Bring Me Home for Christmas

Not my mom, either. I didn’t tell her anything that might cost her sleep. Anyway, we guys hung tight. We talked about it till we wore it out.”
    She was quiet, contemplating this. Then very softly, she said, “I never even thought of that—that you wouldn’t tell me things….”
    “We were young then,” he said. “I didn’t want to scare you.”
    “It was only a few years ago!”
    “I know,” he replied in a low voice. “Amazing what a couple of wars and some hard times will do to grow you up.”
    “What does that mean? Does that mean that if you were sent over there now, that if I were your girlfriend now, you’d talk to me about it?”
    He took a breath and let it out. “Becca, I thought I was doing you a favor by not saying too much about Iraq while I was there. We couldn’t be in touch that much, you and me, and most of the guys didn’t want to worry their wives or girls, so I figured that was the way to go. I’m not going back…but if I went now, I might do a lot of things differently.”
    “Like?”
    “When I did my first hitch in the Corps, it was hard but good. These guys and some others—they were like my brothers. For an only child with no extended family, that meant something. I had you at home, my mom, my brothers in the Corps and I felt like I belonged to something. I knew right away I didn’t want a military career, but I didn’t regret a second of it. So when my mom died, all I could think of was to go back to a place I understood, where there would be brothers. Family. I had no idea it wouldn’t be the same.”
    “I would’ve been your family if you’d have let me….”
    “Yeah, I know that now. I’m not going to make excuses, Becca, but I was so screwed up right about then, I couldn’t have made a smart decision for a million dollars. That second deployment sucked. We weren’t a tight squad, it was miserable and felt futile and I regretted every second. Instead of feeling like I was back where I belonged, I felt like I was in jail.”
    “You could’ve answered my emails. You could’ve written. You could’ve—”
    “Should have,” he corrected. “You can say it. I knew right away I should have been in touch, but I didn’t have the guts. After I’d been out of touch for months, I just wanted to finish my commitment, get out of the Corps and go home so I could look you in the eye and try to explain. I didn’t want to write a letter and ask you to forgive me and then wait for me. Becca, what made perfect sense to me when I was signing up for the second time made no sense at all when I got to Afghanistan. Seriously, it was a bad idea. It cost me. When I got back to you, I was too late.”
    “What would you have explained?” she tossed out into the darkness. After all, when he did finally show up, she hadn’t given him a second of her attention. She had been so angry, it had been hard not to throw things!
    But he didn’t answer. They both just lay in their respective beds. Then there was a little movement from his side of the room and she saw his shadow, then his silhouette as he leaned over her. He gently sat on the edge of her bed. He brushed away the strands of hair that had escaped her braid. “When I decided to go back in the Corps, I’d just learned something that left me really confused.”
    “What, Denny?”
    He took a breath. “Right before my mom died, she told me my dad wasn’t really my dad. My real father was some other guy she hadn’t seen or heard from in over twenty years. Then she died. For some reason, that news messed me up, made me feel more orphaned than ever. I couldn’t believe how confused I felt. How alone I was.”
    She could see him shrug in the darkness.
    “Because of the way I felt when I was in the Corps with Big Richie and the boys, I just went back to the recruiter and signed up and took the oath.”
    “But what about me?” she asked in a whisper. “Did you feel alone even though you had me?”
    “You were all I had—I didn’t have anyone but you. But you were stretched kinda thin, babe. You had a family, a sorority, a college, a surfing team, a lot of friends…and you lived and went to school in another city. I had to have something I could attach to, something bigger than me, something that felt important. I really needed to be needed. That’s one thing about the Marine Corps—they can make you feel like you’re doing something important.” He laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “Talk about feeling