You

We were death partners before we were friends. The day we met some 30 years ago, I was so pregnant with my first child, I resembled an over-stuffed sausage about to burst its casing. I’d forsaken style weeks earlier when my shoes no longer fit. I couldn’t even reach around my massive torso to shave my legs; limbs sporting enough hair to scrape clean a barbecue grill.  

You, on the other hand, had just wrapped-up an open-house and strode across my threshold for the first time, like a seasoned runway model. I’ll never forget your chic, black pencil skirt, topped with one of those mustard-hued, real-estate jackets you somehow made fashionable, while pivoting on heels resembling knitting needles. Your cropped, platinum hair parenthesized the diamond studs that shimmered from your ears; your teeth were straight and white as a toothpaste commercial. I caught the subtle scent of an expensive perfume. The last fragrance I’d worn was surreptitiously torn from a magazine in my obstetrician’s office.

Our husbands, officers and gentlemen of the highest caliber, lost all decorum, leaving us post-introductions in the foyer, off to the den to watch football.

“Afraid they’ll miss a Doritos commercial.” You winked at me. “I’m so envious,” you said. “You look amazing.” I caught a hint of a southern accent.

I stepped forward and stumbled over nothing, as usual and you gracefully caught me.

“Sorry, I’m so clumsy these days.” I stuttered.

"Oh, darlin', I trip going up stairs; a loose cord -my foot inevitably tangles in it. I get it, and I don't have a bowling ball around my abdomen." You took my elbow. “Here, let me help you.”

“Kitchen’s good. Let’s sit in the kitchen” If weasels could talk, they'd sound like me.

You seemed so sincere, I could’ve wept in gratitude, but lately I cried at tissue commercials. This get-together was our husbands’ idea. It made me very nervous, the entire reason we needed to meet.

Spooning one night with Jimmy, my only go-to position those pregnant days, he broached the subject. At first, I was incensed at the entire morbid concept. Jimmy had chosen you and Ken had chosen me.

While he twisted a random strand of my hair, he went on to explain that your dad had been a CIA agent, and you personally knew the likes of Oprah, and Hilary. I'll admit, I was intrigued. He added, that at some point, you’d owned an upscale bar in Georgetown and fell for Ken, a fighter pilot, years your junior, and gave up all that DC glamour for places named Raison and Beeville. I was fascinated by the idea of you, so I agreed.

Ken and Jimmy were more than just fighter-pilots stationed in the same squadron. They’d become close friends, having spent the previous six months together on an aircraft-carrier in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Our meeting was essential to the cause. Technically speaking, we were an assignment of theirs which they mandatorily had to carry out. Their detachments were intensifying. They needed us to like each other.

Meanwhile, you cursed like a pirate, housed enough gossip to warrant your own radio-show, and fiercely loved your man. Within a half-hour, I was puddy in your palms. We laughed about things as if we’d been friends for years. You made the extreme business at hand less overwhelming. 

While the guys watched television, we sat in my tiny, sunny kitchen and reviewed the government-issued paperwork in front of us. Form DD193 was mandatory for married officers in special-ops. Signing these forms meant one of us would be present if the other was informed her husband was killed-in-action. You and I were total strangers discussing a contract where we’d bear witness to each other’s worst nightmare.

Before signing, you took my hands in yours. “I know we just met but you need to know something.” Your tone was hushed, your hands warm, and momentarily, I was both comforted and confused. “If uniforms show up at my door flanking you, I’ll know because they only come in person if your husband is dead. Injured, they’ll call. And let’s get real, who simply gets injured should something go awry in a jet travelling 1500 miles an hour?”

You sighed and I felt myself stiffen. “I feel obligated to inform you before you sign-on. Should I see you at my door, flanked by uniforms, I will simply excuse myself, get Ken’s gun, put the barrel in my mouth and pull the trigger. Discussion is off the table.”

I gasped. I knew you less than an afternoon and you were serious. You continued; something about Ken being your universe...not wanting to live in a world without him...promise never to tell anyone, especially Jimmy. In utter shock, I reluctantly nodded. You let go of my sweaty palms, flamboyantly scratched your signature on the bottom of your copy of DD193, grinned and slid it over as though you’d just sold me a duplex. 

That day, we passed bits of ourselves back and forth like poker chips. I was intoxicated by your this and that of such minutia as your latest guacamole recipe, the upcoming masquerade gala, and the Commander’s wife who thinks she shits ice-cream. 

Yet somehow, I read through your gregariousness. At one point you asked to touch my belly, because all you really wanted to know was what it felt like to be pregnant. I placed your delicate hand on the wave of my abdomen. Something more than my baby swelled inside me that afternoon. It was the seedling of our friendship.

