Nathan Cole had rehearsed the moment of coming home so many times that by the time the front door finally opened beneath his hand, the real thing felt almost borrowed from one of his dreams. For nearly three years, home had existed mostly as a collection of sensory fragments he summoned in places thousands of miles away. It was the faint smell of Emily's vanilla candle near the staircase, the cool grain of the hardwood under bare feet, the groan in the second stair from the bottom, the winter light through the living room windows, and the familiar uneven line of framed photographs she kept adding to the wall even when he joked that they were running out of space. He had pictured all of it in barracks rooms, temporary quarters, airport lounges, and long sleepless nights overseas.
In every version of the scene, Emily reached him first. She ran into his arms, he dropped whatever he was carrying, and for several seconds the years between them disappeared. At thirty-four, Nathan had become good at living by schedules other people wrote. He was a career soldier, broad-shouldered and leanly muscular, with a regulation dark-brown fade, weathered fair skin, and blue-gray eyes that had learned to look composed even when he was exhausted.
His orders had taken him through a long chain of assignments that began as a twelve-month overseas rotation and stretched, through extensions and a follow-on advisory posting, into nearly three years spent more away than home. There had been short windows when leave seemed possible, then cancellations, then weeks when the only thing keeping him sane was the idea that once the assignment finally ended, ordinary life would be waiting exactly where he left it. The olive-green duffel over his shoulder felt impossibly heavy as he stepped across the threshold that early evening. Two more travel bags and a hard equipment case rested just outside where the driver who dropped him off had helped unload them.
Nathan wore his camouflage uniform because there had been no chance to change between the final connection and home, and because some private part of him liked the thought of Emily seeing him exactly as he had been during the years apart. He expected tears. He expected laughter. He expected relief so strong it would be embarrassing.
He did not expect a child. Emily came around the edge of the gray sectional with a smile so bright that for one instant Nathan barely registered what she was carrying. She was thirty-one now, though in his head she had remained twenty-eight through most of his absence. Her honey-blonde hair fell in glossy loose waves instead of the shorter cut she had worn when he left.
She looked healthy, polished, beautiful in a fitted cream knit top and dark jeans, gold hoops catching the light as she hurried toward him. The sight of her hit Nathan with such force that his throat tightened before he could speak. Then the toddler in her arms bounced against her hip and turned toward him. The little boy was perhaps eighteen months old, deep brown skin glowing warm under the living room lights, soft black curls gathered in small tight spirals around his head, enormous dark eyes watching the stranger in uniform with mild surprise.
He wore a pale blue sweatshirt, beige pants, and tiny white sneakers. One hand gripped a plastic dinosaur. The other rested casually against Emily's collarbone with the familiarity of a child who had spent hundreds of hours being held exactly that way. Emily stopped three feet from Nathan and bounced the boy gently, still smiling.
“Look who's finally home,” she said in a teasing, affectionate voice. “Say hi to Daddy.” Nathan's smile did not vanish all at once.
It faltered in stages. First came the instinctive assumption that this was some elaborate joke. Maybe the child belonged to a friend. Maybe Emily had become close to one of the neighborhood families.
Maybe Daddy was something she had said accidentally or playfully, a badly chosen word with an innocent explanation waiting behind it. Nathan looked from Emily's face to the child, then back again. The warmth draining from him felt physical. “You're joking… right?”
he asked. Emily's smile twitched. “What?” Nathan opened his mouth, but before he could form the next question, the front door behind him pushed inward.
A familiar voice arrived first. “Man, you're finally back! Welcome home!” Nathan turned.