I laughed nervously at her mispronunciation and hugged her chubby little body. "Where's your brother?" I asked.
"He's upstairs, wrapping a Christmas present." Paul answered, turning his face from me. "In his last letter, he asked me to get you something from Korea. I hope you like it."
"I'm sure I will." How artificial it all sounded; what nice, polite conversation! Is this what leads to a civilized divorce, two people simply splitting up the joint property and amicably going their own way?
At his last pre-Christmas deployment, his homecoming had been a wonderful evening spent cuddling on the couch with wine and blinking tree lights washing over us. Now, the relationship was irrevocably fractured, and we had both come painfully to that realization.
"Glass of wine, Paul?" The best of Marian's upbringing came to the surface. One must always provide adequate refreshments for one's guests, even when married to them.
"Sure." He followed me back to the kitchen. I pulled a bottle of chilled Chardonnay out of the refrigerator.
"Kay, about what happened..."
"Last night in bed, or our little exchange of pleasantries at the tree lot?" Studiously, I rummaged through a drawer to find my corkscrew, deliberately banging the kitchen utensils against each other as I searched.
"Well, both." Paul's voice was awkward and strained. "It looks like we've pretty much come to the end of our road together, doesn't it?"
I stopped rattling utensils.
"I had hopes that when I came home, there was a chance we could work things out. I know what I did was wrong, Kay. I just hoped you could finally forgive me." Paul reached across and, with his index finger, traced the blue vein across the back of my hand. "Especially when your mother sent me that ticket."
"My mother brought you here?" That blackmailing conversation at Hawk's cafeteria came back:
Don't let anything more about you and that nosy reporter get back to me.
She probably thought she could engineer some sort of reconciliation between us.
"Damn her!" I exploded. "She won't do anything nice for someone, unless she gets something out of it, too!"
"You didn't know?"
"Hell no, I didn't know!"
"I got this letter from her saying how much you and the kids wanted to see me over the holidays, but were afraid to ask that I come home early. She said you didn't have a whole lot of money, trying to pay for Andrew's school and all."
"That bitch forked over the tuition for Andrew. I wanted to send him to the public schools, but that wasn’t good enough for her!"
"Honey, she was just trying to make it a Christmas gift to us." Paul covered my hand with his.
I pulled away, meeting his gaze squarely. "Well, she certainly made some big assumptions there, didn't she?"
"Don't, Kay. Your mother only meant the best for us, I'm sure."
"Why do you think she's some helpless little widow with only good deeds in her heart? She knew we were having problems, and she just thought she’d stick her surgically altered nose in."
"There, see? She only had our best interests in mind."
"Sure, she did."
"I'll only stay until New Year's Day, then I'll go back." The death knell had begun to sound for our marriage. Fearfully, I met his gaze.
"Paul, I'm so sorry." I reached forward to touch him but it was suddenly artificial, wrong. My hand fell limply on the counter top.
"No, I'm sorry. All I ask is that you give me lots of time in the summer to see the kids."
"Sure."
"And the car? Just keep it until I get back."
"No. It wouldn't be right." I thought of Marcus sitting on the passenger side and blushed. "I can take it wherever you want me to for storage, then buy my own car."
"Throttle back, Kay. Keep it. I'll agree to whatever you want, within reason. Have your lawyer draw up a separation agreement, and I'll sign it. We can finalize the divorce when I get back." He turned and headed down the hallway.
"Please." Instinctively, I reached out to touch him one more time, to remember all the good times we had, all the wonderful things we had done together.
"No, Kay. I made a serious mistake, and now I have to pay for it."
So this was why divorce could be more painful than death. Even when it would be finalized, we would still be tied to each other through the children. In spite of it all, we would still have contact.
Abruptly, I had a vision of Paul coming to get the children for summer visitation in the years ahead, slowly stepping up the front steps of this awful house as I stood on the porch, pasty-faced and smiling, with the children in front of me like a barricade, while Marcus, Paul's replacement, stood behind me.
Oh, my God.
"Paul."
"Yes?"
"Do you want to tell the kids now?"
"No. Let's not spoil this last Christmas together."
"When?"
