It would take only hours for people to talk about ‘bringing the country together’. For words like ‘unity’ and ‘patriotism’ to become everyone’s everyday language. Those words had been my words for years. When I told my parents I wanted to join the army, when I had to accept that I’d never be able to provide Marian with the kind of life she was used to. Unity and patriotism were the words that I used to make things alright again.

Marian takes my hand. “All those people,” she says.

The thoughts I’m having are not allowed, not for anybody but certainly not for a soldier. I don’t care about those people. I live a million miles away from them in a military base with a family that is just starting to take shape. So no, in that moment, for one moment I choose to be selfish. I don’t care about the people falling or crying. I care about myself and my wife and the child that I am about to be pulled away from. I care about missing lamaze classes and random cravings and all the other things good, faithful husbands go through before they hold their babies in their arms. I care about the most amazing thing I could ever possibly make being brought into this world without me. I especially care that I made a promise I no longer want to keep.

“Do you know what this means?” I ask. I didn’t mean to but it slipped out.

Marian shakes her head. Her mind and her eyes are focussed solely on the television.

That’s my wife. Single minded to a fault. Determined to the point that it is almost detrimental. The coffee table in front of us is littered with baby books. Evidence of her latest obsession. The Modern Girls Guide to Motherhood. The Mother of All Pregnancy Books. Even A Womb With A View. I worry that now this tragedy will eclipse the birth of our child. Not so much in her mind (for even as she watches the screen Marian’s fingers rest inside the folds of Baby Wise, marking her place). But perhaps in the world at large. In the extended family who will try to smile at this new familial addition without thinking of all the people who’s lives were cut short a mere two months before the birth. How can any child compete with this kind of overwhelming sadness? How can a child grow up in that kind of miasma without a father to lead the way?

“You’ll have to go,” Marian says. “You’ll be deployed.” Her fingers have drifted to a book called Dad’s Pregnant Too! Perhaps intentionally. The cheery exclamation point is giving me a migraine.

“Yes,” I say. Simple. Sorry. Sad. S-words are drifting through my mind to keep terms like ‘absent father’ at bay.

I don’t immediately know what she’s thinking when she goes to get the camera. But then it all makes sense and I even manage a small, nervous smile for the photo.

Aza Green