7. George
Chapter Seven
George
a few weeks later
The ninth unanswered letter is the one that finally scares me.
I stare at Monica's last letter until the paper is practically worn thin. The fold lines have softened from being opened and closed so many times. The edges are frayed where my fingers have traced them.
I've read it so often I know every word by memory. Every comma. Every crossed-out sentence where she changed her mind mid-thought. Every place where her pen pressed harder into the paper, leaving small indentations on the back.
It's dated six weeks ago.
Forty-three days, not that I'm counting.
Except I am. I've counted every single one.
I fold it carefully and slide it back into the envelope.
The same way I always do. The same way I've done every night since it arrived.
Like ritual can somehow protect it. Like if I'm careful enough, gentle enough, it won't disappear the way she seems to be disappearing.
Around me, the tent is loud.
Someone's laughing. Martinez, probably, telling another story about his kid back home. Someone else is arguing over a card game, voices rising in mock outrage over a bad hand. Terrible music blasts from a speaker that should have died months ago, the bass distorted and crackling.
Everything around me is normal. The rhythm of deployment.
Some guys are writing letters home. Others are playing cards.
A few are cleaning weapons. Others are complaining about the food or making plans for what they'll do when they get back.
But nothing feels normal to me. Because Monica hasn't written.
Not a single letter since that last one.
Jackson looks up from his bunk across from me. He doesn't say anything at first. Just watches. He's gotten good at reading my face over the years.
We all have.
You learn to recognize the signs. The thousand-yard stare. The clenched jaw. The way someone holds themselves when they're barely holding it together.
“Still nothing?” he finally asks.
I hate that he knows what that expression means. I hate that everyone does. I nod once, because I don't trust my voice right now. His face tightens. That look of sympathy mixed with relief that it's not him. That his wife is still writing. That his world is still intact.
“Mail's been weird lately,” he offers.
I almost laugh.
That's what everybody says. Mail's been weird. Mail's delayed. Mail's backed up. Mail's lost. Mail's coming. Every excuse in the world to make us feel better. And maybe they're right.
Maybe every single one of those letters is sitting in a warehouse somewhere, waiting to be sorted. Maybe Monica has written twenty-three of her own. Maybe she's just as frustrated as I am, wondering why I haven't responded.
Maybe.
But doubt is a dangerous thing, especially this far from home. Especially after months of isolation.
I pull out my notebook. The one I've been using to keep track of the days and everything that happens between them. I open to the most recent entry.
Day 214. Still nothing today.
The words stare back at me. Hopeless. I flip backward through the pages. Each one is marked with a date. Each one tied to a letter I sent.
Letter one: the flight over. The terrible in-flight meal. Jackson snoring the entire time.
Letter two: the base. The heat. The dust that gets into everything.
Letter three: Martinez's care package somehow including a rubber chicken. We still don't know why.
Letter four: how much I missed her. How I kept reaching for my phone to text her, only to remember I can’t.
Letter five: the dog.
A scraggly mutt that showed up one day and decided we were his unit now.
We named him Sergeant Barkley. After that, the entries start to blur together.
Jackson accidentally setting off an alarm during a drill.
Dust storms that turn the sky orange. Sergeant Barkley stealing someone's MRE and getting into a standoff with the supply sergeant.
The way the stars look here at night when there's no light pollution. How I dreamed about her. How I missed her. How I counted the days. Over and over.
Every letter, every single one, and nothing came back.
At first, I wasn't worried. Now I'm somewhere past desperate.
Now I'm in territory I don't have a name for.
The kind of waiting that makes your chest tighten.
That makes you check the mail roster three times even though you already know your name isn't on it.
The kind that keeps you awake at night, running through every possible scenario until none of them make sense anymore.
For the first time since this deployment started, combat doesn't feel like the thing I'm fighting.
The uncertainty does, the not knowing, the helplessness. I know how to survive danger. I've trained for it. I know how to assess threats, make decisions, execute plans. I know how to handle fear when it has a sound to it. Whether it’s gunfire, an incoming call, or the engines rolling.
I know what to do with that kind of fear, but this kind has nowhere to go.
I'm staring at Monica's letter. And I finally admit the thing I've been trying not to think about. I don't know what's happening to her. I don't know if she's okay, if she's angry, if she's done. And there's absolutely nothing I can do from here.
Nothing.
So I start writing letter twenty-four.
Monica,
Still haven't heard from you.
I stop and stare at the sentence. It looks too small for what it means. The words blur slightly. I blink hard and keep writing. Because maybe she'll never read it. Maybe every letter I've sent is sitting in some forgotten bin. Maybe they're all going into a void.
Or maybe they reached her.
For a long time, I don't move. I stare at the page, at her name, at the words Still haven't heard from you. Maybe she got every single one, and she just…