The Ocean Between Us

As they walked back inside, a few lights came on in the windows across the way. The strange wistfulness that had weighted her chest all day pressed harder now, and she felt as though she might burst. Discontent had crept up on her, entered through a side door. Everything around her was changing, and she felt compelled to change, too.

She wanted to talk to Steve, really talk, the way they never did anymore. She wished he would notice her mood, ask her what was on her mind. That would be the day, she thought. She cleared her throat. “Steve.”

“Yeah?”

“When I was out shopping for school clothes with the girls, I looked in the mirror and realized that I’ve turned into a fat lady.” She just blurted it out. It sounded so stupid, spoken aloud.

“What?” he asked.

“Fat and forty.”

“Aw, Gracie,” he said. “You’re not fat and you’re—” He paused, and she could see him doing the math in his head. “Not forty.”

“Okay, a stout thirty-nine, then.”

He chuckled and pulled her into his arms, burying his face in her hair and inhaling as though he’d forgotten the scent of her. And maybe he did forget, she thought, slipping her arms around the familiar muscular torso. Maybe, when he was six months at sea, he forgot the way she smelled, the texture of her hair and the way she tasted. Funny, she had never asked him.

Though she’d known him half her life, there were facets to him that remained a mystery. She pictured the carrier as an alien spacecraft that sucked up five thousand earthlings and took them away for long periods of time, doing experiments on them in the guise of training exercises. Then the earthlings were returned to their home planet, altered in subtle ways.

When he returned from a cruise, his hair was often different. He might have a faint scar from a healed-over cut. Sometimes he grew a mustache. During the first Gulf War, when he returned from a cruise that had run three months longer than scheduled, she even had the strange sense that his whole body chemistry had changed. She remembered running her fingers through his hair so thoroughly that he asked what she was doing.

“Looking for the alien probes,” she had replied.

And even though she might momentarily forget he was in the house, she never, ever forgot how he smelled and tasted, what the beating of his heart sounded like when she leaned her cheek against his chest.

“Where did that come from?” he whispered, rubbing her back.

“What?”

“This forty-and-fat self-flagellation.”

He made her sound so silly. She shouldn’t have spoken up. He couldn’t do anything about it, couldn’t fix what he didn’t know was broken. For that matter, she didn’t know exactly what was broken.

“I told you,” she said, taking another stab at explaining. “A three-way mirror in the dressing room. The kind where you see yourself from behind—and you realize you’re turning into a dump truck. And I’m not flagellating myself. Although if it were a means of fat reduction, I suppose I’d give it a try.” She studied his face by the dying light of the evening. He had the square-jawed, all-American look of a career officer on his way up. The lean body of a warrior. And the kind of smile that made women pause in whatever they were doing and find some reason to sidle up for a closer look.

“I don’t think you can understand this,” she said. “You still fit into the same size Levi’s you did twenty years ago.”

He cupped the palm of his hand and skimmed it down her side, as though mapping the imperfect topography of her body. “I don’t understand how you can look in a mirror and not like what you see.”

For the first time in their marriage, she flinched at his touch. “I’m not fishing for compliments. I swear I’m not.”

“And I’m not doling out compliments. This is the truth. You’re the mother of my children, Gracie,” he said, bending down to kiss her. “You’re beautiful to me.”

And just like that, she let her troubles dissolve. He had, in addition to the physique of a deity, a certain boyish sincerity and fortunate sense of timing that made him irresistible to her. She pressed herself against him, welcoming the growing heat of intimacy. Her eyes drifted shut. She became absorbed in his embrace and in the dreamy promise created by his gently probing tongue. She knew they would make love tonight and that it would be wonderful. It was one of the things she could depend on in her marriage.

“Better?” he whispered.

She nodded, because it was easier than trying to make him understand.

He kissed the top of her head and stepped back.

“You always do that,” she said.

“Do what?”

