In the quiet moments before Joe woke, Jill took a moment to process what had just happened. The phone had finally stopped ringing about 5 am and Joe had fallen asleep first. She marveled at how he could do that. Her mind was racing, his must be too but then Joe always had the capacity to snatch a few hours of sleep here and there when needed. He knew from years of experience never to pass up on the opportunity. He was turned on his side, away from her but she had the overwhelming need to touch him. The knowledge that she had awakened to a world at war weighed heavily on her. The world was a different place to how it had been just a few hours ago, before night fell, before the first bombs dropped, before the eastern flank of a continent was ripped apart, a giant fissure opened, ready now to spew forth hate and death and destruction. She rolled onto her side too and moved closer to him. She propped herself up on her elbow and gently ran her hand down his side, easing her hand inside his t-shirt to lay just above his hip. She leaned her face close to him and rested her chin on his shoulder so she could look at his face. He might be asleep but seeing the small furrow of his brow she knew he wasn't truly rested. His mind was unable to fully switch off from the magnitude of the night's events. In the silence of the room, illuminated with the pale light hinting at the promise of dawn she made a pact with herself, and with him.
It would be a difficult road ahead. Difficult for them, but almost impossible for the innocent people caught up in a war not of their making. She called to mind the aged and infirm, the invalided and disabled the vulnerable and the sick. Who would care for them? Who would comfort them? How could they survive the viciousness unleashed on them? She thought of those would become refugees now. Have to flee their homes, their communities, make impossible decisions that are truly the stuff of nightmares, that test a person to their limits; who stays and who leaves. The base, primal desire to stay alive, balanced with the knowledge that many left behind will not survive. Those who get the chance to leave and so live and who must choose to stay and likely die.
There was nothing she could do directly, on the ground, right now, but there was much she could do without even having to leave the comfort of her home. She would support the man beside her. The man who was now, literally the leader of the free world, whose decisions would be central in directing the global response. Who had to figure out how to close the pandora's box that had just been flung open. She swore there and then, in their bed, with her sleeping husband beside her to support him in every way possible, big and small, no matter what he needed; she would be there. His partner and comfort. She gently kissed his cheek and ran her hand across his back before rearranging her body to mirror his. As she lay there, her body as close to his as possible, she let her thoughts run back over the past few months and all that had led up to the fateful day.
To be continued ...