Early on, you confided in me that you couldn’t have children. Your mother had taken a prescribed drug during her only pregnancy that ultimately killed the poor woman and robbed you of a mom and a uterus. I felt pain in my heart- to my very core, I had no words, not like you. All I said was, “You’d make an amazing mom.”

I wish I’d told you then that I was honored to share my children with you, I’d even consider having one for you. But I knew you’d have straight-up asked me if you wanted my help, even my viable uterus. And I’d have said, “Yes…” with the certainty I did when Jimmy proposed.

When Jimmy and I met in college at 17, he was determined to be a pilot. A true benevolent warrior: he spared spiders, built surprise snow families in the middle of the night, and under his breath whispered “two points” when anything he tossed landed in the trashcan. I melted in his arms when his hugs lifted me off the ground. And Jimmy was born to fly. I accepted long ago, as all pilots’ wives do, that our husbands’ first love would always be flight.

Over time, the more I understood you, the more your suicide plan simultaneously fascinated and troubled me. Killing myself wasn’t an option; I was a mom. But what if I wasn’t? Did my not wanting to take that eternal journey with Jimmy mean I loved him less than you loved Ken? Or did it mean I loved myself more than I loved Jimmy? At 24 years old, I hadn’t a clue. 

In the waning hours of lonely nights, I devised intricate scenarios should I have to deliver that fatal news to you. According to Form-DD193; I’d get the call, then I’d be officially escorted door to door, somehow to your whereabouts. I imagined myself physically restraining you. Having garnered strength from childbirth, I’d have a small advantage over you in your stilettos, but I couldn’t hang on to you like a chimp indefinitely.

Another plan involved somehow confiscating Ken’s gun. One afternoon during lunch, I broached the subject of the firearm. “Doesn’t having that gun in the house frighten you? You shouldn’t own a gun unless you know how to use it. Let’s go to a range and practice. I’ll go with.” Your response was not something one soon forgets.

“I don’t need practice when the only target is inside my own mouth.”

And that was that.

While our husbands deployed over those long weeks and months, you and I ran the gamut of emotions. I soon realized that you missed Ken more than I had room to miss Jimmy. Our differences made us a unique pair. In the end, you found family with me; I found my soulmate in you. We survived Thanksgivings and Christmases without our husbands. You held my hand when I gave birth for the second time and stayed with me until Jimmy returned home. You were the catalyst for my application to graduate school.  

One of my fondest memories of you was the evening we braved our first and only officers’ wives’ club meeting. I was a bit nervous, but you exuded your usual self-assuredness. Upon arrival, we were schooled on the unwritten seating arrangement at these affairs. Higher ranking spouses occupied the front rows while lower ranking wives were relegated to seats further back. You would have none of it. You shoved me forward and we sat in two empty chairs front and center.

When we received what could only be described as stink-eye from maybe everyone in attendance, and the whispering behind us escalated, you turned to the cluster of women with enough distain on their faces to suggest we were contagious, and said, “My husband is ranked, but I’m not, so I can sit wherever I please.” You saluted no one in particular, in perfect form with your middle finger, then said, “Let’s go get a cocktail at a real club.” Under your breath, you whispered, “I wish wives club was literal so we could club a few of these bitches.”

When the guys were deployed, we spent the better part of weekends together doing everything and nothing. Phone time was endless. Seemed we could talk about anything, but I know you carried a lot of secrets. You told me once that a secret was only a secret if just one person knew. But I relished in every story, every bit of wisdom, and best of all, how free I felt when I was near you, freedom to be me.

I recall a day that last summer at the beach, a conversation you and I had about hormones, pesky unpredictable little shits you referred to them. I confided that I felt like I was turning into a raging bitch ever since my second birth. I gave you an example of how Jimmy was in the garage one afternoon a week prior, spray-painting thing blue, for his new office. I noticed he was wearing a very expensive, brand-name pair of white sneakers, I freaked out. Told him not only was he selfish for getting shoes that cost more than their electric bill without mentioning it, but who in the hell paints in white sneakers anyway? “You’re an idiot. I’d said to him." I hated myself at that very moment as well as when I uttered those words just a week ago. "There's goes a secret no longer, huh?"

You told me Jimmy had the sneakers delivered to your address so he could wear them home and maybe you wouldn’t notice. You laughed a belly laugh I try and conjure all the time. “But they looked like frigging clown shoes. The white was blinding, I’m not joking. We're talking should've come with a UV warning. Still good to keep him on his toes though, no pun."

