Duty: A Secret Baby Romance (10 page)

“Understood, sir. I'll give you my best effort.”

“I fully expect it. And after today . . . good start. Welcome to Delta Company.”

“Good to be here, sir.”

T
he three chevrons
feel strange on my uniform, heavy with more than just the blackened brass. They carry with them the weight of responsibility as well, and while I'm not at all like the girl I used to be, it's still strange.

“Congratulations, Sergeant Morgan,” Lieutenant Colonel Seward, my battalion commander, says, shaking my hand. “It's going to be tough losing you.”

“It's been a good couple of years, sir,” I tell him, feeling the Army Commendation Medal resting on my chest, where he just pinned that after pinning on my new rank. “I'm going to miss Fort Lewis.”

“Well, we're going to miss you, and your son as well,” Seward says, looking over to the side, where Lance is standing with Lieutenant Sims. “He's become quite the unit mascot.”

“Thank you, sir,” I reply, smiling when Seward waves Lance over and I get to pick up my son. There's a round of applause, and I hug Lance tightly, for a moment not a soldier but just Mommy. “Hey, big boy. Did Mommy do okay?”

“You did great, Mommy,” Lance says in his little boy's voice, his hazel eyes sparkling. “Can we go now?”

Colonel Seward hears his comment and laughs. “Lance, give your mom about an hour to sign some papers, and I think we can get her on leave. You have big plans or something?”

Lance nods, holding onto my neck. “We get to go see Grandma and Grandpa!”

“I think it's in the regs somewhere,” Seward says, leaning in and whispering to Lance, “the Army's not allowed to keep a little boy from his grandparents on leave. So we'll get the papers done quickly.”

Lance sighs melodramatically. He's got a lot of character to him. He's at that perfect age where he's still got a lot of his baby cuteness but is also old enough that he’s pretty verbal as well. “I don’t like paperwork.”

“A proper Adjutant General already, I see,” Seward jokes, earning a laugh from the small group. The little celebration's breaking up already, and I can see Lieutenant Sims wheeling the cake that the company got me in from the side office. I set Lance down, pointing.

“If you ask the Lieutenant nicely, I bet he'll let you help cut the cake. But I only want a little slice, okay?”

“Okay,” Lance says, waddling over. He's tall for only being a couple of months past his third birthday, but he's still just past his toddler stage, despite his lankiness even in his tiny imitation ACUs that he insisted I get him for Christmas. “El Teee . . .”

I can't help it. I laugh silently, watching him go before going into the battalion commander's office. I've already signed almost all the paperwork. After all, I wrote out most of the forms myself on my computer. There are only a few pieces left to get taken care of, ones Seward had to sign first.

“You're a good admin staffer,” Seward says when it's just him and I. “So are you looking forward to the change of location?”

“To be honest, sir, yes,” I tell him, scribbling my signature at the bottom of the first form, which says that I've already cleared my quarters with post housing. I ponied up for the cleaning crew to come through instead of waiting for the normal inspection process, two hundred dollars, which is kind of a rip off, but that's okay because it saves me hours of cleaning and re-inspections. “I've got a few friends at Bragg. And in some ways, I kinda feel like it'll be nice to work with a different kind of unit.”

“I can understand that. Doing just mob-de-mob can get boring. You've got about a year left on your enlistment. Are you thinking of re-upping?”

“I honestly don't know, sir. The Army's been pretty good to me, and everyone here at Lewis has really handled my being a single mother well. I know I kinda blew some minds when I showed up from USMA and turned out to be pregnant with Lance,” I muse, signing the next form which says that I've turned over all sensitive or secret documents. Considering I never signed for any, that was pretty damn easy. “It's going to depend on how things work at Bragg, I guess. I mean, I've done nearly four years in non-deployable garrison units. Not a lot of soldiers can say that. I don't know what it’ll be like there.”

“Wise enough to know that you don't know . . . sure we couldn't have made you an officer?” Seward jokes, then sobers. “You're right, though. Rate of deployment is a lot different than it was even five years ago, but still, units rotate in and out of Bragg all the time.”

