Ensign Edward McAllister did not see her face in the crowd. Walking stiff and tall, he followed the other officers down the pier while some of the young sailors ran ahead, unable to control themselves. When the crew reached the parking lot, the people swarmed like bees, the buzz of excitement building as Eddie got closer, quicker now in his pace. Still, eyes roving, searching, he did not see her.
Children mobbed their parents, clutching legs, swinging into arms. Balloons rose, their strings sweeping Eddie’s cheeks as he moved through the mass of people. He checked the empty vehicles, the faces expanding in smiles around him. When the crowd thinned, Eddie waited, optimistic, hoping her car would spin into the lot, a flurry of apologies falling from her lips as she rushed to greet him.
His previous deployments ended with Jessie among the other wives along the pier. He would find her leaning against their car, arms and ankles crossed, a lusty smile on her face, just far enough from the crowd for him to spot her. Eddie would push past people, flowers, posters, his black bag swinging against his leg. Then, absorbing Jessie into his chest, he would close his eyes, relieved to finally be home.
Apprehensive, Eddie rode to their apartment in a cab. His stomach tightened as if the walls had folded in on themselves. His wife hadn’t written much in the last three months. Something about her letters seemed artificial as if it were suddenly her duty to write. Onboard the ship, he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge her stilted sentences, her vague descriptions of daily life. Just imagining things, he had thought, pacing his stateroom. With each correspondence, Eddie had felt as if the USS Washington was sailing farther from, rather than closer to, home.
The palm-lined streets swept by, familiarity seeping into Eddie’s eyes, easing him into the last stretch of pavement.
“How much?” Eddie said leaning forward already reaching into his back pocket when the cab stopped. The tanned man with small eyes waved a hand.
“No, senor. My Christmas gift. Defend our country, please Officer.”
Eddie insisted, pushing a bill into the man’s shoulder.
The cab driver laughed, his eyes watching his passenger in the mirror. Eddie caught a reflected glimpse of his own crisp white uniform, the colorful stripes and medals, his Naval career on display. After going back and forth for several minutes, Eddie gave in, replacing the money in his wallet. A perk to combat, he thought. Might as well take it. A gift, the man had said. Christmas. He had almost forgotten it was this week. Exiting the cab, Eddie covered his head with the stiff white hat, its shiny black brim shielding the sunlight.
Every single time Jessie saw Eddie in uniform, dress whites or blues, morning, evening, post-deployment or a regular Monday, she’d say she couldn’t handle it: heart a-beating, eyes a-drinking, body a-calling. Made Eddie laugh, her playfulness. “It’s all I can do to keep my hands off you, Officer McAllister,” she’d whisper sidling up to him, caressing him while breathing in his ear. He knew six months at sea wasn’t just hard on Jessie, but agonizing. The phone calls he made so eagerly every 2-3 weeks when the ship refueled in foreign ports was never enough.
Once, following a two-and-a-half week separation, they were walking back to their apartment after a dinner out when Jessie had said, “I have basic, human needs, Eddie, and I don’t mean just sex.” During the meal, she had been quiet, listening to Eddie’s tales of sea trials, waiting to tell him about her own trials of grocery shopping, cleaning teeth, and the five o’clock happy hours she attended when he was away.
Finally, she said, “I had three screwdrivers last Friday night.” Surprised, he shut his mouth, looking her over.
“What?” she demanded rubbing her sleeveless arms. “A coupla girls from the office and I had drinks. Got a little tipsy actually. It was fun.” Eddie took her hand.
“It’s OK if you go out with the girls, Jess. I’m not saying you can’t.” He studied her face below his, the slope of her nose, the curl of her eyelashes. Her skin, glowing in the opalescence of the moon, made Eddie shift in his pants, anticipating home. “Jessie,” he said. “Did you have fun with them? With the girls at the bar?”
She glanced at him, then looked away. “Yeah. But they were both single, older too.”
