The Dependent by Danielle Daniel

Author:Danielle Daniel
Language: fra
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-9949183-5-2
Publisher: Latitude 46 Publishing
Published: 2016-10-25T16:00:00+00:00

9 Civvies

Steve made the decision on his own to leave the military. We didn’t have any formal family meetings to discuss our options, nor did he speak with any military personnel about moving on. He never returned to work after his accident, except for medical appointments and physiotherapy. Four months after he completed his rehabilitation, he started the paperwork to retire from the Canadian Armed Forces. For thirteen years, he had been a frontline soldier— an infantryman and paratrooper. Anything else seemed unworthy.

“I want a fresh start,” he said when he sat me down to tell me. “I need to do something where I’m not Sergeant Daniel. I’ll go back to school.”

The thought of no longer being a dependent in the Canadian military seemed a blessing. It’s what I’d always dreamed of, the freedom to move when and where we wanted. To book a holiday and make plans without being called up at the last minute. To no longer be told where to go and for how long, regardless of the danger. To no longer live in fear. A new place, where military uniforms were unseen and unknown: it all seemed too good to be true. Gone would be the days when I worried about losing him, the way I had ever since we’d met. It had been thirteen months since Steve’s parachuting accident, and we were leaving military life for good. Goodbye soldier; hello, civvies. I was ecstatic.

Thinking it would make things easier, we decided to move back north to Sudbury, where both of us were born and raised and where our families still lived. This time, we chose to build, and now and then, we travelled north to make decisions about the new house, picking out brick, flooring, countertops. Coming back to Pembroke was always difficult. We couldn’t wait for our new beginning to start. We were both counting down to another life, existing in between endings and beginnings, before and after, old and new. Our friends must have noticed. They were visiting less often. By the time we were ready to move, we could count our friends on one hand.

These were exciting times, but Steve wasn’t himself. He barely had an appetite and was growing thin, his muscular frame shrinking before my eyes. His medication made him queasy and unfocused; he complained his mind was foggy. He was still in pain— if only paralysis meant free from pain! His spine was still attached by a thread and this thread was the cause of intense agony: neuropathic blasts would detonate through his legs, causing them to vibrate wildly against the floor as they slipped off the foot support of his wheelchair. He’d straighten like a board, forced to lie back and watch his legs thump against the laminate. Much of his time was absorbed by taking care of himself— washing, dressing, using the washroom. The rest he spent with Owen and Molly. He said little during these winter months, retreating into his Finnish roots. He used to tell

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