“I know, sir. Lance doesn't know it, but part of that trip to see my parents in Minnesota is to square away any last details in case I do get deployed.”

Seward hums, nodding. He's been around the Army. He knows the truth. The stress and strain of being a single mother as well as a soldier is hard, and it’s the biggest reason a lot of single parents leave service. Still, he tries to give me an encouraging smile. “To let you in on a secret, my first few field training exercises after my first daughter was born were kind of the same way. Sure, I missed her, but to be able to actually sleep without listening for the bottle cry or the poopy diaper scream was nice.”

I sign the last of the paperwork and enjoy a slice of cake with Lance before leaving the battalion HQ, shaking hands with a few of my co-workers as we leave. My RAV4 is already packed, Lance's car seat is strapped in, and I'm planning on changing clothes tonight when we stop at the first hotel on our route to Minnesota. “Ready, trooper?”

“Hooah, Mommy!” Lance says, grinning. He loves pretending to be a soldier, and while I sometimes wonder if I'm doing the right thing by letting him indulge in the play so much, I know I can't really stop it either. He’s spent all of his short life so far being dropped off at five forty-five at the post daycare and spending eleven hours or more in the care of the people there, and he sees more people in ACUs than he does anything else. I give credit to the staff at the center though. They try to keep the Army-ness from overtaking everything about the kids' lives, and Lance likes other things, too. Still, he's a three-year-old with a working knowledge of Army jargon as much as he does regular English. I have to remember to not use Army-speak around him so much.

We leave post and get on the Interstate heading toward Seattle. Lance amuses himself with his favorite car game, car spotting, as I head north along the Interstate. We've got time. I'm using three weeks of accumulated leave in addition to the normal leave the Army grants, so for the next month, I'm going to be able to relax and spend time with my son.

“Hey, Mommy, I just saw a Ferrari!” Lance says, and I smile. Since seeing the movie,
Cars,
at the daycare center, every sports car is a Ferrari to Lance, and he loves them. “It's yellow!”

I look to my left and see what he's talking about, and while it's not a Ferrari, it's still European. “Actually, buddy, that's a Lambo.”

“A Lambo?” He asks, and I knew I should have just kept my mouth shut. Ah well, it's better than listening to Ariana Grande on the radio for the next few minutes.

“A Lamborghini,” I expand, turning off the radio. I've got some songs ready for the radio dead zones in Montana and North Dakota, where my only choices are AM talk radio or AM radio preachers, but I'll save that for later. “It's another type of sports car.”

“Is it as fast as a Ferrari?” Lance asks, and I shake my head.

“I really don't know, buddy. Does it look fast?”

“Ah-huh!” Lance says, then grins. “You should buy a Ferrari.”

I laugh, I can't help it. He's just too innocent sometimes. “Honey, there's no way I can buy a Ferrari.”

“Why?”

Lance's favorite question, but at least one I've answered before here. “Honey, a Ferrari costs a lot more than Mommy makes.”

“How much money do you have?” Lance asks, and I'm glad that he doesn't quite grasp the total realm of money yet. He knows I use my bank card or cash to buy things, but that's about it. Thankfully, I've watched my money well, and I've never had to really scrape by yet.

“Enough to take care of us,” I tell Lance. Twenty-six thousand a year and getting to stay in post housing isn’t too bad. Not rich, but I didn't have to worry about qualifying for the loan on my RAV4. I'll take it for now. “Enough that we can have fun sometimes, too.”

Thankfully, my answer satisfies him, and he goes back to car watching. I brought some DVDs for later, but I don't want to put up with four days of kiddie movies playing in my back seat, so I'm holding off on those as long as I can.

We stop for dinner at six o'clock, and I let him indulge with a cheeseburger, but I make sure he doesn't have any of the ice cream he was trying to get. I don't need him on a sugar rush in the back of the car, going off until midnight. A quick trip to the bathroom and a fresh set of training pants—he's doing his best to hold it, but I don't expect him to be perfect on this road trip—and we're back on the road again.