“Well, some girls are luckier than others. Right?” Eddie squeezed her hand.
“Yeah,” she said. “Those girls can dance all night, drink what they want, look at whoever they want.”
“I meant you, Jessie. Lucky.”
A blush spread across her cheeks. “I was just lonely.”
Eddie said nothing. He had wanted to discuss arrangements for his next deployment, but the moment had passed. No longer did he feel like discussing credit card payments, stock options or safety, something Eddie did each time he left for a month or more.
Instead, he asked what he should have known would get him into trouble.
“You’re really lonely, Jess?” He knew she missed him. Heck, he missed her like crazy when he was at sea. But she had friends, a job. She ran up the phone bill and Eddie never said anything about it. She had complained a lot about his trips to sea, his long absences, saying it wasn’t right, wasn’t how a married couple should live. But his wife never said she was “lonely.”
“Hell yes I’m lonely, Eddie.”
“For—”
“For you, and for love.” Eddie followed her gaze across the street to a boisterous couple intertwined, hurrying in the opposite direction, going out instead of home, so oblivious to others by the rate and volume of their conversation.
“But you have me. You have love. You’re the reason I make it out there.” He’d said this many times over the years because it was true. He felt it with his whole heart. Couldn’t she see that?
After a slight pause, she said, “You don’t get it Eddie.” They had reached the front steps of their apartment and stood in the filtered artificial light. To Eddie, it felt like he was back in Stockton on Mrs. Gift’s front porch dropping Jessie off after a movie, waiting for a kiss. But the look in her eye didn’t encourage any kisses tonight.
“You don’t get it,” she said again. “I have needs. Basic, human needs Eddie, and I don’t mean just sex.” She pivoted on her heel and unlocked the front door with her own set of keys. Eddie followed her to the elevator.
“Well, what do you mean?” he asked once the door slid closed.
She glared at him. “Are you really that clueless?”
He nodded. What else could he do?
“Comfort, companionship.” She watched the floor numbers ding above their heads. “Day-to-day talk. Kisses.”
“Kisses,” he said drawing out the word.
She faced him, eyes narrowing into tiny slants.
“Isn’t that sex-related?”
“You just missed everything I said.”
Alone, Eddie passed through the entryway of their apartment and called for the same elevator in which these words had been spoken.
When the doors parted on the fifth floor, Eddie stepped out and walked down the quiet hallway, his heavy footsteps resounding on the carpeted floor. In front of 522, his heart quivered like a plucked violin string. He supposed he had more than enough reason to be nervous. If she hadn’t come to the pier, she had either fallen asleep (which he doubted), or decided to boycott the arrival to hurt him, knowing it would. He probably deserved it. His wife wasn’t happy, and didn’t he have a certain duty in marriage to have and to hold through sickness and in health? Yeah, but so did she. Her last letter dated two and a half weeks prior filled him in on not much more than her anger.
How’s life on your big floating fraternity house? Today is Tuesday and guess what. The TV is my dinner guest again. But you, honey, I’m so glad you’re not all alone. Know why? Because it’s really not much fun.
Last week I was in Stockton for Thanksgiving thanks to the bonus Dr. Pine gave me. Mom and Kirk asked about you. Kirk wanted to know more about your excursion but of course I didn’t know much. Doesn’t “classified” exclude everyone but your wife?
Eddie had read the letter on the chopper’s landing pad, the aircraft on assignment. He’d just finished dinner in the wardroom. Rubbery steak and what tasted like plastic potatoes rumbled in his stomach. With the sun still glowing above the South Pacific, Eddie read Jessie’s words, his eyes speeding across the lines, then going back, reading again. She filled half a page including no photographs, no flower petals or blades of grass which she had done in previous letters from their years in Washington, Mississippi, Maine. A piece of home, she’d called it. The colors of our life. He’d tucked the grass, the flower parts in his pants’ pockets, fingering them for as long as they seemed to draw breath.
