Karen Smith - The Bracelet

“I was remembering the night your dad cried and I held him tight and we prayed he’d return safely from the war.”

The shock on Sean’s face was reiterated in his words. “You’ve got to be kidding. Dad cried?”

Had she made an awful mistake? Was this something too private to share with her son? Yet if Sean didn’t soon learn that his father had flaws, that he hurt and got disappointed and didn’t always succeed, she was afraid the two of them would always be at odds.

Her voice vibrated with the intensity she felt. “I’m talking to you as one adult to another. You wanted to know something about your dad. I just confided in you about a night when both of us were so scared that there wasn’t any escape from it. Your dad was twenty-one, graduating from college. You’ll be graduating from high school soon. What if someone put a weapon in your hands and shouted orders at you? What if you were sent to a foreign land where nothing is easy, nothing is familiar and there’s no way to go home? Think about it and then tell me what you’d do with that storm building inside you.”

It was a few moments before Sean murmured, “I can’t imagine it.”

“Vietnam wasn’t so different from Iraq. Maybe the cause was more idealistic. I don’t know. By the time I met your dad, no one could ignore the clips on the news…our boys dying. The war was touching so many families’ lives that the nation couldn’t look away.”

She tapped her finger on Sean’s chest over his heart. “When war touches you personally, when a relative or friend dies or loses a leg, the fight is a prison you can’t escape from. A young man walking into hell has every right to cry.”

She was talking to Sean from a woman’s perspective, from her woman’s perspective, as a girlfriend and a mother, or as simply a lover of peace. Maybe he needed to know her, too, in all this. Maybe he’d never realized what was at her core. Perhaps it was time he did.

After a few very long minutes during which neither of them spoke, Sean asked what she thought was an odd question. “How long had you been dating Dad when that happened…when he let you know he was scared?”

“Six weeks. We’d had six weekends together, letters in between.”

“He must have trusted you.”

“That night, we started to trust each other. I can’t explain what happened between me and your dad that spring. As your mom, I’d tell you never trust love at first sight, never trust that initial excitement because it could fade away, never think the moment is going to last forever. Because what your dad and I shared was so rare, Sean, so very rare. But your dad and I were blessed with knowing from the moment I met him.”

“Knowing you were going to get married?” her son asked.

“No. Everything was still too uncertain. But we knew for sure we had a connection, a bond that would never be broken. That weekend was a turning point for me in more ways than one. Up until that weekend, I’d lived with my aunt.” Aunt Marcia had died of lung cancer before Sean and Kat had come into her and Brady’s lives.

“What happened that weekend?” In spite of the late hour, Sean’s eyes sparkled with interest, as if he was intrigued by everything she was telling him.

“Your dad and I had gone to a party. I met his high-school friends, who’d gone their separate ways for a while. Your father didn’t take me home until 4:00 a.m.”

Slipping back in time again, she remembered how they’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms on that bed in Jack’s apartment. When they’d awakened, Jack was snoring on the sofa. It had been so late and she’d had no idea what her aunt was going to say.

She’d never expected Aunt Marcia to be waiting up for her.

Brady had driven away after she’d unlocked the door and gone inside. How she wished he’d still been by her side. How she wished she’d felt like a niece to this woman with the angry expression and a slip of paper in her hand.

Marcia Watson had thrust that piece of paper at her. “I can only imagine why you’re traipsing in here at 4:00 a.m., but I’m telling you this—I’ve had enough of looking after you. Here’s a place you can stay. If you don’t like it, you have a week to find somewhere else. You’re old enough to be on your own.”

Hours had passed since Brady’s surgery.

Laura’s palms were sweaty as she approached the Open Heart Intensive Care Unit, thinking about Dr. Gregano’s words after Brady’s heart catheterization the previous day. “Your husband has ninety-nine percent blockage in the main artery, eighty-five percent in the…”

His diagnosis had hit Laura like a belly blow. For some reason, she hadn’t been able to absorb everything. When she’d managed to concentrate on his voice again, she’d heard, “…surgery as soon as we can schedule him in the morning.”

Now, as she stood there after so many cups of coffee she’d lost count, trying to prepare herself for this first visit, all she could think about was the fact that she’d triggered this. She’d caused Brady’s heart attack. And she had to face the aftermath of it.

Both the surgeon and Dr. Gregano had warned her that some people didn’t want to visit their loved ones the first night after surgery.

Stepping inside the cubicle, she felt her breath catch as she saw Brady, and she almost backed away. The doctors had explained what she’d find, yet she hadn’t been prepared.

He looked like death. He was so white she wasn’t sure blood pumped through him. His hands, arms and face were swollen, his fingers blue. He seemed to be shivering. He was hooked up to tubes, IVs and monitors, and a machine breathed for him, making his chest heave. There were markings and dye on his body.

She felt as if she’d stepped into a science-fiction movie.

Still, even if a machine was breathing for him, this was her Brady and he was alive.

A nurse touched her arm. “He’s doing fine.”

Fine. What an inadequate word.

Dr. Gregano had told her Brady would be sedated. That was best the first twelve hours. But she wanted to see those blue eyes of her husband’s. She needed to see those eyes. She needed to know he was still her Brady.

After approaching Brady slowly, Laura sat on the edge of a chair next to the bed. This was so different from when she’d visited him after his heart attack. She wasn’t sure exactly why. Maybe because she knew that during the operation, the surgeon had cut through Brady’s chest and cracked open his sternum. Brady had been connected to a heart-lung machine and his heart had stopped. The surgery had been traumatic, and she really didn’t fathom the results of that yet. Maybe because she was afraid that the Brady who would wake up wouldn’t be the Brady she’d married and loved for more than half her life.

The lump in her throat made it hard for her to swallow. Her stomach roiled with fear and she felt nauseated. Yet she had to be here for him, just as she’d been there for him after other kinds of nightmares, just as he’d been there for her after her miscarriages and after the death of their son. That was what she and Brady did. They held on to each other through the difficult times, even when they didn’t feel like it, even when it was hard, even when they didn’t want to. When had they stopped going out for dinner on the odd evening the kids were both involved in activities and Brady was home? When had kisses become short and perfunctory rather than long and passionate? She couldn’t remember when making love had joined their souls. More tears came to her eyes and once more she blinked them away. Making love with Brady had always brought them back together when distance found its way between them.

She laid her hand on Brady’s arm and whispered, “I’m here.”