A Soldier's Tribute

Zoe was listening to a Disney soundtrack and it was hitting her life too well. She couldn’t get through one song without crying. Her hands shook as she chopped up the onions on the counter. She should probably have been doing that under water, but she didn’t want to. It was a good excuse for why she was crying. Quinn was taking a nap in his crib which was probably for the best. It was so hard to be near him now. She kept crying every time she looked at his eyes. He didn’t understand and so he would start crying too. Her poor baby…he was too young to have to deal with this. She prayed every day and every night, but still there was nothing except the emptiness that seemed to well up inside of her. So instead, she just kept going back to the last letter she had gotten. She kept pulling his clothes out of the dressers hoping that she could catch just a hint of his cologne. She couldn’t even sleep in their bed anymore. She kept telling herself that Nick wasn’t dead, but it was so hard. She wasn’t sure if she could believe herself.

She had been lying to Nick and to herself when she had written to him telling him that she understood that the army and the country came first. She didn’t understand. She had tried to tell herself time and time and again that sometimes sacrifices had to be made, but a life. HIS life? No! She couldn’t accept that. She wanted him. She needed him. He was her love, her husband. Why should she have to give him up because someone decided to go to war? It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair.

A knock came at the door and Zoe took a deep breath. She dragged the sleeve of her dark blue shirt across her face to wipe away the tears that had been streaming down her face. She took a deep breath to compose herself. She wouldn’t let anyone see her in a ragged mess even if she was one. She had her secrets to protect and she was too proud to change that. She placed a serene look on her face and moved to the front door. She opened it a crack and her jaw dropped.

Her hands went limp and fell away from the door as she leaned against the wall next to the door. The door opened and she slid down the wall unable to quite make herself believe what she was seeing. “Zoe…?”

She scrambled to her feet and threw her arms around his neck, tears running down her face. She held tight. He felt real. Her hands didn’t slid through as she hugged him tight. “Th-they said and I-“

“Sh,” a hand stroked her curly brown hair. “You cut it…” he whispered.

A wobbly smile lit her face through the tears as she leaned back to look at him. She could explain to him why later. Now the words wouldn’t come.

“I’m so sorry Zoe, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be,” he promised kissing her forehead.

She took his face in her hands. “You’re alive…you’re not…this isn’t…”

A smile tilted his lips. “I’m home,” he promised leaning down and gently capturing her lips with his. “We all must pay a price to be free,” he whispered breaking the kiss. He hugged her tightly. “I’m so sorry Zoe, it was cruel…yours. They shouldn’t have told you what they did. I can’t say I’m sorry enough baby.”

She didn’t care about him saying that he was sorry or that he wasn’t. She just needed to hold him tight here and now. She needed to hug him, to feel him. She had thought he was dead and this whole time…this whole time he had been alive. He had been out there still breathing, still fighting. She hated that fact. She hated that she had been lied to no matter what the reasoning was behind it all. She had thought he was dead. It had felt like an eternity. It had felt like she had died inside with him and now to know that he wasn’t. She didn’t know if she would be able to handle something like that again. “Zoe baby…I want to you to meet someone.”

Zoe looked up at him and then out the front door where a boy who looked like he had probably just graduated high school stood nervously fidgeting from foot to foot, his face bright red. “U-uh, H-hi ma’am,” the boy’s southern drawl was faint but recognizable. “I’m Jeremy Epps. I fought with your husband and he, um, said…”

“I invited him for a barbecue Zoe,” the words had a meaning for them both, one that most people wouldn’t recognize. They had been listening to Pocahontas during their last year of college when it had been Nick who had pointed out one of the lines: We lose our chance of ever knowing what's around the riverbend.

“It’s so true babe,” he had said. “Everyone is so blind that they don’t see what’s around them, especially with other people. You get in a rut with your own friends and family and ignore everyone else. Maybe we should all just stop and have a barbecue. Then we’d have to slow down and take the time to get to know everyone else.”

Zoe had laughed at the whole affair at the time, but now she understood. Jeremy was a kid that Nick had taken under his wing. And for some reason, he had brought him home and like a lost stray puppy, the boy had followed. “Why don’t you both come in…I was just making dinner. And you have someone you need to meet Nick.” She said looking up at her husband.

As if on cue, Quinn started crying from his crib in the living room signifying that he was awake at last.