Searching for Tomorrow (Tomorrows) (26 page)

Tripp was due back from a training exercise any day, but those girls wasted no time shoving a pregnancy test in my face. They claimed that it would be a wonderful thing to surprise my hubby with when he got home.
After eight years as my closest sister-friends, it seemed almost appropriate to have them with me as I confirmed that I was pregnant with our third child, even if I had to chase them out of the bathroom so I could have a little privacy. Two days later, they came and got my daughters so that Tripp and I could have a little privacy. When I told him the news, my big, strong man dropped to his knees, whispered words of welcome and love to our future child, and then thanked me in his own special way.

This pregnancy
had a few more hiccups than my other two did. The first two trimesters were plagued with sickness, and the abnormally hot weather didn’t make things any easier. By October, when I’d reached my sixth month, the nausea had settled, but the swelling had begun. I came to detest the term preeclampsia. In November, the doctor advised against me traveling, so my family made the trip from Highlands to celebrate Thanksgiving with us.

While washing the dishes after our feast, a familiar tightening sensation began in my belly. A trip to the emergency room
only confirmed what I already knew. This little monkey was a little too eager to enter the world, and had just landed her mommy a three-day stay in the hospital in an attempt to stop my premature labor. It was there that I discovered firsthand what the term bed rest meant, and was ordered to remain off my feet until closer to my January due date.

As I felt the p
anic rise, Tripp explained that Mom and Papa were going to alternate time staying with us until the baby was born, and they would take care of not only me, but also the two munchkins when Tripp couldn’t be there to help. Lori and Tiffany had already let me know that they would do whatever it took to get me to a January delivery date. That had an immediate calming effect on me, and made me even more thankful for the love and support of my family and friends.

With three weeks left until Christmas break,
Mom went back to finish teaching, and Papa stayed with us. Boredom quickly set in, and I found myself searching for things to do from the bed or couch. Tripp surprised me with an early Christmas present, and the Kindle DX loaded with books was just what I needed to help me get through this mess.

Tripp spent as much time with me as possible, but on
my first Friday home from the hospital, a ringing telephone woke us. I couldn’t help but feel the same sense of dread that I felt every time that phone rang when it was still dark outside. It could only mean one thing. Tripp was being deployed to parts unknown.

Bless his
heart; he took my meltdown really well. Since it was December 3, and the baby was due January 15, we both knew this meant that he would more than likely miss the birth of Sarah Margaret, or Little Miss Maggie as he called her. We’d been blessed to have him home for the other two deliveries, but it seemed as if the third time wasn’t the charm.

My instinct was to scramble and help get him
prepare, but he had planned ahead, and everything that he needed was already packed and ready to go. He’d done this so that he could spend time with me before he left. We spent that last hour cuddled together in bed, and whispering our goodbyes and I love yous. When the time came for him to leave, he kissed me deeply, wrapped me tight in his arms, and told me he loved me before going to say his goodbye to the girls.

Within moments, the anguish that I’d
managed to keep hidden deep down inside rose to the surface, and I curled around his pillow and sobbed. Small hands rubbed my back and hair, and I looked up to find a teary-eyed Annie attempting to soothe her mom. When I motioned for her to join me, she climbed in the bed and carefully arranged herself around my growing belly. As she wrapped her little arms around me, I took over the role of consoler and put my own grief away. As our tears slowed, Maggie reminded us that we were squishing her by firmly kicking Annie in the chest. This brought on much needed laughter that lifted our sad spirits at just the right moment. Annie drifted back off to dreamland, but that kick meant that Maggie was awake and practicing her gymnastics, so that was the end of my sleep.

With Tripp’s leaving, I wanted to be selfish and keep Annie home f
rom school, but I realized that, with all the upcoming Christmas activities, being with her classmates would be a good distraction for her. Papa and I tried to stick to our routine as much as possible, which meant that he got the girls ready for the day, cooked the meals, did the laundry, and cleaned the house. I had the pleasure of lying in bed all day, and occasionally, he would help me to the couch so I could have a change of scenery.

On Tuesday, December 14, Annie woke with a
low-grade fever and a cough, so despite her missing a classroom visit from Santa, I felt it best that she stay home and rest. After breakfast, she and I settled on the couch, both of us engrossed in our own books. Hoping to prevent Bekah from catching whatever bug it was, Papa bundled her up and took her to the library for story time. A short time later, a well-placed kick to my bladder made a trip to the bathroom a necessary thing. With only a month left in the pregnancy, I had officially reached the waddling stage, and with her head turned down in preparation for delivery, that wonderful feeling of sitting on a bowling ball was making its presence known.

