Chapter 6

What to wear.

Normally, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but I found myself googling the restaurant to get a better idea of the dress code. As far as I could tell, the place was tasteful and charming. Built in a historic home, the photos showed heart pine flooring, smaller tables with white tablecloths, and plenty of natural light streaming in through the windows. I could imagine getting away with jeans, but in the end, I went with your basic Annapolis look: tan pants, a white button-up shirt, navy sport jacket, and Top-Siders. All I needed was a scarf, and I could walk around saying things like, Anyone up for some yachting?

It would take a little under an hour to get there, but not wanting to be late, I made it across the bridge to Beaufort with at least forty-five minutes to spare. The town was nestled on the Intracoastal, and I parked near the waterfront, just around the corner from the restaurant. I spotted a pair of wild horses across the waterway, grazing on one of the many barrier islands that make up the coastline of North Carolina. My grandfather told me these horses were descended from the mustangs that survived Spanish shipwrecks off the coast, but who knew if that was true?

I decided to use the extra time to browse the art galleries along the waterfront. Most of the work was by local artists, featuring either beach themes or the historic architecture in Beaufort. In one of the galleries, I saw a painting of a house where Blackbeard the Pirate had allegedly lived; I vaguely recalled that the wreck of Blackbeard’s ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, had been discovered in the Beaufort Inlet. The gallery owner confirmed my recollection, though he also admitted that there was some uncertainty about the whole thing. The wreck was estimated to be the correct size and the cannons they’d found on the ocean floor were from that period, but there was nothing to specifically indicate the name of the ship. It wasn’t as though they’d been able to reach into the glove compartment and check the registration, and the ocean can cause a lot of damage in three hundred years.

Wandering to the waterfront again, I noticed the sun slowly going down, casting a golden prism across the water. Heavenly light, my grandfather used to call it, and I smiled, reminiscing about all the times he’d brought me here for an afternoon at the beach, followed by an ice cream cone in Beaufort. Thinking back, I was amazed by how much time he’d been able to make for me whenever I was in town. I found myself turning again to his strange journey to Easley, my last visit with him, and his final, mystifying words to me.

Go to hell…

Not wanting to dwell on it, I shook the thought away. By then, it was coming up on six thirty, and I started toward the restaurant, wondering whether she’d show. Just then, however, I saw Natalie’s car pulling into an open space near my SUV. I turned in that direction, reaching her car just as she climbed out.

She’d changed into a flowered, high-necked sleeveless dress that accentuated her figure, and black medium-heeled boots, with a sweater draped over her arm. A thin gold chain around her neck glowed in the waning light. When she reached inside the car for her purse, I noted how graceful her every move was. Her arms and legs were lithe and toned, swishing the thin fabric of her dress around her in a tantalizing motion.

Closing the car door, she turned and startled.

“Oh, hey,” she said. “I’m not late, am I?”

“You’re actually a few minutes early,” I said. “You look great.”

She adjusted the thin necklace, as though making sure the—locket? medallion?—was hidden from view. “Thank you,” she said. “Did you just get here?”

“I came a little early,” I said. “How did your visit with your parents go?”

“Same as usual.” She sighed. “When he’s at the beach, my dad likes to read on the back porch. My mom has been slowly decorating the place since they bought it, and was dying to show me the redecorated guest room. I love them to bits, but sometimes spending time with them feels like the movie Groundhog Day, where every day is the same.”

I nodded in the direction of the restaurant. “Do you want to head over?”

“Let me put my sweater on. It’s a bit chilly, don’t you think?” She held out her purse. “Can you hold this for a second?”

As she slipped the sweater on, I found myself wondering if she felt self-conscious in her lovely, formfitting dress. I wasn’t cold in the slightest.

Wrapping it tightly around her, she took her purse back and we crossed the street. There were few other people out and about; the town, I observed, was even sleepier than New Bern.

“When was the last time you ate at the Blue Moon Bistro?”

“It’s been a while,” she said. “A year and a half, maybe?”

“Why so long?”

