Page 19 of Severed Heart

“God damn you, Regina!”

“I love you,” she cries. “But every time you come back, it becomes harder and harder to recognize thefamily manI married. If you want a reason why we didn’t have another baby, there’s your damned reason.”

The air in the house grows thick, and it becomes harder to breathe due to the loaded silence.

“You took birth control.” He doesn’t ask it. He knows. A cry of outrage leaves my father as I take another step toward their door. “How long?” Dad roars. “How low have you been sabotaging this family?”

“C-Carter, please don’t see it that way. You’re a wonderful father—”

“How long?!”

“I never stopped,” she admits before another crash sounds in the bedroom.

I’m not supposed to hear this, but they do little to hide the fact that they fight anymore. They used to go out to the garage, but that stopped this year. I used to turn up my stereo to avoid it, but Dad walked in, lifted it, and drop-kicked it the last time I did. I can still hear the echo as it smacked against my drywall and dented it, one of the shattered pieces narrowly missing me.

“How could you?” Dad asks, heartbreak soaking his voice.

“I’ve already got one son who’s had to sacrifice seeing his father in the stands at his ball games. I’m not doing that to another child.”

“Well, you bid your time and made sure it was too late, denying me the one thing I truly wanted.”

“And we aren’t enough? Tyler and I aren’t enough?”

“Stop twisting this. You betrayed me! I’ll never forgive you, Regina!”

Though my father is ripped up about Mom using birth control, I can’t help but be glad about it. I don’t want a little brother or sister to know this version of Carter Jennings, and I get why she’s scared. I am, too. Is Dad one deployment away from never coming back?

Back in my room after hearing Dad and Mom speaking more softly to one another, I lay on my bed and stare blankly up at the ceiling while vowing never to mistreat my wife or my kids no matter what I face on my missions.

A knock on my bedroom window jars me, and I pull back my curtains to see Sean straining to lift it. When the pane doesn’t give, his eyes drop to the nails before he slowly brings them back to me.

Embarrassed, I point toward our fence, ordering him to leave.

Expression full of concern and refusing to go, his voice sounds on the other side of the window, and I know if I can hear it, my dad might, too. Cutting my hand through the air desperately to shut him the hell up, I urgently point behind him with the other to try and get him to leave. In the next second, his bare ass is pressed against the glass before he turns his head, producing a joint in his fingers and nodding toward the fence, or rather, the woods behind them, while mouthing a “later.”

“Idiot,” I mouth back, nodding as he tucks his ass back in his pants, and I grip my curtains. It’s when he pauses and stiffens that I know he hears the yelling resuming, and his eyes snap to mine. Dropping my gaze, I draw the curtains on him.

Not long after, my bedroom door opens, and Dad looks over to me. “What are you doing?”

“I was just about to come to you. Uncle Grayson here yet?” Dad stopped letting us see him off after his last deployment and only allows Uncle Grayson to take him now. I know it’s ’cause of the state it leaves Mom in. I guess he thinks it’s easier on her if he walks out of the front door as if he’s running an errand.

One hell of a fucking errand.

“Yeah, he just pulled up,” he says, running a hand through his hair. It’s just now grown to the length Mom likes, and when he comes back, it’ll be time to start all over again. But he does it because he still loves her, and even I can tell she’s only fighting because she’ll miss him. At least there’s that.

“You know the drill, Son. Do your chores, your schoolwork, and as your mom tells you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please don’t give her any reason to bitch to me. I want good reports only, understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

He smiles, but it’s forced. “You too old to give your dad a hug?”

“Not yet.” I grin as he pulls me to him.

His words come out stunted and sincere as he keeps me in his tight grip. “I love you, Son.”