Dear John(49)

Afterward, I took her to a sunny restaurant near the water, and we held hands across the table as we watched the sailboats rocking gently in their slips. Lost in each other, we barely noticed the waiter, who had to come to the table three times before we’d even opened our menus.

I marveled at the easy way Savannah showed her emotions and the tenderness of her expression as I told her about my dad. When she kissed me afterward, I tasted the sweetness of her breath. I reached for her hand.

“I’m going to marry you one day, you know.”

“Is that a promise?”

“If you want it to be.”

“Well, then you have to promise that you’ll come back for me when you get out of the army. I can’t marry you if you’re not around.”

“It’s a deal.”

Later, we strolled the grounds of the Oswald Plantation, a beautifully restored antebellum home that boasted some of the finest gardens in the state. We walked along the gravel paths, skirting clusters of wildflowers that bloomed a thousand different colors in the lazy southern heat.

“What time do you fly out tomorrow?” she asked. The sun was beginning its gradual descent in the cloudless sky.

“Early,” I said. “I’ll probably be at the airport before you wake up.”

She nodded. “And you’ll spend tonight with your dad, right?”

“I was planning on it. I probably haven’t spent as much time with him as I should have, but I’m sure he’d understand—”

She shook her head to stop me. “No, don’t change your plans. I want you to spend time with your dad. I was hoping you would. That’s why I’m with you today.”

We walked the length of an elaborate hedge-lined path. “So what do you want to do?” I asked. “About us, I mean.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” she said.

“I know it won’t,” I said. “But I don’t want all this to end.” I stopped, knowing words wouldn’t be enough. Instead, from behind, I slipped my arms around her and drew her body into mine. I kissed her neck and ear, savoring her velvety skin. “I’ll call you as much as I can, and I’ll write you when I can’t, and I’ll get another leave next year. Wherever you are, that’s where I’ll go.”

She leaned back, trying to catch a glimpse of my face. “You will?”

I squeezed her. “Of course. I mean, I’m not happy about leaving you, and I wish more than anything that I was stationed nearby, but that’s all I can promise right now. I can request a transfer as soon as I get back, and I will, but you never know how those things go.”

“I know,” she murmured. For whatever reason, her solemn expression made me nervous.

“Will you write me?” I asked.

“Duh,” she teased, and my nervousness disappeared. “Of course I will,” she said, smiling. “How can you even bother to ask? I’ll write you all the time. And just so you know, I write the best letters.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “In my family, that’s what we do on just about every holiday. We write letters to those people who we care a lot about. We tell them what they mean to us and how much we look forward to the time when we’ll get to see them again.”

I kissed her neck again. “So what do I mean to you? And how much are you looking forward to seeing me again?”

She leaned back. “You’ll have to read my letters.”

I laughed, but I felt my heart breaking. “I’m going to miss you,” I said.

“I’ll miss you, too.”

“You don’t sound too broken up about it.”

“That’s because I already cried about it, remember? Besides, it’s not like I’ll never see you again. That’s what I finally realized. Yeah, it’ll be hard, but life moves fast—we’ll see each other again. I know that. I can feel that. Just like I can feel how much you care for me and how much I love you. I know in my heart that this isn’t over, and that we’ll make it through this. Lots of couples do. Granted, lots of couples don’t, but they don’t have what we have.”

I wanted to believe her. I wanted it more than anything, but I wondered if it was really that simple.

When the sun had disappeared below the horizon, we walked back to the car, and I drove her to the beach house. I stopped a little way down the street so no one in the house could see us, and when we got out of the car, I put my arms around her. We kissed and I held her close, knowing for certain that the next year would be the longest in my life. I wished fervently that I’d never joined up, that I were a free man. But I wasn’t.