Page 7 of When Love Is Lost and Found

"So she didn't want to break up?" he asked.

"No, but I felt that if she could be close enough to another man to call it an emotional affair, it was because she wasn't in love with me."

"You didn't try to work it out?" Jimmy asked. "What if she was the one, and you let her go?"

"The one? Well, I thought she was the one for me, but I don't think I was the one for her."

"You're questioning her feelings?" Jimmy asked. "You're the one that broke it off."

"I want a woman who will consider me her best friend and vice versa. She shared things with another man that she never shared with me."

"I get that," he said, "Sharon and I were best friends for two years before we started dating, so yeah, I get it. But forgiveness can strengthen a relationship. Why wasn't your love for her enough incentive to forgive her?

"I think you missed your calling," I said, wanting to change the subject because I really didn't have an answer to his question.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You sound like a therapist."

"I'll have to look into that," he said, smiling. "I have my whole life ahead of me. Maybe being a shrink is my second calling."

No one could've fathomed that two short weeks later, he'd be gone.

***

For weeks, I tried to deal with the terrifying nightmares at night and push through the debilitating claustrophobia during the day, wanting nothing more than to return to boot camp and finish what I started.

My broken bones healed, but the overwhelming sense of guilt will never heal. In the end, the Medical Evaluation Board decided I was no longer equipped to face the physical demands and psychological stressors associated with basic training, and I was medically discharged from the Marines.

According to the therapists I've been seeing for the past six months, I have what's called survivor's guilt.

After I got discharged, I moved back in with my parents, thinking I would stay with them until we all moved to New York. When Mom started talking about hiring a nanny again, I immediately thought of Jimmy's fiancée.

"If you're going to hire a nanny," I told them, "I can move to New York now and start looking for a teaching job."

"We can't expect you to serve as Noah's babysitter, Son," Dad said, "but we don't want you to leave."

"I'm idled here, Dad. I can't even look for a job if I'm only going to be here until June."

"Do you want to stay in California?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I want to be where my family is."

"Okay, then," Mom said. "We'll support whatever plans you have. If you want to go now, then we're okay with that."

***

I moved to Garrison right before the holidays. It didn't take me long to find a place to live and a job as a substitute teacher, which wouldn't start until January.

When I flew back to California for Christmas, I found Mom and Dad had hired a nanny for Noah, and I was relieved when Noah told me her name was Shay. She wasn't Jimmy's fiancée, Sharon.

"Do you like your nanny?" I asked Noah over Christmas Eve dinner.

"I love her," he said, smiling up at me.

"Is she pretty?" I asked him.

"Uh huh," Noah added, nodding his head.

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