As I made the return trip to the couch, I kicked a stray stuffed bunny across the floor. When I attempted to bend and pick it up, Maggie chose tha
t moment to shift inside of me. This threw my center of gravity even further off. I gripped the edge of the window seat to catch my balance, and with bunny safely in hand, I slowly raised myself to a standing position. Movement outside the window caught my eye, and then—My. World. Stood. Still.

Pulling to a stop in front of my house was an official-looking black SUV. When Marcus got out of the passenger side, the first thing I noticed was his official dress uniform. Where was the standard camouflage
? Randy rounded the front of the vehicle, and stopped to speak with Marcus. They both looked toward the house, and even from across the yard, the anguish and grief written on their faces were plainly visible. This could mean only one thing, but my mind refused to take that step.

Spurred by a burst of adrenaline,
I raced to the door and, throwing it open, said the first words that came to my mind. “YOU ARE NOT HERE! GO AWAY!” I grabbed hold of the doorframe for support as a tearing pain hit my stomach. “THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!”

Both men placed their c
overs on their heads, and raced up the sidewalk leading toward the house. Screams ripped from my soul. “NO! NO! NO!” Neither man spoke, but no words were necessary. “GO AWAY! JUST GO AWAY!” As another sharp pain tore through my body, I saw Lori and Tiffany came running toward the house. “NO! THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.” My body slid down the doorframe until I landed on my knees, and clutching that stupid, stuffed bunny to my chest, I fought against the blackness that threatened to drown me. I struggled to draw a single breath into my lungs, and forcing every bit of air to the surface, my tormented scream escaped. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO …!”

Marcus jumped up the steps, and reached his hands toward me. The last sound I heard was simply,
“Wrynn …”

The first thing I notice as consciousness seeps back in is the jean-clad thigh pillowing my head, and the fingers running through my hair and caressing my scalp. It’s déjà vu… again. Am I somehow stuck with Bill Murray in
Groundhog Day
? I squeeze my swollen eyes shut as tight as I can, and wonder who’s sitting on the closet floor with me. Dad is working at a neighbor’s house today, so I know it’s not him. Liam hasn’t been gone for more than a couple of hours, and he said he had two jobs to do today, so no, I don’t think it’s him, either.

I am racking my brain trying to figure out who it is, and trying to decide if I should be scared, when a voice from my past stops my thoughts with his whisper. “Babe, you awake?”

I know this voice. I hear it in my mind almost every waking hour. It’s impossible. I clench my eyes closed to the point of pain, and violently shake my head as a moan works its way from the bottom of my broken heart. “No. No. No. You. Are. Not. Here.” I have to be hallucinating. That’s the only explanation I can come up with to explain what I’m hearing. “You left, and you didn’t come back. Why didn’t you come back?” The pain that rips through my heart leaves me in a whimper. “Why didn’t you come back? Don’t you know that I need you? I’ve tried so hard to live without you, but I’ve made such a mess of things.”

The thigh under my head moves and warm hands reach under my arms and drag my body
onto a solid lap. “Wrynn, it’s me. Open your eyes and look at me.” Gentle hands splay across my belly.

I can’t
find it in me to open my eyes. What if it’s all a dream? My hands reach up to touch an unfamiliar face, the cheeks hollowed, and a scratchy beard-covered jaw and chin. I trace up to the hair, but it’s wrong. It’s long and matted, dirty to my touch. I lower my hands to his shoulders, and feel bone and skin where muscled flesh should be. It all feels wrong, but the voice, that voice, is so right.

Rough hands
gently cup my cheeks, the thumbs wiping away my tears. “We don’t have a lot of time. They’ll be looking for me. Babe. Open. Your. Eyes. Now.”

I have no choice but to listen
to his soft-spoken command. As I pry open my swollen eyelids, piercing yellow-green eyes stare back at me. My hands find their way back to his face as my mind scrambles to make sense of what I’m seeing. With the breath stolen from my lungs, I can only manage a whisper. “It can’t be you. You’re dead.” Tracing the prominent cheekbones with a gentle touch, I struggle to grasp this new reality. “They told me you were gone. What happened? How is this possible? How are you here?” If this is just my imagination playing tricks on me, I know that I am not strong enough to survive the blow when he disappears into thin air.