“Life. Work. Errands. Unless I’m visiting my parents, it’s a little out of the way. As a general rule, I tend toward quieter evenings at home.”

“Don’t you and your friends ever go out?”

“Not too much, no.”

“Why not?”

“Life. Work. Errands,” she said again. “Because I’m still low on the totem pole at work, my schedule changes a lot. Sometimes, I work days, other times, it’s nights and it changes regularly. It can be a challenge to schedule things with friends.”

“That’s inconvenient,” I said.

“It is,” she agreed. “But it pays the bills. And I’m very responsible.”

“Always?”

“I try to be.”

“That’s too bad.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I beg to differ,” I said. “In the end, people generally regret the things they didn’t do, not the things they did.”

“Who told you that?” she scoffed.

“Common sense?”

“Try again.”

“My psychiatrist?”

“Did he really say that?”

“No, but I’m sure he would have. He’s a very smart guy.”

She laughed, and I noted how different she was from the first night I’d met her. It was almost as though her uniform had the ability to transform her personality. But then I realized that the same was true about me. In a lab coat or scrubs, I was one person; dressed like a yachtsman, I was someone different.

When we reached the restaurant, a teenage girl welcomed us. About half of the tables were occupied. She pulled a pair of menus from the stand and led the way to a small table near one of the many windows. As I walked, I heard the floor creaking with age and history.

I pulled out Natalie’s chair for her, then took a seat across from her. Through the window, the view didn’t offer much: just another historic house directly across the street. No water view, no potential sunset, no wild horses. As though reading my mind, Natalie leaned across the table.

“It’s quaint, but the food is really good,” she said. “Trust me.”

“Anything I should have in particular?”

“Everything is great,” she assured me.

I nodded and after spreading my napkin in my lap, I perused the menu. “I’ve decided to go on the seafood diet,” I announced.

“What’s that?”

“See food and eat it.”

She rolled her eyes, but I saw her crack a faint smile. In the silence, I studied the menu again before suddenly remembering what I’d left in the car.

“By the way, you forgot to take the jars of honey I left for you.”

“I remembered as soon as I got home.”

“Well anyway, I brought them for you, so remind me on our way out.”

The waitress arrived and took our drink orders. Both of us ordered iced tea, along with water. When we were alone at the table again, I tried not to stare at her, the burnished halo of her hair in the candlelight framing her delicate features and unusually colored eyes. Instead, I delved into learning more about her, hungry for details about her past and everything that shaped the person she was now.

“So your dad fixes old electronics, your mom bakes and decorates,” I summarized. “How about your siblings? What can you tell me about them?”

She shrugged. “They’re both in baby hell right now,” she said. “Or, rather, toddler hell. Both have two kids under three. Even compared to me, they have no life at all.”

“And you?”

“I’ve already told you about my life.”

Some things, but not really. “Tell me what you were like as a kid.”

“It’s not that exciting. I was pretty shy as a girl, although I loved to sing,” she began. “But lots of young girls love to sing and it’s not as though I did anything with it. I guess I started coming into my own in high school and finally escaped my older siblings’ shadows. I won the lead in the high school musical, joined the yearbook committee, even played soccer.”

“We have that in common,” I said. “Music and soccer.”

“I remember,” she said. “But I don’t think I was as good as you were at either of them. I played soccer mainly so I could spend time with my friends. I didn’t even start until I was a senior, and I think I only scored one goal the whole season.”

I quickly chose the fried green tomatoes as an appetizer and tuna for the main course, setting the menu aside.

“Did you go to high school in La Grange?”

“La Grange is too small for a high school, so I ended up going to Salem Academy. Have you heard of it?” When I shook my head, she went on. “It’s an all-girls boarding school in Winston-Salem,” she said. “My mom went there, and so did my older sister, Kristen. My brother went to Woodberry Forest in Virginia. My parents were big on education, even if it meant shipping us off to boarding schools.”

“Did you like that?”

