The Letter

by Marie Tillman

  Our wedding was full of the moments that make for great photography: me in a white dress with an enormous bustle; Pat and his ten or so groomsmen, decked out in tuxes. There were an elegant staircase, perfectly placed flowers—the whole picture-book fairy tale. Though I didn’t relish the moment of walking down the aisle with everyone’s eyes on me, it was the most meaningful part of the day to me. With our decision about enlisting, our relationship seemed like it had reached a new level of closeness, of connectedness. Pat and I had already started our new life together, and meeting each other at the altar was a significant symbol of making it official. Without even thinking, Pat and I kissed as soon as I got to the end of the aisle, an act that drew the ire of more-traditional family members, because it went against custom. We didn’t care. We were married outdoors by a judge, so we obviously weren’t too hung up on custom to begin with.

  Overall, the wedding was really more for everyone else than it was for us, and the memories that stayed with me weren’t the posed ones. They were my mom’s fretting beforehand that Pat wouldn’t cut his long hair before the wedding. (Much to her relief, he did.) There was the embarrassment I felt during our first dance, to Ben Harper’s “Forever,” because everyone was watching us so intently. Then there were Pat’s brothers’ toasts—Kevin’s interrupted by frequent spitting into a wineglass because he was chewing tobacco; Richard’s given completely off the cuff. And then there was the fact that Pat wasn’t feeling well that day. He’d had food poisoning the day before the wedding, so after the ceremony, we retreated to a private room and he laid his head on my lap for a while.

  After the party was over, all our friends decided to go out. Ordinarily, we would have gone with them. Pat probably would have stayed out all night. But we didn’t go, because we wanted just to be alone together. Time was starting to feel more precious. We still had our honeymoon to go on, but not a lot of time before he’d be leaving. There were so many changes going on in our life, and they all got wrapped up together. There was a lot of deep meaning to the day, not just a wedding and a party.

  So as the party moved to a bar down the street, Pat and I snuck away. Realizing neither of us had eaten all day, we stopped at a little Italian place close to our hotel and ordered a pizza to bring back to our room. I was still in my long white dress, and Pat still in his tuxedo, as we plopped on the bed, the pizza between us, to recap the day. Debriefing was always my favorite part of a fun night out with friends. I loved sitting in bed with Pat, hearing his stories and exchanging bits of gossip. As we had both spent the wedding sober, and most of our guests had not, the moments we’d witnessed were even more amusing than usual. We talked about inconsequential stuff, like who had hooked up with whom and who was really going to have a hard time waking up in the morning. We didn’t talk about the biggest piece of gossip—the secret we were keeping. There would be time for that tomorrow.

  * * *

  Pat and Kevin shared the enlistment news with their family the very day Pat and I left for our honeymoon in Bora-Bora. We spent a week relaxing in the sunshine, waiting for the drama at home to subside. Bora-Bora is a pretty small island, only eighteen miles in circumference. A little road circles the island, and on a bicycle you can make it around the entire perimeter in just a few hours. On our first day, we woke up, had a lazy breakfast of strong coffee and giant omelets that took up more than half the plate, then walked down to the bike rental store just outside our resort. A variety of colorful beach cruisers lined up outside the storefront, and we each chose one—mine with a cute wicker basket attached to the front—and set out to explore. We rode along the ocean for a while, until Pat motioned for me to pull over to a small fruit stand on the side of the road. We bought two huge slices of watermelon and sat in the grass enjoying the delicious fruit. As we ate, we watched people from the town walk by. Some bought fruit; others just stopped to chat with the owner.

  “The locals seem so happy,” Pat said. “I mean, they have so little—most of them are walking around with no shoes. I can’t imagine there’s much work here besides catering to tourists. Yet they all have smiles on their faces and look like they don’t have a care in the world.”

  I’d noticed it, too. “It makes you realize life can be much simpler,” I said. “People at home seem so much more unhappy.” I tried to push away thoughts of the complicated scenes I felt sure were unfolding in our absence.

  “Let’s never go back to real life,” I said, and lay flat back on the grass. “We could live on an island, right?”

  “Definitely,” Pat said, and lay back, too. “We could swim every morning.”

  “And read on the sand all afternoon.”

  We looked at each other and grinned. Then we didn’t say anything at all for a few minutes, but I knew we were thinking the same thing. The truth was, though our lives back home were complicated, we were excited for the future. Pat was looking forward to the military; he wouldn’t have enlisted if he’d felt otherwise. And I was excited about being married and moving together to a new place, to start our new adventure.

  When we returned to real life, relaxed and tanned, we heard at once from our families. Both Pat’s family and mine had determined they weren’t going to let the enlistment decision go without a fight. They arranged an intervention of sorts, calling us all together to talk it out. Always willing to let people speak their minds, Pat welcomed the discussion, and we headed back to San Jose for the family meeting. I understood their panic. Though Pat and I had worked out this decision over months, our families had had only a week to digest it all. Dannie was pretty emotional, as was my mom. My dad tried to make a logical case for Pat’s not enlisting while Christine sat quietly in the background and Alex, being Alex, took on the role of mediator. Appeals were made to me to stop Pat, which only made me feel more aligned with Kevin and Pat. We weren’t kids anymore, but since we were still young and had gotten together young, I think we still seemed childlike to our parents. I understood their need to change our minds, but there was no turning back.

