Everything I've Never Had (38 page)

All of this occurs without Adrian letting me get more than six inches away from him.

When the boarding call comes over, I feel a chill make quick work of my body and close those six inches to burrow into Adrian’s side.

“I love you so much,” he tells me. “Everything’s going to be OK.”

Before I can speak, I hear a woman’s voice behind me and feel Adrian stiffen. Turning, I see the woman who has to be his mother. I’ve seen pictures of a younger, less tired version of her.

“Mom,” Adrian says as he moves around me to hug her. “I thought you weren’t going to make it.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t miss saying goodbye to my baby boy,” she chokes out. “I tried to get your father to come, but he said he’d already told you goodbye. Anyway, that’s why I’m so late.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too, son.” He turns her around to face me. I smile nervously.

“Hello, Celeste,” she says sweetly. “I hear you’re quite taken with my son.”

I laugh and look at my blues before looking back her. “Yes, ma’am. Quite taken,” I confirm.

“Good, good. You’re a good person. And Adrian deserves someone good.”

I don’t know what else to say but thank you. Thank you for being here, thank you for seeing the good in him and the good in me, and thank you for saying what he needed to hear.

Everyone takes that moment to give him one last, quick hug. He picks up each of the boys and hugs them extra tight and tells him how much he loves them before turning to me.

Tears shimmer in both of our eyes, so I smile and throw myself around him, hugging him to me tight. “I love you so much, Adrian. I’ll miss you so much.”

“I love you too, baby.” He pulls back a little and gives me my blues. I frame his face and kiss him long and hard. I hear the last call for his flight and feel my best friends move in tight. I clutch at him and shake my head no a little as the thought of being without him overwhelms me before I finally tear myself away.

He pulls me back quickly, and his gravelly voice whispers, “I’m really gonna miss my
mimi
.” I give a little bark of laughter through my tears. Locking eyes with me one more time, he grabs his duffle bag and backs out of the terminal to get on the plane that will take him away from us.

I lose him after he makes his way through security and through the gates. I let go of a deep breath and look to see the boys still waving. Bonnie and Farah are holding me from each side. I cross my arms over me and pat their hands. “I’m good.”

Bonnie leans in and says, “Did he seriously just call you his pussycat? And in French?”

I can’t respond for the huge grin that’s on my face. Farah gasps, “He calls you his pussycat?” In French?” I smile at her and nod. Her mouth drops open before she breathes, “That’s hot!”

The giggles that pour out of me at that point are the kind where you can’t tell if someone is laughing or crying. I turn and give my girls hugs and say, “Thanks for that. I needed a good laugh.”

“Thank your man,” Bonnie says. “He certainly knows how to lighten up the mood.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Celeste, I cannot believe your families did not blow a gasket when they found about y’all,” Bonnie says.

I blow out a deep breath. “Well, we probably would have made a bigger splash, but war has a way of trumping things. I think even our family realizes the severity of this situation and will probably save the theatrics and threats for another day.”

It’s the strangest thing afterward. No one is in a hurry to leave. We all just enjoy each other’s company. Adrian’s mom tells the boys Adrian story after Adrian story. They are a captive audience. Finally, we start to disperse and head out. When I look around, it’s just us girls along with my boys and Adrian’s mom.

“Celeste, is that your engagement ring?” his mom asks. I smile and nod. “It’s beautiful, honey.”

“It really is, Cel, I didn’t want to say anything earlier and draw attention away from our goodbyes, but it’s gorgeous,” Bonnie says.

Farah picks up my hand and looks at it in detail. The wedding band is unique; it’s covered in tiny diamonds and blends seamlessly with the two diamond bands encircling the engagement ring. It’s a trio of bands, and it’s hard to tell they’re separate, which works perfectly, since we’re keeping the official aspect of our relationship to ourselves for now.

“Thanks, y’all,” I tell them.

“So when’s the big day?” his mom asks.

“We’re going to have a small ceremony at Holy Name two weeks after Adrian’s return. That would put it somewhere around mid-April. We have to be flexible. You know how the military can be with dates.” They all nod.