Now, standing before the door of their California apartment with shaking hands, resolving to make things better for his wife, Eddie fidgeted with the lock. Tonight, he’d take her to the Blue Point to discuss his options for discharge. He would.
He pushed open the door. “Jessie?” He dropped his black bag by the stairs, scanned the empty kitchen and couches as silence answered him. Finding the living room vacant, the beds in both bedrooms made, Eddie set his hat on the stairs and ran a hand through his hair. With deliberate care, pensive slowness, he unlaced his polished dress shoes, setting them by the door. He suddenly felt foolish all dressed up in his whites with no one to appreciate his effort.
He loosened the top button.
Something caught in his throat when he saw a single sheaf of paper, curled edges, resting on the counter. Picking it up, he read: Eddie, I loved you, I really did, but I couldn’t take the loneliness any longer. Jessie.
A frigid emptiness blanketed Eddie’s skin. His jaw tightened. Having read the note twice, it fluttered from his fingers to the kitchen floor. Her words punched him in the gut and made his eyes blink faster and faster.
In a numb, detached stupor that evening, Eddie almost missed his name written in red on the calendar near their bed. He had a three o’clock dentist appointment on Christmas Eve. Tomorrow. He was surprised she left it for him to see. A sense of yearning rose in his chest. His wife, she’d be there. She’d clean his teeth.
The next day after work, Eddie drove to the dentist’s office. Though he had free service through the Navy, he had gone to Dr. Pine since Jessie started there. Cleanings were on the house thanks to her, and Eddie had preferred Dr. Pine and his wife’s own sweet hands to the dentists assigned by the government.
He arrived early at the office, pulse quickening as he opened the door. The receptionist, Lucy, smiled at him from beneath a Santa hat. A bell on a string hung around her neck, resting between her full breasts. Eddie wondered if she knew about him and Jessie.
"Take a seat Lieutenant McAllister,” she said. “We’ll be with you shortly.” Circling the small waiting room area, Eddie wiped his sweaty palms on his pants while he paced past the chairs, the decorated Christmas tree. A faint strain of “The First Noel” filtered through the air.
“Eddie….”
He turned at the sound of his name. Jessie stood near the front desk in a pale blue skirt, an oversized white top flecked with pastel colors, a clipboard to her chest. He saw her falter, bite her lower lip.
“Jess,” he said, moving toward her. She took a step back, held up her hand like a crossing guard.
Eddie tottered to a stop. He opened his arms in pleading. “Why don’t you come home, Jess—”
She turned, motioning him to follow. “Let’s get this over with.”
Her work station, a tiny room, was equipped with a computer, an imposing black lamp above a big green chair, a small metal stool, and the usual supplies along the counter: drill, pick, mini-mirror, spit-vacuum, sink. Eddie’s military picture, taken back in Maine, hung taped to the cabinet. Still hope.
He settled into the chair while Jessie lowered him down and back. Though his teeth could use the cleaning, Eddie hadn’t come to have his wife polish his choppers. He had come to talk. She clipped a paper napkin around his neck.
“Listen, Jessie—” he began. She wheeled forward on her stool, blocking his view of the doorway.
“No one here knows we’re separated,” Jessie said. The word, which seemed to flow so easily from her mouth, stuck in his throat: Is that what they were? Was that official word the thing that was happening to them?
“But Jess, this is ridiculous,” he said, then decided to change tactics. “I’m going to rethink my Naval—”
“Shhh!” She pinched open his mouth, stuck a metal pick inside, started jabbing at each tooth, scraping away plaque, wiping it on the his bib.
Eddie thought she might make him gag, the tool tickling the top of his throat. He watched for a smirk, but she remained impassive, professional. Fighting the impulse to grab her wrist, Eddie ultimately gave in to marital trust. But six months apart. Man, look what it’d done. During previous cleanings, she’d stroked his forehead with her free hand while working in his mouth with the other. A hand on his shoulder here, a kiss on his temple there. Sometimes a pat elsewhere. He almost laughed at the absurdity of the moment, thinking at once she might hurt him and please him.
