This is re-post of a deleted story
There is very little sex in this story.
*****
Some TDY (Temporary Duty) assignments are fun and exciting. This one was not. It was 30 days of almost 24/7 hard-ass work.
Every year the US Army is involved in a "Rapid Response Deployment" exercise. Several units from throughout the whole Army are selected to participate and are airlifted, with all of their equipment, to Germany, where they work alongside their NATO Counterparts in a month-long training exercise.
My name is Fred Sadler. I was a relatively new Captain in the US Army at the time, and worked in Operations, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. This particular TDY came at the worst possible time for me to be anywhere other than home with my wife, because she was pregnant and the baby was due to be born sometime during that TDY. I tried to get out of it, but the Army was having none of that.
Lydia and I had been married almost six years. Most of them were good years. The bad parts came when I had to go TDY and she stayed home.
Lydia and I were not lifelong sweethearts or friends. We met at DMV one day when I was getting my car registered. She was getting her license renewed.
We were sitting next to each other waiting for our numbers to be called, so we started chatting. One thing led to another and pretty soon we exchanged phone numbers. A week later, we had our first date, and a month after that we spent our first night together.
Lydia was not a raving beauty, but she had classic good looks that made my insides turn to mush. She could just look at me and my heart melted. Her body was also classic. Most men ogle any woman with a great body, and I watched as both men and women stared when she walked by. At first, I felt pride as I watched them watching her, but as time went by it got old. I began to regard them as leeches, thinking of her only a sex object. I came to realize that it was something I was going to have to deal with.
Lydia, on the other hand, took it all in stride. "Let them look, sweetie," she said. "It's no big deal. As the old saying goes, 'you can look, but you better not touch'."
'You bet your sweet ass they better not touch,' I thought every time she said it.
She worked very hard to keep her body looking the way it did. I helped her. We spent three evenings a week at the gym, we ran in the park, we hiked; we even watched our diet. I actually forgot the last time I had a meal which included red meat.
Watching her get dressed, or better yet, undressed, was always thrilling for me. Each time she just nonchalantly tossed off an article of clothing revealing part of her bare skin, my heart skipped a beat, and I never tired of it.
When the TDY started, I heard, "I give you my personal guarantee that I will do everything in my power to get you home before the baby is born," from my CO (Commanding Officer). And he did. He had arranged that I would be on the first plane back to the States when the exercise was over.
I had packed my gear and was on my way to the plane. I called Lydia, who told me she thought she would be going to the hospital in the next couple of days.
"The timing should be perfect, then, because I'm on my way home," I told her. We ended the call with 'I love you.'
It was dusk and I was on my way to the airport and a deer ran onto the road in front of us. My driver swerved to avoid it and the next thing I knew I woke up in a military hospital in Frankfurt. I had a broken right arm, right leg, three broken ribs on my tight side, and my right lung had collapsed. I was so drugged up that I didn't know who or where I was.
When I started to become a bit more lucid, I began asking questions. "How long have I been here?" I asked my nurse.
"Five days."
"Is my wife here?"
"No, sir."
"Where is she?"
"She hasn't been here, sir, but your CO notified her right after you first arrived so she knows what happened."
"Where's my phone?"
She found it among my personal belongings and I called Lydia.
"Are you okay?" were her first words.
"Never mind me. How are you and the baby?"
She started crying. "We lost the baby, Fred. I'm so sorry."
I was too stunned to speak. Finally, I asked. "Are you okay?"
"I think so. I'm home, but they don't want me to travel, otherwise I would be with you."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Nobody knows for sure. Everything seemed to be fine until I heard one of the nurses say 'uh-oh' then everybody got excited. I still don't really understand it, but they tried to explain that it was something about the umbilical cord."
"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked.
There was a long silence while we both struggled with our thoughts and emotions.
"Physically, I'm fine, but emotionally, I'm a wreck. When are you coming home?"
"I don't know. They haven't given me any idea."
"Do you want me to try to come over?"
"No. No. Stay there and take care of yourself."
Two weeks later, they flew me home in a Medevac plane. Lydia met me and went with me to the Fort Hood hospital. She was still emotionally a wreck, but our being together seemed to help both of us. I asked her if she had named the child.
"I did. I named her Hope." At that, we both cried.