  The decision was made. This was our life, and this was what we wanted to do with it. Pat, Kevin, and I were joined in a higher purpose, setting forward on an adventure that we knew would be difficult, but that would ultimately nourish our lives and help us grow.

  Chapter Five

  Two months after our wedding, Pat and Kevin left for basic training in Georgia. They’d be there for three months, and I wasn’t sure how often I would be able to talk to Pat. Knowing the separation would be difficult, Pat wrote me a note before he left.

  July 8, 2002

  Marie,

  I know this isn’t the direction you saw us moving…

  I know this isn’t the life you dream to live…

  I know at times this path will be rough…

  And, I know at times you’ll feel alone.

  However…

  I know you are strong…

  I know this path has an end…

  I know someday you’ll have the life you dream…

  And, I know this direction will ultimately lead to happiness.

  However, despite what I know…

  Regardless of our direction, dreams, or path…

  I know we have each other and that I love you…

  And that’s all I need to know.

  Pat

  Pat’s words helped, but I think he needed them as much as I did. When he was finally able to call me from basic training, he couldn’t even speak because he was so choked up. I started chatting, filling the silence with the mundane details of my day—that I’d found renters for our place in Arizona, that I’d gotten everything packed up—anything to help him calm down and not have to focus on how miserable he was. I hated hearing him upset but wasn’t too surprised. By then, I was used to the stabilizing role I played in his life, and I knew that it was hard for him to be away.

  When we hung up, I hardened my resolve to take good care of the details of our lives. It had fallen to me to find us a home near Fort Lewis. The first
place I looked at when I got to Washington was what became our little cottage perched up on a hill overlooking the narrows. The house had been built in the 1920s and had up until recently served as a home for the owner’s mother. I admired its good bones, polished wood floors, and big front windows. The flowered wallpaper made it feel a bit like a granny’s house, but after the owner agreed to let me paint and make a few changes, I knew it would be perfect. I put down a deposit, signed the lease, and made plans to return in a month. My mom graciously agreed to return with me and helped me with the cleaning, painting, decorating, and unpacking of all our wedding gifts. The cottage’s scenic setting invited contemplation, and its cozy feel invited guests. It was perfect.

  When he finally saw it, Pat loved it. His mom’s house had a cottagey feel, too, and I think he loved the similarity. He smiled widely the first time he saw it. He walked from room to room, exploring the house’s nooks and crannies, and I felt rewarded for all the hard work. The house became a safe haven for him from the difficulties of military life.

  Pat’s early months in the military were hard for him. He was a leader and an independent thinker, an aberration in the rank-and-file military system. Yet after a lifetime of speaking his mind, he was not invited to do so. When he and Kevin weren’t overseas, Pat would come home from a day at Fort Lewis and tell me with frustration that he’d mowed lawns all day. He had a hard time when authority was held by someone he didn’t respect. “I’m too old for this shit,” he’d say. “I can drop to the ground and give them fifty push-ups, but I don’t want to, because it’s stupid.” He’d think, Here this horrific thing happened on 9/11, and I have something to contribute, and I’m mowing lawns. His intelligence and life experience weren’t valued in the military structure and this frustrated him. During basic training, he felt like he’d gone from a full-on adult who had a home and responsibilities, who was 100 percent in control of his life, to someone who had to ask to go to the bathroom. And make no mistake about it: From the time he was a little kid, Pat was always the guy in control. He wondered if he could have contributed to the cause in another way. Given his stature in Arizona, running for office wouldn’t have been outside the realm of possibility. Of course, Pat was aware from the get-go that he’d struggle with this aspect of the military, but you can never really prepare for a loss of independence of that magnitude.

  For the most part, I was sympathetic and tried to do what I could to make his home life easy, given what he was going through. But I had limits. Pat had to take a physical fitness test before he could go to Ranger school. The guy who was counting his sit-ups didn’t like him and claimed a few of Pat’s sit-ups weren’t done correctly. As a result, Pat didn’t pass. He called me at work right after it happened, and he was practically having a nervous breakdown because of the lack of control he had over the situation. He moped for days afterward, and I got frustrated. “I never see you,” I told him. “And now you’re home, and yet you’re acting like an ass. You’re wasting this precious time that we have together being grumpy about sit-ups.” He heard me, got over it, and passed the test the next time around. This was one of the few arguments we got in during that period.

  Throughout our relationship, we never fought about major issues, just stupid stuff. Sometimes I would be mad about something, and Pat wouldn’t even argue. He’d just say, “What’s going on? You’re being a lunatic,” and it would stop there. We were both really good about realizing when we were in the wrong, and coming around to reason. But once Pat enlisted, there wasn’t time for even our low-key brand of argument. Little stuff like his sloppy bathroom habits didn’t bother me at all; our time together was too precious to debate things like toilet seat lids and toothpaste caps.

