Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Anna
The next morning, Anna woke before the sun.
She never meant to; she hadn’t set an alarm in years.
Some part of her always stirred awake. It was like her body knew that she needed the quiet before the kids woke up every day.
Anna was a schoolteacher, a mom, and a wife, which meant that her day was spent pouring into and taking care of others on a regular basis. This early quiet was crucial for her.
The sky outside the house window glowed pale gray-blue, like it wasn’t sure whether to rise or retreat, and the air in the room was cold against her skin when she pushed the blanket back and slid her feet to the floor.
She didn’t bother with socks. The old planks beneath her feet were smooth and familiar, and she padded softly through the narrow kitchen.
The coffee pot clicked on with a soft whirr.
She wrapped her fingers around her mug as steam curled from the rim.
No sugar, no cream, just black and strong.
Luke always teased her for drinking it “like engine oil,” but he never stopped bringing her the darkest roast he could find whenever he came home.
Her hand tightened around the mug, and she let the thought pass before it could gather weight.
The scent of salt hung in the air even before she opened the screen door.
Faint, mixed with the dry wood of the porch and the ever-present chill of the coast. Morning here was always like a memory she felt beneath her feet or in the smell of the salt air.
How many times had she come out as a child to find her dad out on the pier, checking to see how the water was for the day before he went out on the boat?
The screen clacked shut behind her, and she stepped barefoot into the cool sand, the tiny grains shifting beneath her weight. Beyond the dunes, the ocean rolled in slow breaths. The tide was low, the sky still dusky, and the world felt suspended in a moment that hadn’t quite begun.
She made her way to the weathered Adirondack chair just past the dune line and sat down, curling one leg underneath her.
The sea was always louder in the quiet; it filled in all the empty spaces when the world hadn’t woken up yet.
That was what she liked about it. It reminded her she wasn’t required to fill them herself.
This was her time. Her thirty minutes.
Thirty minutes where she didn’t have to be a daughter, a wife, a neighbor, a stand-in nurse, or therapist, a smiling face who said, “We’re doing okay,” when people asked.
Thirty minutes where she didn’t have to carry grief in one hand and keep her balance with the other.
Thirty minutes to reset before she needed to be anything for anyone.
She watched the horizon begin to bleed with color: lavender at the edges, then pink, like the world itself was blushing awake. The sight always made her feel small in the best kind of way.
Her phone vibrated softly on the armrest of the chair.
She blinked, startled.
Luke’s name lit up the screen, and she smiled softly, her heart leaping into her throat.
Her fingers moved before her thoughts could catch up, coffee mug forgotten in the sand beside her. She swiped to answer.
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Hey, sunshine.” His voice was clear and warm. Like he’d just walked in from getting the mail, like he wasn’t half a world away in a time zone she could barely calculate.
Anna closed her eyes for a second, relishing the sound of his voice and committing it to memory. It was like he’d heard her heart calling out for him.
“I wasn’t expecting a call today,” she said. “But I’m grateful I got one.”
“Got a window. Figured I’d use it on you, since I knew my girl would be awake already.” His tone was easy. Casual. Trained. But familiar. “You at the beach?”
She smiled faintly. “Where else would I be before sunrise?”
He chuckled. “Still barefoot in the sand?”
“Like always.” She reached for her mug and brought it to her lips, even though it had cooled. “Coffee’s already cold, though. You ruined my peaceful morning.”
“Nah,” he said, voice low. “I improved it.”
She exhaled softly, giggling a little as she did. “Yeah. You did.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The wind rustled the sea grass, and the surf curled like ribbon onto the shore.
She knew how this went. These calls were never long.
Never guaranteed. And never did they ever start with panic or updates or fear.
That wasn’t the rule. The rule was: normal. Always normal.
“How’s your mom?” he asked, as though he were just asking about the weather.
Anna hesitated. She could lie. Say “not bad” or “getting there.” But it was Luke. If there was one person she could be honest with, it was him. He’d know in a heartbeat if she wasn’t being honest, too. And then the phone call would be tainted by that. So she didn’t sugarcoat it.
“She’s… she’s not doing great,” she said.
“Some days are better than others. But mostly it’s…
a fog. She forgets to eat unless I remind her.
She cries without warning, like she’s just walking through her own shadow all the time.
She shut the studio down completely, but I think I’ve talked her into reopening it for the season. She’s just so…far away.”
Luke was quiet on the other end, and she knew he was listening the way he always did—fully, like every word was a piece he needed to fit into a larger picture.
“I’m trying,” she added softly. “I really am. But I feel like I’m failing her.
