The Best of Me(60)

Amanda continued to study Dawson in the mirror. He turned and caught her gaze in the reflection. Without looking away, he gently reached out to smooth back a stray lock of hair that had fallen across her eyes. And then he was gone, leaving her with the certainty that whatever the consequences, her life had already been irrevocably altered in ways she’d never imagined possible.



After she retrieved her bag from the living room, Amanda found Dawson in the kitchen. He’d opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses. He handed one of them to her, and they made their way wordlessly to the porch. Dark clouds at the horizon had rolled in, bringing with them a light mist. On the sloping, wooded bank that led to the river, the foliage took on a deep green vibrancy.

Amanda set her wine aside and rummaged through her bag. She pulled out two of the envelopes, handing the one with Dawson’s name to him and holding the other, the one they were meant to read before the service, in her lap. She watched as Dawson folded his envelope and slipped it into his back pocket.

Amanda offered him the blank envelope. “Are you ready for this yet?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Do you want to open it? We’re supposed to read it prior to the ceremony.”

“No, you go ahead,” he said, moving his chair closer. “I’ll read it from here.”

Amanda lifted the corner of the seal, then gently pried it open. Unfolding the letter, Amanda was struck by the scrawl on the pages. Here and there, words were crossed out, and the uneven lines exhibited a general shakiness, reflecting Tuck’s age. It was long, three pages front and back, making her wonder how long it had taken him to write it. It was dated February 14 of this year. Valentine’s Day. Somehow that seemed appropriate.

“You ready?” she asked.

When Dawson nodded, Amanda leaned in and both of them began to read.

Amanda and Dawson,



Thank you for coming. And thank you for doing this for me. I didn’t know who else to ask.

I’m not much of a writer, so I guess that the best way to start is to tell you that this is a love story. Mine and Clara’s, I mean, and while I suppose I could bore you with all the details of our courtship or the early years of our marriage, our real story—the part that you’ll want to hear—began in 1942. By then, we’d been married three years, and she’d already had her first miscarriage. I knew how much that hurt her, and I hurt, too, because there was nothing I could do. Hardships drive some people apart. Others, like us, grow even closer.

But I’m drifting. Happens a lot when you get older, by the way. Just wait and see.

It was 1942, like I said, and for our anniversary that year, we went to see For Me and My Gal, with Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. It was the first time either of us had ever seen a flicker show, and we had to drive clear to Raleigh to do it. When it was over, we just sat there in the seats after the lights came up, thinking about it. I doubt you’ve ever seen it, and I won’t trouble you with the details, but it’s about a man who maims himself to avoid going off to the Great War, and then has to woo back the woman he loves, a woman who now believes him to be a coward. By then, I’d received my draft notice from the Army, so there were parts of it that hit home a little bit since I didn’t want to leave my girl to go to war, either, but neither of us wanted to think about that. Instead, we talked about the title song, which had the same name as the flicker show. It was the catchiest, prettiest thing either of us had ever heard. On the drive home, we sang it over and over. And a week after that, I enlisted in the Navy.

It’s kind of strange, since, as I said, I was about to be drafted into the Army, and knowing what I do now, the Army probably would have been a better fit, considering what I do with engines and the fact that I didn’t know how to swim. I might have ended up in the motor pool making sure the trucks and jeeps could roll through Europe. Armies can’t do much if vehicles ain’t running, right? But even though I was nothing but a country boy, I did know that the Army puts you where it wants, not where you want to go, and by then folks knew it was only a matter of time before we hit Europe for good. Ike had just gone into North Africa. They needed infantry, men on the ground, and as excited as I was about the thought of taking on Hitler, the thought of joining the infantry just didn’t sit with me.

At the enlistment office, they had this recruiting poster on the wall. For the Navy. Man the Guns, it said. It showed a shirtless seaman loading a shell, and something about it just spoke to me. I can do that, I thought to myself, so I walked over to the Navy desk, not the Army’s, and signed up right there. When I got home, Clara cried for hours. Then she made me promise to come back to her. And I promised her I would.