by Geri Krotow
Ro had issues when any woman gave up her identity for her husband. She’d seen more of it in the navy than her friends in the civilian world experienced. Constant moves across country and often the globe curtailed a spouse’s civilian career no matter how proficient they were at their job.
Some spouses simply stopped trying to eke out a separate vocation for themselves. Too often that led to the spouse assimilating the active duty member’s career as if it were his or her own. As if they wore the rank of their spouse.
Karen Sanders was “Mrs. Commodore” to a T.
“Hi, Karen.”
“Roanna, what happened?” Karen’s eyes were large, incredulous at the appearance of Ro’s face. Too late, Ro wished she’d kept the bag of corn, even though it had gone soggy and was useless as a healing tool. It could have hidden her ugly eye from this diva’s gaze.
Ro tried to strike a nonchalant pose. “I ran into a tree on the way here. It looks worse than it is.” Miles remained silent but she felt his laughter emanate silently from him. Even Anita’s father snorted from the kitchen.
“If you say so. Still, you might want to get it checked out.” Karen bit her lip. “Is Anita in?”
“Right here.” Anita stepped in between Miles and Ro.
Karen held out her basket.
Just like freakin’ Little Red Riding Hood.
“I won’t stay, I just wanted to give you my condolences and bring you this meal. You can heat it up whenever you need it.” Karen sent Anita a motherly smile.
Karen was petite, her blond hair in the process of being expertly replaced by silver in its impossibly smooth bob. Her outfit under the open swing raincoat screamed “prep” from her white blouse down to her chinos and expensive loafers.
Stop it. She’s just the commodore’s wife. It’s her job to come and play Florence Nightingale. Mind your own business.
“We’re just leaving,” Miles said and Ro let out a sigh of relief. She wasn’t convinced she would have said anything as innocuous.
She stepped out and brushed past Karen. No words were necessary at this point.
* * *
MILES STAYED BEHIND her until they reached the end of the driveway. The darkness of night enveloped them as the limited streetlights spilled pools of white every so often.
“Ro, wait up.” He grabbed her hand and spun her around.
“I just want to get home, Miles.” Exhaustion and a distinct chill pervaded her whole body.
He lifted her chin up until their faces were a whisper apart in the dark.
“You’re a real trooper, Ro. You stood your ground in there, and I know this hurts like hell.” His fingers lightly touched her swollen face.
“It’s nothing, you’d do the same.” She didn’t take praise well and from Miles it was too much. The warmth she felt at his words was yet another reason she’d avoided him for so long.
Miles turned her on like no one she’d ever met. In her pain and distress she still had to fight the urge to jump him.
“I’m here for you, Ro, and I mean it when I tell you we’re in this together.”
He leaned toward her and brushed her lips with his. The sparks of sexual attraction were there, but more insistent was the comforting warmth from his mouth.
Ro stood still and allowed him to pull away.
She let out a shaky breath.
“Right. Can we go home now?”
“Only after we get that cut taken care of.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
CAPTAIN LEO SANDERS, Commodore of the Patrol Wing, N.A.S. Whidbey Island, took off his khaki cover as he entered his family’s house in the residential area of the base. The minute it came off and the metal silver eagle clunked against the foyer table, he became “Leo,” “honey” or “Dad.” And no one in the Sanders household was impressed with his rank or success in the navy.
He walked into the kitchen that had a bank of windows with a sweeping view of Puget Sound. He and Karen often enjoyed their morning coffee out here—when Karen wasn’t already up and gone to the gym. She prided herself on her schoolgirl figure, as evidenced by the small fortune she spent on her clothes.
“Anyone home?” He called out to what he suspected was an empty house. Karen’s MINI Cooper hadn’t been in the driveway when he pulled up, and after school, their teenage daughter spent most of her time with her friends. Still, a father held out hope.
He knocked lightly before he cracked open Stefanie’s bedroom door. She looked up from her laptop and yanked her headphones out of her ears.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hi, honey.” He walked into her room, deliberately ignoring the piles of laundry and papers that lay in wait, invitations to trip or sprain an ankle. He kissed her on the forehead.
“What are you doing?”
“Just talking to my friends.”
“Facebook?” He prided himself on keeping up with current technology. He’d been a navy pilot for twenty-four years, after all, entrusted with the most advanced technology in the fleet.
Stefanie’s pretty face twisted in a scowl.
“Skype, Dad.”
“My bad.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t comment.
“Where’s Mom?” He asked Stefanie the million-dollar question.
“I have no idea.” She maintained a blank expression but he knew his daughter. She was too used to having her mom do these disappearing acts.
“Okay, I’ll give her a call on her cell. I’ll get dinner going in a few, okay, kid?”
“Sure.” She poked the earbuds back in place, effectively slamming the door on him.