"When everything is settled." Without a word, he turned on his heel with military precision and returned to the living room. My hands shook, as I tried to pour the wine into my glass, slopping it onto the counter and the floor. Impatiently, I grabbed the dishrag and got down on my hands and knees to wipe the spill. Salty tears ran down my cheeks, mixing with the wine on the floor. My hair fell forward into the puddle, and somewhere in the depths of my soul I heard my heart break.
* * *
We tried to make it as wonderful a Christmas as we could, but it was like granting one wish to a dying man who didn't have any idea how soon the end was coming. No matter how warm and wonderful we tried to make the holiday, we knew it was our final one together, and that was sad.
Mother spent Christmas Day with us. We tried valiantly to look as if nothing were wrong between us, but I sat too stiffly beside Paul; the kisses and touches we affected had the quality of a bad high school play.
Paul brought Mother and me each a brightly colored silk kimono robe, and the kids each got a jacket with an Oriental dragon on the back and KOREA in ornate script written between the shoulder blades. Both jackets had patches from Paul's 51st Tactical Fighter Wing, sewn on the shoulder.
There were too many toys for the children and too much food to eat, but beneath the surface the discomfort at putting on such a performance never left. By nine o'clock that night, I found myself saucing up my eggnog a little more than everyone else to keep myself steady; my voice was a little over-loud and my laughter too forced.
At 10 p.m., after the children were asleep and Mother had departed, I came out of the kitchen to find Paul's pillow and an old blanket folded up on the corner of the couch.
"What are you doing?"
"C'mon Kay, We've lied to everyone all day long. Let's not do it anymore." Paul sat down and pulled his shoes off. "I'll just sleep down here."
The next day, not six hours after Mother came by and picked up the kids, leaving some frivolous gourmet lunch for us.
"Just to inspire a little romance for you love birds," she winked.
Instead, Paul packed to leave. After the children came back, we went back to the airport to say good-bye to him. We held each other tightly in a final, sad embrace, knowing that the next time we saw each other it would be in court, that everything we had together was now finished. My actions as well as his had led to the demise of our marriage, and nothing would revive it.
"We had a lot of good times together, Kay," he whispered in my ear. "I'm sorry. I don't blame you at all."
Sobs filled my throat. "Oh, Paul."
"United Flight 478 now boarding through gate 23 from Chicago, with service to San Francisco and Los Angeles!"
A disembodied female voice floated through the corridor.
"All passengers…"
"This is it, I guess." Paul held me at arm's length. "Remember me kindly."
Andrew and Lillian began to cry. Paul hugged them both tightly, tears cresting in his eyes. "Be good for Mommy now," he rasped. "Bye-bye."
Playfully saluting Andrew, he turned to board his plane.
* * *
"
Mo-o-om-m-e-e!"
Lillian's small voice rang out in the darkness.
Why do children's cries for help sound so blood curdling in the middle of the night? I rolled over and switched on the bedside lamp. Marcus, my love, had arrived and departed after the children had gone to sleep; my eyes couldn't have been closed for more than ten minutes. Maybe not—it was 2:36 a.m. God, I hate digital clocks. Whatever happened to about 2:30 or a little past 2:30? The red numbers shone definitively in my face, as I struggled to come awake.
"What is it, Lil?" I managed to call back.
Lil's sleeper-covered feet hit the hardwood floor. She came running into my room, sliding in between my blankets before I could stop her.
"Lil, honey, you're all wet!"
"Mommy, I pee-peed my bed."
Damn it. Now I have to strip both beds. Since Paul's return to Osan two weeks ago, Lillian, only recently sleeping at night without a diaper, began to wet the bed again. I knew his abrupt arrival and departure was the cause.
"Come on, sweetie." I took her hand and led her to the bathroom. I sat on the edge of the claw-footed bathtub, trying to rub the stupor out of my eyes and peel the urine-soaked sleeper off her. Once the tub was full, I plopped Lillian into the water with her bathtub toys and went to change the sheets.
Just as I was tucking the fitted sheet around my own mattress, the phone rang. It was 2:43 a.m.