We say our final goodbyes. The girls offer to come over, but I insist that I’m fine. Adrian’s mom makes me promise to bring the boys over sometime. I’m thinking I’d rather her come over to my house because of Adrian’s father, but I don’t say anything about that just yet. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Farah hangs back from the others and says, “I’d like to tell you something real quick. I don’t think that Adrian would mind now.” I just nod. “Remember that night that I told you that he came clean to me in the club?” I nod again. “What he said…I’ll never forget, Celeste. I called him on it when he said he didn’t love you. I told him you were both fools, denying what you felt for each other. He finally broke down and said that the only thing that made him a fool where you were concerned was because you owned him. He said he didn’t even exist without you. That he was an empty vessel and that you filled him and owned him until he didn’t know where he ended and you began.”

“Wow,” is all I can utter when she finishes. “I…now…that’s so beautiful that I just want him to come back so I can kiss him harder, longer,” I say forcing myself to laugh so that I don’t cry.

She hugs me tight. “I didn’t want to make you sad. I just wanted you to know how much he loves you and has for a long time too.”

Once the boys and I get home and take care of the chores that have to be squared away, we pile in the living room and watch comedy after comedy. Our laughs are slow to come at first. It feels awkward to laugh when our hearts are so heavy. After our third movie and some pizza that I had delivered because I had absolutely no energy to cook, my phone rings and we all jump for it.

“You’re on speaker,” I say when the call goes through.

“Well, hello, my little family. I miss you guys already. What are y’all doing?”

“Hey, Papa!” Finn yells before I can tell him that he doesn’t have to yell. “We’re having a movie marathon.”

“Ah, what’s playing tonight?”

Paris pipes up and tattles on me. “Ma made us watch the
Princess Bride
first.”

“Hey, y’all love the
Princess Bride
,” I say, affronted.

“Yeah,” Adrian agrees, “y’all always laugh.”

“But she always chooses that.” Paris insists. I laugh because it’s true.

“Adrian,” Finn singsongs, “we’re gonna watch your favorite comedy next.”

“
Jaws
?”

Archer snorts with laughter. “No, the
Goonies
!”

“All right, boys,” I cut in, “let me talk to Adrian real quick about what’s going on. I’m sure he doesn’t have long. Y’all go brush your teeth and then we’ll watch the
Goonies
before lights out.”

“Bye, Papa!” Finn shouts again.

Archer and Paris say their goodbyes.

I take Adrian off speaker and go to my room. “Hi,” I whisper.

“Hi,” he says back.

“We miss you already.”

“I miss y’all too. I can’t believe I’m missing movie night. I thought about all the things I’m going to be missing on the plane too. I’m going to miss all four of your birthdays and Christmas and every major holiday. That sucks.”

“You’ll be home for Easter,” I offer.

“True,” he says with a smile in his voice. “Look, I’ve got about two minutes. I have a question for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you find anything in your pocket?”

I grin and pat myself down before feeling a little something in one of my back pockets. “I can’t believe you were feeling me up in front of everyone,” I say, thinking back to his wandering hands every time we would hug. He just laughs.

I work the little piece of plastic out of my back pocket and hold it up in front of me. “Did you read it?”

I swallow hard. Tears flood my eyes. I have to focus on breathing. “Celeste?”

I whimper.

“I mean it,” he whispers fiercely.

Clearing my throat, I whisper back, “I know you do.”

“Love you.”

“I love you too.”

Hitting end on the call, I toss the phone on my bed, lock my bedroom door, and go to my bathroom. I sit down on the bench and stare at the guitar pick he’d used on me that morning, reading it over and over again.
You hold my pick and my heart. Guard them.

It doesn’t take long for the words to become a blur.

THE NEXT SEVERAL months are spent thinking of every conceivable way to make sure Adrian knows exactly how much we miss him and we love him and how we treasure him. We send him care packages that he actually receives sometimes. I write to him every single day. I may mail them a few at a time, but every day I write him little notes even if some days I can only imagine a few lines. I stationed writing sets all over the house—on each of the boys’ nightstands, in the living room, on the bar in the kitchen, in the office—pretty much everywhere—so that we could write to him as soon as we thought about him or had the urge to tell him something. Then, on the bar, we put a little mailbox that we decorated with Marine insignia for the boys to slip their notes into for me to mail. I told them if there was ever anything they didn’t want me to read, all they had to do was put a little piece of tape over the fold and I would keep out. There was never any tape, and I was so glad because their letters never ceased to be a source of wonder and amusement for me.

We don’t get to talk to Adrian much or email him very much because he’s stationed on the front lines, which I try not to consider very often.

So our letters become our foundation of solace and happiness.

Wife,