The house smelled like the cleaner Megan used on the baseboards and like something warmer under it, onions maybe, a pan still on low in the kitchen. Early evening. The hardwood had a stripe of sun left on it from the front window, and the gray sofa held a folded blanket that had not been there when he left. His gear was already by the door because the unit had dropped him at the curb and he had carried the duffel the last thirty feet himself, tan boots loud on the porch, camouflage still holding the dust of a place that did not smell like onions.
Evan Ward was thirty-four. Military fade, the gray just starting at the temples in a way the last video call had not quite shown. He dropped the duffel. The sound was the sound of coming home. He had rehearsed the next part on the bus and again on the curb. Her name. The way she said baby when she was glad.
She came down the hall in a cream knit top and dark jeans, honey-blonde hair in loose waves, thirty-one, and the top did not hide what the jeans and the walk already said. Six months, if he was any judge of a body he had known since he was twenty-two. He had not been home in two years. Leave had been canceled, then postponed, then eaten by a rotation. He had seen her face on a screen. He had not seen this.
“Welcome home, baby. I missed you so much.” Her voice broke on the second word in the way he had wanted.
His hands went to her belly because his hands went there before his mouth caught up. The smile was still on him. Then it was not.