Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Ava
The morning rush is over and I take a quick break to stroll up and down McQuaid Circle.
It’s something I’ve done almost every day since I started working here.
And today, the routine of it is soothing.
It brings a certain normalcy to the ever-changing world I live in now.
I catch myself smiling as I return and look up at the giant marquee over the front doors of the shop: The Criss Coffee Corner.
Will I hand the keys over to my child one day just as Chuck and Dawn did to Trevor and me right after we got married? Will he or she love this place as much as I do?
I open the right-side door, admiring the etching on it that I sourced from a local artist a few years ago—a giant steaming cup of coffee with latte art displaying our emblem of three cascading Cs.
Walking inside, my eyes rake around the place in admiration, still amazed that this career I fell into has never seemed like work.
When I look at fourteen-year-old Darla Anderson, or Bug as she prefers, behind the counter, I can almost picture myself working alongside my own daughter. My eyes shift to Gray Calloway, who is several years Bug’s senior, and I try to picture my own son restocking the pastry bar.
Then I spy the picture of Trev and me off to the side, near the door to the back, and my cheery mood disappears.
It’s strange. He’s only been gone a few weeks, yet I sometimes have these moments where I forget he’s no longer here. Where it feels like this is just another typical day of me working at the coffee shop and him being overseas. Moments when I forget what I am: a widow.
I think it might take me longer than most to get used to that fact.
After all, we hadn’t truly lived together for many years.
I’d become used to being alone. Running the business by myself.
Paying the bills. Doing the chores. Fixing whatever breaks.
Basically, I’ve been the president and CEO of our home lives as far back as I can remember.
I even found it a bit odd that I’d be turning over some of those duties to Trevor when he once again became a permanent fixture in my life.
I wonder if that will make it easier or harder for me to work through the grieving process.
My eyes close, thinking of the child growing inside me, knowing it’s the one thing for sure that will make it better. And the only thing that could have.
Oh, how I wish Trevor had known he was going to be a father. If only I’d have done the last embryo transfer one month earlier. Then again, part of me is sure I’d have waited until he got home to tell him the news. My lungs deflate. He wouldn’t have known either way.
“Ms. Criss?” Bug says, pulling my attention from my wayward thoughts.
“Mmm?”
She points to the door I walked through not a minute ago. When I look over, the déjà vu hits me like a freight train. The same two uniformed officers I hoped I’d never see again are walking toward me.
For some odd reason, maybe because I really don’t want to see their faces, my eyes focus on their shoes. Their shiny, black, military-issued shoes. Do they buff and shine them each time they have bad news to deliver?
Every step they take seems coordinated in both cadence and length, as if they practice walking in perfect unison.
With every inch closer, I wonder why they’re here. Haven’t they destroyed my life enough? What other business could they possibly have that would bring them to my doorstep once again?
“Mrs. Criss,” the man I’ve unfortunately come to know as Captain Billings says. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
My stomach knots with dread. Are they here to tell me more horrible details of his death? I shake my head. “I don’t need to know anything else.” My eyes close. “I have nightmares about what his last hours might have been like. You think I want to add to that?”
“Please,” Sergeant Navarra urges. “Do you have an office or somewhere private?”
Bug and Gray are watching, as are the five customers scattered throughout the booths and tables. The shop has gone silent, just as it did the first time these two came through my doors.
“I just don’t—”
“Mrs. Criss,” the captain says. “You want to hear this.”
“Fine.” I spin and walk toward the back.
They follow me through the storage and cleanup areas to the office.
Walking inside the open door, I peek at the corner where I’ll eventually put a small crib.
I blink back the everpresent tears and sit behind the desk, motioning to the two chairs on the other side.
They sit, once again, at the same time and in the same synchronized manner.
Captain Billings sighs. It’s not a regular sigh, more like air blasting from his lungs as he tries to figure out how to deliver more bad news. Which I find peculiar considering this is what he does for a living: deliver horrible, life-altering, gut wrenching news.
“It’s come to our attention that there has been a mix-up. A case of mistaken identity.”