“It’s a lon
g story, but let’s just put it this way. I would travel barefoot across a jungle and two continents to get back to you and my girls.” His hands once again travel to my belly.

“I want to believe you. You can’t
know how much I want to believe you. I’ve imagined you so many times.”

Restless hands
roam over my back and gentle fingers run through my hair. He pulls me close, burying his face in my neck, and then places a line of kisses up to my ear. “I’ve missed you so much. You’ll never know just how very much. I’ve dreamed of holding you in my arms, adoring you with my hands.” He leans back and slowly traces my eyes, my nose, and my lips with the tips of his fingers. Slow tender kisses follow his gentle caresses. He murmurs in a low voice, “You’re just as beautiful as I remember. My thoughts of coming back to you were all that kept me going.” He holds my face captive between his hands. “It’s me, Wrynn. I promise. It’s me.”

“
But, how do I know you’re real this time, and not just something I’m dreaming up?” I stare up into the eyes of the man that I’ve loved forever, and I wish desperately that he were real. “OUCH! You pinched me.” My eyes grow wide as realization dawns. “You pinched me, and I felt it. Oh, thank you, God. You ARE real.”

I
hop up from his lap, pull him from the floor, and throw myself into waiting arms. This sudden movement lands us back on the floor, but I’m too excited to care. I am on him like white on rice. My lips travel his face as my hands trace his body, and in my excitement, my joy, my delirium, it takes a few seconds for all the dramatic differences to register in my mind. Where muscles once covered his shoulders, arms, and chest, now I feel knobby bones poking through his thin flesh. As I start to draw back to take a deeper look, his frail arms wrap around me and hold me close to him.

“J
ust let me hold you. I’ve dreamt of this for three long years. You’re right where I need you to be. My arms have been so empty, and only you can fill them.” Love and hope fill his voice. There is no way that I could ever deny him this request.

As we
sit here on the floor of the closet, the one place where I have always sensed his presence, the outside world ceases to exist. Time moves slowly as we reacquaint ourselves with each other. My fingers trace the prominent bones of his face, shoulders, and ribs, and my lips follow the path behind them. His hands never stop, drifting from one place on my body to another, as if he’s forgotten what I feel like, and I can’t help but wonder if he notices how much my body changed with Maggie’s pregnancy. There is no better feeling than being in his arms, no place that I’d rather be.

“Oh
, Tripp, you have no idea how happy I am to just be sitting here with you. Not one night has passed since you’ve been gone that I haven’t dreamt of you, longed for you. I’ve woken myself trying to feel you beside me.”

The feeling of joy is so great that it is almost overwhelming. I want to hear his story,
every detail he can give me, but I also want to tell him everything that he’s missed. It quite possibly could take the rest of our lifetime for us to know what all has transpired, but my search for my tomorrows has ended, and I’m willing to be patient.

Just as I begin to lose feeling in my feet, h
is gruff voice breaks the silence. “Tell me about my girls. I can’t even begin to imagine how much they’ve grown.” He stops to clear his throat, and when he speaks again, his voice is barely a whisper. “I’ve never even seen my Maggie, so I didn’t even have a memory of her to keep with me. They took so much from me that I’ll never get back.”

I know that he
’s missed a lot, but I refuse to let this time be anything but happy. I’ve shed enough tears and hurled anguished, angry screams. “Oh, Tripp. We’ll never get the time we lost back, but you’re home now. You’re here. You’re safe. You’re alive. That’s all that matters now.”

I raise my hands toward his face, and when he flinches, it breaks my heart. What did they do to my beautiful, strong man?
My hands gently cup his face as I tell him about his girls. “They’re amazing. I see bits and pieces of you in all three of them. Maggie is a pistol. She’s getting to the ‘me-do-it’ stage that drives me crazy. And Bekah is such a serious child. I swear she’s going to need wrinkle cream for the frown lines before she’s even a teenager. Annie … well, she’s had a rough time of it. She’s matured way too fast, and she has a habit of trying to mother the other two. I can’t wait for you to see them.” I pull against him, trying to get up from his lap, but his arms won’t release their hold on me. “Just let me go grab some pictures. I’ll be right back. Promise.”

