by Naomi Niles
“We’re not gonna break up,” I said as if the very idea was preposterous. “We like each other too much. And, sure, there were some kinks in the relationship when we first started, but by now, we’ve got ‘em pretty much all ironed out. It’s like when you’ve been riding the trail through a rainstorm for three hours, and then suddenly the sky clears, and the sun shines down on you.”
“Well, enjoy it while it lasts,” said Mama. “If you decide to get married, there will be storms.”
Apart from our conversation about kids a few days ago, Allie and I hadn’t discussed marriage much. Not that it hadn’t been on our minds. Lately, it was all I could think about, and I figured she was probably the same. One day soon, we would have to talk about it. But for now, I was just enjoying being together. These were good days, and I didn’t want to hurry them along too quickly.
As I got up from the table, Dad set down his paper and said to me, “I’m gonna need your help fixing the fence-post again after breakfast. Are you willing to help me?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?”
“Same thing as always,” Dad said in an irritated voice. “Them hogs’ll knock down anything they see as standing betwixt them and freedom, no matter how strong it is. Anyway, I figure if we both work on it for a couple hours, we can get it secured before lunch.”
“Sounds good,” I said as I gathered up our plates. “You ever gonna tell me what you and Allie talked about yesterday?”
“Not a chance.”
But the fence didn’t actually need that much work, and I realized pretty quickly once we got out there that the real reason he had called me outside was that he wanted to talk.
“Your mother’s right, you know,” he said with an effort, ramming his shovel into the hard ground. “About what she said over breakfast.”
“I didn’t think you were listening,” I said, wiping my brow. It was a blazing hot morning, and I was already sweaty. In the distance, I could hear the groan and whine of a school bus.
“I may not always act like it, but I always listen to you two,” he said. “I have to, to make sure you’re not up to somethin’.”
I smiled. “If we were really up to somethin’, would we be talking about it right in front of you?”
“You would if you thought I wasn’t listening. The point is, you need to hold onto that girl. I haven’t said this about most girls you’ve brought home, as you good and well know. But I’ll say it about her: don’t you let go of her.”
He was using that stern tone of voice that was long familiar to me from being disciplined when we were kids, except back then it usually preceded a spanking. It was the kind of voice you didn’t argue with; you just nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”
“She reminds me a lot of your mother, especially when we were younger,” Dad went on. “Free-spirited, gentle, supportive, good with kids and animals… and I’ll tell you another thing, if she ever gets the chance to be a mother, she’ll be great at it. Some women have to work really hard at being good mothers. For your mother, it came naturally. And I suspect it will for her, too.”
It was the second time in as many weeks that someone had raised the prospect of children. I would have found it unnerving if I hadn’t already been fully on board with it.
“Yeah, she’s about the most considerate and supportive woman I’ve met.” I took off my hat and wiped down my face and head. “And I don’t say that out of any disrespect to Christine; she just happens to be really strong in that area.”
“I get what you’re sayin’,” Dad said. He was staring down at the hole, not at me, but the hole might as well not have been there for all the attention he was giving it. “I hope y’all are happy together for a long time. You deserve to have another shot at happiness. And I know I don’t say this often, but I do love you. I hope you know that.”
“I do. Thanks, Dad.” It was about all I could manage to say at that moment. It’s a weird feeling to be standing next to your dad and to realize how much you love him. Maybe if I had been more used to hearing him tell me he loved me, I would have been better prepared. But he hadn’t said those words to me since I was a boy.
I struggled to hold back my surprise and appreciation as we went on digging the post-hole.
Epilogue
Two Years Later
Allie
I could tell there was something off about Curtis from the moment I woke up that morning.
I woke up to find him standing over me grinning, holding the cat out with both hands like the monkey in The Lion King. River stuck his tongue out and meowed loudly, looking nonplussed. It had been a couple months since we had lost Phoenix, and lately, Curtis had been trying to show the remaining pets more attention.
“Mornin’, angel,” said Curtis. “You ever hear that old Charlie Pride song? ‘Kiss an angel good morning / and love her like the devil when you get back home.’”
“I have never heard that song,” I said, yawning. “I’m not sure I want to.” Curtis had spent the past two years introducing me to his favorite country tunes, but there were still huge gaps in my musical education.
Still, it was reassuring to know that through all the ups and downs in our relationship, there were some things that remained constant: he was forever trying to get me hooked on country music, and I was forever failing to see the appeal.
“Anyhoo,” said Curtis, “we need to get the horses out today. They’ve been cooped up in that stable too long because of the rain. And seeing as how this is your day off, I figured we could take a ride up the trail like the ones we used to go on.”
