The Ghost Between Us

He’s talking a mile a minute when he says, “I know you said no but I just wanted to explain why I proposed—.” 

Tyler hesitates and I cut him off before he can finish. “It’s okay, I understand.” My voice is sweet, gentle, and I’m trying to calm him down, but I know the only thing that will truly do that is giving him an answer that I’m unwilling to give. 

“So, can we talk about it?” He should win an award for persistence. He never gives up. 

“I’m sorry.” I spit out the words before I can change my mind. “You have to go back to Ellen.” It’s harsh, maybe even cruel, but what he’s asking of me isn’t healthy, and I can’t do it. 

He sighs deeply, a sigh that carries the weight of the world with it. And isn’t he? Carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders? So why can’t I just fucking say yes? 

Why can’t I make him mine? 

Tyler’s gray eyes and dirty blond hair share no likeness to the green-eyed ginger I married. And yet, they both spoke with similar mannerisms, waving their hands, pacing the room as they speak, licking their lips when they reach a point of hesitation. 

They both take after their fathers. Brothers to the core, but no common genetic traits that appear on the surface. 

Yet, Adam molded Tyler into who he is today. I know that. I’ve always known that, so why do I feel so uneasy, so bogged down with the ghost that hangs in the air between us, this thing that connects us and rips us apart nonetheless?

I glance over at the picture on the mantle, and for a moment, there’s an apparition in the room with us. 

Adam materializes in front of me, pacing across the navy blue carpet in his Navy Whites. He turns to grin at me, “Just say yes, Andy.” He pleads, his eyes dancing with joy. “Wouldn’t it be great to be a family?” He’s shining with excitement. It’s almost like the night we had on the beach in Virginia eight years ago. But this time, I’m not pregnant and Adam’s not offering me a ring. You know what’s the same though? Whether it’s him or his brother, I’m still saying no. 

The apparition gets off the couch and claps his brother on the back and says, “Just ask her again. She’ll come around. Did you know I had to propose to her three times before she’d marry me? Even though she was already pregnant with my daughter?” It’s a story he used to tell at parties, in the backyard barbecuing with the other Seals from Seal Team Six. The guys would laugh and pat him on the back. They’d turn to me, “Made him sweat, didn’t you, Andy?” 

There was a time where those SEALs were as much my family as my husband and my daughter. 

I’d smile at them, and bring them a beer. “It was more fun to taunt him with a shotgun wedding”, I would joke. 

“Damn girl”, the guys would say. Some of their wives would laugh and back up my actions. Others were mousy, bowing to their men. “You must have had him freaking out.” 

“Oh, I thought her dad was going to beat the shit out of me. Turns out his bark is worse than his bite.”

“Actually the bite is a lot worse. He just likes you.” I’d tease Adam. 

“You always did keep him on his toes.” His buddy, Jude would say. 

“Still doing it.” I’d announce proudly, then I’d lean in and hug my husband. They’d holler and laugh. “Good on you.” Then one or two of them would get real serious and say, “You have a keeper right there, Andy.” And I would nod solemnly, wondering how long I’d be able to keep him. 

If I didn’t accept his proposal the first time or the second, it wasn’t because I didn’t love him. It was that we were so young, and we were pregnant, and I had so many other dreams I wanted to chase, I wasn’t sure how he and I would make things work.

Now the ghost moves to the couch, puts his feet up on the ottoman to watch the game. He may have been partially raised in the UK, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t develop a healthy appreciation for American Football upon his move here. 

I know it’s all in my imagination, but I catch myself staring at the shirtless figure on the couch. I almost walk towards him and embrace him, but I stop myself. I still have something to deal with here. Tyler.  

I blink, and the man I finally agreed to marry has vanished. All that is left in this room is me, Tyler, and a pile of my daughter’s toys on the floor in the corner. 

We’re both grasping for him, pulling different pieces, separate memories of him from places that are both absent of each other. 

We both grapple with a grief no one knows how to face. 

Tyler plays with my children, carrying pieces of Adam that they’ll never truly be able to connect to memories of a man they hardly were able to know. He reads a journal his brother left behind for him while I live in a house built from memories. He’s desperate for our separate pasts to merge into one cohesive future, and I’m desperate to move on, to wake up and just have one single morning where it’s not all about a man who died. 

And yet, I’m a hypocrite too. My house is full of Adam, his uniforms still hanging in a closet I can’t bring myself to empty, his cologne still on the top shelf of the bathroom cabinet. Hell, I’d probably still have his toothbrush too if he hadn’t taken it to Afghanistan with him. 

