Stranger at the Door

I’m not up for casual conversation. “Both okay.”

“And you? How are you really?”

I bite my lip in irritation. “How do you think?”

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

In any marriage, there are the inevitable regrets, some more damaging than others. “I suppose you are,” is the best I can offer.

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.

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