Caoilainn

When you marry a Marine, there are certain truths you're agreeing to accept. As Tadhg's wife, I know full well the risks.

Knowing the risks, and living with their aftermath, however, are two very different things.

Some people swear they had a premonition of the announcement before they were notified. They felt their mate's connection, somewhere in their heart or soul, sever or strain.

I had no such premonition.

When I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket to take the call, I had no idea what I would soon be told. With cheerfulness, I answered the line.  I'd been dancing, my lungs were wide open and my breathing was still irregular, but I was feeling good. I had found a positive groove and was full of happy endorphins and sweat. When I heard the formal greeting, however, my heart nose-dived into a dizzying spiral of panic and then grief.

I walked myself backwards in the hall and all but fell onto a nearby plastic chair. As the messenger relayed what had happened, a slight moan escaped my lips and I felt my shoulders crumble. Not wanting to lose it on the poor man, I mumbled the appropriate words. A 'yes' here and a 'no' there, wherever they were warranted.

When we hung up, I slid off the chair and curled into a fetal position on the floor, sobbing into my hands over the news.

Tadhg was hurt. The words, 'brain-damaged', 'irreversible' and 'neurological conditions' haunted my mind.

What does it all mean?

My beautiful, strong man; Tadhg.

How can I help him? What can I do? He's so far away and I'm held captive here. We're stranded alone hundreds of miles across an ocean from one another.

Poor Ruari; it's he who finds me at the club lying in a puddle of tearful devastation. It's he who drives me home, and he who holds me in his arms until I cry myself to sleep on the couch.