Page 16 of The Story of Us

Oh, I hope not. Missed milestones and moments have always been our reality. The year the twins were born, we went into debt to get the best videotape recorder money could buy, and we’ve done that several times over the years. I’ve never regretted that investment.

Another acquisition during our second stay in Pensacola was that same old chicken pitcher. I had bought and sold the silly thing when we were first married and, walking along, pushing three children in their doublewide stroller one day, I found it again. I knew it was the same because of its imperfections, and I bought it again, vowing I’d keep it with us from now on, no matter where we went.

It was like a talisman or affirmation of some sort. When you rediscover something you’ve lost, it’s a good idea to take care of it.

Chapter Eighteen

Of all the places we’ve lived over the years, my favorite is the place we moved the summer before the twins’ senior year in high school. We actually talked about letting them stay in Texas for senior year, but they’re Navy kids. They were ready for the next adventure, too. So we moved as a family to Whidbey Island, Washington, a long narrow island in the glittering blue waters of Puget Sound.

As we stood on the deck of the ferryboat from Seattle, I looked at Steve and said, “I’m in love.”

He kissed me, and even after all the years we’d been married, I still had the same reaction.

“Oh, ick,” said Katie, now fourteen and righteously mortified by her parents.

We shared a grin. Steve made an expansive gesture. “What’s not to love, Grace? Look at this place.”

Brilliant white-capped mountains rose straight out of the sea, the sky a dazzling deep blue, majestic evergreens lining the shore.

I’m going to like it here, I thought. No, I’m going to love it here.

That sentiment proved to be small comfort when I made a suggestion Steve never expected. I wanted to buy a house. I wanted to live here on this magical island, not just for this tour but forever. A legacy from my grandmother, combined with income from a small business I intended to start, would make it possible.

He opposed the idea, and when he was deployed, for the first time in our marriage, we parted on bad terms.

We swore we would never do that, but it was, as the Navy would term it, a mishap—an unanticipated disaster. I think every woman imagines a variety of disasters in her marriage. Navy wives in particular. We are, after all, people who have a great deal of time to imagine the worst-case scenario.

Left on my own, I’m facing changes that, for the first time ever, are starting to scare me. My two older children are leaving the nest. In a few years, Katie will be gone, too. I have to figure out what my life will be when I’m not the mom, the CEO of a busy household. What am I then?

I think about that adventurous girl I was when I first married. I am not her anymore, but I still want adventure. Not by following my husband around the globe. I’m grateful for that part of my life, but now it’s my turn.

There’s a dream that I’ve had for a long time, one I never let myself take seriously or pursue because it would mean settling down and staying put. Trying to go for that dream while Steve went for his was a recipe for frustration, since there was only room in our lives for one big career. Still, it must be a powerful dream, because in twenty years, it’s never died.

Something has happened, a slow and inevitable need has built inside me. I suppose I could keep ignoring it, but why? It’s my turn to take my own shot.

Chapter Nineteen

I just turned forty. The flower delivery that should have been from Steve turned out to be from someone quite different, someone I’ve never met but who has become important to me. He’s a client, the first and most important client of my newly incorporated firm, Grace Under Pressure.

I’ve never been the sort of wife who puts life on hold while her husband is away. It’s certainly true of this deployment. I’ve made some changes: buying a house Steve has never set foot in, joining a gym, changing my image and starting a small business. I’ve found a new sense of purpose and, in a lot of ways, reinvented myself.

Here’s a paradox. The very thing that helped us survive and thrive during this adventure as a Navy family is in fact the thing that might just be our undoing. However much I anguished and missed my husband, I was also cultivating my independence in his absence.

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