As she peered into his mouth, he studied her face, the hard concentration in the fine lines around her eyes. Six months ago she would have jumped if Eddie uttered a word about his Naval commitment. Hell, she would’ve jumped on top of him. He smiled to himself. She’d do that, he was sure. He’d enjoy it. Lying back in the chair, Eddie felt as if they were halfway there. But right now in the office, Jessie, she didn’t make a move.
“You still love me don’t you, Jess?”
“Hmm? What was that?”
Eddie took a deep breath. His marriage could end in a dentist’s chair. A dentist’s office. It came down to this: a face off. “Don’t you love me? Jessie?”
“Eddie.” She sighed. He held his breath, gazing at her. “I don’t think so. Not anymore.”
She held a tool above his mouth, a tin of mint-flavored paste in her opposite hand. “Open wide.”
Eddie obeyed, but the words didn’t compute. His wife, who had just finished picking remnants of lunch from the depths of his molars didn’t love him. He had never imagined such a refusal coming from Jessie, his girl.
His brain rewound to the first day of Spanish II in January of the tenth grade when this pretty little thing came bounding into the room, and plunked down next to him. His heart had skipped a beat—the first time he realized the meaning of this cliché. Everyone in the school knew the cute freshman, Jessie Gift. She’d been out on a few dates, but refused many more. At age 14, she was an enigma to the boys at Stockton High. To him, she had said smiling, “Hola! Como te llamas?” Eddie sat up straight. “Hola, me llamo Eddie.” He felt a little silly speaking Spanish before the class began, but heck. This was Jessie Gift. A week later they were study partners. Two weeks after that, they were dating. Two and a half years from their first “holas,” they were crowned Prom King and Queen, and fourteen months following that, they were married.
The instrument buzzed in his mouth. He hated this part of the cleaning: the thick, grainy paste stuck to his teeth, the constant pressure beneath the head of the machine.
When Jessie finished, and after Eddie rinsed, Jessie looped floss around her fingers pushing the string between each pair of teeth. She didn’t care about my germs before, he thought, hurt by the white mask covering her nose and mouth.
Determined and efficient, Jessie finished her work. She snapped off the heavy black lamp above his head, pressed a button beneath the chair, and elevated him to a less prostrate, and more comfortable position. “I’ll go get Dr. Pine,” she said, standing up. Eddie reached for her, catching her hand, but she barely turned back, letting her fingers slip from his grasp.
Eddie watched her turn the corner into another little room where Dr. Pine’s voice could be heard with a patient. “Do you floss, Mrs. Carlson? Every day?”
The tick of the clock hanging above the computer station caught Eddie McAllister’s attention. A giant, smiling molar filled its face. Eddie couldn’t help returning the toothy grin before feeling foolish. His gaze then fell on a nearby shelf that held a framed snapshot: sandy white beach, solitary palm stretching from top to bottom, candy-cane-striped sun-tent. Eddie paused. Had the picture been on that shelf his last visit? He frowned at the happy tooth clock.
Dr. Pine returned with Jessie and settled on her stool. He smiled at Eddie like the happy molar and Eddie smiled back. Again, foolish. His marriage at stake too. Pine asked about his teeth, any changes? Then his ship. “When did you get back in town, Eddie?”
Eddie had been to Pine two or three times, found him chatty for a doctor, personal. He liked the guy, but could never imagine the short, stocky dentist watching football with him at a bar, or fishing on the pier. Jessie once told Eddie that Albert Pine played the trumpet in a community band, which made Eddie laugh. “What’s wrong with that, Mr. Military?” she demanded. “Don’t you have some young boy on your ship who wakes everyone up with a trumpet?”
Eddie had laughed again. “That’s boot camp, Jess,” he said, changing the channel on the TV. “For the Army.” He didn’t mention the band that marched through the Naval base each Friday.
