Page 88 of The Summer We Mended
Anna nodded, unable to find the words to thank her.The kids had been trying to stay cheerful, but the longer their father was missing in action, the harder it was to be cheerful.His odds of surviving were becoming less and less with each passing hour.
Within minutes, the house had emptied, leaving just Anna and her mother.Lily was in the living room, knitting quietly, her needles clicking in a steady rhythm that had always soothed Anna as a child.
Anna walked in and sank onto the couch beside her, her shoulders slumping as the weight she carried pressed her deeper into the cushions.
“They say they’re searching,” Anna began, her voice tight.“But it doesn’t feel like it.It feels like he vanished, and they’re just saying the words to placate me.”
Lily looked up, her expression open and patient.“You don’t believe them?”
“I don’t know what I believe.”Anna stood again, pacing across the room.“It’s like being trapped between two lives.One where he’s alive and just out of reach, and the other where he’s…” Her breath caught, and she swallowed hard.“Gone.And I don’t know which one I’m supposed to prepare myself for.”
She turned sharply, tears brimming in her eyes.“How do you live like this?Not knowing?How do you keep breathing, eating, getting out of bed when your world could have ended and no one will tell you for sure?”
Lily set her knitting aside and stood.She crossed the room slowly and reached for her daughter, pulling her into a hug.Anna let herself be held, like she had when she was little and scraped her knees or had nightmares about storms.
“You scream.You cry.You do exactly what you’re doing right now,” Lily murmured.“And then you do it all again the next day.Because it’s the only way to survive.”
Anna sobbed once and then pulled back, wiping at her cheeks.“I’m so scared, Mom.I’m scared he’s not coming home.I’m scared we’re going to be in this limbo for another year or more.And I’m tired.I’m so tired of pretending to hope when all I want is to know.Toknowif I should be grieving or praying.”
Lily nodded, her eyes shining with her own unshed tears.“You should always be praying, Anna.You don’t stop praying just because you don’t get the answer you want.”
Lily let out a very long sigh, her eyes wet with unshed tears as she looked back at her daughter.“I’ve spent the last fourteen months being so angry at God and at everyone in the world, because their world didn’t stop like mine did.Your father was such a good man, we did everything right, and I couldn’t understand why God was punishing us by taking your father so early.It’s not fair.I may never understand why this is the path I’m supposed to walk, but I do know that I’ve felt so utterly alone and devastated because I turned my back on God.Please, learn from my mistakes.”
A tear slid down Anna’s cheek as she looked back at her mother in shock.They’d always been in church growing up, but they’d never really been a religious family.Not like you see in some of those shows anyway.Their faith wasn’t loud.They didn’t make a fuss or tell the world that they were in church consistently.
The first thing Anna did when they got to a new base was to find a new church, a place for them to gather and worship, but they didn’t broadcast it.Anna knew the day that Luke enlisted that she would need to develop a better relationship with God or she’d never survive.It shocked her to realize that in this moment of uncertainty, she was forgetting that.
Anna didn’t reply.She just leaned back and looked down at her hands.
Lily continued speaking.“After your father died, I thought about selling the house.The studio.Leaving the island and never looking back.”
Anna blinked, startled.“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t want to.It felt like weakness, but I also didn’t want to mention your father’s name or death to anyone.It felt like a betrayal or that it made it all more real than I wanted it to be, you know?Every corner of this place reminded me of him.The way he used to come in from surfing with sand in his hair, the smell of paint on his hands, the way his laugh echoed in this very room.It was easier to think about running away than facing that every day.”
Anna pressed her fingers to her lips, trying to hold back the emotion that threatened to break her open again.“God, I get that.Ifeelthat.Every part of me wants to run, to get on a plane with the kids and disappear.Because then I won’t be waiting anymore.I’ll just be gone.”
Lily reached out, cupping Anna’s cheek.“But I stayed.I stayed because this house held the best of him, too.And because some part of me knew that if I ran, I’d be grieving in a strange place where nothing made sense.At least here, I have memories.I have roots.”
Anna collapsed back onto the couch and dragged her hands through her hair.“I’m glad you stayed.I don’t know what I would do without you.Without Margot.Without this house.It’s the only thing grounding me.”
Lily sat beside her, taking her hand.“You don’t have to be strong every second.”
Anna let out a shaky laugh.“Try telling that to the military spouses’ club.There’s this unspoken rule that you hold it together, no matter what.That you never show weakness.But I don’t have that here.And I’m not sure I could manage it even if I did.”
“Then don’t.Let yourself feel it, Anna.You have people who love you.Let us carry some of it.”
Tears spilled over again.“I hate this so much.I hate the waiting.The unknown.I hate that I can’t tell the kids anything.I can’t look them in the eye and promise them their dad is coming home.”
Lily gripped her hand tighter.“You don’t have to promise anything you don’t know.Just love them.Just be here.That’s enough.”
Anna closed her eyes, her throat tight.“I feel so isolated.All my friends, my military family, they understand what this is like.But they’re not here.And even if they were, what could they say?And being here… it helps, it does.But it’s also so quiet.”
“It’s okay to miss them.It’s okay to wish you had both.Familiarity and understanding.”
“I just wish someone could tell me what to do.Or at least what’s going to happen.”She paused, shaking her head.“But life doesn’t work like that, does it?”
“No,” Lily said softly.“It doesn’t.”
