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Chapter 11

Susan Dwyer met Lindy at the front door. “Welcome,” she said, bringing her inside the house. A group of women sat in the living room and smiled enthusiastically when Lindy entered the room. She recognized several of the faces from the restaurant where she and Rush had eaten their wedding dinner, but remembering all their names would have been impossible.

“Hello,” Lindy said, cordially nodding her head toward the others. She took the only available chair and crossed her long legs, hoping she gave the appearance of being at ease. Susan had invited her over for a late lunch the week before, but her friend hadn’t mentioned that anyone else would be present.

“I thought it was time you got to know some of the other wives,” Susan said as a means of explanation.

“And if no one else is going to say it, I will,” an attractive blonde with wide blue eyes piped up. “We’re all anxious to get to know you better.”

“We’ve all been crazy about Rush for years. I’m Mary, by the way.”

“I’m Paula,” the blonde who’d spoken first added.

“Hello, Mary and Paula.” Lindy raised her hand.

Four of the others quickly introduced themselves. Sissy, Elly, Sandy and Joanna.

“Did you get the wives’ packet?” Joanna wanted to know scooting to the edge of her seat.

Lindy’s eyes shot to Susan. “I don’t think so.” The Mitchell had been gone almost a month now and because Lindy had been so busy with her job and worrying about her brother, she hadn’t been able to get together with Susan as soon as she’d wanted.

“I’ll take care of that right now.” Joanna opened a briefcase and brought out a thick packet. She stood and delivered it to Lindy. “This is a little something the navy hands out to new wives so they aren’t completely in the dark about what they’ve gotten themselves into having married a man in the military.”

“A sort of finding-your-sea-legs-while-still-on-land idea,” Susan explained.

Lindy opened the packet to find several brochures and booklets. There was one on the social customs and traditions of the navy—guidelines for the wives of commanding officers and executive officers, another on overseamanship, and several others, including one that gave the history of the U.S. Navy.

“An issue of Wifeline should be in there, too.”

“Joanna’s one of the ombudsmen for the Mitchell,” Susan explained.

Lindy wasn’t sure what that meant. “Oh,” she said weakly, hoping she didn’t sound completely stupid.

Joanna must have read the confusion in her eyes, because she added. “I act as a liaison between the command and the families. If you have a problem with something, come to me.”

“Wonder Woman here will take care of it for you,” Sissy commented and smiled at Joanna. “I know she’s helped me often enough.”

“I’m not completely sure I understand,” Lindy admitted, with some reluctance. Although Steve had been in the service fifteen years, as long as Rush, Lindy had little technical understanding of the way the military worked.

“Let me give you an example,” Joanna said and tapped her index finger against her lips while she thought. “Let’s say you get sick and need to go to the hospital when Rush is on a cruise, and there’s some kind of screwup there and they won’t take you.”

“Call Joanna.” Seven voices chimed in unison.

“I see.”

Joanna playfully cocked her head and slanted her mouth in a silly grin, which caused the others to laugh. “Mainly my job is to be sure that no one feels they need to face a problem alone. When you married Rush, you married his career, too. You belong to the navy now just as much as Rush does. If you’ve got a problem there will always be someone here to help.”

“That’s good to know.” Lindy hadn’t thought about it before, but what Joanna said made sense. The knowledge that someone was there to lend a helping hand gave her a comforting sense of belonging. Although she knew Susan was her friend, Jeff’s wife had been her only contact with Rush’s life.

“When the guys are around there aren’t that many problems, but once they’re deployed we have to stick together and help each other,” Sissy added, and a couple of the others nodded their agreement.

“What do you mean there aren’t that many problems with the guys around?” Mary, a slim redhead, cried. “I don’t suppose anyone happened to mention to Lindy the hassles of shifting responsibilities and…”

“Hey, the poor girl just got married. Let’s not hit her over the head with everything just yet.”

“No,” Lindy interrupted. “I want to know.”

“It’s just that we—meaning we wives—are left to handle the domestic situations when the men are at sea. It’s not as if we have a whole lot of choice in the matter. Someone’s got to do it. But then once our husbands sail home we’re supposed to return to the docile role of wife and mother and automatically let the men take over. Sometimes it doesn’t work that well.”

“I don’t imagine it would,” Lindy said thoughtfully, and sighed inwardly. Briefly she wondered what problems the years held in store for her and Rush. She’d never thought about the shifting roles they’d need to play in their family life. It was a little intimidating, but she’d only been a bride for a month and didn’t want to anticipate trouble.

“Every time Chuck’s due back home, I get sick,” Mary confessed, looking disgusted with herself. “It’s all part of the syndrome.”

“The homecoming is wonderful, but Wade and I tiptoe around each other for days for fear of saying or doing something that will ruin our reunion,” another wife explained.