  * * *

  Pat and Kevin were gone a lot during the time we lived in Washington. They had boot camp and Ranger school, and altogether, they were deployed overseas twice: the first time to Iraq, the second to Afghanistan.

  The Iraq deployment was unexpected, and when it came on, it came on fast. In what seemed like only minutes after we’d settled in Washington, the Bush administration turned their sights on the country, and a conflict was imminent. Pat’s squadron started training in full-on chemical warfare jumpsuits and got anthrax vaccinations, and the danger of military service became very, very real and very, very scary. He and Kevin left for Baghdad or god-knows-where; I wasn’t told. To make matters worse, neither Pat nor I agreed with the Iraq War. With nearly every other world leader against the invasion, it didn’t seem like a wise thing to do. We felt it was illegal and unjust. “I’ll do my job,” Pat told me one night before he left, when we were discussing the war. “But I don’t think our role there is virtuous at all.”

  When you sign up for the military, you understand that you will be following someone’s orders, whether you agree or not, and whether you respect the orders or not. Pat understood and accepted that basic principle going in. But that didn’t mean that training in a Hazmat suit for a war he didn’t believe in was easy, or that silencing his thoughts on the issue was a small matter. He had been opinionated from the moment I’d met him. In fact, he’d often take a stance that he didn’t even really believe to get a rise out of someone and ensure a lively debate on an issue. His close family and friends would anticipate and relish the conversations on subjects ranging from how to make the perfect cup of coffee to what California should do about immigration. I was probably the only exception. When Pat took an extreme stand on an issue with me, I’d just smile and say, “I’m not going to argue with you about that—you don’t even believe it. I don’t want to spend the energy having a debate with you about something you don’t even believe in.” But we did talk at length about President Bush, the Iraq War, and what the US role should be. Pat struggled with the ethical issues presented to him, and his feelings on the matter certainly dampened his enthusiasm about service and made our sacrifices feel all the more acute. But ultimately, he’d made a commitment and felt it wasn’t right to back out of a commitment just because it turned out differently than he’d anticipated.

  Once, after Pat and Kevin had left, I was driving home, and I passed an antiwar protest outside Fort Lewis. I was struck by a protestor who identified herself as the mother of a soldier. Could I stand with her? I wanted to, and I thought about it a lot. I fully felt you could support the troops and yet not the military actions. Plus the decisions made in Washington now affected me in a very real, personal way, and far from feeling I needed to be loyal, I felt I needed to be even more involved in and outspoken about what those decisions were. I needed to remind removed decision makers that there were flesh-and-blood individuals’ lives at stake. But at this point in time, the antiwar platform was raw, shaky ground to stand on. Pat was already treated differently from other servicemen because of his NFL background, and didn’t welcome the attention. I didn’t want to make it worse for him. I drove past and went home.

  When Pat was away, I worried constantly. I knew I shouldn’t watch the news, but I was obsessed with it and couldn’t turn it off. CNN would report that a helicopter had gone down, and I’d panic. I had no idea where Pat and Kevin were. The soft sound of a car passing the house in the middle of the night would wake me; my heart would pound as I’d wait for it to stop in our driveway, for the footsteps on the porch, and for the knock at the door that would change my life.

  I didn’t share any of my distress with Pat. I knew that the more stable I was emotionally, the easier it was for him to do his job and focus. A lot of pressure falls on the shoulders of military families in this way. I put a lot of energy into the show of functioning. I wanted to be sure that when I heard from Pat and he asked me what I’d been up to, I’d be able to tell him about the museums I’d visited, the books I’d read, the friends I’d made. And I did do all these things. It was during this time that I first learned how to live alone. I learned how to take care of the bills on time; I learned how to change a flat tire. I had essentially moved to Washington by myself, found a job by myself,
and made friends by myself. The effort was not lost on Pat, who wrote in a letter from Iraq:

  It’s hard to think about how bad this situation really is sometimes. I hate being away from you, I hate the fact that you’re growing into a life so far removed from me. Don’t mistake me, I’m incredibly proud and impressed with everything you’ve done these past months. Your attitude, good humor and general greatness have made this awful experience bearable. I love us, our family, and feel somehow I’m just missing out. What the fuck kind of marriage involves my absence for months at a time? This is truly terrible and I think I may actually be a bad person for putting you through this. It’s funny because at the time I felt that any absence would be tolerable due to the “cause” or whatever concept I deluded myself into believing I was standing for. I’m a fool. How I managed to find a way out of our perfect existence is incredible. I know I’ve rambled like this countless times saying the same shit, so I’ll go ahead and stop. I figured you might actually like to see how miserable I am without you. Of course you’re not happy that I’m miserable, however there is that small satisfaction in knowing I need you. Well that’s why I whined, it was all for you. Selfless as always…