“Not at first. Even though my sister was there, I was homesick and my grades were terrible. I think I cried myself to sleep every night for months. But I eventually got used to it. By the time I graduated, I loved it, and I still keep in touch with a few of the girls I met there. And I think going away to school helped when I went to NC State. When I moved into the dorms as a freshman, I was used to living without my parents, so the transition to college was super easy. But I’m still not sure I’d go that route with my own kids. If I ever have them, I mean. I think I’d miss them too much.”

“Do you want kids?”

It took her a few beats to answer. “Maybe,” she finally offered. “Not right now. And for all I know, it might never happen. The future remains unwritten, right?”

“I suppose.”

She set her menu on top of mine at the edge of the table. I saw her eyes come to rest on my injured hand. Instead of hiding it, I spread my remaining fingers on the table. “Looks strange, doesn’t it?” I commented.

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. It was rude of me to stare…”

“It’s understandable. Even though I’m used to it, I still think it’s strange. But losing fingers is better than losing an ear.”

At her puzzled expression, I pointed to the side of my head. “This isn’t real,” I said. “It’s a prosthetic.”

“I wouldn’t have known unless you’d told me.”

“I’m not sure why I did.”

But I knew the reason. As much as I wanted to know her, I also wanted her to know the real me, to feel as though I could be completely open with her. She was silent for a moment and I thought she’d change the subject, or even excuse herself to go to the restroom. Instead, she surprised me by reaching out and gently tracing the scarred stumps where my fingers used to be. The touch was electric.

“The explosion must have been…horrific,” she said, her fingertip still on my skin. “I’ve thought about it since you told me. But you didn’t go into any detail. I’d like to hear about it if you’re comfortable telling me.”

I offered a condensed version of the story: the random mortar blast after I’d exited the building, a flash of sudden heat and searing, and then nothing at all until I woke after my first surgeries. The flights to Germany and then back to the US, and the series of additional surgeries and rehabilitation at Walter Reed and Johns Hopkins. At some point while I was speaking, she removed her hand from mine, but even after I finished, I could still feel the ghostly remnants of her touch.

“I’m sorry you had to endure all that,” she said.

“If I could go back in time, I’d leave the hospital a few minutes earlier or later. But I can’t. As for right now, I’m trying to move forward in positive ways.”

“I’ll bet your parents are still proud of you.”

As soon as she said it, I remembered my previous experiences when I’d shared what had happened to them. I knew I should simply offer something ambiguous like, I hope so, without going into details, but with the way Natalie was looking at me, I realized I didn’t want to keep the words inside me.

“My parents died a month before I graduated from college. They were taking a trip to Martha’s Vineyard, some political soiree that probably meant virtually nothing in the long run. A client had chartered a plane, but they never made it. The plane crashed in Virginia less than five minutes after takeoff.”

“Oh my God! That’s awful!”

“It was,” I said. “One day they were there, and the next day they were gone and I was crushed. The whole thing felt surreal—still does sometimes. I was only twenty-two, but I still felt like I was closer to being a teenager than an adult. I can still remember when my commanding officer came into my class and called me to his office so he could tell me.”

I hesitated, the memories still vivid.

“Because I was largely done with my classes, the Academy gave me leave to handle the affairs and that was in some ways even more surreal. My grandfather came up to help, but still…I had to find a funeral home and choose caskets and pick out a dress for my mom and a suit for my dad, figure out what they would have wanted for services. I’d just spoken on the phone to them a few days earlier.”

“I’m glad your grandfather was there for you.”

“We needed each other, no question about it. He’d already lost his wife, and had just lost his only child. We ended up driving back to New Bern after the services, and I don’t think either of us said a word the entire trip. It wasn’t until we got to his house that we could even talk about it at all, and we both shed a lot of tears that week. It was just so sad for me to think of all the things they would never have the chance to do, or what my future would be like without them.”

“I can’t imagine losing my parents like that.”

“There are moments when I still can’t. It’s been a decade now, but sometimes, it still feels like I should be able to pick up the phone and call them.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“No one does. It’s hard for people to fathom. I mean, who becomes an orphan at twenty-two? It’s not as though there are many people who ever have to deal with something like that.”