“We choose to ignore the obvious problems and pass over strife until it’s time for him to be deployed again.”

“That’s when it really hits the fan,” Susan inserted.

“What do you mean?” Lindy was curious to know. She could understand what the others were saying, although she hadn’t been married long enough to experience with Rush a lot of what the women were warning her about. But the time would come when she was bound to, and she was eager to recognize the signs.

“It seems we’re all susceptible to arguing before our husbands’ leave,” Joanna explained.

Lindy remembered how Rush had purposely picked a fight with her the afternoon he’d learned the repairs to the Mitchell had been completed.

“Rush jumped all over me for putting his book away,” Lindy told the others. “I didn’t understand it at the time. It was so ridiculous, so unreasonable and not like him at all.”

The others nodded knowingly.

“I imagine it was about that time that Rush realized he loved you,” Susan added smoothly. “Jeff pulled the same thing. He always does. The day he comes home and suggests it’s time I go on a diet, I know what’s coming. He’s just learned when he’ll be deployed. Jeff loves what he does, but he loves me and the kids, too. It’s a crazy kind of tug-of-war that goes on inside him. He dreads leaving, hates the thought of all those months apart, and at the same time he’s eager to sail. He can hardly wait to get out on the open seas.”

“Try to make sense out of that if you can,” Mary grumbled. “But this is all part of being a navy wife.”

“And then there’s the constant knowledge that we can be transferred at any time.”

“Say, did anyone else hear the rumor that the Mitchell could be reassigned to Norfolk?”

“It’s just gossip, Sissy,” Joanna answered. “There’s no need to worry about it now.”

“See what I mean,” Susan told Lindy with a soft laugh.

“You mean the Mitchell might transfer its home port to Norfolk?” Already Lindy was thinking about what would happen with her job if Rush was to be stationed in another state. She’d have to go with him and leave Seattle. Of course she could always find another job, but she didn’t relish the thought. A growing knot of concern started to form in her stomach.

“The Nimitz was transferred from Norfolk to Bremerton,” Sissy reminded the group.

“Two joys of navy life,” Mary muttered disparagingly. “Deployment separation and cross-country moves.”

“If worse comes to worst, we’ll survive.”

It was apparent to Lindy that Joanna was the cool voice of reason in this friendly group. Lindy still had trouble keeping track of who was who, but felt that she was going to fit in nicely. It was as though she were being welcomed into a sorority. The other navy wives’ acceptance of her was automatic, their reception warm.

“We always survive,” Susan added softly. “Now, as I said earlier, we’re not going to knock poor Lindy over the head with everything in one afternoon.”

“Yeah, we plan to give it to you in small doses.”

“Has anyone else stopped to figure out how much time married couples are separated if the husband is in the navy?” Mary asked, holding a calculator in her hand. Her fingers were punching in a long list of numbers that she called out at regular intervals. “According to my figures, during a twenty-year enlistment—” her fingers flew over the keys “—the husband and wife will spend six years apart.”

“Six years?” Lindy repeated while the numbers whirled around her head.

“It’s not so bad,” Susan said, and patted Lindy’s hand to tell her she understood her friend’s distress. “In small doses.”

“While I’ve got everyone here,” Joanna added, snapping her briefcase shut and setting it aside. “Remember you need to have your letters mailed by the fifteenth of each month.”

The other women nodded, apparently already aware of the deadline. Susan had explained to Lindy earlier that because the Mitchell was deployed in unfriendly waters, the mail would be flown in with supplies only once a month.

“When are we going to eat?” Sissy asked, craning her neck to peek into the kitchen.

“Every time Bill’s gone, Sissy gains ten pounds.”

“I work it off once he’s home, so quit teasing me.”

“I could make a comment here, but I won’t,” Sandy muttered, and the others laughed.

“Well, if a certain someone doesn’t feed me soon, I’m going to fade away before your very eyes.” Dramatically Sissy placed the back of her hand against her forehead and released a long, expressive sigh.

“Okay, okay,” Susan said with a laugh. “Lunch is served.”

Everyone stood at once and moved into the kitchen. The table was arranged with a variety of salads, buffet style. Plates and napkins were arranged at one end and the forks fanned out attractively.

“I brought the recipe for the Cobb salad, in case anyone’s interested,” Paula commented.

“I wish you had said something,” Lindy complained under her breath to Susan. “I could easily have brought something.”

“You’re our guest of honor.”

“We’re all dying to know how you met Rush,” Sissy said and Joanna moved Lindy to the front of the line and handed her a plate.

“I think he’s sexy as hell, and Doug told me he could hardly believe Rush would marry someone he only knew two weeks.”

