Into the Woods (DeBeers 4)

"You'll always be a Navy wife," she told Mommy. It gets into your blood."

"I know," Mommy said. but I could see she didn't believe that or want to believe it. "Well." she said, turning to us. "Time to get on the road. Grace, Trent, I'm sorry we didn't get to know you more."

She held out her hand to him, but when he reached for it she gave him a hug instead,

"Me, too." he said practically in tears. "But I'll stay in touch. Mrs.... Jackie Lee."

She smiled, "I hope so." She looked around as if she wanted to cement everything in her memory forever, and then she slipped into the car and started the engine.

I'm leaving I thought. I'm really leaving, and I'm leaving Daddy behind.

Trent looked at me so sadly it broke my heart. We kissed again, and then I got into the car.

He stood there as we pulled away. I turned around to look back at him. He lifted his hand, and then. because I had told him about it, saluted the way Daddy and I saluted each other. It made me smile and froze a tear under my eye. I didn't want to cry, not now. I didn't want to do anything to make it harder for Mommy.

In a moment we turned a corner, and Trent was gone. I turned around and looked forward.

Our future was all on the road ahead now.

And anyone looking at both of us would see we were of one face: full of fear, full of hope, full of sadness. Both suddenly little girls again.

5

Two Girls Together

.

Mommy tried to keep me busy and keep my

mind off sad things by making me our flight navigator for the trip south. Captain Morgan, the naval officer who had lived next door to us, was from Florida and had written out directions for the fastest route that would bring us to I-95 South. Many of the turns were only half a mile or so apart, so I did have to keep alert. although I had a suspicion Mommy had already committed the itinerary to memory. I know that during some of our other trips together without Daddy she gave me a similar responsibility just to keep me from becoming bored.

We had same kind of music playing almost all the time, whether it was a CD or the radio. Whenever we were quiet for long periods of time, I would see Mommy quickly flicking a fugitive tear from just under one of her eyelids. I pretended I didn't notice, because if I didn't pretend, my tears would soon be following hers. Mommy tried to fill the gaps of silence by pointing out different sights along the way, whether it was a beautiful or interesting house or just a patch of trees whose leaves had captured the sun, making them look as if they grew gems on their branches.

Before we reached 1-95. Mommy decided we would stop to have some lunch. Once we were on the highway she wanted to make as much time as she could before we stopped for the night. She estimated we had about eight hundred miles to go, which she thought we could easily do in two days.

The roadside diner was called Mother Dotty's Kitchen. It looked like an old-fashioned diner with its booths in imitation red leather and a counter with lots of chrome that ran almost the entire length. A Shania Twain song was playing over the sound system, and its upbeat tempo helped lift our spirits. Everyone was very friendly, and with the aroma of different meats and potatoes being made our appetites were stimulated. Neither of us had eaten very much during the last few weeks. Each night, especially when we ate alone, we pecked at our food like finicky chickens. When she told me to eat. I told her to do the same, and we both stopped trying to push food down each other's throat.

Maybe the change that came over us now was a result of simply getting off the base, leaving what for us had become a world of sorrow with days that were forever overcast. I could see the differences in Mommy's face. Her former brightness and glitter hadn't returned, but she looked less weighed down by the pain. Her forehead was smooth again, and there was more energy in her voice and movements. I wondered if, not when, that would be true for me.

"You never talked much about Dallas Tremont before. Mommy," I said after we had ordered.

"It's always been one of those friendships you don't lose but don't nurture much. We were inseparable in high school, but after I married your father and joined the Navy, so to speak. Dallas and I lost touch. We tried to maintain a close relationship, but with our moving around and all, it became impossible. Our phone calls were soon fewer and farther between. Our letter writing stopped almost entirely. Still, we never forgot each other's birthday, and we always managed to send each other something at Christmas, some small but intimate thing. I'd always let her know where we were, of course.

"I did attend her wedding. You wouldn't remember because you were only a year and a few months old, but I left you with my mother and returned to Raleigh where Dallas and I had grown up. Daddy was on sea duty. She was married in the church her family attended, and then she and Warren moved to Florida. He was always in the restaurant business and had an opportunity in West Palm Beach.

"Warren had been married before and had a little girl, who is now seventeen. His first wife was killed in a motorcycle accident. According to Dallas, she was like oil to Warren's water. They married mostly because she was pregnant with Phoebe." Mommy smirked. "According to Dallas, she named her daughter Phoebe because of the phoebe bird outside the window of the maternity ward. Lucky it wasn't a crow." she added. and I laughed,

It was the first time I had laughed since Daddy's death.

I thought, and it felt as if I had taken off a jacket made of lead.

Mommy smiled. "I've always loved your laugh. Grace. No matter how old you will be, when you laugh it will always sound innocent and true and make other people feel good about themselves."

I stared at her, at the warmth in her eyes, the love in her face. Would anyone ever see as much good in me and love me as much as she did?

"Anyway," she continued. "while Warren became involved in business and began to develop a nice little fortune for them. Petula, better known as Pet, continued her self-centered ways, leaving the baby with a sitter far hours and hours while she associated with her unmarried friends, a group of whom were into motorcycles. Warren refused to buy her one, so she went out and bought it herself. A year later she lost control going, they say, about eighty, and broke almost every major bone in her body. It was one of those accidents where you hope the victim died instantly. And she did.

"There he was, left with an infant. Dallas was working for an associate of his, and they began to see each other. She never said so. but I had the sense that they were seeing each other romantically before Pet's inevitable date with death.