The Ocean Between Us

In a letter, Steve’s presence used to be a tangible thing. He had a charming habit of making his point with swiftly drawn strokes, an extension of his energetic personality. He used punctuation marks no one had ever heard of, yet she could practically hear his voice when he wrote, “I

you 1000x more than flying, girl

”

She used to sleep with his letters under her pillow.

And she used to spend an hour each evening writing aerograms, watching the shape of each word on the thin blue page as it appeared behind her pen. Her letter-writing was a sort of handicraft, a way to weave her love into every word she wrote. E-mail was different. Faster, to be sure, but different. And completely inadequate for fixing what was wrong between her and Steve. But after today, she had finally figured out what to do. All that remained was to tell him.

Juggling the mail, her purse and keys, she let herself in. Daisy, who had yet to grow into her paws, scrambled in to greet her, sneezing and wagging her feathery tail as though Grace had been away for a decade. A crystal vase of roses on the hall table filled the house with their soft, evocative scent. The flowers had been delivered yesterday for her fortieth birthday. They should have been sent by Steve.

But they weren’t.

Her leather-soled shoes made a satisfying tapping sound on the hardwood floor. She heard the light beep of the answering machine, indicating a number of messages. She’d check them in a moment.

She went to the kitchen and let the dog out. As she shut the door, she caught a glimpse of herself in the glass.

The image startled her briefly. She was a different person, and after today, there would be more changes afoot. Her encounter with Ross Cameron was everything she had hoped it would—and would not—be.

She still couldn’t believe she’d gone through with it. It was hard to get her mind around the idea of Grace McAllen Bennett doing something like that, yet she’d been heading in unexpected directions ever since a stranger named Josh Lamont had dropped like a bomb into the middle of their lives. That wake-up call had jolted her out of the life she thought she had and shoved her into unknown territory. With Steve at sea, Grace had started down a road of her own.

She set aside the stack of mail, took off her raincoat and put her keys on the counter, pausing for a minute to study the little sterling silver anchor key chain, a gift from Steve a lifetime ago. She hung it on a hook by the door. Though the house was quiet, a trail of kid clutter formed a path from the back door to the den. When they were little, it was composed of Fisher-Price pull toys and G.I. Joe action figures. Now it consisted of sports equipment and schoolbooks.

Grace glanced at the clock. They’d be home soon. She wondered if they would notice the new dress, the hair and makeup. Katie would, and she’d worry. That was Katie, the worrier. Change upset her, an unfortunate trait in a kid whose childhood consisted of moving every three years. She’d probably look at Grace and think demons had possessed her mother.

Brian would be oblivious, of course. At eighteen, he was oblivious to everything but baseball and drawing, his two reasons for breathing. Fortunately, they were also his reasons for getting into college, so she couldn’t complain. When Brian first explained his college plans, Grace had been worried about how Steve would react. But slowly, as she grew into her new self, she quit trying to turn this family into an adjunct to Steve’s career.

And Emma? There were days when Grace actually thought her older daughter had slipped away somewhere, leaving a secretive stranger in her place. She and her twin brother would be leaving home soon, yet sometimes Grace had the feeling Emma had checked out months ago, not long after Grace and Steve’s marriage exploded.

A terrible heat filled her, and for a moment she had trouble breathing. Even now, she thought, stunned by the powerful grip he still held on her heart. Even now. Flush from seeing Ross, she thought she finally knew her heart, but doubts kept seeping through the cracks and crevices that had appeared in the foundations of her life.

Nothing would be resolved until Steve came back and they made some sense of what had happened. She released a sigh, her breath a series of jerky exhalations.

Breathe, she reminded herself. Lauren, her trainer, had shown her how to find the deepest reaches of her breathing apparatus, capillaries only one cell thick, yet capable of sending a burst of oxygen into every panting, air-starved region of the lungs. Breathing was a learned art, so they said.

She headed into the study to check her messages. The answering machine was blinking an ominous number thirteen. She left the island for a day in the city and suddenly everyone needed her. Her e-mail box was sure to be exploding.

Sitting at the secondhand oak library desk that served as her company headquarters, she touched Play and picked up a pen.

