by LA Witt
The chat window opened up. When the video came on, I expected to see Marie, but it was Sara, my ex-wife.
“Oh, hey,” I said. “I thought Marie was on.”
“She just stepped away to get ready for school,” Sara said. “She’ll be back down in a minute. Guess you’re stuck with me until then.”
I laughed. “Oh, I’ll manage. How are things?”
She shrugged. “Not too bad. Same old, same old. How’s Japan?” Her lips twisted into a sympathetic grimace, and her eyebrows rose.
“Actually, it’s not bad,” I said. “I’m not quite sure what Jim was smoking when he was here, but it’s pretty nice.”
“Really? Well, that’s good.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. I’m still figuring things out, but it’s not a bad place to live.”
“How is it driving on the other side of the road?”
I gestured dismissively. “Oh, that took, like, a day to get used to. And I didn’t hit anyone or anything, so I’ll call that a win.”
She laughed. “With the way you drive? Absolutely.”
“Very funny.” I chuckled, then, more serious, asked, “How’s Marie doing with all of this?”
Sara bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder. When she looked at me again, she lowered her voice. “I’ll be honest. It’s been rough on her. You know how she is. She’s a strong kid, but…” Sara paused, glancing back again before shaking her head. “I think it’s a little overwhelming, knowing you’re going to be gone for three years.”
I barely kept myself from visibly flinching. “Yeah, I understand that. Believe me, I’m still not happy about the arrangement myself.”
“She’ll be fine, though,” Sara said. “And so will you. I hope you’re at least doing everything you can to enjoy the island, instead of moping about the fact that Marie can’t be there.”
“I am, don’t worry.” Especially when I manage to find some company.
“What’s wrong?” Sara furrowed her brow. “Eric Randall, are you blushing?”
“What? No, not at all.”
She gave me a knowing look. “Don’t tell me you’ve met someone already.”
“I…” Kind of did. Sort of. Except he was just a one-night stand. And I’m never going to see him again. But oh God, I want to. And—
Sara laughed. “Well, look at you. So is he cute?”
I snorted. “Are you suggesting I ever date men who aren’t?”
“So you have met someone.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“And he’s cute?”
“Of course.”
“You know,” she said with a failed attempt at a stern look, “with you living so far away, it’s really hard for me to ogle the men you date.”
I put a hand to my chest. “Oh, I am so sorry.”
“You should be.” She snickered, then glanced off-camera. “Oh, here comes Marie.” Turning back to me, she said, “I’ll give the computer to her. It was nice talking to you.”
“You too.” We exchanged smiles. Then the camera shifted as Sara passed the computer to my daughter. Seeing Marie brought an instant smile to my face, even as my throat ached. God, it sucked being this far from her, and seeing her now just reminded me how much I hadn’t seen her recently.
She smiled. “Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, kiddo. How are you doing?”
“Okay,” she said with a shrug. “Up to my face in homework.”
I laughed. “Well, get used to it. That pile of homework’s just going to get bigger in college.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.”
“Oh, you’ll be fine,” I said. “So is my car running okay for you?”
“Well, it was until I wrapped it around a telephone pole.”
I rolled my eyes. “Very funny.”
She laughed. “Yeah, it’s running fine.” Her smile fell. “So, um, how do you like Japan?”
I didn’t miss the note of sadness in her voice, and I couldn’t quite keep one out of mine. “It’s better than I thought it would be. Still kind of learning my way around, but…” I shrugged. “It’s pretty cool.”
“Good,” she said without much enthusiasm. “Glad you’re enjoying it.” This time, bitterness joined sadness.
“Listen, baby,” I said. “I know this is rough on you. It is for me too. But you can always message me or e-mail me.”
She nodded. “I know. It just sucks having you that far away.”
“It does,” I said. “But maybe after school’s out, you can come stay with me for a while.”
Her expression brightened. “Really?”
“Sure. You work out the details with your mother, and I’ll take leave.”
“Cool.” She grinned. “I finally get to see Japan.” Then she glanced at her watch. “Crap, I should get to school. Guess I’d better let you go.”
“Yeah, don’t be late. And I’m counting on you to keep your mother out of trouble, so—”
“I heard that,” Sara said from off-camera.
Marie and I laughed.
“All right,” I said. “Off to school with you.”
“Okay, I’ll see you later.”
“I love you, kiddo,” I said.
“I love you too.”
The screen went dark.
Sighing, I shut down the IM program. Then I closed my laptop and leaned back, clasping my hands behind my head and staring up at the ceiling. I knew when I signed up for the military that there would be stress and there would be separations from my family. That sort of thing isn’t exactly a big secret. But signing on the dotted line and agreeing to occasionally be a few thousand miles away, possibly even having people shoot at me, was very different from the reality of stepping onto a plane and leaving. There was a reason I’d seriously considered getting out after my last contract was up.
