The Story of Us
Page 5
Brian, as the eldest and only boy, is very well aware that from the moment he was born, his father wanted him to go to United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Years after my own parents had both passed away, I can still remember what it felt like to bear the weight of family expectations in that way.
When Steve gets home from this deployment, Brian has news for him, but I’ll let him tell it. He’s certainly earned the chance to speak his piece. I hope Emma has some news for her dad, too, but at the moment, she really just seems to be drifting. My beautiful Emma has changed these past months, and I’m not quite sure I understand what’s going on with her. Does any adult understand what’s going on with an eighteen-year-old? She seems very adult lately, yet pensive and quiet. Perhaps she’s struggling with her decision about what to do after high school. Perhaps she needs her father most of all.
And Katie. What can I say about our little Katy-did, our youngest? She’s a daddy’s girl through and through, which is sort of tough when her father is away so much. She is immensely happy here, on this blue-and-green island where we’ve found our first real home. She’s one of only three ninth-graders who made marching band, has a group of friends she adores, and I think she might even have a boyfriend, though she hasn’t said anything yet. The prospect of being torn away from here when the next orders come is unthinkable to her.
I find myself thinking more and more about the dreams I put aside all those years ago to follow Steve on this journey. Right or wrong, I didn’t let myself embrace those dreams or even confess them to Steve because his seemed so much bigger and more important. Now I understand that the human heart can’t survive without dreams.
Sometimes life hands us moments. We can let the moment pass, or explore and embrace the chance we’re given. Right now, life has handed me a new moment.
I don’t know what will happen when Steve comes home this time. I keep trying to envision what will happen, but I don’t have a crystal ball. How do you tell the story of a marriage?
When my grandmother was still alive, she sent me an article she’d saved from a 1975 issue of Redbook magazine, underlining her favorite passage. On it, Gran had written, “I was married for sixty years. I’m not ashamed to say that sometimes, this was the reason.”
The article was by a wise writer named Judith Viorst. The words Grandma had underlined are these: “One advantage of marriage, it seems to me, is that when you fall out of love with him, or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you maybe fall in again.”
I think about that a lot these days.
How do you tell the story of a marriage? Read the next chapter of Grace and Steve’s story in The Ocean Between Us by Susan Wiggs. Look for a new reissue of her novel in print and eBook format in May 2010.
After years of following her navy officer husband on assignment around the world with their three children, Grace Bennett realizes that she’s left something behind—herself.
Steve Bennett can’t understand the unraveling of his wife’s heart. He wants to set things right, but when a secret from his past is revealed just as he’s sent out to sea, their already-strained relationship is pushed to the edge. Now, with plenty of space to ponder the true distance between them, Grace begins to reinvent herself.
Just as her new self is coming to terms with her family life, the unthinkable happens. A disaster aboard Steve’s ship shatters Grace’s world and all she can do is gather her children around and wait for news to come, good or bad. A navy wife’s worst nightmare collides with the cold truth that life’s biggest chances can slip away while you’re busy looking for guarantees.
Susan Wiggs has won many awards for her work, including a RITA from Romance Writers of America. She has also published with a number of houses, including Avon, HarperCollins, Warner and MIRA Books.
In addition to being a militant romance writer, a feminist, a guilt-ridden mother and a perfect wife, Susan Wiggs grows mutant tomatoes, speaks French, and plays the cello. Her hobbies are reading, traveling the world and Fair Isle knitting. She lives on an island in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, her daughter, and the world’s most ill-mannered Airedale. Although she has convinced her family that toiling away at a writing career makes her a candidate for martyrdom, she secretly believes it’s the second-most fun to be had.
Wiggs, a Harvard graduate, confesses that a book once saved her sanity. Trapped at Barcelona Airport during an airline strike, she vividly remembers savoring every lush, escapist word of a romance novel. Ever since, it has been her quest to write the sort of books people cling to in crowded airports, or whenever life gets too crazy.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5833-8
The Story of Us
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