I was in hospital for two more weeks before I was released for limited duty. Limited duty generally meant that you didn't have to go to "the field" and train. That would have been very difficult because my arm and leg were still in casts. Another couple of weeks before they came off.
Time went by and things were going smoothly both in our marriage and my career. Two years after we lost our baby, we were reassigned to Heidelberg, Germany. We enjoyed three years there and travelled all over Europe. While there, I was promoted to Major. When our three years were up, we were transferred to Fort Lewis, WA. Being a Major, we were assigned Field grade Officer Quarters. They were much better than Company Grade Quarters and they had garages, not just carports. (Company Grade meant Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, and Captain. Field Grade were Majors and above.)
When we were moving into quarters at Lewis, all of the stuff we had taken to Germany with us had been shipped back. We were in the process of unpacking those boxes, plus the ones we had stored and not taken with us. There were boxes stacked in every room.
Lydia had gone to the Officers club to attend a 'Newcomers' meeting. There, she could meet other wives and start developing new friendships.
While she was gone, I stayed in our quarters working on unpacking and arranging things. I used the box cutter to open one of the many boxes and started taking stuff out of it. It was a box we had stored while we were in Germany. About halfway down, the was a small wooden box I hadn't remembered seeing before. I put it on a stack of boxes and opened it. My life changed forever.
It contained a small stack of envelopes with a pink ribbon around it. I slid the ribbon off and picked up the top envelope. It was unsealed, so I opened it. Inside was an official document with the title 'Certificate of Live Birth' printed across the top. As I looked at the document, my mind started to fog up. It said that a 7lb 6oz baby girl who was 19 inches long was born alive and it gave the date. It was the same date that Lydia told me our child was stillborn. The given name of the child was Hope. It went on to say that the mother's name was Lydia Jane Sadler nee Johnston. Where it called for the father's name the entry 'Unknown' had been entered. At the bottom of the certificate, there were two very small inked footprints.
I staggered backward and literally fell onto the sofa and stayed there for a long time looking at the document. I left it on the sofa, stood, and went to the stack of envelopes. I picked up the next envelope. It, too, was unsealed. I took out the multi-page document it contained. It was an adoption certification. I read it several times. The gist of it was that the female child named Hope, born to Lydia Sadler, was given for adoption and all parental rights were forfeit. It went on to say that, "in that the identity of the birth father is unknown, his permission was not required."
It further said that the name and location of the adopted family was to remain confidential and absolutely no contact between the adopted family and Mrs. Sadler was permitted.
I went through the rest of the stack and it was mostly letters from me.
I was in total shock. This had to be the biggest lie in the history of lies. My mind wouldn't stop coming up with questions. This was not something you did overnight; it took planning... or so I thought. If she thought I was going to be home for the birth, had she already planned the adoption? Father 'Unknown' If I wasn't the father who was? Apparently, even she didn't know. We had been married six years. How many men had she slept with during that time? Did she know?
I felt sick to my stomach.
I managed to regain enough composure to put everything back where it was. I even repacked and retaped the box everything was in. It was while I was retaping the box that I saw 'Lydia's papers and childhood memories' written in Magic Marker on four sides. Had I seen that, I would most definitely not have opened it. She must have known that. Even in a marriage, we need some private thoughts and space. I moved some other boxes and put that box among them trying to make it look like I hadn't seen it.
I went outside to sit on the rear deck and breathe some fresh air because I was suffocating inside.
What do I do now? How do I even bring it up? I was lost. My mind was an absolute blank on where to go and how to get there. I needed advice. If I went to my parents, they would explode and try to kill Lydia. I was their only child, therefore their only hope, I realized the irony, Hope, for a grandchild.
I could go to her parents, I supposed, but that prospect didn't fill me with confidence. We had no close friends. Moving around so much and meeting so many different people in the military was hard on both families and friendships.
I was still there when she came home. She found me outside.
"Hi, sweetie." She kissed me on my cheek. "How much did you get done?"
"Enough." I said rather curtly. I was rarely short or curt when speaking to her, so I could feel her looking down at me. She stayed there for a few more minutes before going inside.
It was probably another hour before I went in. The box with "Lydia's papers and childhood memories" was gone.
"We've been invited to a 'Welcome Wagon' get together on Saturday."
"Okay."
"The Simpson's from Heidelberg are here. Do you remember them?"
"Not really."
He was a Major in G-2 and I played Bridge with her. Jim and Fran are their names."
