Until Forever

by Luisa Cloutier

  After almost three hours, Maria stood up. “That’s it. Let’s go. I’m not waiting any longer.”

  “We have to make the report,” I said.

  “They’re not going to do anything anyway.” Switching to English so the police would hear her, she said, “The police don’t do anything for women victims of domestic violence.” Then she said to me, “Let’s go.”

  I knew that something had to be done about George to make sure he didn’t go back there, and I could see the frustration on Maria’s face, but she was right, the police didn’t seem to care.

  “George isn’t going to do anything,” Maria told me in the car as we drove to pick up Corey.

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “I’m not letting him come back, that’s for sure, but he’s not the type of man to try to break in and do anything to me, don’t worry.”

  “I do worry,” I said.

  “I know him. He can be a jerk, but he’s not a criminal.”

  “Look at your lip, Maria. He did that.”

  She was silent for a moment, peering at herself in the rearview mirror. Finally she said, “It’ll be okay.”

  . . . . .

  I barely slept the next night, fearing that George would come back. When Brandon arrived for his weekend visit, I told him what had happened and that I was afraid George would return. Brandon tried to talk Maria into getting a restraining order against George. She kept insisting that it wasn’t necessary. And anyway, she said, the paper wouldn’t keep him away from the house if he wanted to come there. It wouldn’t make anyone safer. It would only give her recourse if he did decide to come to the house.

  When we got to the motel, Brandon hugged me and kissed my forehead and told me that he didn’t feel good about my staying any longer with Maria.

  “I can’t force her to get a restraining order,” he said, “but, my love, I promise I’m going to get you out of there.”

  When he went back to the base the next week, he pushed the Marines harder to give us a house of our own in Twenty-nine Palms. Until then he found a place for me to stay in Torrance, just outside Los Angeles. The friend of a friend had two daughters, Melissa and Nicole, and she needed someone to help her take care of the kids. Leaving Maria and Corey was difficult. We all cried. I’d grown close to Corey and hated saying goodbye. But I knew it was for the best.

  During the months living in Torrance, the kids and I grew attached to each other, just as I’d grown attached to Corey. Finally in March, Brandon called with the good news. The Marines had a house for us in Twenty-nine Palms. Leaving these kids, too, was difficult and heartbreaking, but I knew that it was time for Brandon and me to begin living our lives as normal husbands and wives, together in the same house. So, tears in my eyes, I said goodbye to my other family and drove out to the desert with Brandon, filled with expectations of what lay ahead and relief that we would never have to be apart again.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Marine Corps base at Twenty-nine Palms is surrounded by the Mojave Desert. I had never been in such a location before. It was like entering a completely different world. Instead of grass and plants in our back yard, we had sand and cactus. The heat was extreme. I always loved it hot, but Brandon suffered as summer dragged on and the temperature remained over 100 degrees most of the daylight hours. The house the Marines gave us didn’t have central air, and even at night it was so hot that sleeping was uncomfortable.

  To escape, we would drive to Palm Springs over the weekend and get a hotel with A/C and a pool. Sometimes we’d meet friends there, another couple we had known from when Brandon had been stationed in Italy. We also spent a lot time at Joshua Tree National Park, hiking, enjoying nature, climbing on the unusual desert rock formations. I saw my first coyote there. Brandon told me to stay in the car while he got out to take a picture. He was always worried about my safety.

  I was so happy to be living with him, and so thankful for all the things he did for me. He worked hard every day. We had to straighten out my immigration, because getting married hadn’t automatically made me a legal resident and we found out I was here illegally. He paid a lawyer thousands of dollars to work on my immigration. He took a second job at Little Caesar’s Pizza in order to help make ends meet. Many nights he came home exhausted.

  I started falling into the role I’d had in Italy after my mother died. I cleaned the house and cooked for Brandon every day. He loved coming home to a hot meal. As tired as he was at the end of the day, he always had the energy to make love. Some days we’d make love before he left for work and then again after he came home. If the custom here had been like in Italy and he’d have come home for lunch, we would have made love then too. We were both so excited to be together, no longer just on the weekends.

  Part of his training involved him going away for days at a time. The first time it happened, I had only been at Twenty-nine Palms for a month or so. He said he had to go overnight bivouac in the desert.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It’s like camping, but without a tent. We make shelter from whatever we can find.”

  “Why?”

  “So we’ll be prepared if it ever happens in a deployment.”

  “And me?”

  He smiled and hugged me. “You can’t come, my love.”

  “I know. But I’m going to be alone here?”

  “You’ll be fine. It’s safe here. You’re surrounded by Marines. No one’s going to do anything. I promise.”