I suppose every military wife lives with the fear of that phone call, secure only in the insecurity that active duty brings. I had often wondered what I would do or how I would react when my phone call came, but each time dismissed it as an unlikely possibility. Paul was simply too good a pilot. Our marriage was beyond hope, but Paul's flying ability brooked no criticism. I prayed for a wrong number, as I picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Mrs. Paul Armstrong?" A man's deep voice asked.
"Yes?"
"Mrs. Armstrong, this is Chaplain McBroom at Symington Air Force Base. I'm sorry to call at such a late hour, but I'm afraid there's been an accident. We just received word."
"Paul?" I sank onto the cold, fresh bed sheet, too stunned to react.
"Yes ma'am. We'll be right over."
The receiver dropped heavily from my hand back onto its cradle. What now? What do I need to do? I don't want to meet Chaplain McBroom at the door without someone here with me. Whatever he was going to tell me, I didn't want to acknowledge it alone. The chaplain had a half-hour drive from Symington to Jubilant Falls. There would be enough time for Mother to get here. I picked up the phone again and began to dial.
At the other end of the line, the phone clicked.
"Mother?"
"You have reached the James residence. At the tone, please leave your name, particularly your telephone number..."
Damn it.
"…and the time and date of your call." Beep.
"Mother, this is Kay." I spoke as flatly as her taped message. "It's about three in the morning. Something's happened to Paul. The chaplain's coming up from Symington. I think it's serious."
"Mommy! I'm getting all pruney!"
Lillian! How could I have forgotten her? I pulled her out of the tub and rapidly rubbed her pink, little body down with a towel.
"Who called on the teffelone?" The word tripped off her tongue.
"Nobody, sweetheart." There was no need to alarm her, until I knew the whole story.
"Then why did you call Grandma?"
Little pitchers and their big ears, I thought.
"Don't worry about it, Lil. Let's get you a dry sleeper and tucked back into that nice, clean bed."
All too soon, I was back at my own bedside, staring at the phone. The alarm clock's digital numbers flooded blood red across the nightstand: 2:59. Chaplain McBroom would be here in fifteen minutes. I picked up the receiver again. There was only one man left to call, the one who had always been there when I needed someone to lean on.
"Hello?"
"Marcus, it's me, Kay. There's been an accident."
"What, the kids?" He was instantly alert.
"Paul. The chaplain's on his way over now."
"It's okay. I'll be right there." The phone clicked sharply. It was 3:02.
Quickly, I found a flannel robe in the closet and slipped it over my shoulders. The dark mahogany stair steps were cold beneath my feet as I found my way downstairs. Instinctively, I felt my way down the black hallway to the kitchen, blinded in the sudden light as I flipped the switch. Before anyone could arrive, I poured a shot of Canadian Mist into a coffee mug and sat down at the kitchen table.
Maybe Paul wasn't dead. Maybe he was only hurt.
Just two weeks ago he had said, "Remember me kindly."
Could he have known? Had he carried some weird premonition of disaster in the back of his head? My God, how could we have torn each other apart like we did?
I should have been more forgiving of him and that woman's mysterious little child. All the scenes, all the broken trust. We tore each other apart through the years and gladly. Now, Paul could very well be dead.
The doorbell chimed, eerily echoing through the downstairs. I took a generous gulp from my mug and went to answer the door.
It was 3:13.
"Mrs. Armstrong." Chaplain McBroom stepped inside and took both my hands in his. Behind him stood a first lieutenant, awkwardly shifting from one foot to another. "I regret to inform you that your husband, major Paul Dennison Armstrong, died as a result of an aircraft accident this morning at Osan Air Base."
My sobs filled the room, the odd keening wail of a wounded animal. It reverberated off the walls and rattled the French doors into the living room, leaving unseen prints of bloody agony where it touched the staircase, bouncing off the wallpaper and against the second story ceilings as the lamenting sound faded. With it went all hope of forgiveness and atonement; it was recognition that the opportunity for Paul and me to make peace with each other was gone.
"Did he burn?" I heard myself ask through the haze of tears. "Did he burn? I don't want him to burn."
Chaplain McBroom led me into the living room and helped me into a wingback chair.