Looking up into the reflected light of Pine’s glasses, the dentist’s hands already in Eddie’s mouth, Eddie said, “Etheray.”
“Yesterday? Is that right? Welcome home, then. I bet you’re glad to be back.” Dr. Pine held Eddie’s tongue with a piece of cotton. “Say ‘ah.’”
Eddie sighed. What good was home when your wife wasn’t there? Without Jessie, it wasn’t home. Just another place to eat and sleep. From the looks of her against the wall, Eddie began to wonder if he’d ever get home. She wouldn’t even meet his eyes. But she didn’t look angry with him. Somehow, Eddie considered that a bad sign.
“His gums look healthy, Dr. Pine. A bit more plaque than last time, but in the normal range.” She kept her voice even. “No cavities that I could find.” The doctor nodded.
Navigating his way around Eddie’s mouth, Pine stopped, pushed aside some tools on the metal tray, then paused. “Jessica, the mirror, do you have it somewhere?”
Jessie, in a fog, didn’t move. “Jessica,” Pine said again, turning sideways toward her. “The extension mirror?”
Eddie flinched. Jessica?
“Oh. Of course.” She moved to the sink, handed him the instrument.
With Pine peering in his mouth, Eddie’s mind swam. When the dentist changed tools again, Eddie cleared his throat. “The Navy’s been great,” he said, sweat gathering above his lip. “But we’re ready to move on, start a family. Jessie’s wanted a baby for a while.”
Pine glanced at Eddie’s wife.
Eddie felt nauseous. “In fact, Jess, your gynecologist left a message today. She wants you to call her back. Are you getting a jump on the plans?”
“I’m not—.” She looked at the two men. “We-we’re not—”
The dentist pushed back his stool, its wheels spinning, scraping the floor. He stood up, facing Jessie.
“Excuse me,” Pine said as he shuffled to the door. “Let’s talk later, Jessica.”
Jessie shot him a stricken look. Turning to the cupboards, she dropped her face into one hand.
Unable to budge, Eddie stared for a moment, the new knowledge sinking in. The thick air around him made him thirsty, dizzy. He listened to her cry, the same familiar mouse-like sounds she would make nights before he left for sea. She would curl into his body, jerking and squeaking, tears dropping on his chest as he rocked her in his arm, whispering I-love-yous until she fell asleep.
He wanted to go to her now, but something like yellow tape blocked his entry. For once in his life, he was afraid to touch her, incapable of deciphering his conflicted feelings. Paralyzed with guilt, he wished that he’d considered Jessie’s complaints when he had the chance.
“I’m sorry—” Jessie said.
“Me too.”
Eddie reached for her a second time that afternoon.
She left the room.
Christmas day lacked punctuation. Endless time and lethargy hung on Eddie like an old coat. He skipped the televised parades, watched football, drank the last of a six-pack he purchased the night before, remembering the red, blue and green bulbs blinking silently around the shop’s windows, the sleigh bells above the door announcing his presence: the only customer. Eddie had noticed the holiday garnish, the garish lights, the festive attempt to bring cheer—to others.
How could he possibly block out this holiday when on the streets, people strolled around wearing festive elf hats, singing and shouting every single hour of the day? The first couple of times when Eddie heard voices, he got up off the couch and stared out over his balcony. The sun seemed to shine even more than usual in southern California. Sailboats sped and drifted in the harbor in brisk, clean air. “Unreal,” Eddie had muttered leaving the balcony, his bare feet cold from the stone. After that, he simply turned up the volume on the game. His mind wandered to Jessie. Was she with the dentist? Had she gone to Stockton? Isn’t this ironic, he thought. I’m here, baby. Where are you? Where’s home? His eyes wandered to their bedroom, the twisted sheets evidence of a fitful night, Jessie’s nightgown absent in the puddle of bedding. She’d remembered everything—even January’s pack of birth control pills. Eddie sighed, staring into the memory of her face, her soft lips that whispered Te quiero, Eduardo—I love you—mornings while he dressed for work.
