“A brave man like you… You’ll find a woman easily,” Saburo said, clapping me on the back.
“Let’s toast,” Natsuo prompted, raising his glass. “To Major CEO Jake Middleton and his future wife.”
A round of cheers filled the air, and I sipped my champagne quietly, wishing I could drink something a little stronger. The happier and unrulier the crowd got, the quieter and more reflective I became. At this point, no one noticed my mood because everyone was having too good a time to give me any attention. I was grateful for that; I just wanted to be left alone.
I kept drinking as the conversation of the group became white noise in the background of my memories. I probably should have stayed away from alcohol; I could never control my thoughts when I drank. I remembered things I’d long since forgotten. I remembered things I had worked years to forget.
I remembered the morning I’d received the phone call. I had been sitting in our tiny matchbox apartment with Noah on my lap. He had been gurgling away, happy to crawl around on the large pillowy blanket that I had spread across the living room floor. When the call came in, I left Noah on the floor and rushed to answer it. I had been expecting a call from Daphne last night, but it had never come.
I hadn’t been concerned. The connections were not always good in Afghanistan, especially if she was in a particularly hostile location. I knew she would call when she had a good line. I was just anxious to talk to her because of the last time. We’d had a small fight, and Daphne had hung up on me. It had been almost six days, and I had started to calm down enough to want to apologize for what I had said to her.
I had answered the call, anticipating Daphne’s voice, but what I heard was the deep, gravelly voice of a man.
“Hello?”
“Is this Major Jake Middleton?”
“It is,” I said, glancing at Noah, who was still crawling around on the floor. “Who is this?”
“I’m Doctor Steven Edwards,” he replied. “I’m serving in the same unit as your wife.”
I felt my knees go weak. “What happened?”I asked the question. But I wasn’t even really listening to his reply. All I heard were a few words that shook me to my very core. It was all I really needed to hear anyway.
“Major Middleton?”
“What?”
“Can you hear me?” the doctor asked. “I said there was too much shrapnel…internal bleeding…broken ribs…”
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” I said, cutting him off. “I have to go.”
He was still talking when I hung up on him. I stood there for a long time, staring at my kitchen, trying to process what had just happened. Suddenly, I felt a tug on my right leg and looked down. Noah was at my feet. He had crawled right up to me and was looking at me proudly, with one hand wrapped firmly around my ankle.
“Hi, buddy.” My voice broke as I spoke, and I felt moisture prick at the back of my eyelids.
“Da-da,” Noah said, raising his arms to me so that I could pick him up.
Instinctively, I picked him up and started walking around the apartment mindlessly. The phone started ringing again when I was on my third circuit around the coffee table, but I ignored it.
“Da-da,” Noah said, as though he were trying to point my attention towards the ringing phone.
In the end, I unplugged the phone because the ringing made me feel like screaming. I kept walking until my legs hurt and Noah’s weight had become uncomfortable. But I didn’t want to stop walking because if I stopped, I would have to face it. And, I wasn’t ready to say it out loud. I wasn’t ready to make it real.
“Jake?”
I blinked, and Natsuo’s face focused in front of me. “Sorry,” I said. “I was somewhere else.”
“Too much alcohol?” he teased.
I forced a smile onto my face. “Please, I can drink you under the table,” I said. “It’s all part of my military training.”
“Ah-ha,” he said. “That sounds like a challenge to me.”
The table erupted in cheers and wolf whistles, and everyone started banging their hands on the table, demanding to see the challenge play out. I could feel the weight of my past threaten to drown me, and I knew I needed something hard enough to numb me against the pain of it.
I flagged down the waiter and ordered hard liquor for the table. “It is,” I said, looking at Natsuo suggestively.
He laughed and clapped me hard on the back. “We shall see who wins, my friend.”