Unremarried Widow by Artis Henderson Read Free Book Online

Miles and I were invited to pool parties and backyard barbecues with the other families in the unit, and I finally met Scott Delancey, the company commander.
    â€œCaptain Delancey!” Miles yelled when the captain showed up.
    Everyone looked to the far end of the deck where the captain stood. He was tall and broad shouldered, a bear of a man. Recently divorced, I’d heard. From the way Miles talked about him, I could tell he genuinely liked and respected him.
    â€œI want you to meet my girlfriend,” Miles said.
    I stuck out a hand as the captain walked over.
    â€œI’ve heard a lot about you,” I said.
    â€œOh, yeah?”
    The captain took my hand briefly, but he was already turning away to clap Miles on the shoulder.
    â€œLet’s get you another beer,” he said.
    Miles put in an application for SERE C, a three-week survival and evasion course staged on the outer reaches of Fort Bragg. The one-week intro version, SERE B, had been required in flight school in Alabama. The soldiers killed rabbits and navigated by compass, went without food and forded a lake at night. The experience left Miles thin and hollow, and he didn’t speak much about what happened during those hungry nights in the woods. SERE C was the next level. Three weeks of survivalist conditions, an evasive maneuver where the soldiers always got caught, and time in a simulated POW camp. The physical abuse, he was told, would not be simulated.
    â€œWhy did you apply for this course?” I asked Miles before he left.
    â€œI want to be ready,” he said, “in case we go down.”
    I knew that the survival rate of an Apache crash is very low.
    â€œReady for what?”
    â€œJust ready.”
    Miles’s application was approved at the beginning of May, and he packed his gear and prepared to set out for the North Carolina woods. On the morning he was scheduled to leave, he called me at work.
    â€œCan I take you out to lunch?” he said. “Our departure got pushed back to this afternoon.”
    I met him at a restaurant near the arena. Miles was ashen over lunch and we tried not to talk about the rough days ahead.
    â€œMake sure you keep the doors locked when you’re at home,” he said as we walked to the parking lot. “Don’t let anyone in.”
    â€œI won’t,” I promised.
    We stopped and I leaned against my car. The sun was bright overhead and heat rolled off the asphalt. I could see fine beads of sweat spread across Miles’s forehead and I reached out to touch his cheek. I wanted to hold on to the moment but already it was slipping away, running like sand through my fingers.
    â€œAnd you have plans?” Miles was saying. “You’ll stay busy on the weekends?”
    I nodded and squeezed his hand. He kissed me the way he used to kiss me at the end of his visits to Tallahassee.
    â€œBe safe,” I said.
    â€œI’ll see you in three weeks.”
    For the next twenty-one days, I worked during the day and read in the evenings. Sometimes I rented a movie. I drove to Greensboro one Saturday and to the coast to visit family the next. Time opened up, wide and empty as an airfield, and the weeks that stretched in front of me were airless and oppressive, time spent holding my breath.
    The day Miles was scheduled to return, I heard the front door open while I was in the shower. I wrapped myself in a towel and stepped out of the bathroom. He stood in the living room with his rucksack at his feet, thin and pale, bruised in places, but wholly himself. He sat on the couch and I sat beside him touching his face, his hands, his knees. I ran my fingers over the fabric of his uniform, still cool from the morning air, and traced his jaw and the tops of his cheeks. I imagined this was how he would look returning from war, and for a moment I let myself consider that distant future date when he would deploy. The three-week stint had felt like an eternity. Later we would