I’ve spent every day for the past ten months trying to forget the ghost that hangs over this house like a shroud. I dress, feed, and snuggle with my children, but when I look into their eyes, I try to forget that my daughter has the same nose as my late husband, that my son has the same dark green eyes. 

I try to forget how Adam laughed when I first showed him our son over the video chat for the first time, with those eyes that reminded me of a forest of evergreens. I try to forget, but I still remember him saying, “It’s like a sign that there’s more to come in our lives than this desert.” 

I wish that had been true. Maybe it was for me and the kids, but it certainly wasn’t the case for Adam. 

“You’re thinking about him.” Tyler says quietly. 

“How do you know?” 

He shrugs, “I just know.” He taps his fingers against his leg nervously. “Do you want to know why I came here? Really?”

I nod. 

He shakes his head at me, sorrowful. “If you tell me to go, I’ll go. But not back to Ellen. I just, I can’t, I’m not going to.” 

“What’s so great about being here with me, Tyler?” I gesture around the living room to the mess I live in. Toys strewn across the floor, a child calling my name from the other room, and a picture on the mantle that binds us together, whether or not we would like it to. 

He shrugs, “You know why.” Three simple words that he uses to explain everything. His voice is sharp and distinctive. His grief is evident. 

But, it’s not good enough. He wants to be here, with me, because why? Because I was in love with his brother? And he and his brother were joined at the hip? So somehow that means, by the power of transitive properties that we should be too? 

Can love be boiled down into basic math? 

The picture on the mantle stares down at me. 

He sighs. He turns around and slips his shirt off. The skin across his ribs is a mottled purple, and I step forward and touch it softly. He winces. And I shake my head. “Who did this?”

“Ellen. Who else?”

The ghost in the room is back, and now he’s looking for his weapon. He’s angry, determined to seek revenge for whoever hurt his brother. 

Tyler’s proposal makes sense now. He stares at me again. I quickly retrieve an ice pack and examine his ribs, with as much care as a second year med student can handle. Two are broken, and he nods, as if he was expecting that. 

When I’m finishing examining him, I ask, “Why did you trust me with this, Tyler? Why come here?”

“No one else gets it. No one else gets how broken I am. Except you.” He whispers the last two words again, like he’s afraid to broach the subject. And he’s not wrong. He sighs, “Ellen always tried to make her pain matter more than mine, but with you, it doesn’t have to be like that.” 

“But Tyler, I can’t.” No matter how hard I try, I just can’t bring myself to say yes to him. 

“Why can’t you?” He saw that answer coming, and yet he’s like a battering ram, so desperate for me to come through for him, that he’ll keep asking and asking until I pull through. 

“Because I need to move on. I already have my kids, and they’re a constant reminder of what happened. But you? With you here, there’s no way I can separate from him and what we had.”

“Do you really want to forget him?” He asks me. It’s a dangerous question. It’s like he missed the memo that you don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to. 

“I don’t want to forget. I remember every second, Tyler. And I don’t want to forget him. But there are things I do need to forget. I need to forget that he derailed my life. I need to forget how hard it was sitting here waiting for him to come back. My kids will always be the children of a fallen Navy SEAL, but I don’t need to be defined by one moment where a helicopter fell out of the sky.”

“Don’t you?” He asks those words like it’s so simple. But, no, I don’t want to be defined by the fact that my husband went to war, even when I told him he didn’t have to reenlist. I don’t want to be defined by the fact that he sacrificed his life for our country and was comfortable with that decision, while me and the kids sacrificed him much less willingly. He may have gotten to choose to take that risk, and I may have gone along with his decision more or less. But his children? They didn’t agree to that. Jude didn’t even get to meet his father outside of a video chat. 

Tyler looks at me thoughtfully, “And derailed your life? You mean getting you pregnant at seventeen?”

I nod. 

“But, it cost you what? Two years? You’re still in med school. You’re still going to become a doctor.”

I nod. He’s right, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t harder. 

“Oh, let me guess. You think if you say yes, you’ll get derailed again. Because of me and my brother.” 

The guilt on my face is real. He shakes his head. “But you still have to raise those kids. I could help you.”

I shake my head, “You’re only a kid yourself.” 

He nods, “That’s been my point for this entire conversation.” What he proposed, it shouldn’t have been too much. Let him stay here for the next three years until he graduates high school, be a mother to him. At first I thought it was just because he missed his brother, but now that I know the truth, that the one he has can’t treat him the way she should, I wish it would change my answer. It doesn’t. 

“What do you think he would want?” He asks. 

