Romeo and Juliet

I have not been here before. It does not look how it does in my dreams. It does not feel how I imagined it to.

Then again, I haven’t felt many things how I imagine I am supposed to for weeks. I thought I would feel things more deeply. I thought everything would hurt, and it did. But you didn’t tell me how quickly my pain would succumb to numbness. You didn’t tell me how easy it is there in the ether. You told me you would see me again. You told me you would see me again.

You’re not far now, I’m sure. I’ve walked nearly the entire length of yard; you must be near. That is, if you’re really here. There are not many places to hide on this stretch of clover and grass. I should have seen you by now.

I should never have let you out of my sight in the first place. I should never have bid you goodbye amidst chaos and bedpans.

Or perhaps I should never have held your hand to begin with. I should never have taken pity on the heap of blood-stained cloth that you were. And I certainly should never have spent those nights by your bedside. Should not have sung you weathered lullabies or let your hair grow long.

Mother would have killed me if she’d known how I bent every rule for you. She nearly killed me when word of you arrived.

It’s taken too long to get here. Mother and father refused to pay for passage. It took me the first week after the letter to sort it out with the battalion. It was another week to hear from your parents, angry as they were. Two weeks to find out where you were, all while doing everything I could to scrape up enough for the train.

I’m late, I know I am. But I’m here. I’m here like I said I would be.

I’m counting rows.

15, 16, 17.

I wish I were counting the beats of your heart for the third time today. I keep hearing them. I keep counting them.

It’s cold here, but the chain around my neck is warm and the metal on my chest is burning.

“Juliet, one day I’ll put diamonds around that neck of yours,” you would say. “You’re too lovely for those tags.”

Juliet. That’s what you called me. I wasn’t supposed to give you my name, but you saw my initials on my clipboard: ‘J. C.’ The ‘J’ stands for Joanna. But I’m not sure I prefer it anymore.

“I’m Robert,” you’d told me, “but you can call me Romeo.” You’d winked and though I had rolled my eyes, I couldn’t keep from telling the other nurses. They called you names I wouldn’t dare repeat, but they didn’t know you. Maybe they were jealous. It didn’t matter anyway. They had their own beaus in the field.

In the field…

Two more rows. You should be here. You should be here.

“Won’t you call me Romeo?”

Two weeks you’d gone without asking until the words tumbled from your lips like they might be hot coals, like they’d been sitting in your mouth for ages and the heat had finally overwhelmed you.

Of course I had laughed. I’m not sure there ever passed more than a few minutes between us without laughing.

“What for?”

You had waved me closer, taking my hand into the sheets where no one could see your fingers weave through mine.

“Because I think I’ll die without you, my Juliet.”

God...

I wish it would rain. I smell fresh dirt.

I told you not to speak like that. I asked you instead to tell me stories; tales where no one died and all the food was fresh and the colors were real and the only sound to wake me up would be the birds and the waves… and your voice, and your breaths, and your heartbeat against my cheek.

You didn’t even tease me. You told me precisely how it would be; you detailed every summer day down by the sea, every winter evening in your cabin up north.

“A cabin?”

“Is there something wrong with that?” Your lips always found their way below my ear.

“Nothing at all. I’ve just never been.” My arms always found their way around your neck.

“Perhaps you’re better suited to a mansion, or a royal castle,” he suggested.

“I don’t think they’d let me in.”

“Then I will build one for you and beg you to make me your king.”

Oh.

There.

There you are.

My eyes sting and my head begins to ache. I choke on my breath. I’m standing in front of you before I can find it again, kneeling at your feet.

“There you are, my Romeo,” I echo.

My Juliet…

I clutch the dog tags to my chest. I’m counting again, the beats of my own heart.

“Give me your hand.”

I had raised an eyebrow at you but yielded with little hesitation.

You sat counting then, for a whole minute. Then you took my clipboard and my pen, and you wrote my pulse on your chart.

“What are you doing?”

You grinned. Your cheeks were flushed. You frequently made reasons to be embarrassed, as if compelled by a force outside yourself.

“My heart follows yours,” you had said.

I’m counting, but nothing follows.

I read the headstone. Your parents are having it corrected soon, but at least for now it reads what you promised it wouldn’t.

Joanna Carlson

Born 31 July 1925

Died 16 March 1945

I pull the tags from beneath my blouse.

MONAGHAN, ROBERT

37460904 T42 44 O

You said you would give me your name. You said you would take mine for safekeeping. You said a grave without my name beside yours could hardly hold you. You said you would bring me diamonds. You said we would meet again.

I lift the tags over my head, heavier than diamonds now, and more precious still.

I place your name on my gravestone.

Oh, Romeo… Romeo.