He Needs His Boots

This past week has found me doing a little spring-cleaning. It’s amazing how cluttered a house can get after only a year living there. The closet has been mocking me for months, especially after I vowed not to allow it to become the clothing strewn mess it had been at the apartment.  I know it secretly made a bet with the hall closet about which would get cleaned out first.

I came to a pile of DCU’s in the corner laying under the perfectly pressed class A’s on the hanger above. Boots, corframs, covers, scrubs, and even his Kevlar. All in the closet taking up space for no apparent reason as far as I knew.

I pulled them out and laid them all on the bed. The dress uniform, properly buttoned, went back in the closet, but the deserts didn’t seem needed. I walked out to the garage, where Chris was and still is building a replica of a Navy destroyer, with an arm full of his uniforms.

“What are you doing with those?”

I didn’t think he needed them.  The look on his face said otherwise.

When I asked a few days later, his answer was he doesn’t know why he needs his uniforms. But I think I know why. I once heard a story about an old gentleman who didn’t drive any longer but needed the car in his garage. It was ‘just in case’. He’d been through the Holocaust and needed the car just in case they came for him again.

Escape. 

Chris’s uniforms are just in case he needs to go back into the sand.  Just in case he finds out the flashbacks he suffers from are reality.  He needs them to make sure he’s ready for patrol.

I stood there for a minute, “I’m washing them, baby. They were on the floor.”

He smiled, “Thanks.”

They’re folded neatly on the top shelf of the closet, freshly washed and smelling of fabric softener. Boots and covers next to them.