He just shakes
his head at me. “Not yet. I don’t have much time before they find out I’m here.” His stomach chooses that moment to growl and grumble.

“Tripp, you keep saying that. Who’s going to find you? What are you talking about?”

“It’s a long story, a very long story. First though, I need some food and a shower.” As he’s talking to me, his eyes are slowly looking around the closet. He picks up the letter from the floor, peeks inside the box, and raises an eyebrow. “Babe, why do you still have all this in here? Isn’t this the stuff from my locker at the base?”

For the first time in three years
, true peace and contentment wash over me. “That, my dear, is another very long story. Three years long, to be exact, but we’ll have time for that later. Let’s get you something to eat, and then you can fill me in on all your vagueness, okay?” As I try to stand, his arms tighten around me, and my face finds the familiar spot on his neck that has always been my favorite. As I breathe a deep breath in, I let out a giggle. “Well, maybe I’ll fix you something to eat while you take a shower. You stink.”

He lets out a chuckle, and only squeezes me tighter. “Would you believe that I haven’t had a real shower in three years?”

I take a couple of sniffs and my nose wrinkles. “Actually, yes, I
would
believe you. You kinda stink.” That comment earns me a tickle to the ribs. As I sit and just stare at him, the smile on my face is so big it’s actually becoming painful. “You’re probably going to think this is silly, but your body wash and shampoo are waiting for you in the shower, and your razor and shaving cream are still under the sink.”

“Please, don’t tell me that you’ve been using my stuff the whole time I’ve been gone.”
He knows me so well. I’ve always used his toiletries when he was training or deployed to keep his scent with me.

When I look away without answering, he pulls my face back around and holds
my chin in his hands until my eyes meet his. Yellow-green eyes swimming in pain stare back at me, and cause my throat to tighten. “It kept you close to me,” I whisper around the knot. “At first, grief had numbed me, and I had to be reminded to do even simple things like shower and eat. Then one day, after a nasty argument with Liam about my lack of attention to everything going on around me, I was slamming things around in the bathroom like a toddler throwing a tantrum.... ”

My words trail off as
Tripp releases his grip on my chin, and wraps his arms around me again, pulling me closer to him. He motions for me to continue. “I knocked over your shower gel and busted the lid. At first, I was angry, because that was just one more mess for me to cleanup, and all I really wanted to do was sulk. Then I caught a whiff of it, and you were right back there with me. Your familiar smell, well, it just made it easier for me to imagine you were here with me.” I give him an impish smile and shrug my shoulders. “I
never
had to be reminded to shower again. It’s actually become my favorite part of the day, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

His arms loosen, and after he stands up, he helps me to my feet. “Babe, you’re breaking my heart, but the good news is, that after all the dust settles, you’ll be able to use that girly frou-frou stuff that you love, again. I’ve kept your lavender and vanilla scent alive in my mind, and I can’t wait to see if you smell as good as I remember.”
I can’t help but laugh when he wiggles his eyebrows at me.
My
smile takes over his expression, and there they are… my dimples. It’s enough to make a girl swoon.

Now
, it’s my turn to wiggle my eyebrows at him. “Hmmm, I haven’t had a shower today. And, I seem to remember a certain young man trying to convince his new bride that showering together is good for the environment. You up for a little water conservation? We can kill two birds with one stone. Wash and talk. Besides, I’m not ready to let you go just yet. I think—”

Before I can finish my sentence, Tripp sweeps me up in his trembling arms, and beats a path straight to the bathroom. “Babe, that’s the best idea I’ve heard in years.”

An hour later, we’re clean, and twisted together on our bed. Needless to say, we didn’t talk much in the shower. Best reunion ever. Our whispered murmurs and sated sighs travel through the otherwise silent room, as our hands caress and reacquaint themselves with each other’s body. With a fully relaxed and satisfied body, my bones have melted, and my form molds itself to his. As I pass my hand over his hip, the beast in his belly gives a fierce growl. “Oops, I think someone’s hungry. I kinda forgot to feed you. Sorry, but not really.”

Tripp trails kisses across my shoulder, and up my neck, and when he reaches my ear, he nibbles gently on my lobe before whispering, “Feed me
, woman. I need fuel.”

As I begin to untangle my limbs from his, I give him a quick peck on the lips, and say, “Your wish is my command. Care to join me in the kitchen? If I’m not mistaken, we still have some actual talking to do.”