“He’s not here.” I raise my voice, but the ghost is here again. He’s whispering something, something like “Why can’t you help him? You can do it.” 

I ignore the ghost. No one asked him to go to war. All I asked of him is that he’d come home. He couldn’t give me that, so I don’t owe him anything. 

“Yeah I got that.” Tyler sighs. “So your answer is still no, then?” He can’t hide how let down he is that his final hat trick didn’t work on me. Desperation isn’t a good look on him. But I’d be lying if I denied that I didn’t want to just hug him and keep him by my side forever.

But I can’t do it. 8 years ago, I made a choice that wasn’t much of one. I was pregnant and I decided to keep the baby. Every moment I spend with Erin, I am so grateful I had her, that even though I was young, I went with it. 

But back then, I didn’t have much control of my life. Adam chose his path, dropped out of college to enlist in the Navy, and look at him - dead in a helicopter crash at 23. I started college a year late, sent my daughter to shuffle between grandparents and tried to continue on mine. Adam may be gone, but my path isn’t over yet. 

Raising 2 kids in med school is brutal. I know Tyler says he’ll help, but he’s 14. He still needs attention and support that I legitimately don’t have time to give him. 

Maybe if it was just him, but he’s a package deal. His twin brother pokes his head into the room. He clearly thought Tyler would give a more compelling argument, but I know that he’s heard every word of our conversation. 

“You can stay another week, but then you have to go.” I say to both of them. 

Teddy chimes in now. “So where are we going? Not the system?”

They both look genuinely terrified. They are fourteen years old. They fled an abusive home to knock on the door of the one person they thought would welcome them in with open arms.

And I said no.

I made the decision that was best for me, not the one that was best for them.

I’d say I hoped Adam could forgive me, but he died and left me on my own. I don’t owe him anything except to do my best by our shared children. But, even though I don’t owe his brothers anything, I still feel like an ice queen. 

“Your sister. Olivia.” I suggest.

Tyler shakes his head, “You don’t think I thought of that before we ran away and I dragged Teddy across the entire country?” 

“He’s right.” Teddy says. “That’s the first place I said we should go.”

“I know you don’t see eye to eye, but she’ll have your back. I’ll call her tomorrow.” 

Tyler fidgets uncomfortably.

I feel like I’m stealing candy from a baby, snatching hope from two kids who have nothing else. But I can’t imagine balancing a house of four kids in between studying for the MCATs, and later balancing a surgical internship and residency. In the last eight years, no one gave me a chance to be selfish. And I still only have so much leeway to be that, so now I need to take what I can get. 

“Can we visit? Can we see the kids?” Tyler finally asks, and I nod.

“I want you in our lives. I’m just not ready to raise two more kids.” I admit. 

They both are disappointed, and a part of them will probably hate me for it for a long time. But their sister and her husband aren’t bad people. She’ll do right by them in a way I lack the bandwidth for right now. 

The ghost puts his hand on my shoulder now. With the other hand, he taps his heart. He points at the boys. Then he points at me. 

I nod at the ghost, hoping he knows I mean it when I say, “I’ll make sure they’re safe, even when they’re not here.” 

The ghost nods, satisfied. 

This ghost owns my heart. Red hair, forest green eyes, like his son he never got to meet. If you look for him outside of my imagination, all you will find is a slab of granite with names and dates. An ending that began with a metal bird shot down in Afghanistan. 

37 ghosts. But one of them was my heart. 

It made headlines because there were so many casualties of the American military all in one place. 

But the fallout rarely makes the headlines. The boys who need their brother. The kids who need their father. The wife who needs a steady hand on her shoulder to tell her she’s allowed to make the best call for her, even if it doesn’t make everybody involved happy. 

“You’re doing okay”, the ghost says, and we lock eyes. 

“I miss you.” I say to the ghost, and tears fall from his eyes the way they fall from mine. 

“Me too.” He says, stopping to muss up both of his brothers’ hair as he leaves. 

“They’ll be okay.” He says before he disappears. “Their sister will take care of them.” 

I nod, and for a moment, me and the twins both stare up at the picture on the mantle, and the purple heart beside it, wishing they weren’t there. Finally, Tyler breaks the silence and looks at me sheepishly. “Well, you know how you said we could stay for another week?” I nod nervously, afraid he’ll bring up his original request. But he continues, “Well, Adam promised he’d teach us to surf when we came to visit. Since he’s not here, we were hoping you could teach us?”

Some questions have impossible answers, but this one doesn’t. I grin, “Yeah, go get changed. Let’s do it.”