowardly.

“Did you tell them that you tried to kill your own pregnant wife?”

His eyes bugged out and he moved his body dramatically, like a fish out of water, swaying and flopping while standing upright. “That’s not what that was. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, but I wouldn’t hurt her!”

“That’s not what it looked like to me. Not only did you almost kill someone, you disrespected her and humiliated her in front of everyone.”

“She’s been cheating on me, Martin. While pregnant with my baby . . . if it’s even mine.” As he said the words, I knew he believed them.

“Fischer wasn’t even around when you got her pregnant, so use fucking logic.”

“Maybe not him, but at this point, who knows what she’s been doing since I brought her here.” He was evidently distraught. “I’m clearly her meal ticket out of her country, a cash cow.”

I couldn’t stop the laugh that bellowed out. “A cash cow? You’re a private first class and she’s from France, one of the most developed countries in the world. You know better than this. She isn’t the kind of person to use someone like that, evenyou.”

“And you know her so well now? You only hung out with her a handful of times before you left and now that you’re fucking that Karina girl—” I held my hand up to save him from what would come if he said another word about her.

“Remember what I said about you disrespecting Karina. This is your last warning. Do not mention her name again in front of me. Do not even think about her name, her face, her existence—unless you want me to rip your tongue out of your mouth.”

I was instantly pulled back to the car ride home from my ma’s, when Karina asked me how many versions of myself there were. This was one she had not and would never see, but ironically, this was the one that came the most naturally.

“Okay . . . okay. You love her, don’t you?” he asked me, looking me dead in the eyes.

I thought about lying, but he needed to know the lengths I would go for her. It could backfire and give him ammunition to try to get back at me through her. If he did, that would be his death sentence.

“I do.”

His thin lips turned into a smile. It wasn’t the one I was used to; it was like a pencil sketch of the outline of the smile I had known for years.

“Is that the reason you’re so nonchalant about my wife cheating on me and leaving me for Karina’s brother of all people?” he asked, sinking to the floor as if he couldn’t bear the weight of his own frail body.

“I’m not nonchalant about it. I don’t think what either of them did is okay. But they did what they did, and I know it must hurt like hell, but risking your life and hers is not going to change what happened and you know it. I won’t make excuses for them, it’s not my place, but I can tell you that if you try to hurt them to subdue your own pain, you will suffer.”

“By my own hands or yours?” he asked, darkness coating his voice like tendrils.

---