Page 12 of Sparks
My nerves were trembling as I stared at the little boy with Shawn’s light hair and blue eyes. Shawn looked at the picture and his face softened as he stared down. He was a daddy.
Run, run, run.
I cleared my throat. “He’s precious.”
“Thanks.” Shawn grinned one last time at his son’s picture before putting his phone away. “He’s my everything.”
I nodded, feeling emotional, because something told me Shawn’s story was about to get a lot more complicated.
“I told her we should get married, because in my mind we needed to live together on base so she’d be covered under my insurance for the pregnancy, but she didn’t want the baby to be the reason for us getting married.”
“Was she working?” I asked. “What did she do for insurance?”
“No, she hadn’t found a job there yet. She got private insurance with money she saved.” When I raised my eyebrows, he said, “I know. I thought it was crazy, too, but I couldn’t force her.”
He took another drink and kept going. “So, she lived with me at Fort Lejune, but when she was seven months along I had to go into combat.” He shook his head, his focus fading as he remembered. “That’s my job, you know? It fucking sucks. Men and women have to miss important things at home all the time. It’s the sacrifice we make. But I think she still holds it against me to this day that I wasn’t there. Both of our sets of parents came down to be there when B was born, but when it was time for her mom to leave, she freaked out.”
I cringed. That had to be so hard for her, having an infant and being in a place where she didn’t know anyone. “What did she do?”
“She went back with her mom to Charlotte for the last three months of my deployment, then came back to Lejune. When I got there, I tried to propose again but she said no. We lived together and things were strained. I think she was depressed, to be honest. Maybe even post-partum. She was just mad at me all the time. And I tried so hard. B was a good baby, though. Sometimes Nat wouldn’t even wake at night when he cried—again, I think because of the depression—so I’d get up and feed him and all that. I took care of him a lot. The bathing and night routine. I’d put that damn snuggie thing on and take him on walks and to the grocery store to give her breaks.” My heart squeezed imagining it.
When he paused, we both drank.
“After about a year she started to feel better. We started being able to laugh again. But when it was time for me to deploy, she said she wanted to take B to her parents’. I was like, do what you need to do, you know? Her parents have this big ass guest suite, so I knew they’d be fine.”
He sighed and ran a hand up and down the back of his head again. “That was a long deployment. Almost a year. It was terrible. I got fucking shot at. Lost men. Couldn’t talk about any of that because I didn’t want to stress her out. And I had this constant pit in my stomach knowing I was missing Bennett grow up. I felt fucking jealous of everyone who got to hear him say his first words and do all that shit. She sent me videos and we did video chats whenever the timing worked out, but it sucked.”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling his pain inside my chest.
“When I got back, I was like, let’s get married. Let’s find you a job near base so you can meet people and have a life there. Let’s get a babysitter and hang out with other couples. Let’s be a fucking family. But she wasn’t having it. She didn’t want to live there. It was like she and B were just visiting, and whenever I’d leave for any amount of time, they’d leave.”
I grimaced. “Sounds like you were really craving a home and stability.”
“Yeah. I was. But I felt like a selfish asshole for it.” He finished his drink. “And then she started talking to me about when I was getting out of the Marines, and how we could live near her parents, and how her uncles could get me a job in the tactile business.”
“Uh-oh.” I could tell from his tone that was not his idea of a dream life.
“Yep. She knew when we met that I wanted to be a lifer in the Marines. I want to be a General someday. I’m in for the long haul—thirty years or more.” I nodded, still feeling the tightness in my chest. “When B turned two and she was ready to go back to work, she got a job right there in Charlotte. Even my fucking parents moved there so they could be near him. So, I became a geo bachelor. I worked and lived at Camp Lejeune, and I traveled to see Natalie and Bennett in Charlotte whenever I could. It’s about a three-hour drive.”
“Does she come see you too?” I asked.
“Rarely.”
“Okay,” I whispered. I was trying really hard not to judge or overstep with my commentary, biting my tongue like crazy. “But you ended up getting engaged?”
Another dry laugh. “When Bennett turned three, I told her I was having a really hard time with the arrangement. I said we needed to come to some agreements about our life and our future, that it wasn’t healthy for us to never be together. So, she said fine, let’s get engaged. That was two years ago, and nothing’s really changed except the label and a ring.”
I stared at him, and he groaned.
“I know,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes. It seems really fucked up, and I know how it sounds. To be honest, I’ve sort of gotten used to the traveling part of it, and the phone and video part. And we do love each other, you know?”
“Of course,” I said. Then I sighed, but it came out sort of like a low and sultry hum, though what I was really feeling was kind of sad.
“Don’t do that.” He eyed me over the rim of his cup.
“Do what?”
“That humming sound.”
