Kyler
Northern Botswana FOB, South Africa
The comms officer clears me for a quick FaceTime.
Secure line. Geo-scrambled. Outbound only.
It’s a rare green light. We’re not on target yet, still deep in prep and staging, so technically, no OPSEC violations, but they don’t always let us call home in the middle of shit like this.
I take it before he has time to rescind his offer.
I haven’t heard Ivy’s voice in nearly a week and I’m running on adrenaline and guilt.
The cruel irony is that I’m calling her from the same remote base she was brought to after the rescue two years ago. After I carried her out. She won’t know that, can’t ever know that. And I don’t let myself think too long about the full-circle, fucked-up poetry of it.
My phone buzzes. Incoming call: Ivy.
It’s 2100 here. We’re in the middle of nowhere in Africa, dry heat, red dust, moon hanging low like it’s eavesdropping on us. But my heart’s already halfway across the world.
I hit “accept,” and her face fills the screen. Her hair is done up in soft curls, makeup subtle but flawless, lips pink and full. She’s stunning.
“Hi.” She beams, and I swear it nearly undoes me. Her voice has that lilt it used to. Hopeful. Happy.
“Hey, baby.” I smile, praying she doesn’t notice the exhaustion etched into my eyes. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She steps away from the camera and does a little twirl.
Her denim shorts show off long, lean legs bare and golden in the afternoon light.
The white ruffled top she’s wearing flutters a little with the movement.
She says she likes it because it makes her look “put together,” like the other Delta wives.
I hate that she compares herself to them.
I hate that she thinks she has to measure up to some imaginary checklist of what a military wife is supposed to be.
As if kindness and grace and grit don’t count.
As if surviving what she did isn’t already proof that she’s stronger than all of them combined.
“I have to show you something but you can’t freak out,” she says, eyes bright with something close to giddy. “Okay? Promise?”
I chuckle, settling in. “Sure but you’re scaring me.”
She’s bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. “Okay, okay. Don’t say anything yet…just hang on.” She disappears off-screen for a second and comes back with something clutched in both hands. “I wanted to wait until I could tell you in person, but…” She holds them up to the screen.
Pregnancy tests. Four of them. All positive.
It takes me a second to process.
She’s pregnant.
Ivy. My Ivy. Is carrying our baby.
Her smile is so radiant it knocks the wind out of me. She’s glowing and laughing nervously and trying to read my face.
“I know it’s crazy and early and we didn’t plan it and…” She studies one of the tests in her hand. “And maybe I’m reading them wrong, but I don’t think I am...I’ve felt weird for over a week and Ky, I’m pregnant.” She says it like she can’t believe it either.
“Holy shit, Ivy…” I laugh, just the right amount of stunned and thrilled. I rub a hand over my mouth, still trying to process it. She watches me with wide, hopeful eyes, hanging onto my reaction, and I know exactly what she needs.
So I give it to her.
“Baby, that’s...that’s amazing.” My voice cracks on the last word, but she doesn’t hear panic. She hears emotion. “You’re really pregnant?”
She nods, happy tears trailing down her beautiful face. “I took four tests and I kept rereading the directions like a plus could mean anything else. Then I just sat there on the edge of the tub and stared at the lines for ten minutes like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot.” I manage a soft chuckle. “You’re incredible.”
I say the right things. Every one of them.
My voice is warm, my smile wide, my fingers pressed to the screen like I’m trying to bridge the thousand miles between us.
And it’s not fake. There’s something real in it.
Something stunned and breathless in the way my chest tightens, in the way my eyes sting just watching her.
She’s glowing. Beaming. Holding a tiny stack of plastic sticks like they’re magic wands.
And for a moment, I feel it too. The awe.
The wild, impossible hope. Our love created a life.
It should feel like a miracle. And part of me, some aching, untouched part buried deep, is trying to let it feel like that.
But even as I say all the right things, something colder curls at the edges of the warmth. Because inside? I’m fucking horrified.
