And there was the little fact that she hadn’t told him all the details. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, but she might’ve overestimated his casualness about this event. She’d probably keep the fact that her ex was also present to herself. After all, that was the whole point of the trip. She had to figure this thing out before Christmas.
She told Doug she was with her brother. Doug liked her brother.
“Okay, okay,” Denny said, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. “All right, listen. If you insist you’re going to do this stupid thing—”
“Careful,” she warned, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Are you here to hunt, really?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why else would I be here?”
“Do you even have a gun with you?”
She leaned toward him. “Yes,” she hissed.
“Stick close to me. Or maybe Rich. We’ll make sure you’re safe and know what to do. With the gun, that is.”
“I know what to do with the gun,” she said indignantly. “I’ve never killed anything but skeet, but I know what to do. I’m in danger of getting hooked in the ear trying to fly-fish, but I’m a good shot.”
“You’ve been shooting skeet?” he asked. Denny was a Marine marksman. He had a sniper ribbon. “Since when?”
Her dad had taught her, but she said, “The boyfriend.” She wasn’t really sure why she’d lied. So he wouldn’t think she was just a loser who still wasn’t over him? She’d have to think about that.
“Great. But there’s a lot more to know than that. You staying with Rich? Out at Jack’s?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Mr. Riordan has another cabin. I’ll go out there. I don’t share space with Rich—he’s a slob.”
“No,” Denny said. “You can take my place—it’s just an efficiency, but it’s right in town, just down the street. The landlord and landlady will look out for you if you need anything. You’ll be safe there.”
“It’s not your job to keep me safe, Denny. And where will you be, if I’m in your place?”
“With the slob.”
Two
When Becca was a nineteen-year-old college student at the University of Southern California, she began dating Denny, a Marine. He was at Camp Pendleton with her brother at the time. For a few blissful months, they saw each other every time Becca came home from USC for a weekend. She fell in love with him immediately. She spent the summer at home and every time Denny could get away from the base, they went to the beach and surfed or played volleyball, hiked into the mountains or biked along the coast, spending every possible minute together.
Rich and Denny went to Iraq together for a year and her emails to Denny were long, gushy and frequent—several a day. Her care packages were stuffed with lovingly collected treats. Then he came home from Iraq, exited the Corps, and for almost a year, life was heaven. When Becca was home from USC, they were inseparable. They had so much fun together. They could laugh for hours; they could make love for hours. They talked about getting married after Becca graduated with her teaching degree.
Then things got crazy. Denny’s mom, Sue, who had been battling breast cancer for years, became very sick, very suddenly. At least Denny was home with her through her final battle. He was there for her when she died and Becca did everything she could think of to show her support, though because she was at school most of the time, she was limited to weekend visits and daily phone calls.
But Denny shut down. He grew distant, detached. Instead of leaning on her and accepting her comfort, he reenlisted in the Marine Corps without saying a word to her, knowing he’d be sent back to the war. And sure enough, he got orders for Afghanistan almost right away. Before he deployed, he said, “It’s a hard world, Becca, and I don’t want to worry about how you’ll get by if something happens to me. Until I can get back home and get my head straight, let’s just take a breather. We’ll take another look at this in a year or so….”
“Are you crazy?” she asked him, choking on her tears. “Don’t you know how much I love you?”
“Yes,” he said. “And it’s kind of heavy on me right now.”
“But we’ve been together three years. We talked about getting married!”
“Yeah, I shouldn’t have gotten so far ahead of myself,” he said. “Go on, get to know other guys. Have a good time. You deserve it.”
So he left—left the country and the relationship. She reached out a couple of times through Rich, whose friendship apparently wasn’t too heavy for Denny, since they kept in touch. But Denny didn’t respond to her.
It was a painful, lonely year. She’d never forget those late nights of sitting up until two, three, four in the morning to watch news coverage of the war because Afghanistan was twelve hours ahead of L.A. She didn’t know a person could cry so much. She lost weight and there were dark circles under her eyes. She had no sense of humor and grew more lethargic by the day. Her grades dropped significantly, though she hung on so she could graduate. Her mother was beside herself with worry, and with anger toward Denny.
The painful truth was that Becca’s life had been pretty easy until then, when she lost the man she’d thought was the love of her life. It was a horrible experience. If they’d been in touch so she could occasionally have that reassurance that he was all right, that he loved her, she would have gotten through it much better.
By the time Becca learned that Denny was safely returned to the U.S., she was a newly minted second-grade teacher, and she’d managed to do a lot of thinking. The way he’d acted was irrational; she’d expected their relationship to be a team effort, a true partnership in which he could count on her in hard times and she could count on him.
She heard through Rich that Denny finished his two-year commitment at Camp Lejeune, but even though he was stateside again, he didn’t get in touch with her. During that time, Becca came to some conclusions about the kind of relationship she needed. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get to share her thoughts with Denny, but in fact she did. When Denny exited the Corps for the second time. Rich gave him the address for Becca’s apartment and he went to see her.
“Okay,” he said, “it was a stupid move, breaking up with you. But I was all torn up over my mom’s death. If you’re game, I’d like to try again.”
“Game?” she repeated, stunned. Outraged. He’d dumped her and ignored her for two painful years and that’s how he came back around? “Game?”
“Look, Becca, I can admit to being screwed up, all right?”
“There’s no question about that, Denny,” she said. “I’m teaching school now, you know. Second grade. Seven-year-olds. I love them—they’re precious. One of my kids has Tourette’s syndrome and some days are real hard for him. One of my little girls is recovering from six months of chemo after being diagnosed with leukemia. If we try again, fall in love again, get married and have a family, and one of our kids gets sick, will you bail? Will it be too heavy for you?”
