Brad saying, “Team BE, babe. You and me,” which is what we always called ourselves when things got rough—when we were down to the last twenty dollars in our checkingaccount even as the monthly bills continued to roll in; when one of our former landlords gave us only two weeks’ notice to find a new place to live in February, in a town where almost every rental is on an August-to-August cycle; or when Brad’s father, Mert, told Brad that “real men join the Marines,” instead of telling Brad that he was proud of him for enlisting in the Army.
“Promise?” I whisper, letting my head loll onto Brad’s chest.
“Promise,” he says.
Six
It is too early in the morning on the Friday after Christmas, and I am staring bleary-eyed at a breakfast of toast and over-easy eggs sprinkled with seasoning salt when Brad tells me he’s going try to get into the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s PhD program in Russian.
“It might be too late,” I warn. If the UW’s PhD programs are anything like its law school, they’re sticklers for dates and deadlines, and not altogether good about accommodating requests or exceptions.
“Can’t hurt to try,” Brad says. His optimism is infectious. These past weeks he’s been rattling around this house, drinking too much, sleeping when he should be awake, and pacing the fence line of our backyard when he should be sleeping. But this morning, he’s up and showered and dressed. He’s made me eggs. And now he wants to check out options directly related to his future. “You,” I say, waving my fork in his direction, “are quite the guy. You know that?”
He’s adjusting, and I’m adjusting. We’re readjusting to life together. “So there,” I’d like to say to Sondra. I take the bite of egg that is on my fork and set it on my plate; I get up from my seat at the table, and go around to his. I kiss him like I mean it, long and slow, feeling the softness of his lips—the velvety sensation, the distinct contoursof them—against my own. The desire to feel them move from my lips to my neck to other parts of me that are now dressed for work rises up in me like an errant geyser, and I have to push it back down. Damn Judge Kresley and his penchant for scheduling eight a.m. hearings.
I stand up. “I’m going to miss you,” I tell Brad, drawing back and holding his face between my hands. Darcy was scheduled to accompany Sondra to Minneapolis this weekend, but Mia has come down with the chicken pox and is all sorts of miserable, so I’m filling in.
Brad chucks my chin with curled fingers. “It’s two nights, E.,” he says. “No big thing. Anything for a mile, right?”
I smile at the memory—Brad cheering me on during my first, and only, marathon, the Whistlestop in far-northern Wisconsin that runs mostly along an old railroad grade. My GPS wristlet had quit working and so had my legs, and I had no idea how much farther I had to run when I saw Brad up ahead and told him I didn’t think I could finish. “You can do anything for a mile,” he said, and with that mantra stuck in my head, I ran. And ran. It was the longest mile of my life. After the race, I realized that it hadn’t been one mile—it had been four—and I yelled at him: “You told me it was a mile!”
He shook his head. “Nope. That’s what you wanted to hear. What I said was that you can do anything for a mile—and you did. I’m proud of you, E.”
It was the way we signed off on our e-mail messages to each other during his deployment, and thinking back on each day that I woke up without him here over the past year, dwelling on having to spend two nights—not even a full forty-eight hours—apart seems ridiculous. Especially compared to what Sondra—or Darcy—has been facing.
“Anything for a mile,” I repeat now, and I smile at my husband, full of thanks and contentment.
I get up and rinse my dish in the sink and load it into the dishwasher.I have exactly twenty minutes to make it to work,
“Promise?” I whisper, letting my head loll onto Brad’s chest.
“Promise,” he says.
Six
It is too early in the morning on the Friday after Christmas, and I am staring bleary-eyed at a breakfast of toast and over-easy eggs sprinkled with seasoning salt when Brad tells me he’s going try to get into the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s PhD program in Russian.
“It might be too late,” I warn. If the UW’s PhD programs are anything like its law school, they’re sticklers for dates and deadlines, and not altogether good about accommodating requests or exceptions.
“Can’t hurt to try,” Brad says. His optimism is infectious. These past weeks he’s been rattling around this house, drinking too much, sleeping when he should be awake, and pacing the fence line of our backyard when he should be sleeping. But this morning, he’s up and showered and dressed. He’s made me eggs. And now he wants to check out options directly related to his future. “You,” I say, waving my fork in his direction, “are quite the guy. You know that?”
He’s adjusting, and I’m adjusting. We’re readjusting to life together. “So there,” I’d like to say to Sondra. I take the bite of egg that is on my fork and set it on my plate; I get up from my seat at the table, and go around to his. I kiss him like I mean it, long and slow, feeling the softness of his lips—the velvety sensation, the distinct contoursof them—against my own. The desire to feel them move from my lips to my neck to other parts of me that are now dressed for work rises up in me like an errant geyser, and I have to push it back down. Damn Judge Kresley and his penchant for scheduling eight a.m. hearings.
I stand up. “I’m going to miss you,” I tell Brad, drawing back and holding his face between my hands. Darcy was scheduled to accompany Sondra to Minneapolis this weekend, but Mia has come down with the chicken pox and is all sorts of miserable, so I’m filling in.
Brad chucks my chin with curled fingers. “It’s two nights, E.,” he says. “No big thing. Anything for a mile, right?”
I smile at the memory—Brad cheering me on during my first, and only, marathon, the Whistlestop in far-northern Wisconsin that runs mostly along an old railroad grade. My GPS wristlet had quit working and so had my legs, and I had no idea how much farther I had to run when I saw Brad up ahead and told him I didn’t think I could finish. “You can do anything for a mile,” he said, and with that mantra stuck in my head, I ran. And ran. It was the longest mile of my life. After the race, I realized that it hadn’t been one mile—it had been four—and I yelled at him: “You told me it was a mile!”
He shook his head. “Nope. That’s what you wanted to hear. What I said was that you can do anything for a mile—and you did. I’m proud of you, E.”
It was the way we signed off on our e-mail messages to each other during his deployment, and thinking back on each day that I woke up without him here over the past year, dwelling on having to spend two nights—not even a full forty-eight hours—apart seems ridiculous. Especially compared to what Sondra—or Darcy—has been facing.
“Anything for a mile,” I repeat now, and I smile at my husband, full of thanks and contentment.
I get up and rinse my dish in the sink and load it into the dishwasher.I have exactly twenty minutes to make it to work,
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