I laughed so hard; tears were rolling down my cheeks. Then, realized, “My husband is afraid of me.” I knew I owed Jimmy an apology, but it wouldn’t happen. Not intentionally; at least there was that. Any doubt of my love for Jimmy was fleeting. I was just so tired of being alone. I missed him all the time. Raising my boys with you, while we waited together. As for Jimmy, an apology usually came in other forms which he definitely preferred, and, as you pointed out, why I was turning into a human PEZ dispenser.

You paused until my laughter subsided. I knew wisdom was coming. “We signed on for this and besides, can you imagine a life without Jimmy and those babies?”

I could not. I told you I finally understood you not wanting to go on should you lose Ken, after years of so much. “When you and I first met, I was a very different person. Right?” You didn’t respond. “I was definitely a kinder, more forgiving person. Children have changed me. I woke up about a month ago and realized I was my mother. I feel awful. Jimmy deserved to have those damn sneakers. You’re right, as usual. Why do you even like me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I love you, first of all” You’d always say that when I tried to point out over the years that I’d be emotionally dead without you. “So, you’re stuck with me forever, silly girl.” You always said that, too. How much I wish that one were true. “And you, my friend, are the best damn mom I have ever met.”

And there it was, the gem, the pearl I never wanted to imagine my life without. All along the way, the good, the bad, the hilarious, I never wanted to contemplate a time we’d be forced to go our separate ways. I finally understood you not wanting to live without Ken.

When it inevitably happened, it was a gut-punch. After years of unforgettable friendship, our husbands were given official new orders; they’d be deploying to Libya for a month before moving on to separate bases on opposite, but thankfully, American coasts.

We spent our last Sunday together gorging on barbeque, laughing, and relaxing on deck chairs while my sons played on their new swing-set. It felt like any other get-together the four of us had had over the years, but it wasn’t. We tiptoed around the subject of our impending separation. But it loomed large that entire day, till dusk and mosquitos took over.    

Jimmy left before dawn the following morning and I was rendered wide-awake. I distracted myself with moving preparations, not wanting to think about missing my husband for yet another 4 weeks. I also tried not to imagine a life where I may go months, perhaps years, without seeing you. By mid- afternoon, exhaustion hit me like a tranquilizer dart, and I laid down with my boys for a sweet, overdue nap.

The sound of the phone ringing woke me but when I whispered a groggy “hello” into the bedside handset, I only heard dial-tone. My blurred reality was interrupted again, this time it was the doorbell. I slid from the bed and jogged down the stairs, not wanting the noise to wake my babies. Ever since Jimmy installed a swing-set in the backyard, the neighborhood kids came over nearly every day to play and it was becoming a nuisance.

Before I could open the door, I was hit with a terrible smell. Sitting next to the front door was a garbage bag I’d asked Jimmy to take out to the garage before he left that morning. But there it was and since we rarely used the front entrance, the malodorous pungency of old diapers, mixed with rancid food detritus hung heavy. I was startled again by the doorbell, this time right next to me.

The neighborhood kids could wait, I had to get rid of the bag first. I grabbed the bag and the smell followed like a shadow as I quickly made my way to the garage trash receptable and as I lifted the large lid, I noticed a stack of crumbled newspapers, and sticking out from underneath the pages of print, was a pair of white sneakers, pristine in every way except the many blue speckles of paint smattering both toes. My husband was hiding those shoes from me. I started to cry but I knew you would somehow find humor in the whole situation.

Back inside, doorbell now incessant, I finally yanked open the front door expecting the familiar motley crew of youngsters, or some salesperson, only to be greeted by something altogether different. Idling at the curb were two, sleek black town-cars with tinted windows and side doors displaying Department of Defense decals. For a split second, I was confused until the pieces quickly fell into place. The phone call combined with this wall of uniformed officers crowding my doorstep was in line with DD193- my knees went weak because there was only one explanation. I would have to inform you that Ken was dead. 

I grabbed the doorframe for support. I'd prepared for this moment, certainly fixated on it more than most military wives. I stifled a sob; there was time to cry later. I took a deep breath. I can do this for you. 

“What about my boys?” I was so busy being friends with you that I never bothered to be friends with anyone else. You were the one I’d have called in such a circumstance.

The tallest of the men looked uneasy in his stiff dress-blues as he gestured to his right towards a uniformed woman. “Dr. Graham is a child psychologist. She’ll stay as long as needed.”

Reassured the boys were probably in safer hands than my own at the moment, I shifted focus. I gathered the strength to divulge what you had planned. I know, I know, it’s a huge betrayal of our promise- but I didn’t care. I knew the plan and I was terrified. I clamped my damp eyes shut and prayed this was just a bad dream, I was still napping. Unfortunately, when I opened my eyes, the officers were still there. I was about to speak, when they slowly parted, as if on cue. That was when I saw you.