Stranger at the Door

I’m only now aware of how much has been left unsaid between us through the years. It had become a habit to skate over the surface of our relationship rather than tend to the brittle hairline cracks.

“I’ll let you go now,” he says wearily. “But I couldn’t sleep without telling you one thing. No matter what, Izzy, I love you. I always have.” His voice breaks. “I always will.”

The phone goes dead before I can respond. Truthfully, I’m relieved. I wouldn’t have known what to say, but Sam’s final words remind me why I’m still here. Why I’m willing to wait for him.

Springbranch, Louisiana

1961

THE MORNING CAME FOR me to take the bus from Springbranch to join Sam in Tucson where he’d been assigned for advanced flight training. Mother fixed a big breakfast, slamming about the kitchen, banging pots and pans in thin-lipped disapproval. I was too young, then, to read hurt rather than anger in her jerky movements, too self-absorbed to put myself in her place and understand her worry. I don’t recall what, if anything, we said to one another, only that our communication was hopelessly strained.

I do, however, remember what my father said. Before he drove me to the bus station, he invited me into his study. Taking his customary place behind the desk, he gestured me to the armchair at his side. Before speaking, he removed his spectacles, cleaned the lenses with a crisply ironed white handkerchief and settled them back on his nose. “We don’t know your Sam,” he began. “Or his people. And that is upsetting to your mother.”

I waited, mute with the dread of disappointing him.

“But that’s not so important for me, because I do know you. You are kind and would not willingly inflict hurt. I have strived to teach you the importance of being true to yourself.” He looked intently at me. “Does this young man complete you?”

I managed a teary smile. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Love.” He said the word as if it were an enigma. “I believe it’s the most important thing in life.”

An overwhelming sadness crept over me. Had he ever known love in his own life?

In an apparent non sequitur, he continued. “How baffled Mr. Barrett must’ve been by the romance between his invalid daughter Elizabeth and the poet Robert Browning.” My father smiled wistfully. “But see how that turned out.”

He reached in a desk drawer and pulled out a small leather-bound volume. “May this gift be a constant reminder of the beauty and power of love.”

I took the book into my hands, caressing the soft brown leather as I read the title. Sonnets from the Portuguese. Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

“‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,’” my father began.

I joined him, a solemn promise passing between us. “‘I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach…and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.’”

My father nodded in satisfaction. “I’m proud of you, Isabel, and wish you much happiness.”

My wonderful, quiet, unassuming father, unlike my mother, could let me go.

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Arizona

Fall 1961

NAIVE? IDEALISTIC? BESOTTED? I was all of that the day I stepped off the bus and into the arms of my handsome, young husband and buried myself in his suntanned arms. Ever after, I’ve always found home in Sam’s sheltering embrace. That morning Sam had only enough time before reporting back to base to settle me in our one-bedroom, unair-conditioned apartment. And to make love to me in a brief, ecstatic reunion. Afterward, rolling onto his back, he pulled me close and whispered, “Until I met you, I never believed in happy endings, never thought I deserved one. But, God, I do now.” Those words bound him to me in a new and wonderful way.

Showering quickly, Sam put on his uniform, and with a lingering kiss, left me alone in the apartment in a place where I knew no one. Still flushed from our lovemaking, I explored my surroundings. The bathroom, tiled in mustard-gas green, was tiny. The west-facing kitchen boasted a small refrigerator, an ancient oven and a two-burner electric cooktop. The living room furnishings consisted of a vinyl couch, a two-person dinette set and one scuffed armchair. Sam had, however, added two large fans and a small black-and-white TV.

I peered into the refrigerator, wondering if I was expected to cook dinner. Then I unpacked, and was overcome with shyness when I discovered drawers filled with Sam’s undershirts and briefs, a razor and shaving cream on a bathroom shelf and a pair of dirty jeans in the clothes hamper. Somehow I was to make this drab box a home for both of us, preparing appetizing meals, laundering military uniforms, keeping house. I lay across the utilitarian tan bedspread, immobilized by the enormity of my new role.

Until I heard a knock. I smelled the cigarette before I opened the door. There, one eyebrow cocked in assessment, stood the woman who was to become my chain-smoking, dyed-blond guardian angel.

Flicking her ash, she sized me up. “Honey, you look like you’re straight off the banana boat.” She moved past me into the living room and only then stuck out her hand. “I’m your next-door-neighbor, Marge DeVere. And I’ll lay odds, you need help.” She took a drag from her cigarette. “Am I right, sugar cakes?”

All I could do was nod. Marge was as unlike my sorority sisters or the matrons of Springbranch, Louisiana, as anyone could imagine, but I couldn’t have been more pleased to see her. “I’m Izzy,” I said, surprising myself. I had always referred to myself as Isabel. “And to tell you the truth, I don’t have a clue.” I shrugged, then grinned. “About anything.”

