Despite having memorized every movement of his muscles when he was shooting, I can't reproduce them, much less shoot with his accuracy. Or any kind of accuracy.
"So why aren't you in the Army anymore?" I ask after we call it quits for the day and gather the arrows.
Tristan hesitates. "It's a hard life. It started to take a toll on me. And… I dropped out because I wanted to spend more time with my wife. I'd been deployed almost continuously since I enlisted, so she spent the first two years of our marriage alone. Not the life she hoped for," he says. "In the short periods when I was home, things between us were tense. Very tense." His eyes search me, as if hoping I might interrupt him or switch subjects. But I don't. I leave it up to him. If he decides not to say anything else, I won't press for more. I’ve already pressed enough.
"I hoped that if I returned home and took a regular job, things between us would get good again."
"And they didn't?"
He shakes his head, a bitter smile on his lips.
"Why?" I gesture to him to help me build a fire to roast the bird he shot with the arrow. The fire I build every morning to signal rescuers I no longer believe will come is already ablaze, but the way it's built doesn't make it useful for cooking.
"One reason was we had grown apart. We had spent too much time away from each other, and our experiences were different. So naturally, they shaped us in different ways. Celia was an elementary school teacher and spent her days surrounded by kids. I spent my days in Afghanistan surrounded by gunfire and people in pain or dying."
I look away from his hands when he starts plucking the bird.
"What was the other reason?"
"Hmm?"
"The other reason things didn't work out between you?"
"That other reason… that would be me." An odd noise chokes from his throat, and when he speaks again, his voice wavers. "Or rather, the post-tra
umatic stress disorder."
"Oh."
"I was diagnosed after I returned home. I was permanently angry and avoided people. People also avoided me, even people who had been my friends. Some feared me. I couldn’t stand hearing certain sounds. I had horrible nightmares. They used to be much, much worse than they are now. And Celia… she started wishing I'd go back in the Army again. She couldn't deal with me at all. Started avoiding me during the day. Slept in a different room at night, and then started sleeping over at a friend of hers, saying she couldn't rest. That she could still hear me."
"Did you go to counselling?"
"I did. I remember my counselor warning me that a lot of marriages like mine break up. He suggested we do couple's therapy. It took me forever to gather the courage to ask Celia to go to counselling with me. By the time I did, she was barely coming home at all. I guess it was already over for her, but I refused to see it. I had prepared this very elaborate speech, and took her to the restaurant where we'd been on our first date years before. That night she broke the news to me that she wanted a divorce."
"That's… I'm sorry… that's very sad."
"It is. It's unbelievable how fast things can go wrong. She told me she'd fallen out of love with me. And, as you correctly assumed, in love with someone else."
"Ah… "
The next few minutes pass in silence as we position the bird on the skewer, along with a few grayish, paper-tasting roots I dug up early this morning. My stomach churns at the sight of the roasting bird. It's been so long since I've eaten a proper meal. Tristan's stomach growls, too. To stave our hunger until the bird is ready, we each gulp down a few cans of water. It's lukewarm, as usual, and I'd give anything for a gulp of ice-cold water. My throat aches just at the thought of it.
Since he didn't show any signs of wanting to continue the conversation, I'm surprised when he brings up his wife again.
"They got married right after our divorce, and welcomed a child a few months later."
"Conceived while the two of you were still married?"
"Simple math would indicate that to be correct."
"How did you deal with it?"
"Badly," he says, staring at the roasting bird, his chin resting on his knees. "I sort of became a recluse for a while."
"Why didn't you return to the Army?"
"I couldn't. Despite everything, I was recovering from the trauma and didn't want to go back to square one. And I resented the Army. In a way, I felt it was responsible for everything that happened—my nightmares, losing Celia."