Leo changed from his uniform into jeans and a white polo shirt that bore the wing’s logo on the left breast. The wave of sadness at the end of a workday was a familiar companion of late. He’d been so wrapped up in his work at the wing, trying to make sure he didn’t miss a trick. His fitness report was due and it had to make an impression on any future selection boards. Leo’s goal had been the same since he was a junior officer: become an admiral like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had.
Today had been the absolute worst. The mess of AMS1 Perez’s death was one complication he could have done without.
He sighed as he slipped his feet into the soft lambskin slippers Karen had given him this past Christmas.
That had been only half a year ago, and their lives seemed so different now. Karen spent more and more time away from home. She’d always been the quintessential navy wife—to a fault. Leo had tried to encourage her to find something that was all hers—go back to school and get a master’s degree in teaching, or start her own business.
Karen always pointed out that the constant moving and often heavy social schedule that his assignments required made it foolish for her to do anything else. The fact that the new generation of military spouses, increasingly both male and female, often had careers separate from their active-duty spouses hadn’t influenced her.
He’d caught a whiff of the fact that Karen drove the other squadron wives crazy at the spouse club meetings. She liked to be involved in everything to a degree that intimidated and downright annoyed the other volunteers.
Leo popped the cap off a bottle of beer and took a long drink. His relationship with his wife had cooled over the years, but these past few months he’d started to wonder why the hell they stayed together, other than for Stefanie.
He pulled out two steaks and some fresh veggies. At least Karen kept their kitchen well-stocked.
He heard the front door open and close, the tinkle of her keys as they landed on the tray by the door, the click of her heels.
“Hey, sailor, what are you doing home so early?” She smiled and walked over to him. He was wrapped in the cloud of her perfume before she gave him a full kiss. Her lips tasted of
peppermint.
“It’s past seven o’clock, Karen. Stefanie didn’t know where you were. Neither did I.”
Her eyes widened slightly and he noticed that they seemed puffy, even red.
“Stefanie knows that if I’m not here I’m at the gym or the commissary.”
He stared at her, hard.
“You don’t look like you just worked out, and unless there are groceries in your car, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you weren’t at the commissary, either.”
She bristled.
“No, as a matter of fact I was out doing my job as the commodore’s wife. Which I wouldn’t even have known about if I’d counted on you.”
His gut hardened.
“Where were you, Karen?”
“I was at Petty Officer Perez’s home. I took a casserole and a plant to his family.”
“Goddamn it, Karen. I didn’t tell you because Mrs. Perez had made it clear on her ‘in case of an accident’ request form. She didn’t want anyone from her husband’s staff to visit—only the chaplain and CACO. Few things are sacred in the navy anymore but the request form for spouses’ wants in their hour of greatest need is one of them.”
“She wanted only the CACO and command chaplain there when she was informed, yes. But I found out the wing staff went over late this afternoon. Even your intel officer and Miles were there. You never told me he’d died, Leo. I had to hear about it at navy relief.”
So the word was out on base. He raked his fingers through his hair, a stabbing pain behind his right eye. He’d never had headaches until he was transferred back to Whidbey.
“I didn’t tell you because it’s none of your business. Of course I was going to tell you about Perez before it hit the press, but this is a highly sensitive situation, Karen. And being the commodore isn’t the same as being a squadron CO. You’re not the CO’s wife anymore. And as the commodore’s wife, no one wants you mucking around in their affairs.”
She looked as though he’d slapped her, and he felt guilt in addition to his anger.
“If you’d taken my suggestion and found something for yourself to do, you wouldn’t feel the need to get so involved with my job.”
“Sure, I get it, Leo. It was great in the early years, when my involvement helped your career. And don’t tell me it didn’t—I threw every hail and farewell party for every CO’s wife we ever knew. There wasn’t a spouse club I wasn’t heavily involved in, if not running. But now you think you’ll make admiral on your own. You haven’t gotten anywhere on your own, Leo. You’d have nothing if I hadn’t sacrificed my career for you.”
He wanted to point out that she hadn’t had much of a career to sacrifice, but wasn’t in the mood for her familiar tirade about how she’d had “amazing” offers to travel the world with her international relations degree from Tulane University. How she’d sacrificed it all for him, for their family, once Stefanie was born.
The way he saw it, she’d traveled the world with him and the navy. Saw things she never would have if she’d stayed in that godforsaken Podunk town she came from.
He was determined not get into the subject of Karen’s martyrdom for his career.
“So you went over there? To the house?”
“Yes.” She sniffed. “It was very tragic. I’m glad I took over my lasagna—God only knows when Mrs. Perez will be up to making a meal again.”
This was completely different from what the CACO had told him earlier today. He’d made it clear that his first impression was that Anita Perez had been upset but not to the point of physical collapse. She was a trauma nurse by trade and was used to dealing with high stress. The CACO reported Anita had been holding her own.
“I think you should have gone over there, Leo.” Karen’s accusation wasn’t even veiled by politeness. She never thought anything he did was good enough.
“We’ll have to differ on this, Karen. You did a nice thing. Thank you.” He knew he had no other option than to assuage his guilt and smooth her ruffled feathers.