Marge’s laugh rolled up from her belly and filled the room. I joined in until tears ran down my face. Finally, catching my breath, I remembered my manners. “Please sit down. I have more questions than you can imagine.”

“I’ve got plenty of time. Why don’t you check the fridge and let’s have us a beer and some girl talk.”

Until then I had never guessed beer could substitute for an afternoon glass of tea. I pulled out two bottles, snatched up a bag of chips and settled on the sofa. In a few short hours she gave me a tutorial on the intricacies of being a military wife, reminding me to wear a hat and gloves when Sam and I called on his commanding officer and his wife, and cautioning me about speeding on base, an infraction for which Sam could be reprimanded. Never, before or since, have I been so grateful to a teacher.

CHAPTER FOUR

Breckenridge, Colorado

THE FOLLOWING MORNING when the phone rings, I am ill-prepared for my daughter Lisa’s outburst. “Where’s Daddy? I’ve tried his cell, his Blackberry…It’s not every day his grandson scores two goals for his little league soccer team, and you’d think he’d want to know. But he’s incommunicado, just when I need him and…”

I listen, wondering why the urgency. Scooter, Lisa’s only child, is seven. Sam will be pleased and proud, but Lisa will not be satisfied because his reaction isn’t immediate.

Our younger daughter is high maintenance, especially since her divorce. She harbors expectations—especially of Sam—but no matter what we do, we fall short. As a child, she kept us off guard, craving attention on the one hand and shrugging it off on the other. She adores her father, but it’s always been hard for her to trust his love and approval. After leaving her husband a year ago and relocating to Boulder, she turns to Sam for all her honey-do’s. Even though we understand her stress and vulnerability, sometimes we dread her phone calls.

She finally stops talking. I struggle not to make excuses for Sam’s absence, which is, at the moment, none of her business. “Daddy’s at his buddy Mike’s Montana cabin. Fishing.”

“When will he be back? Scooter keeps asking about him. Besides, something’s the matter with my dishwasher.”

I smile in recognition of her modus operandi. Scooter’s alleged disappointment is the guilt trip; the dishwasher is the primary concern. “I’ll have him call when he gets home.”

We chat about Scooter’s parent-teacher conference, and I suspect I’m hearing the edited version, the one that omits his mood swings. Lisa and Scooter have not had an easy time since her ex-husband remarried in an embarrassingly short time after their divorce. Thankfully he left Lisa financially secure.

“Dare I hope you have a full-blown case of cabin fever?”

“Not really,” I murmur, surprised by the truth of my answer.

“Well, are you free to come stay with Scooter? My babysitter has flaked out, and I have to be in Pueblo tomorrow.”

I love my grandson, but find myself resenting the abrupt end of my solitude and the way Lisa takes me for granted. “I’ll drive down this afternoon and we can have a nice dinner together.”

“Only if you cook it. I haven’t had time to go the store and won’t today, either.”

Lisa has an uncanny way of orchestrating life to accommodate her needs. Yet in truth, being a single mother is no picnic. She works a demanding job at the University of Colorado and as far as I know, scarcely has a social life.

“Remember, Scooter doesn’t like cheese.”

Scratch the macaroni and cheese. “How does he feel about meat loaf?”

“Haven’t a clue. We’ll see, won’t we?”

We complete the arrangements, I fix a quick sandwich and pack my bag, pondering whether I should let Sam know that I’m going to Lisa’s. I decide against it. If he wants his privacy, I’ll give it to him. Besides, I really don’t want to talk to him.

When I load Orville’s dish with cat chow, he eyes me accusingly, sensing I’m abandoning him. “Back soon, kitty,” I say, grabbing my keys and heading out the door. On the drive, I drink in the beauty of the mountains, now dressed in fiery aspens, resplendent against the dark blue-green of the fir and spruce. I’m reminded that we are living Sam’s dream. Growing up on the barren plains of eastern Colorado, he loved the distant, snowcapped peaks, a shining El Dorado. In summer, dust swirled around the trailer house where he lived, and in winter, wind-driven snow formed impassable drifts. Early in our marriage he confided that his goal was eventually to live in the Rockies. His expression the day we moved into our Breckenridge home with its larger-than-life view of the mountains said it all. This is where I belong!

Stopping at the market, I pick up ingredients for dinner, and by the time Lisa and Scooter arrive home, a meat loaf and baked potatoes are in the oven and green beans are simmering on the stove. Scooter gives me a hug, then settles in front of the TV while Lisa changes into jeans and a Colorado Buffaloes sweatshirt. Then she pours us a glass of wine and sits on the sofa, legs crossed. Even though she looks tired, she is still strikingly attractive. “I know life isn’t easy for you just now,” I begin, “but you’re a beautiful young woman with a full life ahead of you.”

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