But I’d been in too long. Had too many years invested to quit before I retired. I needed the income, the benefits, the GI bill for both myself and my kid. So I’d stayed in, and now I was here, with a laptop screen as my only face-to-face contact with Marie. The benefits were great, but the loneliness… God. The distance. Watching my kid grow up via webcam.
My mind wandered to that domestic call Colburn and I had responded to a few hours ago. It was fucked up what this life did to people. A lot of us ended up separated from our families, and for those who didn’t, the stress tore them apart anyway. And some of us even got the added bonus of being a million miles from our families and playing mediator when the people still living together couldn’t get along.
Closing my eyes, I sighed and scrubbed a hand over my face. Between my job and being this far from my daughter, I was desperate for some stress relief. Any kind of stress relief. In fact, right about now, nothing sounded better than forgetting the entire world with a cold beer and a hot man. One hot man in particular.
“Don’t tell me you’ve met someone already.”
I shivered. Oh, I’d met someone all right. And he was definitely cute. Pity I had no way to reach him.
And I wasn’t even in the mood for sex, but sex was better than wallowing in job-related stress or thinking about all the miles between me and anything familiar. Sex was better than killing an evening playing video games in an empty apartment. Sex was better than drinking until I passed out and waking up with a hangover to take with me to work.
And sex with Shane was better than it had been with any other man.
But I didn’t have his goddamned number.
Sighing, I set my laptop aside and went into the bedroom. Time to get out of this uniform, grab a shower and think about Shane some more.
Chapter Six
Shane
A couple of weeks had gone by since that scorching night with Eric. I went back to the club a few times, hoping to see him, but he didn’t show. Tonight, I promised myself, I’d find someone else. There were other men out there. If one was that good in bed, then others would be too.
But I still had to get through today before that was
even an issue, and this morning had an early start. Dressed and ready for work, I sat on my couch with my laptop on my knee, stomach fluttering as I watched my IM program.
Waiting for dconnelly to respond…
Once a month or so, my ex-wife took the kids to stay with my parents for a weekend. Since they were on spring break now, they went to their grandparents’ for a few extra days. My mom had e-mailed me last night and said they’d be on this morning, which was Friday morning for me and Thursday night for them.
Initializing connection…
The window shifted to the webcam chat interface, and an animated hourglass did somersaults in the middle of the otherwise blank screen. After a moment, a fuzzy image replaced the hourglass, and as the picture came into focus, I smiled at the sight of my kids vying for space in front of the webcam. Wow, they were growing fast. I still sometimes pictured them in my head as kindergartners. It was hard to remember they were almost out of third grade.
“Hey, guys,” I said.
“Hey, Dad,” they both said.
Jessica pointed at the screen. “You got a new stripe thing.”
“A new stripe thing?”
“On your shirt.”
I looked down and realized she meant the rows of awards and medals on my uniform. Chest candy, as some guys called them. “Which one?”
“The one with the big gray stripe in the middle.”
“This one?” I pointed at it and looked at the screen.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s new.”
I chuckled. “Very observant, sweetheart. Just got it a few months ago.”
“What’s it for?” Jason asked.
“That was for going to Iraq. They finally got around to giving it to me.” I smiled. “Enough about me, though. I want to know how you two are doing. Who went first last time?”
“She did,” Jason said.
Jessica didn’t argue.
“All right,” I said. “So what’s new, Jason?”
“I’m going camping with Scouts pretty soon.” He grinned. “Our pack leader says one of the cabins is haunted.”
“Oh, does he?” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t believe him.”
“You don’t? Why not?”
“Because he’s always making up stuff like that.”
I laughed. He gave me the rundown of his most recent Scout activities, told me about the camping trip planned for the end of the summer and grumbled about how he hoped he didn’t get Mrs. Patterson as his fourth grade teacher in September. When he’d finished, he scooted over so his sister could have the camera.
“All right, Jessie,” I said. “What about you? What’s new?”
She grinned broadly, revealing a gap where she’d recently lost a tooth. “I’m going horseback riding next weekend!”
“Are you?” I smiled. “Bet you’re excited about that.”
She nodded vigorously. “It’s Lily’s birthday party. Her parents are taking us all out for the whole day.”
“Well, that’ll be fun,” I said. “All those lessons will pay off.”
After she’d told me everything she’d learned in her recent riding lessons and about everything their grandparents had planned for the weekend, I said, “So, you two have a birthday coming up. Why don’t you both write up lists of things you want and have Grandma send it to me?”
“Okay,” Jessica said.
“I’ll give mine to Grandma tonight,” Jason said. “But when are you going to come see us?”
“Yeah, Daddy.” Jessica’s sad face almost broke my heart. “We miss you.”
I forced a smile. “I miss you guys too. I don’t know when I’ll make it home, but I’m working on it.” I hoped they couldn’t see me cringing. I hated giving them such ambiguous answers. The truth was, I had already arranged to stay with my parents in December. Katie had agreed to let the kids stay over for a couple of weeks so I could spend Christmas with them. The wild card was the military. I was 95 percent certain my leave would be approved, but the chit wouldn’t go through until November. We all planned to keep it quiet and surprise the kids when they came to see their grandparents.