She breathed deeply, smelling the air.
“What are you cooking?”
It was so typical of her to change the subject and shut him out of her thoughts. He did find it curious that her face was so haggard. Granted, going over to the surviving family’s home after a mishap of any kind was never pretty, but the aftermath of a suicide had to be the most horrible.
If everyone buys that it’s a suicide.
She shouldn’t be so upset over this. Karen hadn’t known Perez’s family; neither did he. He only knew Petty Officer Perez―he’d never met the wife or kids. They hadn’t shown up at the annual wing picnic and he’d taken his time to grip and grin at each department and hangar deck workshop.
You could have missed them.
He had a lot of people to speak to at any event, and he’d relied on Karen to hold court for him—it was her favorite pastime.
“I thought I’d grill the steaks you bought, along with some mushrooms and zucchini.” He considered that a conciliatory gesture—an olive branch.
“Stefanie will love it.” Karen held out a small branch in return.
“Would you prefer something else?” He didn’t want to talk to her anymore. He wanted solitude.
“Oh, no—my appetite is kind of flat, you know? A cocktail is more what I need.”
He shrugged and she sent him a look of complete reproach. “I honestly don’t understand how you can be hungry at a time like this, Leo.”
He wanted to tell her to save her pious nun act for the kids she taught at the Sunday school on base.
“Karen, I know it must have been rough at the Perezes’, but you didn’t know them. You can’t take on their grieving and sadness. If I did that with every domestic violence case I’d be a nut job.”
“Leo, this wasn’t domestic violence. A young man killed himself and left behind a beautiful wife―” she put her hand to her mouth “—and two children. His wife won’t even accept that it’s a suicide.” Her voice turned into a whisper. “He had every reason to live.”
“Honey, come here.”
She remained stiff and unresponsive in his arms but he held her, anyway. “The wars have taken their toll. We don’t know what horrors that young man saw over in Afghanistan. His mental health wasn’t completely readable—nobody’s is.”
A shudder racked her shoulders.
“I just feel that if I’d known him, their family, maybe I could’ve made a difference.”
Aww, here it was. Karen the all-powerful.
“No, Karen, not even you could have changed this.”
He certainly hadn’t been able to change much during his past eighteen months as commodore. And now the issues he’d taken steps to control—to make sure he’d be a shoe-in for flag rank—had blown up in his face.
Karen only knew the half of it.
* * *
KAREN EYED LEO through the sliding glass door. He had his beer in one hand and the barbecue tongs in the other as he grilled their dinner.
When she’d agreed to marry him almost thirty years ago she’d known he was her match. A good person overall but not afraid to go after what he wanted in life. Like her, he’d learned at a young age to keep himself on top of his list of priorities.
But at least they’d kept each other up there on their respective lists, too. Until Leo started amassing career accolades and paying less attention to their marriage. He was the golden boy of the P-3 community. She’d loved being on his arm, knowing that all the other women were watching her for their example.
But then the surprise that was Stefanie showed up. Of course Karen was so grateful for her daughter, these teenage years aside. But having kids hadn’t been in the plan. So it’d thrown them for a bit. Their reunions after long deployments weren’t the two of them holing up for a weekend of r
eacquaintance sex anymore. It became all about Stefanie and Leo. Their father-daughter bond was unbreakable.
Karen had thrown herself into being the best navy wife ever. For a long while, it had kept her so busy she didn’t even think too much about the fact that they spent less and less time together in bed. At least their morning coffees were one constant routine she appreciated.
This past year Karen had realized she needed more than she was getting from Leo. She needed a confidante, someone who appreciated her for her, not just her volunteer organizational skills.
She’d discovered parts of herself that she’d long ago buried. For that, she owed Leo a thank-you for checking out of their marriage.
But it hadn’t played out the way she’d thought it would.
* * *
THE LAST THING Ro wanted to do was place the hard helmet over her face. Her tender face.
“Let me look at that cheekbone before we get going.” She didn’t resist as Miles ran his fingers over her skin. They were under the glare of the hospital parking lot lights and Miles’s pupils were dilated as he studied her face. She kept her gaze on his in hopes that it would distract her from the urge to lean her head against his chest.
Her cheek was still fairly numb from the anesthetic used by the plastic surgeon, so it didn’t bother her to have Miles probe around as though he knew more than a doctor. Until his finger pressed the place that hurt the most.
“Oww!”
“Sorry. That should hurt—it’s the precise spot she clocked you. Good thing you didn’t shatter your orbital lobe. Did you lose consciousness?”
“No. Just my pride.”
His grin took her by surprise.
“Your pride will heal. So will your eye. Do you have to come back here this week?”
“No, the surgeon said the stitches will dissolve on their own, and the scar will fade within a year or so.”
“You’re beautiful no matter what, Ro.”
“Spare me, Miles.” She was too tired to call him “Warrant.” “I just want to go home to my own bed.”
