Chapter 7
The interior of the house was warm, but it felt hollow, stripped of the vibrant energy Mark always brought home with him. Clara carried sleeping Leo straight up the stairs to his nursery, gently laying him down on his bed without removing his clothes, pulling a soft blanket over his shivering frame. Even in his slumber, the toddler kept the combat boot resting near his pillow. Clara quietly closed the bedroom door and walked down the hall to the master bedroom she had shared with Mark. His side of the bed was still neatly made, exactly as he had left it the morning he packed his seabag to head to the base. A half-empty mug of coffee sat on the nightstand, a poignant reminder of a morning that had seemed completely ordinary at the time. Clara sank down onto the edge of the mattress, burying her face in her hands as the dam broke once more. The quiet sobs wracked her body, releasing the tension she had desperately maintained throughout the public funeral. Here, behind closed doors, she did not have to be strong for the honor guard, for the family, or for the neighbors. She could simply shatter. She picked up Marks wedding band from the nightstand where he had left it for safekeeping, sliding it onto her own thumb alongside her ring. It was far too big, but wearing it brought a strange, comforting sense of closeness. Downstairs, the grandfather clock ticked away the seconds with steady indifference, marking the inexorable passage of time in a world that had fundamentally broken for her. She knew she had to figure out how to be both mother and father to Leo, how to pay the bills, and how to wake up tomorrow when everything inside her screamed to stop.
