“So, did Junie and I scare you away yet?” she asks.
“Scare me away? I’m an Army guy. It will take a lot more than anything you can dole out. Do you have a lease I can sign beforeyouchange your mind?” My tone is joking, even though I’m actually dead serious.
Even as we talk out here on her back patio, I can still hear the ocean waves. There’s no way I can let this opportunity slip by.
She gives me a smile and it’s that same one I saw from her that first day I walked through the diner door—so warm and welcoming that it’s no damn wonder my first instinct with her was to ask her on a date.
She makes pie. She likes dogs. She lives near the beach.
If she didn’t have something against us military guys, I’d say I just met my perfect woman.
“I’ll go get it.” She leaves me out back with Junie, who has now deserted me to sniff something intriguing in the yard.
I stand, gazing upward to savor the stars that now twinkle above me like tiny Christmas lights that someone forgot to take down at the end of the season.
A salty breeze blows in, thick with humidity, as though the break in the clouds might pass at any moment, and another soft rain still threatens our night.
I feel myself beam, wondering how I got this lucky.
I didn’t always have this love for the ocean. I grew up landlocked in Missouri where the biggest water I ever saw was a lake. If I’d known how much I loved the ocean, I’d have applied to the Naval Academy rather than West Point.
I’ve never been able to figure out where I got this love of water. It certainly wasn’t genetic.
The only liquid my parents appreciated was the kind that made them pass out on the sofa while they watched some reality show or another.
It wasn’t until I was in Ranger School on my first helo jump that the ocean and I became fast friends.
There I was, sitting in the Blackhawk with about ten other guys, waiting for the call to jump in—just another training exercise to inoculate us from the stress that comes with that Ranger tab we all wanted on our uniform.
It’s not a pleasant sensation, jumping out of a moving Blackhawk and feeling the slam of the water against me. But after the initial shock of it, as I sank into the deep blue, all I felt was this unbelievable sense of peace.
I loved the way the ocean swallowed me up in an embrace the same way I had always wished my parents would. That kind of whole-body hug that I’d see when families would come visit my classmates at West Point or when my battalion would get back from a deployment.
It surrounded me, filled up my senses. Filled up my soul, I’d even say on those days when I dare to believe in such things.
In the ocean, I felt as though all the baggage that I’d been carrying for decades didn’t add up to anything. And I loved it.
Since that jump, I’ve grabbed any chance I had to be near the ocean.
I hear Millie’s back door creak open, and I turn. She looks a little uncertain as she steps down onto her patio, holding a few sheets of paper and a pen as if she’s worried I might change my mind.
Not a chance.
“Where do I sign?”