Curtis hadn’t worked the trail rides for some time. Last summer, he’d had a scare with a heat stroke and nearly falling off Bessie, at which point his mother and I intervened and told him we wanted him to find a new job. After a few frustrated months of unemployment, he had finally landed a position as the regional manager for a local car supply chain. Every day after I left the clinic in downtown Waco where I now worked, I came in and saw him standing behind the counter looking sharp in his finely pressed blue shirt and white tie. He always wore the biggest smile on his face when I came through the doors.
But he wasn’t usually in this good of a mood, which led me to wonder what was going on. Had he perhaps gotten a promotion and a raise? Was I about to find out that the old manager had been sacked, and Curtis had taken his place? As I watched him washing his hands at the sink, whistling cheerfully and flinging water droplets at the pets, my mind raced through all the possible explanations, each of them as unlikely as the others.
Curiously, though, by the time we got dressed and hit the trail that morning, he had grown unusually quiet. It was such a striking contrast from the mischievous, boisterous mood he had been in a few minutes earlier. I didn’t know what to make of it.
It was a breezy and cool autumn morning, and I felt a sense of relief as I looked over at him and realized he hadn’t even broken a sweat. I always got anxious now when we went on rides like this, which we only did for a few months out of the year.
“You okay, hon?” I asked him as we reached the stony crest overlooking the town. It was always my favorite part of the trip; from here, I could see the entirety of Sulphur Springs, from the Baptist church in the lower corner of the town to the Waffle House on its northern edge.
“Yeah, I just got a lot on my mind,” said Curtis quietly.
“Anything you care to share?”
He paused for a moment as though thinking how he wanted to word it. “I guess I’ve just been thinking about you and all we’ve been through together in the last year. At this point, we’ve known each other longer than Christine and I knew each other before we were married. And you’ve come to mean about as much to me as she did.”
I wanted to make a joke, to tease him about how I ought to mean that much to him since we had been dating for so long. But he spoke with such gravity and seriousness that I just nodded and waited for him to go on.
“Sometimes this world is such a lonely place,
Allie,” he said. “And the best you can hope for is to find a few friends to carry you along and make it less lonely. After Christine’s death, there was a time when I wondered whether I’d ever be happy again because it felt like the world had lost the best person in it. I couldn’t understand how the world kept on turning.
“But then we met, and I was stunned to wake up one morning and realize I was really happy.”
I listened with an increasing sense of foreboding. I had a feeling I knew where this was going now, though I dared not interrupt. Though outwardly I remained calm, I could feel myself being overcome with emotion. Below us, an ice cream truck painted in bright colors was making its way down the highway. I focused my attention on it as it navigated the long ribbon of asphalt.
“I thought surely the mood would pass in a day or two,” he went on. “But then the strangest thing happened. I kept being happy. And it’s not for any other reason but that you’ve come into my life, and you made it a less lonely place, and a better one. And as I look back on it, I can’t help thinkin’ there’s nothing more I could want out of life than to spend the rest of it with you.”
He brought the horse nearer to me so that if he had wanted he could have reached out and hugged me. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a thin silver band.
I froze at the sight, my hands gripping tightly to the horse’s reins. It was one of those moments where the world shifts and you hardly seem conscious of yourself for a minute, you’re so overcome with shock.
“Allie,” he said, “I know I’m not good with words. When it comes to making speeches, you’ve got all the words in this relationship. But it don’t matter because I know what I feel about you. And all I need from you is a simple yes-or-no answer: will you marry me?”
By now I was practically in tears, thinking I ought to have seen this coming months ago. All the nights he had stayed over at his mother’s after I left, all the whispers and furtive glances—they had all been for this. For us.
“Yes, of course,” I managed to say, though he might have seen from the look on my face that there was a yes in my heart. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?” asked Curtis, motionless in his saddle.
“That we not wait. I want to have the wedding as soon as possible. I’ve waited too long for you, and I don’t think I can wait anymore.”
He nodded, looking relieved, and laughed. “We’ll have it as soon as is humanly possible,” he said. “Mama’s already planning the cake she wants to make: one of those enormous vanilla cakes with salted caramel.”
He leaned forward and put his arms around me, and we kissed. Then, for a long moment, we sat with our foreheads resting on each other. Finally, he smiled and said, “You don’t mind if my mama makes the cake, do you?”
I laughed through my tears. “No, of course not!”
He grinned. “Good, because there’s one waitin’ for us right now at the house. Mama spent all last night baking it.”
We left the ridge and turned towards home—our home, now—our thoughts on the future, and on the promise of cake.
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SEAL’D
By Naomi Niles
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Naomi Niles
Chapter One
Zack
I was sitting in the airport waiting for my plane to arrive. Midmorning summer sunlight poured in through the huge windows. I wanted to curl up in my seat and sleep for the next hour, and I might have done it if the chairs weren’t so uncomfortable. I wasn’t looking forward to the flight back to our base in the Congo.
My buddy Carson Wallace was sitting next to me. Every few minutes, he’d reach over and feel my pulse to make sure I was still alive. Carson’s funny like that. Only occasionally do I want to slap him.
