“Kind of,” I agreed, as I sat down next to him. “But don’t be sorry. Be communicative. Tell me what’s eating you so we can work through it together.”
I wondered if he had the words for his emotions yet. It seemed he did. “It’s fear,” he said.
“Fear of what? The deployment? Dying on Mars? Attack by aliens?”
“Fear of you leaving me,” he said. One hand reached out to catch mine, as if to hold me near him, and to apologize for even thinking it. “Last time I deployed and left someone at home, he cheated. This brings up memories that are sharper than I thought they’d be.”
I let a long breath escape. “All right. I can see that.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that until the other day. Then Laramie mentioned it, when I called to say we were deploying again. Wait, don’t make that face. It wasn’t like that.”
I sincerely doubted it wasn’t like that. “What was it like, then?”
“He just said it had to be hard for me not to think about what happened with Owen. It’s my first deployment married to you. It’d be natural to wonder how you’d handle it. He hoped it wouldn’t bother me.” By Jackson’s tone, he expected I’d think this was appropriate and normal.
To no one’s surprise, I did not. I could see what Laramie had done there. It didn’t take a genius to spot it, and all it took to ignore the play was a family member used to glossing over Laramie’s shit.
I let it go because accusing Jackson’s family of anything less than positive could lead to defensiveness, and I’d finally gotten this conversation rolling. “Now it’s hard to get out of your head.”
“Yeah.” He squeezed my hand tight, a sailor thrown overboard clutching a lifeline. “I wanted more time for us to learn about each other. Work together, build trust, all that. God, I was just starting to feelhumanagain, and my fireteam needs more time to deal with their own issues. Now we don’t have it, and it’s- It’s hard.”
“I wanted more time, too. For youandfor us.” Tenderly, I put my other hand over his and stroked his fingers. “Let’s go at this logically. You’ve known me for a while now. Do you believe me to be the kind of person to cheat, just in general?”
“No.” The denial came immediately. “You’re not that kind of person at all.”
“Okay. Do you believe me to be the kind ofspouseto cheat?” I had to work at it, but I kept my tone light, inquisitive, just as I would while I led my students through an exercise.
The short pause surprised me. “No,” he said, after longer than I liked. “I don’t believe that. It’s hard to know how anyone will handle the first deployment, but you? You’re so easy-going.”
Not easy-going enough, apparently. “And I’ve served myself,” I reminded him. “I have some knowledge about how this works. So, logically, do you think I’m going to run out and find a side piece to entertain myself while you’re away?”
“No.” He stared down at the free hand in his lap. “I know you’re not, babe. In my head, I know that. The worries just keep on whispering, though, and they’re not as loud as they used to be…”
“But they’re still there,” I finished. “I understand. Tell me how I can help.”
Jackson stared at me with pleading eyes. “Be patient with me. Please. I know it’s tough. Maybe it will be hard until I come home again and see everything’s still fine. I promise I’m working on it. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I leaned over to rest my head on his chest. One heartbeat, strong and regular, and I hoped it beat for me. “Let’s just get through this deployment. I’ll call you. Write to you. Message you. I’ll be as transparent as I can so you don’t have to worry. Hell, I’ll even call your parents so they can keep up with what I’m doing. Whatever it takes to get through this first trip to Mars and over that last hurdle in trust.”
And so it went, with patience, with apologies and grace, because he was worth it. Also because, I understood. After my relationship with Joan went abruptly and thoroughly to shit, I kept waiting for things to go wrong with Jackson, too. Not always. Now and then. Intrusive thoughts never listen to reason.
Part of me wondered if I’d ever believe I deserved happiness with the man of my dreams. The rest of me knew the answer, of course. No. I would never believe it, because I’d spent the three decades prior hearing how immoral behavior earned only misery as a reward.
Thanks, conservative upbringing. I hate it.
* * *
Three weeks to put together a troop launch, complete with equipment, additional supplies, and weaponry is really impressive. It told me they’d started the planning long before the current crisis, and had just spend up the timeline for getting the ship on the launchpad. Ships, actually. Both the Brownsville Complex, co-opted from a private company early in the war, and the Kennedy Complex had been cleared for multiple launches, Jackson said, and a few of them would contain my husband and his unit.
You couldn’t really hide a giant rocket launch these days. No one would buy the old “no, of course that wasn’t a rocket, it was just a weather balloon” excuse anymore. What youcoulddo was obfuscate a launch’s actual purpose. Send up a bunch of vehicles, shuttle some supples to the orbital facilities, and hope no one noticed a couple troop transports sneaking off in the direction of a certain red dot in the sky. They’d perfected the high art of blocking sensor arrays and telescopes with space junk in a high-tech game of hide and seek.
Command had structured this deployment with two weeks for the troops to prepare, get their affairs in order, and endure the first pre-flight medical checks. The third week would send the soldiers into lockdown on military bases near the launch sites. It served as quarantine for illness as well as quarantine against information leaks. Exact liftoff times wouldn’t go on the books until they had all troops under lock and key.
I have no idea how they kept it out of the press. The news played on night after night with the same old song and dance. Victory on Mars! Progress on the Red Planet! Our brave troops on a neighboring world, fighting for America’s place in the stars! Not a whiff of the impending deployment and offensive. That media silence might have been equally impressive as the three-week launch plan.
Jackson arrived home at a reasonable hour four nights before he left for the base. I’d plunked myself in front of the television with a Fridge Cleaner Burrito, which is to say I’d scraped a bunch of leftovers into a tortilla and nuked it because apathy. Mac and cheese, leftover sloppy joe, and some broccoli swaddled in a carb blanket could migrate into my face while I took notes on the news broadcast for the next day’s classes.
I wondered if school would still be in session when news of Jackson’s deployment hit the airwaves. It would be fascinating to show the kids how the military and media perform some mutual stage magic.