Twelve

A small boy, no more than five years old, walked into the room. I stared, speechless. I was astonished at the flawless resemblance of a smaller Emilie. He reached her, clutching her hand with a few fingers. I had no words. Emilie looked up at me and smiled.

"Coby," she introduced him. I breathe a small sigh of relief that she didn't name him after my middle name; Leslie. A wide smile crept across my mouth as crouched down to meet his eyes. They are deep, chocolate brown, with rich gray tinting the edges of the pupil. Exactly like Emilie's. I smiled wider at this. Emilie crouched with me as we looked to Coby, my son. Our son. He knew who I was after looking into my eyes for a few moments.

"Daddy," he stated blatantly.

"Yes," Emilie and I said in unison, joyful tears streaming down both of our faces. We both reached in and embraced Coby, and he hugged back.

Once we stood again, I wrapped an arm around Emilie's waist. She was still inspecting me and soon remarked at the sunken, dark physique of my eyes. She concluded that war affects men in more ways than just psychologically. I agreed. I imagined Nick making his way to the front steps, at the top of which Emilie and I stood, still embracing each other.

"This is Nick," I imagined introducing him. He bends over a quarter of the way and takes her hand, kissing her thin, graceful fingers.

Emilie smiles gently at his chivalrous actions, dropping slightly in a flimsy curtsy.

"I have heard many good things about you, ma'am," Nick compliments as he stands straight.

"I'm sure Jon wouldn't shut up," She responds with a giggle.

We all laugh. But my smile is replaced by a sullen frown as I remember that Nick is gone. Not really, but I won't be seeing him again. I silently thank him for helping me and Emilie lead me to the dinner table, boiling some water for blackbush tea. Nick despised the drink, much preferring the alcohol form, and I could feel a part of me agreeing with him. We sat at the table for hours as I recounted the events which occurred in the years since my departure. I concluded with a telling of the capture, and how he almost died to make sure I could be with Emilie again without anything to tear us apart.

Again, I imagine Nick here, this time sitting and eating and laughing with us.

"Do you have anywhere to stay?" Emilie asks Nick. He shakes his head.

"We have a guest room," she proceeds to offer.

"No, no, I can't do that to you two." He shakes his head again, leaning back in his chair and tipping it back. "You need some family time together."

"You are my family," I say honestly.

"I insist," Emilie adds just after my mouth closes.

Nick pauses, but soon after gives in, thanking Emilie sufficiently.

"Jon," Emilie urged, snapping me out of my fantasies. I look to her and can't help but smile.

* * *

The half-moon an hour from setting, Emilie woke to faint grunting and groaning. She knit her eyebrows in confusion, turning over in bed to see Jon squeezing his pillow and drenched in a cold sweat, the source of the noise. She reached her hand over and gripped his shoulder, shaking him gently to wake him. When he didn't wake after a few shakes and echoing of his name, she lifted off her covers and slid out of bed, making her way around the bed to his side.

"Jon," she continued to echo. Jon started to shiver, his groaning becoming louder and more strained. Emilie started shaking him harder and saying his name a little louder each time she said it.

"He won't wake up," Emilie said to no one in particular, concern gripping her voice. Beads of sweat covered Jon's forehead, and he gripped the pillow harder.

Emilie stopped shaking him and began stroking his hair away from his face. Jon seemed to calm slightly but only stayed restful for a few moments before beginning to writhe and thrash, his screams piercing the house. His arm flew up and hit Emilie in the jaw, knocking her back. Emilie looked up from the floor in shock and started yelling at him to wake up. Coby wandered into the room, Emilie promptly bringing him into an embrace and hiding on from his view.

Jon stopped suddenly, his head snapping to the die as if he had been slapped. He shot up, a loud gasp the only sound in the moments-ago chaotic room. He sat on the bed looking around, at the room, Emilie on the floor embracing Coby.

"What happened?"

* * *

"I think it's post-traumatic stress," Emilie said, sipping her blackbush tea. Neither of us had slept since I'd had the episode. "A lot of guys get it after war, but not this bad."

As I had been gone, Emilie had been working as a nurse, her lifelong dream. She had been the best in her class when she had been studying nursing, so aside from her being my wife, I trusted her, especially if it meant I never had to go back to a doctor.

"I don't feel like I'll be sleeping again for a while," I was shaking my head, my eyes fixed on the tabletop. Coby sat at the head of the table, munching thoroughly at his breakfast

"I had a buddy a while back who got that," I imagined Nick walking into the room with a plate stacked high of pancakes in one hand and a bottle of beer he had found in the other, gods only know how old it was. "But one day, it just stopped. He didn't have any attacks for the whole day, then the rest of the week, then the month. Hasn't had one since." Nick cracks open the bottle of beer, draining almost half of it immediately.

"Beer for breakfast?" I question, not wanting to think about the night's events any longer.

"Whoever said it's not allowed?" Nick chugs a little more before disappearing before my eyes.

We sat in silence for a while longer as Coby finished his breakfast. For a moment I relished the days when I didn't have to take care of a family or work to feed them or worry about reputation, although what little of that I had left was now gone. I briefly missed the days when I could just drink all day, fight a couple rounds, then sleep for two days after that without worry.

But only until I turn my gaze upon my wife, Emilie, see her round, fair, facial features, her long, blond hair reaching down to the small of her back. And to my son, Coby, see his short curly hair, blond like Emilie's, his chocolate brown and gray eyes, large like Emilie's. Everything he is is everything I'm not and everything Emilie always was. Small hands that will one day grow up and be something I'll never get to be. Eyes that will never see men die in front of them, eyes that will only know the bright side of life, eyes that will see the world without the tinted window of pain and war and death between them and it.

As I look at Emilie, she looks back at me, and we both smile. I soon forget that I wanted a care-free life. I soon forget what happened between our wedding and today. We both forget the rest of the world exists as we become lost in each other's eyes.