The Story of Us - By Susan Wiggs Page 0,13

and pride that my chest ached. It was terrible and strange and exhilarating all at once. I knew I was watching the person I loved going for his dream.

Chapter Fifteen

On the day Steve left for a six-month deployment, the docks were crowded with couples and families saying goodbye. Yes, I felt it, the sense of pride and purpose. How could I not, surrounded by such splendid ceremony? Still new to this military life, I think I was a little stunned. The reality was closing in fast. At the end of the day, the families of these men and women would be faced with long separations—and this was only the first of many to come.

I watched Steve’s face, tried to figure out the right way to say goodbye. I had already decided he’d hear no complaints from me. In order to come home safely to me, Steve needed to feel confident that things on the home front would be all right. I never wanted him to feel distracted or worried about me.

And, of course, I had no idea how very much he would worry about his wife at home. But even that did not interfere with his goal. He was off to follow his dream and do his duty, and my duty was to support that. I was fearful and excited for him. For me as well. What sort of person would I be on my own? Although I would miss my husband, I was interested to find out. I’d gone from my parents’ house to the sorority house to this marriage, and I’d never been completely on my own. This was going to be my time.

Behind him the crowd rolled out, filling the entire area. I saw school-age children clinging and crying, and pregnant women trembling with the knowledge that their husbands wouldn’t be by their sides when they gave birth. Some women seemed to face this farewell with a curious sort of relief. Once he was gone, they’d be in charge again.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

I flushed, realizing my attention had strayed even though I still clung to his hand. “Just…everything. This is all so new to me, and seeing everyone here, well, I suppose we’re seeing our future, aren’t we?” I gestured at the pregnant wives, the kids of all ages, older people saying goodbye to their sons or daughters. “It’s what we’ll become one day, don’t you think?”

For some reason, that made him nervous. “Is this a problem?”

I smiled and touched his cheek. Sometimes the terrible childhood he’d endured still haunted him. He hadn’t learned to trust in love for the long term. “It looks exactly right to me. It’s a life that I want, Steve. I can tell it won’t be easy, but it feels right. So that’s what I was looking at.”

He picked me all the way up off the ground and into his arms, kissing me with intense, abiding passion. Then he set me down and we held each other, and I felt his hands moving over me as though committing me to memory. I wondered how long the imprint of his kiss would last.

There were whispers that grew increasingly urgent as time ran out: I love you, I’ll miss you, please write to me…but we’d said everything important already, and in the end there was only silence between us, lips pressed together one last time, tears held in with iron-willed control.

This was to become the rhythm of our years. Steve leaving, me saying goodbye, both of us turning away to hide our anguish from each other.

In all the times I’ve said goodbye since that first deployment, there are two words I’ve never spoken aloud, not when I was pregnant with twins, saddled with three toddlers or facing a cross-country move by myself. Sometimes, I admit, I had the thought but I held my silence. Despite the fact that the wish was ringing in my head, I never said, “Don’t go.”

Chapter Sixteen

When my husband went to sea, there was an almost complete lack of communication. In the early days of our marriage, email, satellite phones and conference calls were unheard of except for communication at the very highest level of command. My only hope of talking to Steve was via ham radio, when we happened upon a friendly, anonymous operator somewhere who was willing to hook us up. There were calls on the few occasions he made port.

That our marriage survived the stress, excitement and uncertainty of long separations is sometimes a