Beard Up(41)

I should be, but I wasn't. I should be pitching the biggest fit to end all fits, but I wasn't. I should be screaming at him for putting me through the last six years, but I wasn't. I should be crying still, but I wasn't.

Why?

Because I'd made a promise to God. I told him that if he, somehow, brought Tunnel – Ghost – back to me, that I wouldn't waste a single second. I wouldn't stay mad. I wouldn't scream and cry. I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize the time we had together.

I'd already broken some of that promise by crying for half the damn morning. Each time that Ghost touched me, I cried. I couldn't help it.


      ///
       
         
       
        

My husband was alive.

I shivered as I pulled my car into my driveway.

When I'd left this morning after seeing Tunnel, I'd been totally and completely lost.

I didn't know what to do, think, say, or feel. I'd driven to the house, the one that Ghost Lane owned.

When I'd done a search on the appraisal district's website for that man, I'd been looking for a reason to dispute the musings that had started to filter through my head.

Everything about ‘Ghost' had started setting off little tiny alarms.

First, it'd been the way he smelled at that baseball game. Then, when I'd arrived at the house that was set up for me on such short notice, I started having my doubts.

Why would a house, one like the one I was walking into right now, be the exact house that I'd always wanted to live in? Sure, the exterior wasn't what I'd wanted, but the interior, it was my house. My dream house-the one I'd wanted to share with my husband. The one that I'd told him about hundreds and hundreds of times over our many, many walks we used to take together.

Over the next week or so, I'd found myself suspicious.

So I watched, and the more I watched, the more suspicious I became.

Ghost … he didn't like burgers.

Ghost stood like my husband-like a man who was confident in himself and didn't care what any other person thought of him. But it was the leaning that got me. The way he never sat down, and when he became tired, he'd lean his hips against a wall or a tall counter, then stack his foot one on top of the other.

He also had this nervous habit, just like my husband had. He'd touch his fingertips together in a rhythmic pattern that only he saw in his head.

But what held me back from truly believing that it was my husband was his lack of stuttering.

My husband, Tunnel, had a stutter. He also had a compulsion where he pronounced the ‘Y' in a word two times before he said the actual word.

Still, I continued to hold out hope. Maybe the stuttering was hidden away. Maybe the stuttering wasn't a problem any longer. Maybe he wasn't … maybe he was.

But today, when we came back for Sienna's papers, I'd noticed those tattoos.

They may have been marred by the scarring of his burns, but they were still there. I'd recognize those tattoos no matter what, and those tattoos were my husband's. Ghost was my husband. Ghost was my Tunnel.

After dropping Sienna off at her Explorer Camp, I'd driven to the house that I'd seen online, researched meticulously on Google Earth, and felt the last nail hammer home. 

My husband was alive.

I felt him come up behind me, felt his large hands circle around my hips and smooth down over my stomach, and I shivered in reaction.

"You're standing here in the middle of the kitchen like I've … "

"Like you've come back from the dead," I croaked. "Every single time I think about it, I want to drop down to my knees and cry. I'm so happy you're here … but I can't wrap my head around it. Not yet."

He hummed.

"I won't leave you again like that," he promised.

Those were just pretty words. He didn't know if that was the case or not. He could die tomorrow and leave me alone again.

But I couldn't live my life thinking that he was going to die at every turn. That was also part of my promise, part of the reason that I hadn't yet freaked out. I'd promised myself that if I got this chance again-that if I got my husband back-I wouldn't take it for granted. I'd be grateful for each day with him, and I wouldn't piss it away thinking that he'd be hurt or would be taken from me again.

I was going to enjoy every single moment, because I knew better than anyone that another moment wasn't promised. I'd lived that for the last six years, and now that my prayers had been answered, I was going to seize this opportunity and stop being sorry.

"You … " I hesitated.

"I what?" he prodded, running his beard along the line of my shoulder.

"You don't hesitate on your ‘Y's' anymore," I said. "And you haven't kissed me seven times in a row."