“It’s been a good month, but I’m gonna miss being back in the States,” said Carson. He was a wiry young man of 25 who, like me, had a full head of closely shaved dark hair. Except where his eyes were black and thin and beady, like buttons, mine were blue and hungry. “I’m not looking forward to more physical training, I can tell you that much.”
I shifted in my seat, trying to find a position that wouldn’t kill my back. There were about twenty girls walking past us, probably all members of some church youth group. Some were wearing dresses; others were wearing tank tops and cute shorts.
I nudged Carson in the ribs with my elbow. “Take a good, long look,” I said in a voice no louder than a whisper as a girl in a tight purple shirt and pink shorts ran past us. “That’s the last you’re gonna see of them for a long time.”
“That’s the thing I always miss most about leaving home,” said Carson. “This time I decided to make the best of it while I was here. You wouldn’t believe some of the babes I shagged while I was in Brooklyn.”
“If you actually shagged a single babe,” I replied, “I’ll eat my left shoe.”
Carson went on for the better part of ten minutes making up stories while I drifted in and out of the conversation, nodding along every now and again to let him know I was listening.
The two of us were Navy SEALs, stationed together at a remote base in the heart of the Congo. For the last month I’d been on furlough, back home in Sulphur Springs, a one-horse town just outside of Dallas where my mom and dad lived on a two-acre ranch. While I was home, I’d gotten to visit with my three brothers and check up on how they were doing: one of ‘em was still living at home and playing video games, one was out on the streets causing trouble and about to end up in prison, and one of ‘em had just met a beautiful woman and started dating.
That brother, Curtis, had taken me out one night with his girlfriend and one of her friends on a double date. Me and the girl had hooked up and spent a few weeks together. As the end of my furlough got closer, I realized I would have to call things off. It about killed me to do it, but I knew there was no use trying to start a relationship with this woman when we were living halfway across the world from each other.
But man, there were nights when I missed the feel of her body beside me. I’d heard friends talk about missing somebody so much it was like a physical ache. I’d never felt that before until now. There were times when it made me wonder if maybe we shouldn’t get back together, but I knew it was unwise.
While my brothers had always been clueless and carefree, I had a reputation as being the worrywart. Back in high school during the summers when we used to sneak up onto the top of Bryant’s Bridge, they’d be whooping and yelling while I’d be wondering when the police were going to show up and whether we’d go to prison. As a SEAL, I’m trained to prepare for the worst, but really, I’ve been doing that for most of my life.
So even when me and the girl first started going out, I was already thinking ahead to the end of our relationship and how it was probably going to break her heart. In hindsight, I think I’d have enjoyed our time together a lot more if I hadn’t been so worried all the time. Sometimes during sex, she would pause for a minute because she could see the concern on my face. She’d lay her hand across the side of my head, like I had a fever or something. “What’s wrong, love?”
“Nothing,” I’d say. But we both knew it was untrue, and we would go to bed unhappy.
Curtis had threatened to take my phone away after I broke up with her because I kept wanting to text her and make sure she was okay. “I thought the whole point of you breaking it off,” he said, “is because you wanted to move on and forget about her. If you want her to get over you, you’ve gotta stop texting her.”
And that was all there
was to it.
But that didn’t stop me from thinking about her. Wondering how she was doing. Sort of hoping she’d move on and find someone else and sort of hoping she wouldn’t.
And now that I was here, waiting in a New York City airport for my flight back to the Congo, it was like different worries were competing to see which ones would take up residence in my brain. We’ve all heard the horror stories about SEALs who got killed in their last month of deployment. I was more worried about what came after that. What was I going to do when I came back to the States? Had being in the SEALs prepared me in any real way for life at home?
I remembered Curtis being horribly depressed when college was ending and he didn’t know what he was going to do out in the real world. The Navy had been my college in that sense. There were nights when I seriously thought about beating down Sergeant Armstrong’s door and begging him to let me stay for another year or two. At least in the Congo I had a set routine, a set number of places to go each day, and I didn’t have to wonder what I was supposed to be doing because there was always someone to give me orders.
Here in the States, I had freedom. And I wasn’t sure freedom was what I wanted.
“What are we going to do with our lives, man?” I asked. It was that time of the morning after you’ve stayed up all night when delirium sets in and you feel the grief of the world. “We’ve only got a year left in our contracts, and frankly I don’t think I’m ready for my deployment to end. One month out of the year is enough for me.”
“Same,” said Carson. “I started to go crazy after just two weeks at home. There’s only so many things you can do in Austin before boredom sets in. Put me back out there in the jungle with a bottle of water and a gun, and I’m happy.”
“I guess I could write a book about my time in the service,” I said. “But that seems kind of sad, don’t it? Just reminiscing about the past.”