Because she’s pregnant. She’s carrying a piece of me. And I’m a part of him. The man who made my skin crawl when he walked into a room. The man who taught me pain before I could spell it. The man who drank like it was his job and threw punches when the bottle ran dry.
What if I can’t do it right? What if I never unlearn all the shit he drilled into me? What if I pass it on? What if I hurt my baby without meaning to? What if I turn out just like him?
“Ivy…” I swallow hard and try to keep my tone even, supportive. “I’m just…I’m so proud of you. And excited. I can’t believe this is happening.”
It’s all true. But not complete.
Because what I don’t say is that I’m terrified. That I feel like I’ve been given something beautiful and fragile and priceless and I don’t trust myself not to break it.
She reaches toward the screen, cradling her phone in both hands like it’s me she’s holding. “You’re going to be the best dad,” she whispers like she can hear my thoughts. “I already know it.”
And I want to believe her. I want to reach through this glitchy feed and pull her into my arms and promise her I’ll never be him.
But I don’t know how. So I just smile again.
Because she needs this. She needs the guy who shows up.
Who says all the right things. And I’ll be that for her. Even if I don’t believe it myself.
My brain flashes again to my dad. Slumped in his recliner with a bottle of Jim Beam. Bloodshot eyes. Rage always simmering just below the surface, like he was looking for an excuse to crack knuckles across a face. Usually mine.
My first memory is him slamming me into a wall.
I must’ve been four. Maybe five. I was crying because I’d spilled my cereal on the floor.
He said I was whining like a girl. Said I was embarrassing.
Then came the backhand. Hard enough to split my lip and make my ears ring.
My mom stood in the kitchen with a cigarette between her fingers, didn’t even flinch.
And now I’m going to be a father.
I look at Ivy. She’s radiant and hopeful and so sure.
And I can’t breathe. Because what if that’s my legacy?
Not Delta. Not the ops I’ve run, the black sites I’ve walked out of, or the men I’ve carried bleeding across enemy lines.
Not the quiet kills and the shit I’ve survived.
Not the oath I swore or the country I’ve bled for.
What if all I pass down is him? And his rage and his fists and his failures? What if there’s something in me I can’t control? And all I am is hateful fury and silence and ghosts in the corners of rooms? What if I ruin this?
“Ky?” Ivy says gently. “You okay?”
My eyes snap back to hers. She’s smiling, but it’s softer now. Searching. A little uncertain. Like maybe she can see the flicker of fear I didn’t mean to let slip.
“Yeah,” I lie, quickly. “Just thinking about how much life is about to change.”
She exhales, relieved. “In the best way.”
“Yeah,” I echo, and my throat feels raw. “In the best way.”
I should tell her. I should say it. That I’m scared. That this joy she’s holding in her hands is too sacred for someone like me. But I can’t. Because I’ve already seen what happens when the man a woman loves turns out to be a monster.
And I swore to God I’d never be that.
So I stay on the call. I keep the smile in place. I tell her she’s going to be an incredible mom. That I’ve never seen anyone love with the kind of fire she does. That she’s strong and soft and perfect and she will build this baby into someone beautiful.
But me?
What the hell do I know about being a father?
All I know is how to lock my jaw and take the hit. How to stand at parade rest with blood in my mouth and keep my face blank.
“I know it’s a lot,” Ivy says. “But I wanted to tell you like this. Not in a voicemail.”
Her voice is so gentle. So damn normal.
And for a second, I almost believe we could have that again. A new version of us. A version where I’m not haunted and she’s not running from shadows and we’re not just trying to keep from bleeding out inside a marriage that feels like it was doomed before it started.
“I love you,” she says. “I love you so much.”
I nod, swallow the lump in my throat. “I love you too, Ivy. More than anything.”
She doesn’t see the fear behind my eyes. The way my hand is clenched just out of frame, nails digging into my palm. But the second we hang up, I drop the act like it’s made of lead.
I sink into the chair, elbows on my knees, hands laced behind my neck, and I try to keep my breathing even. But my pulse is hammering, and the fear is louder now.
Because if I’m going to be a father...I have to become someone I’ve never seen before.
And I have no fucking idea how.