I furrow my brow. “I don’t understand.”
“Ma’am, Major Trevor Criss—your husband—is alive.”
My body reacts before my mind does. My heart stops mid-beat, then goes haywire.
All the air leaves my lungs, then they fill again, because for the first time in weeks, I can breathe.
Fear, excitement, surprise, joy, relief, doubt, and a slew of other emotions come at me from all angles, and I can’t figure out which way is up. Did I just hear what I think I heard?
“I… uh… what?” I ask, staring at the captain through blurred, teary eyes.
“Major Criss is alive, ma’am, and being transferred to Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.”
“How… why… um…” I feel light-headed, so I blow a long, controlled breath out in an attempt to stay conscious. “It’s been over two weeks. I don’t understand.”
“His doctors will be able to tell you more. Here’s what we know.
When your husband’s unit found an opportunity to flee their captors, uniforms were inadvertently exchanged.
After the accident, in the haste to get Major Criss medical attention, things must have been overlooked.
In addition, your husband also had injuries that made his identity hard to confirm.
He took a hit to the head that resulted in him being kept in a medically induced coma for a time.
We were unaware of the mix-up until a family member of the soldier we thought him to be informed us of the mistaken identity. ”
My mind is trying to process all the information. Injuries. Coma. He’s alive.
“Is he… okay?”
Billings nods. “He’s awake now and has been cleared to make the overseas flight. He’ll be stateside in the morning.”
“What does this mean? For me. For us. Can I go to him?” Suddenly, I’m bombarded with gruesome accounts Trevor would tell me about his patients.
The one thing he hated the most was working on soldiers who’d been hit by IEDs.
The injuries they sustained were among the worst he’d seen.
Shrapnel. Head injuries. Missing limbs. I cry out a fear-based scream.
“Oh, my god.” I squeeze my eyes tightly together, fearing the answer to the question I’m about to ask. “Did he lose any arms or legs?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t believe he did. But you’ll have to talk to his medical team about the specifics of his injuries.
” Relief surges through me as he pulls a piece of paper from his binder.
“There are organizations that can help you with flights and accommodations if needed. You can leave as soon as arrangements have been made.”
I refuse the paper, not wanting any red tape to stand between Trevor and me. “I’m ready right now.” A hand flies to my mouth. “My god. Do his parents know?”
“We’ll be going over there next,” Sargent Navarra informs me.
I stand, feeling as if the weight of the world has been lifted off my shoulders. “I’m going with you.”
I’m walking on air as we leave the office. Trevor is alive. My love is not dead and buried beneath the headstone in the cemetery.
The wind is pulled from my sails as I’m hit with a sick feeling. Because someone else is buried there. And while I’m elated that I’m getting my life back—the life I’ve always dreamed of with my husband and child—somebody somewhere is now grieving the man they were told was the sole survivor.
“The man who was buried?”
“His remains will be exhumed and sent to his next of kin.”
I stop in my tracks. “Wait here.”
I race around the corner and up the stairs to my apartment. I fly through the living room into the master bedroom, rip open the bottom left dresser drawer and get the flag Dawn insisted I keep for myself after the funeral.
Back down in the shop, I shove it into the captain’s chest. “You can have this back.”
He simply nods and takes it.
When the weight of the flag is lifted out of my arms, a tsunami of relief floods through me as if giving the symbol of Trevor’s death back to them also takes away the weight of the grief I’ve been carrying for weeks.
Escorting them back out front, I have the urge to shout to my employees and the world that Trevor is alive.
But Dawn and Chuck deserve to know before anyone else.
I shake my head and try not to look too happy when I say to everyone in earshot.
“It’s okay. I just have to run an errand.
” I turn to Gray. “You’re in charge until Jason gets back. ”
“Is everything okay, Ms. Criss?” Bug asks.
I have to work hard to contain the smile that’s tugging at the edge of my lips. I put a hand on her shoulder. “Everything’s going to be fine, Bug.”
“Everything’s going to be wonderful,” I mumble to myself, as the officers and I walk out the front doors.