The first few messages on the machine were strictly business. She was currently handling the relocation of three families and juggling delivery times, tonnage estimates, shipping contracts. Then came Katie: “Mom, I’m going to Melanie’s tonight, okay?”

“Actually, it’s not.” Grace had a list of chores she’d been saving for Katie.

“Okay,” said the voice on the tape. “I’ll stop by after school. Bye.”

Melanie. The Corpuz girl, Grace recalled. She had a Ping-Pong table and an older brother Katie considered “hot.” Katie wanted a boyfriend in the worst way. It was one of the hazards, Grace supposed, of being the brainy younger sister of the prettiest girl in the school.

“It’s a boy!” the answering machine blared in the vibrant voice of Patricia Rivera. “I just got back from the doctor’s, and he confirmed it. Call me and talk me out of these terrible names I keep coming up with….”

Next, a crackle of static and then Steve’s voice on the carrier satellite phone. “Hey, guys.”

Grace’s grip tightened on the pen. In spite of everything, just the sound of his voice still touched her. Still infuriated her. Still made her dizzy with memories.

“It’s your old man calling from the wrong side of the international dateline. Guess what? I’m giving a tour to a reporter from Newsweek….”

A reporter, thought Grace. What’s that about?

“Brian,” continued Steve, “I guess you’ll be getting word on your Naval Academy appointment any day now. I’m pulling for you, buddy.

“Emma-girl, check your e-mail. I sent you some digital photos of a pod of whales we spotted. Katydid, how’d that science project turn out? Bet you made an A-plus. And Grace…sorry I missed you on your birthday. I tried calling, but there was no answer. Hope you had a nice time. Okay, y’all give your mom a hug from me. Hug one another while you’re at it, you hear? I sure do miss you. Over and out.”

Grace massaged the sides of her jaw, trying to force herself to relax.

The next message was work-related. A crisis with an overseas shipment—an entire sealed container had been dropped overboard in Seattle. Someone’s whole household was bobbing in the drink.

A simple matter compared to the sticky complexities of her family.

Then Lauren Stanton. She sounded congested, or maybe she’d been crying. “Grace, hi. It’s Lauren. I—um—look, I canceled fitness class today and couldn’t find anyone to cover for me. Sorry about that.”

Grace winced at the emotional pain she heard in Lauren’s tone. Josh had been gone only a few weeks, and already Lauren was falling apart.

Grace hurt for Lauren. The two of them had their ups and downs, that was for sure, but extraordinary circumstances bound them together into an uneasy sisterhood of shared hopes and fears.

She had the phone in her hand, ready to start returning calls, as the final message played. “Hello, Grace. It’s Peggy from Buskirk Law Offices. I just wanted to let you know that I sent the packet over by messenger.” The voice paused as though, in the midst of a routine procedure, the speaker felt the weight of it. “The papers are ready to sign. Good luck, Grace.”

Good luck. Grace felt a strange sort of dread. What did she think she was doing? What was she doing?

She set down the phone, not quite ready to talk to Lauren—to anyone—just yet.

As she sat there, trying to make sense of everything she was feeling, teetering on the edge of taking a major step in her life, she heard the muffled sound of a car door slamming. Then another. Frowning slightly, because she wasn’t expecting anyone, she stood and went to the vestibule to see who it was. As she passed the hall tree mirror, she caught another glimpse of herself and smoothed her hands down her pencil-straight, raspberry-colored skirt.

Through the antique lace panel covering the front door, she saw the wet black gleam of a Navy vehicle, a common-enough sight on base, but fairly rare beyond the confines of the Naval Air Station.

The front gate opened. Between the tall hedges of climbing roses, two men emerged.

When Grace saw them, every cell in her body came to ringing attention. She could hear, far away in another part of the house, the sound of a faucet dripping and Daisy scratching at the back door. The scent of roses and orange-oil furniture polish hung in the air. The wispy lace covering the front door softened and distorted the features of her visitors, but even so, Grace knew exactly what she was seeing. The nightmare every military wife dreaded.

A Navy chaplain and the Casualty Assistance Calls Officer, coming up the walk.

PART 2

Point of Embarkation

POE: Point of Embarkation: to make a start, to engage, enlist, or invest in an enterprise.

CHAPTER 5

Nine months earlier