sight unseen

Maggie was the one who noticed it first: what was missing from his eyes. She’d given him room, even though he’d never really asked for it. He wouldn’t, of course. He didn’t talk about Afghanistan, and she understood that, but it made her lonely, nonetheless. Before he’d gone he shared – they’d shared – everything. It was part of their them. But it was his eyes that scared her. They weren’t scary, but there were times when there was an emptiness in them. And other times it was as though he were missing something and looking for it without letting on to anyone what was gone. She would’ve been able to understand pain. But there was none of that, at least what she might see. He’d gone, left, one man, a man she knew, or was learning to know, and had come home with something so harsh that even if he’d told or tried to verbalize, she could never understand. She knew that and felt even more alone. It was how war claimed everyone who loved or cared, even those who remained home, behind. So she told herself and wondered, to herself, too, how long they could do this, play out two separate lives within a marriage.