Beyond the Point(60)
Date: April 12, 2005 17:31:20 PM GMT +01:00
To: Hannah Nesmith <[email protected]>
Don’t give up. We just need a chance to all be together. I’m working on a plan. What are you doing for Thanksgiving?
From: Avery Adams <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Hey Hey
Date: June 15, 2005 09:03:15 AM EST +01:00
To: Dani McNalley <[email protected]>
WHOA.
Can’t believe that it’s been a month since you sent your last e-mail, D. My apologies. As Hannah can probably attest, the Army is a real bitch and I’m barely keeping my head above water. But I do have some good news.:-)
I met a guy.
I KNOW, I KNOW. SHOCKER.
But seriously, this guy is the real deal.
His name’s Noah Candross. He’s thirty, so a little older than us, which you know I love. You know that Special Ops job I told you about a few months back? Well, it’s a long story, but he basically cornered me in a tool shed and told me that he was taking me on a date. How’s that for assertive, right? (I’m begging him to give Locke some lessons in that whole making-a-move thing . . . but alas.)
Anyway, for our first date, he picked me up on his motorcycle and we took a long drive through the hills during the sunset. We stopped and had wine at this little café far outside of town, talked for hours. You know. The basics. I attached a picture of us, so you can see that he’s gorgeous. It’s insanity.
He’s taking me to Napa Valley next weekend. NAPA VALLEY.
I’m smitten. EEEEK!!!:-):-):-):-)
How’s Boston treating you? And work? Sometimes I feel like keeping up with you is like a game of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Hannah said something about you going to Paris soon? You’re so badass.
Any guys up there I should know about?:-)
LOVE YOU. (Duh.)
Avery
15
Summer 2005 // Fort Bragg, North Carolina
It would just be three days, Tim,” Hannah said into her cell phone. “Fly up Wednesday, fly back Friday. Dani said she’d pay for our tickets and we can stay at her place. It’s totally free.”
Hannah felt anxiety crawl up the back of her neck. Logistics were the last thing she wanted to talk about in the few short minutes they had to speak. And yet, when else were they going to figure out their plans? Thanksgiving was just a few months away. Christmas would be here before they knew it. And then it would be 2006, the year they were both scheduled to deploy.
Her unit had already begun the predeployment protocol—cleaning equipment, writing supply packing lists, setting up home-front meetings for the wives her soldiers would leave behind. Training had ramped up. They’d received orders to pack their trunks. In less than two months, everything Hannah needed for a year would be put on the back of a cargo ship and sent to the Middle East. At the moment, she was standing in a bare building in a far corner of Fort Bragg, waiting her turn to start Soldier Readiness Processing. March still felt so far away, but every day, it sped closer.
“I think my parents really wanted to spend Thanksgiving with us since I’ll be gone next Thanksgiving,” Tim replied. He sounded tired, like he was rubbing his eyes. “But we can figure it out. I know you want to see Dani before you go.”
A week ago, they were supposed to have two overlapping days at home in Fort Bragg—the first time they’d been in their house together since they’d exchanged vows more than a year earlier. After a cycle in the laundry room, all of their uniforms exploded into the bedroom until it looked like the inside of an Army surplus store, the items mixed up and unidentifiable. They shared the same nameplate and rank, and they’d spent an hour sorting through their items, ensuring they ended up with the right things in their separate trunks. So all that laundry duty plebe year really did have a purpose, Hannah had thought dismally as she held up each T-shirt, inspecting it for size. She was a small. He was a medium.
Their first night at home, Hannah had burned a chicken. Saving the evening, Tim defrosted and seared two filets mignons in butter, roasted a head of broccoli, and opened a bottle of wine at their dining room table, an oval-shaped hand-me-down that Tim’s parents had forced them to take after the wedding. It felt strange to eat at a table so big, Hannah thought, just the two of them. But they’d relished the chance to play house and had spent the evening talking about their favorite childhood television shows, the books they were reading, the vacations they wanted to take after their deployments were over. They’d grown expert at avoiding the massive gray animal that had taken up residence in every room—an elephant named March.
And then his phone rang, cutting the dinner short.
Hurricane Katrina had made landfall in New Orleans, displacing millions of people in its path. A storm of that strength hadn’t hit the U.S. since Hugo, and the Army’s swiftest infantry unit, the 82nd Airborne Division, had been called to help in search and rescue efforts. Tim had only been home for twenty-four hours when he walked back out the door in uniform.
Now, listening to his voice over the line, Hannah remembered watching the news. Last night, video footage had shown a helicopter hovering over a house in New Orleans’s Ninth Ward. A soldier descended on a ladder, then reached out his hand to save a family stranded on a roof. The camera angle was too far away. But Hannah had sat on her sofa, alone, wondering if the man in uniform might be Tim.