The shed.
The bucket.
The fear in her eyes.
Then Naomi looked over her shoulder.
She was smiling.
“Are you planning to help me or just stand there looking handsome?”
I laughed.
“Definitely the second one.”
She threw a gardening glove at me.
I walked over and sat beside her.
Sometimes people ask whether I regret sending all that money home.
I don’t.
Money can be replaced.
What I regret is believing that being someone’s son automatically made them trustworthy.
I regret ignoring the strange excuses.
I regret accepting weeks without hearing my wife’s voice.
Most of all, I regret assuming that the people who called themselves family would protect the person I loved simply because I asked them to.
But Naomi never blamed me.
And I learned something from her that no deployment had ever taught me.
Strength does not always look like fighting back loudly.
Sometimes strength is cutting off the hair you love because it is the only valuable thing you still control.
Sometimes it is getting onto a bus while sick and terrified because nobody will drive you.
Sometimes it is surviving one more night in a cold shed because you still believe tomorrow might be different.
Naomi survived enough tomorrows for me to finally come home.
And when I did, I made sure she never had to fight alone again.
THE END.