  I wanted to believe him, but when night fell, my fears rose. The desert became black when the sun went down. Scary sounds echoed from outside, strange animal howls, wind scratching over the sand, the house itself settling and making noises. Everything seemed so open and vulnerable there compared to Italy.

  Before going to bed, I went to the kitchen, took the largest knife I found, and brought it to bed with me. I slid it under the pillow and placed my hand on it and kept it in my grip until I fell asleep.

  In the morning my fear gave way to loneliness and nostalgia for my family in Italy. How often was this going to be how I lived? I understood that it was his job and he had to do it, but this wasn’t something I liked at all. I had moved countries, left everything I knew behind, but not to be left alone in a strange place. I wanted to be with my husband, my love.

  When Brandon returned home and took me straight to bed to make up for the lost night, he found the knife still under the pillow.

  “What happened here?” he said. “Were you cooking in the bedroom?”

  “For protection,” I said.

  “I told you there’s nothing you need protection from here. You’re safe. Do you think I would leave you alone if I thought you weren’t?”

  “I’m just not used to it. It makes me miss home. I want to see my family, Brandon.”

  “I understand. But you can’t go back until we fix your immigration status or else you might not be able to come back into the country.”

  “I hate this.”

  He wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly. I felt protected, safe.

  “I know how you feel,” he said. “I felt the same way when I joined the Marines and had to leave home for the first time. It’s always hard to leave your family. But it’s part of becoming an adult. Our parents left their homes in order to make their own. That’s what we’re doing.”

  “Left, but not forever.”

  “No, and you haven’t left forever either. I promise you, once your status is legal, I’ll buy you a ticket to go to home to Italy. I promise. You just have to wait a little longer. I’m doing everything I can to get it straightened out.”

  “I know you are.”

&
nbsp; I knew he was trying. Whatever I wanted, he always tried to make sure I had it. Because of the way he treated me, every day I woke up feeling loved.

  Some evenings we would just drive out to Joshua Tree, park the car overlooking the rocks and the desert, and sit with the window open and the cool night breeze blowing through, and we’d talk. One night I told Brandon that I wanted to earn money and contribute to the household. He worked two jobs. I stayed home all the time.

  “You don’t need to work,” he said. “I’ll take care of earning the money.”

  “I still want to try to get a job,” I said. “I need to get out of the house, talk to people.

  “Luisa, my love, I want you to do whatever will make you happy, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to work. Earning a living is my responsibility. Not yours.”

  I hugged him and peered up into his sincere eyes. “I know you can make enough money for us. But I always worked…before my mother died.”

  “But now you’re with me. I’ll work. You should do something you like.”

  “I like to work.”

  He laughed. “Something else you like.”

  “It will help me learn English to speak to more people.”

  “You speak very well. I understand everything you say.”

  “But I don’t understand everything you say.”

  He leaned over, put his hands on my face and kissed me passionately. I was caught by surprise, but I loved it. When he moved away, it took me a moment to breathe again.

  “You understood that, didn’t you?” he said.

  I smiled at him. “Yes.”

  “Okay then.”

  I realized it was important to him that I didn’t work, so I accepted it for then. But I did want a career. I couldn’t picture myself staying home every day, the way I’d done after my mother died, the way my mother had. That wasn’t for me. That wouldn’t give me a happy life.

  . . . . .

  I found myself alone a lot. Brandon left often for overnight exercises. And working two jobs, he wasn’t around much. I hated sleeping alone. I hated eating alone. I even had to go to the hospital alone when I was stung by a scorpion while he was away.

  When he was home, he was often tired from working so hard. The Marines were stressful and he needed time to unwind when he came home. But I needed time with him, and many times my need for his companionship conflicted with his need to de-stress from the day’s work.

  One time, when I was missing him terribly, he came home late from work. I had been anticipating his return and needed to be with him, to make love and feel like a couple. But when he walked in the door I was surprised to see that he had brought a buddy home from the base. He hadn’t told me. Fortunately I’d made enough dinner. The three of us ate together, the two of them talking, me feeling like an outsider. After we ate, I thought Brandon was going to say goodnight to his friend and spend the rest of the night just him and me, but instead he and his friend went into the living room to play on the PlayStation.

  I was so upset I could barely keep from throwing all of the dishes and glasses in the kitchen at him and his friend. I silently cleaned the kitchen and then went upstairs to our bedroom without saying a word. An hour passed before I heard the door, a car leaving the driveway, then Brandon’s footsteps coming upstairs.

  After he entered the bedroom, saying, “What a day!” he stopped, shocked to see my packed suitcases on the bed.

  “What are you doing, Luisa?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m going home.”