The monotony causes Lance to start squirming, but he settles in when I put in the first of the DVDs I brought along, the backseat screen helping him nod off even before his favorite characters enter the magic castle. I turn the DVD off and put on some music, keeping it mellow and low. I'm looking forward to this month. It's been hard being a single mom. Having a full month to be nothing but Mom . . . I’m looking forward to it.

* * *

“
O
h my God
, it's so good to see you!” Petie, my best friend from high school, says as she comes up the walkway of my parent's house and we hug. “It's been what, three years? Four, even?”

“Just about,” I agree, giving her a squeeze. Growing up, Petie and I became fast friends, and the years since haven't changed that much. “How're you doing?”

“Nice to see you again, Petie,” Dad says, interrupting us and lowering his newspaper. “Behaving yourself?”

“Not at all, Mr. Morgan,” Petie jokes. “I've toned it down some for Tim though. Can't quite get up to all my old tricks.”

“Hmm. If you two would like, you can have some privacy on the back deck,” Dad says, still smirking. He's always liked Petie, who he says spent so much time over here with me that he was thinking he adopted a second daughter. “Enjoy your catch-up time.”

We stop by the kitchen first, where I grab a couple of wine coolers for us and we sit down, enjoying the sun. “Cheers.”

“What, the Army doesn't force you to drink beer any longer?” Petie asks, clinking bottles with me. “And to your health. Seriously, though, you do look good.”

I take a sip and lean back, enjoying the sun on my face. “Keep it up, Petie. I haven't had anyone compliment me in too damn long. I can use the ego stroke.”

Petie shakes her head and sips at her bottle, setting it down. “Sounds like you need more than your ego stroked. Still running dry, huh?”

I nod, closing my eyes. “Thanks for the Christmas gift, by the way. And thank you even more for the heads up so that I didn't open it in front of Lance. God knows how I explain a vibrator to a three-year-old. You still rocking Tim's world on the regular?”

“Damn right. I may be heavier than when we got married, but he's not complaining,” Petie says, rubbing her curvy hip a little, then she sighs. “Mind if I take things serious though?”

“Go ahead, figured we'd get around to the deep shit eventually.”

Petie nods and sits back, relaxing. “You like the Army?”

I chuckle and take another drink. “Sorry, just that my old battalion commander asked me kind of the same question when I signed out at Lewis. He was asking if I'm going to re-up. My enlistment's coming up in about a year. I told him the same thing I'll tell you. I just don't know. It's been good to me for sure. I've gotten good care for Lance, and they even let me finish out my degree online. I can't fault them for that.”

“Yeah . . . I guess that's a good thing. And you do look good, that isn't just my repressed lesbian side coming out,” Petie jokes. “Seriously, you're a head turner, girl.”

“That's not getting heads to turn,” I gripe, sighing. “Or at least not the right ones.”

Petie hums, sipping at her drink. “Hard to find single guys who want to date a soldier with a little boy.”

“I get some that are interested,” I say with a dark chuckle. “Guys who want a quick ride in the sack, but they don't want a thing to do with Lance. And never mind actually having a real date.”

“I kind of figured. I mean, the past four years you've told me about a date what, five times?” Petie asks. “Even Mother Theresa dated more than you are.”

“I won't have a man who isn't interested in being involved with Lance too,” I answer, not angry but just convinced. “I already short change him a lot in terms of my time. If I leave the Army, that's going to be why. A three-year-old shouldn't be away from his mother for twelve hours a day, Monday through Friday. If a man can't handle that part of me, then he doesn't get the rest of me.”

Petie gives me a supportive smile, nodding. “Good. Can I ask, though, is there another reason, maybe? Washington may not be New York City, but there are still a lot of guys out there. There has to have been at least one who was a good man.”

“I’m sure there’s one out there. But I didn’t meet one if so.”

“You mean one compared to
him
,” Petie says, not mentioning Aaron's name. I never told her, but one night of sobbing comfort on my trip from New York to Washington, I told her everything else. Petie's a smart woman, and she knows me about as well as I know myself, maybe better sometimes. “Almost four years now. He's either graduated or he's a civilian. Have you ever thought about reaching out to him?”