Like I did fail her by not coming home sooner, by not realizing it was this bad.
I don’t know what I’m doing half the time, and I hate that I’m so tired all the time.
I shouldn’t be tired. She’s the one who—” Her voice broke. “She lost him.”
“You lost him, too, Anna,” Luke said gently. “He was your dad.”
She pressed her thumb against the rim of her mug, tightening her grip just a tad. It was how she kept her emotions in check. She was trying to hold back her tears; she didn’t want to cry in the few minutes she got to talk to her husband. She could do that later.
“Grief’s not a pie,” he continued. “It’s not like the more she gets, the less you get. You’re allowed to feel it. You’re allowed to be tired. You’re allowed to not have the answers.”
“She needs me to be okay,” she whispered. “But sometimes I’m not.”
“She needs you to be real,” he said. “That’s different. You’re not doing any of us any good if you’re shouldering everything by thinking that you need to pretend to be okay. Your mom, me, the kids, we all need you to be real, baby.”
Anna didn’t speak, afraid her voice would crack.
“And hey,” he added, softer now, “you being there? That’s not failing her. That’s love, showing up messy and tired and unsure and still not quitting. That’s everything.”
She leaned her head back, eyes stinging. She took a few deep inhales and exhales, trying to tamp the emotions back down. The sky was gold now, streaked with fire.
“I wish you were here.”
“I know.”
“Everything feels… less when you’re gone. Like it’s a copy of itself.”
There was another pause. Then: “I think about you when I close my eyes at night,” he said. “About your laugh. The way your hand feels in mine. That stupid mole on your right shoulder that you say looks like a comma.”
Anna laughed, surprised. “It does look like a comma.”
“I miss that comma,” he said, a faint smile in his voice. “I miss all of you.”
The wind shifted. The gulls overhead cried out, lazy and aimless.
“Are you…” she started, then stopped herself.
Ops normal. That was the rule. That meant that they couldn’t get sad on the phone, couldn’t talk about what could happen or might happen, or what was happening.
Anna didn’t need to know if he was in a war zone or the statistics; she just needed to hear his voice and know that, in that particular moment, he was okay.
It was their rule that she didn’t watch the news, didn’t start thinking about what could be happening there.
Most of the stories in the media weren’t true, leaving out crucial parts that would make any soldier’s wife insane with worry.
There was no point in putting herself through more crazy than she was already dealing with.
Luke picked up the thread anyway. “I’m safe,” he said. “I’m focused. I’m with my team. We’re good.”
She knew better than to press. He’d never say more than that. Wouldn’t risk it, even if he could.
“Alright, sunshine,” he said after a beat, his voice regretful. “I gotta go.”
Her heart clenched. “Okay,” she said softly.
“You ready?”
She smiled through the ache in her throat. “I’m ready.”
He paused, and then spoke the words he always did, the ones they’d come up with when everything started feeling too heavy and he needed her to remember something simple, something grounding.
“Keep the shore in sight.”
She closed her eyes. “Always.”
“Even when it’s dark?”
“Especially then.”
“I love you,” he said.
She swallowed. “I love you more.”
“Impossible,” he whispered. And then the line went dead.
Anna sat for a long moment, staring at the phone like it might ring again.
It was so hard not to be able to talk more, not to be able to ask more questions, or sit on the phone for hours.
Being a soldier’s wife was hard for a variety of reasons, but the fact that her husband was on the other side of the world without consistent communication was probably the worst.
The sun had risen fully now, bold and golden across the ocean, a reflection of fire dancing on the water. Her coffee was stone-cold. Her fingers numb. But her chest was warm.
She tipped her head back and closed her eyes. The tears came then, silent and hot, slipping down her cheeks and into the collar of her shirt. Not loud. Not broken. Just quiet tears, mourning for the loss of her father and over how much she missed her husband and feared for him.
She didn’t sob. Didn’t fall apart.
She breathed and let the tears fall, purged the sadness and the grief from her so that she could move throughout her day like she needed to.
Her therapist once told her that if you feel the urge to cry, it’s not a sign of weakness, but a sign that you’re ready to feel the feelings and let them go. They were life-changing words, like a permit to cry without regret.
Thirty minutes. That’s all she ever got before the world called her name. And for Anna, this was the time that she released all that was holding her down so that she could be her best self for everyone who needed her.
She wiped her face on her sleeve and stood, brushing the sand from her leg. The sky was awake now, blue and wide. The ocean was loud again, its hush replaced by the crash and tumble of waves on the shore.
Anna turned back toward the cottage.
She’d keep the shore in sight.
For Luke.