  “Why? What’s wrong? I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “I hate it here. I hate being alone. We’re not married. You’re never here. When you are, you play with your friend, you don’t come to be with me. I had enough. Basta! I’m leaving!”

  He rushed over to me and grasped my shoulders. “No, please Luisa, don’t do this. I love you. I need you.”

  “No, you don’t. You need PlayStation.”

  “No, no, I’m sorry. I was just trying to let go of stress. I didn’t want to be grouchy with you, I wanted to get rid of all of that on the game. But I would much rather be with you. I’ll never do it again. I promise you.”

  I calmed myself and stared up into his eyes. “I’m lonely here, Brandon. I miss my family. I don’t have friends. I don’t do anything worthwhile. I hate my life. I can’t stay any longer.”

  “You can’t leave me,” he said. He dropped down to his knees. “Please, Luisa. I need you. If you leave, I—I—I couldn’t stand it, losing you.”

  “What about me? I can’t stand this.”

  “Then we’ll change this. But you can’t leave. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Brandon.”

  “Then why do you want to leave?”

  “I don’t want to leave. I just can’t live like this.”

  “Whatever you want, I’ll do. Whatever changes it takes, we’ll change it. But you have to stay.”

  “I need a life too,” she said. “I need to work, and I need you here.”

  “Done,” he said.

  I pulled him up. I couldn’t stand to see him on his knees. “I love you. I miss my family, but I love you more.”

  “And that’s what matters. Our love for each other. As long as we’re here for each other, we’ll make it. It won’t always be easy, but we can do it if we stay strong together. Can you do that? Stay strong with me.”

  “I can,” I said.

  “I’ll be here for you, always. But you have to promise me that you won’t leave me. I can’t go to work every day, wondering if you’ll be here when I come home or if you’ll be gone. I can’t live like that.”

  “I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.”

  He scooped me up into his arms the way he used to, took me to the bed and made passionate love all night. It was what I needed. I needed to know that he loved me and I could count on him because as long as I knew that, I could make it through anything with him.

  . . . . .

  I applied for a position at the officer’s club on the base and was hired to work in the kitchen, cutting vegetables, making coleslaw, flipping burgers. It wasn’t what I thought of as my life’s work, as a career, but it was a start. I worked hard, never complained, was always on time. The manager said I was one of her best workers. She noticed how I did whatever was asked and learned every job in the kitchen. I was only there a couple weeks when she asked me if I wanted to come out of the kitchen and learn to make omelets and pancakes at the station in the dining room.

  “Sure.”

  “Come at six am tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll put you on the breakfast line and see how that works out.”

  I was nervous now that I wasn’t in the kitchen, but instead was out in the dining room at the omelet station. A line of officers waited for their made to order eggs. The manager did it first, to show me how. She was able to break the eggs with one hand and flip the omelet without even using a spatula. After she did a few, she then told me to take over.

  “Onions and cheese, Ma’am,” a Marine officer told me.

  I broke the eggs using two hands, added the onions and cheese, let it cook for a minute or so. The manager, who watched over my shoulder the whole time, said “You can turn it now.”

  I picked up the spatula. Nothing fancy from me yet. When I tried to turn it over, the whole thing somehow slid out of the frying pan and splattered on the floor.

  The officer laughed and said, “In-com
ing!”

  I didn’t understand what that meant. The other officers understood and they laughed too. The manager told me not to worry about it.

  “Happens to everyone first time.”

  I started to give her the skillet to make the omelet, thinking I might be happier back inside the kitchen, but she gestured for me to try again.

  “You can do it,” she said.

  The officer waiting smiled at me and said, “I’m in no rush, sweetheart. I don’t deploy for another six months.”

  I broke two new eggs, added onions and cheese, and started cooking another omelet, determined to succeed this time. And I did. I handed the nearly perfect omelet to the officer and said, “Enjoy it.”

  “I’d enjoy it more if you came with it, pretty lady.”

  “Give her a break, will you?” the manager said.

  “Hey, I’m a Marine first and foremost. I see a hot girl, I’m going to do something about it.”

  “Thank you,” I said, “but I’m married.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hold that against you.”

  The officer in line behind him said, “You struck out, Lieutenant. I suggest you move on.”

  The first officer went to sit down.

  The one that told him to leave stood in front of me and smiled. “Good morning, Ma’am!”

  “Good morning. What would you like?”

  “I’ll just have me a mushroom omelet and your phone number.” He gestured toward the man he’d just sent away and said, “Why have a lieutenant when you can have a captain?”

  . . . . .

  The job wasn’t perfect, but I liked that I was out and seeing people all the time. And I was earning a little money, which made our lives a little easier. Perhaps the best thing to come out of the job was that it proved to me that I could impress my boss in a different country and in a different language.