I just didn’t want to disappoint them if something fell through. If I could have, I’d have had my folks bring the kids out to Okinawa, but health problems kept them from traveling very far, so I had to go to them.
I chatted with my twins a little longer. Then they took off to get ready for bed, and my mom took their place at the computer.
“Hi, Mom,” I said.
“Hi, son,” she said with a smile. “How are things?”
I shrugged. “They’re all right. The usual. You?”
“About the same. Nothing new since the last time we chatted.”
Well, that was good. She and my dad had had enough health problems in the last couple of years, no news was very good news.
She glanced off-camera, then looked at me and lowered her voice. “You’re still planning on…you know, December?”
I nodded. “The skipper knows I’m planning on taking leave, so he’ll most likely sign off on it unless something comes up.”
“Good, good. They’ll be happy to see you.” She smiled. “We always have our backup plan. If you can’t do it in December, we can have a late Christmas in January.”
“Sounds good to me.” I glanced at the clock at the corner of my screen. “I’d better get going. I have to get to work.”
“Okay, honey. You keep in touch, you hear?”
“I will. Love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, baby.”
We disconnected, and I logged off the instant message program. I put my laptop aside and leaned back on the couch. I loved talking to my kids, but every time I did, I spent the rest of the day in a funk. Much as I liked living on Okinawa, nothing could make me homesick faster than talking to the people I missed. Especially the twins. God, I missed my kids. Sometimes, just talking to them depressed me so much I didn’t even want to move.
Didn’t have much choice, though. There was no calling in sick in this line of work, so I made myself get up off the couch and head to work.
I guessed I just missed them. I hadn’t seen them in almost a year now. After I visited them in December, assuming nothing threw a monkey wrench into that, who knew when I’d see them again?
~*~
I trudged into the office. We had a white board just inside the door, which listed meetings and such. According to the board, one of the admirals was coming down from Yokosuka—again—next week, Lieutenant Commander Howell was on leave for ten days, and Captain Warren would be in Sasebo until Thursday.
The lower right quadrant of the board, however, was occupied by one large note:
Welcome Hiroko Amanda Mays
19 April—3:29 am
6 lb, 5 oz
Mom & Baby are Fine
I smiled to myself and kept walking. The message had been up for a couple of days, and Mays and Noriko were probably home from the hospital by now. He’d be out of the office for the next couple of weeks, but I’d have to give him a call later today and see how they were adjusting. Or maybe send him an e-mail. For parents of a newborn, a ringing phone could quickly become the bane of their existence. Katie and I had shut our phones off for hours at a time when the twins were born.
My smile faded. Exhausting as it had been, running both Katie and me ragged month after month, I missed that period. I’d thought it was hell at the time, but I wondered how I’d have changed my tune if I’d known there would be a time when I went long months without seeing them. I always knew there’d be deployments, but back then, I never dreamed my default location would ever be this far from my kids.
I shook my head and continued toward my office. I unlocked the door, tossed my keys on the desk and dropped into my chair.
Once I’d logged on to my computer, I opened my e-mail program and skimmed my in-box for anything that was a priority.
Captain, Captain, Captain, mass department e-mail, Gonzales, Mor
ris, Morris, Gonzales, Captain—
Oh, what a surprise. My ex-wife.
Grumbling to myself, I double-clicked the message.
Shane,
We need to figure out a budget for the summer and the next school year. Jessica is starting band in the fall, and the instrument rentals are pricey. They’ve both got a few things lined up this summer that need deposits, so let me know if you can help out with that.
Hope all is well,
K.
Band? Since when? What instrument was she playing? When did she even decide she was interested in music?
Thanks for the heads-up before I talked to the kids, Katie.
Shaking my head, I started to reply, but before I’d finished typing, another message came through.
BTW, we’re taking the kids out of town the first of next month, so I’ll be taking them to your parents’ the following weekend. Let me know if that works for you.
K.
I scowled. Something told me reservations had been made and Katie had already discussed the matter with my parents. Probably didn’t make a difference if it worked for me or not. Great. One extra week between now and when I spoke to the twins again.
I tried not to think about who she meant when she said “we” were taking the kids out of town. I didn’t know or care if she was still dating her predivorce boyfriend or if this was someone new. It just bugged the hell out of me that whoever he was, he was spending more time with my kids than I was. Man, this distance sucked.
Shaking my head, I continued with my e-mail.
Katie,
Let me know how much you need, and I’ll adjust the monthly deposit.
Switching the dates at the end of the month is fine. Let me know if anything changes.
Also, I was thinking, while they’re on summer break, maybe we can work out having them come visit me. I think they’d really enjoy it here.
Shane
What luck. I’d caught her while she was still online, because not three minutes later, while I was going over a lengthy e-mail from the captain, a reply came through.