Him

Chapter 1

"I guess maybe on some levels I understood what I had signed up for in the first place and because of that I had put my career on hold. But that was only for a while because in his eyes it was as if I was putting my life on hold for his dreams, and to him that wasn’t fair.”
“In what way did he view that as not fair?” she queried.
“He understood how much my dreams meant to me and even though it meant a lot to him to know that I would sacrifice my dreams so I could spend time with him, he didn’t want me to compromise my complete happiness for his own dreams.” I smiled.
I was happy I agreed to this after all, it gave me a chance to let myself ‘breathe.’
Lisa-Anne looked at me and smiled, holding the papers firmly in one hand and covering my hand with her own.
“And for that you loved him even more, didn’t you?” She sparked a radiant smile, but still a comforting one.
“Absolutely, the way he was able to understand me was so um what can I say, it was so overwhelming reassuring to know that he wasn’t selfish enough to make me have regrets and just be happy.”
                              ***
“Ta da,” in a sing-song voice he entered the bedroom with mittens on.
I laughed, “Dude really?”
“Yes dudette, again. Come, open up,” he brought the fork, now filled with more cake, to my lips.

I groaned then rid the utensil of its content. “Oh wow...I like the way you used cake mix this time.” I laughed out.
He laughed. “Stop,” he pulled at my hair.
“Ouch, what’s wrong with you?!” I laughed.
“Happy Birthday Person.” He walked out of the room with a frown.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever Fake!”

So this was the promise, 'You know what baby, I will bake a cake...wait for it...from scratch for your birthday.' He looked at me proudly then.
“HA! You wish!”
“Okay we shall see.”
Well we did see that one.
I folded and put away the last t-shirt. Okay let me go down to the kitchen and apologize to this retard. I dragged myself downstairs.
“Okay fine, J, I apologize,” I wrapped my arms around him from behind. “And this kitchen is a mess.”
“So you know I tried my best...and it obviously didn’t work out so...Philsbury.” he sounded sad.
“Turn around please,” I dropped my hands from his waist as he turned around.
“Yes?” he looked at me with a sad face.
I laughed, “Jackson I am sorry okay? I know you tried and I love you for it deeply,” I slapped his cheeks gently, “Happy now?”
“No, wait until it’s my birthday and you’ll know how ‘all out’ you will have to go...” he went over to his cake failures and started throwing them into the waste bin.

“Oh really?” I sat on one of the bar stools that were strategically placed around the counter.
“Oh yes really, you must bake and decorate my from-scratch cake, buy me a gift, and become my celebrity wife.” He came and stood before me. He was serious.
“Jack we’ve been over this before. Most of the times you’re not here and when you are I want to devote all my time to us and the family we would want to build someday-.”
“Shh, look,  you don’t have to prove to me that you love me, I know that and - wait don’t say anything, I know that we can make it work. Alana, you have something inside you that I believe in and I want to make you happy. Don’t be miserable because of me and make your chances go by. We have a lifetime together...plus I want to say ‘aww shucks there goes my baby’ one day.”
“Who the hell says aww shucks?” I pushed him.
“I have no idea,” he laughed, “But that’s besides the point. It would mean so much to me if you just take this one risk. It would make me very happy and you can count on my support.” I looked at me, “Pweez my mint cookie...”
“What damn mint cookie...fine I will try out some stuff.”
“Okay good, studio time tomorrow at three.” He looked back as he walked out of the room and smiled.
“What?! You little bastard,” I ran after him as he sprinted up the stairs.
                               ***
“The next day we were in the studio and I guess that was my first step toward the first single I produced.” I took a sip of the cold water.
“Beautiful flowers?”

I smiled at Lisa- Anne, “Yes, ‘Beautiful Flowers’.”
“And how did it feel to be in the studio for the first time? Doing what you always dreamt of?”
“To tell the truth it was at first pretty nerve-wracking because even though my husband was there, you just still had a number of people in the room and it threw me off big time.” I laughed at the memory.
“So I guess it wasn’t a Celine Dion first take scenario?” Lisa-Anne laughed.
“Oh definitely not! I remember this one time while I was in the room around the microphone, I saw the producer look up at Jackson and shake his head. I was like oh my this just got real. And I looked at Jackson and he showed me two thumbs up at the same time and mouthed ‘You got this.’ I could never forget that day.”
“So he was always there supporting and believing in you?
“Always. I remember though that the same afternoon he received a call from work and so he had to leave in the evening. So I guess you can say that even though that day I made my biggest step towards making my dream a reality, knowing that he was leaving that very next day and wouldn’t be back in a couple of months, it really broke my heart.” I swallowed as my throat went dry.
“Jackson was serving in the army...” Lisa- Anne spoke.
“Yes, he was and had been serving in the army for five years before we got married.”
“And you told me backstage that as a child you always wanted to marry a soldier...”
I nodded and smiled.
“As you built your life with your husband being a soldier now, how was that dream versus the reality?”
I smiled, “Well I can tell you one thing, it was no longer a dream” I looked over at Lisa-Anne. “You see Lisa when I was a kid, I mean was just all caught up in the camouflage and him being a hero with a neat haircut and killer abs.” I laughed, “And watching the army wives videos with them seeing their husbands after such a long time and the tears and the tight embraces, I just wished I could be loved so much and missed so much, you know, but when you actually have to live in between those moments it’s just pure torture. Your nights become filled with sleeplessness and when sleep does come, its nightmares about losing that person in the field of battle. And you find yourself every waking moment just hoping and praying that the worst doesn’t happen. And the more you think, the more you die inside and wish he was anywhere but on that battlefield wearing that camouflage with those killer abs and that neat haircut being your country’s hero.”
“I guess you really have to have the experience to realize the extent of what army wives have to go through each day being with a soldier.” Lisa- Anne nodded.
“Yes you do, and sometimes people, even though they are trying to comfort you, can really make things worse because there is no way you can look at a woman whose love of her life is spending his days and nights sleeping with one eye open, dodging bullets and escaping bombs and say to her that 'it will be okay'. It is not okay and until he comes back home it won’t be. I trust him when he says I will come back home to you and I try to comfort myself with his promises, but at the same time the enemy is not me, he doesn’t care whether or not my husband lives or dies, he is protecting himself and he is heartless while doing that; he doesn’t care if he has a wife or a family at home, his basic instinct, just as much as my husband’s is to protecting his country, is to protect himself  at all and any cost by the one necessary mean, shoot and aim to kill.”
“So tell me Alana, wasn’t it difficult to always have this constant fear that something would happen to Jackson? How did you cope with all this, the constant thoughts about him being safe or not while still having to focus on your life and developing career as a singer-songwriter?” the interviewer questioned.
“Sadly I don’t think I ever really coped but the great thing about my passion, which was my career as a singer- songwriter was that it was me. My life, my relationships and my career were one. That is the most beautiful thing I believed that came with you having the career you always wanted, your passion, it was not merely your job but it was an extension of who you were. And as result I saw myself venting all my fears about his work, the deep emotional bond I shared with him and how much I missed him through and in my songs. So that’s basically how I guess I didn’t so much try to cope but deal with it until he was off the plane and in my arms again.”