“You’re always the first to let go in an embrace.” He looked completely baffled, so she went on. “The first to leave the bed after we make love.”

He smiled. “Let’s go work on that. I had no idea you had a problem with this, Grace. I’ll stay as long as you like.”

He reached for her, but she moved away. “I don’t have a problem,” she said, wondering how she could possibly make him understand. It wasn’t something obvious, but an aspect of their relationship that, over the years, had slowly and inexorably crept into her awareness. He wasn’t rude about it. He probably didn’t even realize he did it. He was a busy man with important duties.

“It’s just that sometimes I feel like I’m one of the things on your mental list of things to do: tell the wife to get the silly fat notion out of her head, give the kids a pep talk before thrusting them into yet another new school, take command of a carrier air wing, make the world safe for democracy—”

“Jesus, Grace, what’s got you so cynical all of a sudden?”

“It’s not all of a sudden.” She studied his face, that all-American handsome face, and saw genuine confusion in his eyes. He was the sort of man who fixed things—but if he couldn’t see it, he couldn’t fix it. “Never mind. I’m just stressed out. Want to rent a movie?”

“I’ve got a better idea.” He put some music on the CD player, soft, fluttery jazz by Authentic Rhinestone. Then he slipped his arms around her, holding her so close that she disappeared, and drew her into a sexy dance.

“Yeah?” She shut her eyes as desire simmered through her. Even after so many years, he could still make her foolish with wanting him.

“Yeah.” He pressed his thighs to hers. Steve was a fine dancer. He’d been advised to learn at officer training school. He was good at anything and everything that would help him advance his career, she thought, and then felt disloyal. He was a good husband and father, two things the Navy didn’t require of him.

They danced all the way to the bedroom. As Grace drew the curtains shut, he came up behind her and slipped his hands along the buttons of her top, undoing them one by one and sliding the shirt down her arms. Just for a moment, she flashed on that image of herself she’d seen in the dressing room. With a will, she remembered what Steve had said—“You’re beautiful to me.” And he made her feel that way, with his hands and mouth as he finished undressing her and laid her down on the bed. By the time he shed his clothes and joined her, she wasn’t thinking at all.

This was a different sort of dance, one of their own invention, the moves practiced and perfected over the course of years. The intimacy was deep and genuine. It was a haven for Grace, a place where she felt complete and…yes, beautiful. She lost track of the time, and was startled to see, through gaps in the curtains, that the last light of day had finally faded. Steve lay atop her, breathing slowly with contentment.

“I should ask you to dance more often,” he whispered.

She smiled and held him close, their bodies still joined. Even in moments like this, she could never get close enough, could never know him completely, a dilemma that both frustrated and excited her. He was a complicated man who had overcome a brutal childhood, and no matter how much Grace loved him or how well she knew him, there was always a part of him that was a mystery to her.

It wasn’t just his other life on the carrier. The same strength that had allowed him to survive his youth had made him a warrior. When she held him like this, it was hard to believe that, at his very essence, he was a machine trained to kill. The Navy had every possible term for it, but the bald fact was, that was his job. To kill and to train and lead others to kill. That was his secret side, the shadow Steve. He could hold her with the tenderness of a bridegroom. Yet if ordered to do so, he could send men and women to drop bombs on people.

He shuddered one more time, then parted from her, sliding the cool bedsheets up over them both. “You know,” he said, “I think I’ve figured out why kids leave home.”

“Hmm?” Grace sank back against the pillows. “Why is that?”

He folded his hands behind his head. “So their parents can have sex whenever they want.”

“Dream on.” She laughed and moved closer to him, laying her head on his chest. A pleasant sleepiness crept over her, and she could feel his muscles relax.

“I love it here,” she said, her thoughts drifting to the house she’d seen.

The CD changed to an old Rolling Stones collection, and strains of “Ruby Tuesday” drifted through the house.

He slipped his hand under the cool sheet and caressed her. “I love it here, too.”

“Very funny.”