Shortly after New Years, you were drafted.
It was snowing the day you left.
The request came a week earlier, and since then a tense anticipation had fallen over the house. Every movement, every word, every subtle interaction was laced with unspoken devastation. On the outside, we pretended that everything was okay, and the pretence became a glass pane barricading us from reality.
The day you came down the stairs with a bag slung over your shoulder, prepared to leave, the glass pane shattered, and we could no longer hide from the inevitable.
I held you close, face buried in your shoulder, and I never wanted to let go. My stomach was twisted into innumerable knots and my heart felt too heavy in my chest. It pumped loudly, screaming words only I could hear.
Don't go.
Don't go.
Don't go.
But, of course, you went anyway. You had to.
At the door, away from Henry, I said quietly, "Don't die, okay?" It was supposed to come out as a joke, something to lighten the mood, but instead I was surprised by the seriousness in my tone, the fracture in my voice.
You gave me a half-hearted smile. "I promise."
For eleven months, I was a tightly wound coil, growing more tense with each passing day. Henry was the anchor that kept me from drifting. He was the reason I could function, a reminder that I couldn't hide myself away from the world.
The day you sent a letter back, every inch of tension dissolved from my being, and I felt a wave of deja vu, turning back into the little girl who watched, relieved and overjoyed, as her mother broke down over the sight of her name scrawled in my father's handwriting.
That night, I slept more easily than I had for almost a year.