The afternoon sun waned, casting the orange glow of dusk through the floor-to-ceiling windows, baking his skin. The windows, opening to the water, to San Diego’s reliable sunshine, were what Jessie loved most about this place. Eddie, still in his boxers and an old gray bar-shirt, snapped the blinds shut. He had run out of beer, began rummaging in the fridge. He’d finished off the milk at breakfast, didn’t want to put on clothes to cross the street, didn’t want to hear the bell announcing his presence, announcing him as a single man as he carried off the milk. Always marked up, the price unreasonable. Jessie’s words. He pulled on sweats, his leather jacket.
The man at the register, the same Indian from the night before, said, “Merry Christmas” when Eddie left, milk in hand. He had been studying Eddie’s unshaven face, uncombed hair, sandals as he flip-flopped to the freezer. Eddie, Captain Cheer himself, thought if the Indian really meant it, he’d close shop for a day.
Back upstairs during half time, the phone rang. Eddie jumped, his foot kicking the cereal bowl on the carpet, the spoon clinking, spinning. His heart beat, “Je-ssie, Je-ssie.”
“Hello—” he breathed, the phone slipping.
“Edward! Merry Christmas!”
Eddie fell back on the couch, rubbing the stubble around his mouth. “Merry Christmas, Mom.”
“How was your day? What did you get Jessie? What did she get you?” Barry White crooned “White Christmas” a half-dozen states away.
“Isn’t it pretty late to be calling?”
“Sweetie, it’s only nine here. You think we’re that old, do you?” She told him about their day, about his grandmas who came to dinner, both dropping their spoons from the table. His sister Theresa, her husband and their kid—a one-year old girl named Sam—who all came with too much food: a pumpkin pie, squash, banana bread, homemade apple sauce, everything yellow, golden. Eddie half-listened, his eyes on the game, his heartbeat stabilizing.
When they hung up, the room felt empty again. With the blinds drawn, the room throbbed with Eddie’s longing, the emptiness of his arms.
He played with the miniature ship on the end table, an expensive replica of his first assignment in the Navy, a gift from Jessie her senior year. He turned it over in his hands feeling its smoothness, its points and curves. The game broke to commercials, to Christmas sales at the ValueMart, jingles about cell phone plans, which reminded Eddie that he still paid her bill. The Family Plan. Eddie grunted. He thumbed the bow, the stern, inhaling the strong scent of salt water, the open air. He glimpsed the gulls descending on the mast, felt his stomach anchored beneath the ocean’s waves. A 360-degree turn, all water, all his. A whale’s back broke the surface in the distance. Oh, and there. Fishermen or drug smugglers. Excitement brewed in his chest. Closing his eyes, Eddie clutched the tiny ship so hard that the edges dug into his palm leaving pink imprints.
Before setting his alarm, Eddie pulled his uniform from the closet, hooked it to the bathroom doorknob, put his black boots by the front door. This was his life, brief holiday minus a wife. He may not always relish in the work, the long hours, the countless weeks at sea, but it was his life. He’d made it his life, and dammit, he liked it. Most of it. Anyway, where would he be without the Navy? Probably struggling to make it back in Stockton. Dreaming about the ships he saw each time he drove through Norfolk, their regal masts, their imposing presence. Those ships he saw tied to shore twenty minutes from his parents’ home.
Eddie pulled the top sheet over his legs, laced his fingers behind his head, staring at the darkened bedroom walls. Maybe a long time ago when they were both young, enraptured with each other, she had seen it his way. Eddie thought back to their hours in bed, teenage newlyweds talking late into the night. He couldn’t recall the particulars, so long ago it seemed. So much in love. He thought about his wife whom he would divorce now without argument. The acceptance would come. It would have to.
With the black eye of all holidays behind him, Eddie looked with anticipation to the end of the year. On New Year’s Eve, he recalled the year before standing watch over the South Pacific, seeing the sun set, its warmth welcoming him to an evening of work. Stationed just off the coast of Ecuador, Eddie had thought of nothing, and no one but Jessie. Luckily, there were no disturbances, just a brilliant sunset and dolphins chasing each other across the horizon. Now, in his empty apartment, he wondered if Jessie had been entertaining thoughts of Pine.
Eddie drank a beer, started another, shut off the television. He wondered where his wife was that night, if she was out, maybe downtown. He thought, “wife,” and glanced at the papers on the end table. Not yet. Not going to throw in the towel just yet. On a whim, he looked up Pine, DDS in the phone book. Surprised to see a home number listed, he dialed, clearing his throat.
“Hello?”
The dentist.
Eddie sat upright, unhooking his ankles from the coffee table. “Jessie McAllister, please.”
Pause. “One moment.”
He heard her laugh in the background before she came on. “Hello?” she asked in a light, pleasant voice.
“It’s Eddie.” Then, “I have the papers.”
“Oh. Eddie.” Jessie’s laugh trailed into silence. “I’m glad you got them. Just sign and send them to my lawyer. I think the directions were there.” Her tone, suddenly cold, formal, made Eddie recoil.
“I’ll send them. I will, Jessie.” He liked having her attention, knowing she was listening, that she wasn’t so very far away. It didn’t matter the topic as long as he had her, if briefly. “I just want you to know, Jess, that I still love you even though you ran out on me. Even though you were—” He hesitated. “Unfaithful.”
He heard a gasp. “I ran out on you? How could I run out on a man who was never there? Tell me that, Eddie. You just don’t get it do you? For a minute, I thought maybe you did.”
As a military officer, a man who served in both enlisted and professional ranks, Eddie had been trained to withhold emotion. If a captain berated him for a full hour, Eddie wouldn’t bat an eyelash. If bad news came in a letter, he refused to reveal a twinge of emotion. As Jessie had found, his mental barrier carried over to his personal life. There were times when she, at her worst, would yell at him just to get a reaction. “What if I told you I hated you?” she asked once over a year ago when an argument had already cooled off. Eddie had shuddered. She must’ve read the surprise, the anguish in his eyes because she smiled, and snuggled up to him rubbing his thigh. “Of course I don't.”
Now, as Jessie hung on the other end awaiting a response, Eddie tried to steady his uneven breathing, to prepare his faltering voice. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. It had to be at his wedding, an enlisted man a year out of high school.
“Oh brother.” He pictured Jessie rolling her eyes. “Now you turn it on,” she said.
Eddie waited on the line while Jessie spewed. She reminded him about her needs, her basic, human needs—nothing new to their ongoing conversation—before Eddie hung up. Jessie, the girl he had married at 19, still owned his heart. Jessie, the woman on the other end, had become an adulteress, a stranger. He wanted his career and the girl he had married. It had been his struggle for years: how to balance, which to sacrifice. Of course Jessie always thought she got the raw deal, but it was really he who came up short. He began to doubt himself.
Quietly, still grieving, Eddie undressed to his briefs and crawled between the bed sheets. In his arms, he clutched a pillow, poor substitute for human comfort. As the noise on the street below rose with the hour, Eddie sealed his eyes, willing himself to sleep. With all the recent demands on his physical and mental powers, it wasn’t long before his whole body gave itself up to the remaining hours of the year.
Sometime before dawn, Eddie awoke. He groped his way to the kitchen for milk. His boots stood poised at attention, waiting. Eddie eyed them with suspicion, doubt. He liked the feel of his toes on the carpet, of his bare feet on tile. Glass in hand, he chugged away his thirst, passed his boots again, returning to the bedroom. Glancing behind him, he noticed they hadn’t moved. They would be there when he wanted them.