“Well, actually,” Lindy murmured as an embarrassed flash of color entered her cheeks, “it was closer to three weeks.”

The women laughed.

Sissy pressed her hand over her heart and sighed. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve heard in years and years.”

Elly’s shoulders moved up and down as well in an elongated sigh. “I always knew when the big man tumbled, he’d fall hard.”

“He’s so handsome,” Mary interjected.

“So dedicated,” Paula added.

“Until the night of your wedding dinner, he was always so…detached and distant. We all noticed the change in him.”

“Thank you,” Lindy answered softly.

“I bet he’s a good lover.”

“Sissy!”

Lindy laughed because although the others had been quick to chastise their friend they eagerly looked in her direction for a response. Not willing to disappoint them, she wiggled her eyebrows a few times and nodded.

“I knew it. I just knew it,” Sissy cried.

“Are we going to eat, or are we going to talk about Lindy’s love life all afternoon?” Joanna asked.

The women looked at each other, came to some sort of tacit agreement and set their plates aside.

* * *

“Are you all right?” Jeff asked Rush as he moved past his friend to the engine-order telegraph.

“Fine.” The word was as sharp as a new razor. Rush wasn’t willing to discuss his problems with anyone, not even Jeff.

“There’s got to be some logical explanation why Lindy hasn’t written.”

“Right,” Rush answered, but he avoided looking at his friend, doing his best to look busy. He didn’t want to be rude, but he wasn’t going to discuss his troubles either.

“Susan’s letter says the wives’ association had Lindy over for lunch recently.”

“Is that supposed to reassure me?”

“I think it should.” Jeff unfolded Susan’s thick letter and scanned its contents. “Lindy’s kept in close contact with Susan and the others.”

“That doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

“Apparently they had a wedding shower for her.”

That made him feel a whole lot better, Rush mused sarcastically. Lindy seemed to have forgotten she had a husband, but she was busy accepting wedding gifts.

Jeff paused and cleared his throat. “It seems the wives went together and got Lindy a long silk nightie.”

Rush didn’t respond. His jaw was clenched so tightly that he was convinced his back molars would crack. He’d been four interminable weeks without a single word from Lindy. A whole damn month. The knot in his stomach was tight enough to double him over. His nerves were shot. He found himself snapping at his men, behaving irrationally, becoming angry and taking it out on everyone else. And worse, he wasn’t sleeping. For two nights now he hadn’t been able to so much as close his eyes. Every time he did, the images that filled his mind were of Lindy with another man, presumably Paul. The hot surges of anger and adrenaline that shot through him were so strong that any chance of falling asleep was a lost cause. Lindy might as well have taken a knife and cut open a vein as not written.

Unwillingly Rush’s mind leaped to a memory of how it had been with Cheryl. At first there’d been a flood of letters, filled with all the right phrases, everything a man longs to hear when he’s separated from the woman he loves. Then Cheryl’s letters had petered out to a handful in a month, and then just a sporadic few before his return.

But damn it all to hell, Lindy was his wife. He’d slipped a diamond ring on her finger and committed his life to her. He’d expected more of her than this. But apparently she took her vows lightly because she’d sure as hell forgotten him the minute he was out of sight.

It was a mistake to have married her. But he’d been so much in love with her that he’d refused to listen to the calm voice of reason. He’d lost one woman and feared losing another. He should have known standing before a preacher wasn’t going to make any difference, but he would never have believed Lindy could do this. All her reassurances about knowing her own heart had fooled him. She’d been so positive they were doing the right thing. None of that confidence was worth a damn now. They’d both made a mistake. A bad one. At the rate things were progressing, this marriage could be the single worst disaster of his life.

“I’m going below,” Rush announced, walking away from the gyrocompass repeater, which indicated the Mitchell’s course. The sight of Jeff holding a letter from home was more than Rush could take. He needed to escape before he said or did something he’d regret.

Jeff nodded, but his brow was creased with tight bands of concern.

Once in his compartment, Rush lay on his back with his hands cupped behind his head. Steve was right. Rush had known it the minute his friend had said as much. Lindy had married him on the rebound, and now that he was gone she’d realized what a terrible error in judgment she’d committed and wanted out.

They’d been living in a fairy tale, forced to share the apartment the way they were, and like a fool Rush had gotten sucked into the fantasy. Lindy had been wounded by love and Rush had been a convenient source of comfort to her damaged ego.

Now that he was gone, Lindy realized their mistake. The muscles of his stomach knotted when he realized how helpless he was in this situation. Lindy didn’t love him.

Now all he had to worry about was if she was pregnant. Not using any protection had been a conscious decision on his part. They hadn’t even talked about it the way couples should—hadn’t discussed the possibility of starting a family so soon. It wasn’t that Rush had been so eager for Lindy to get pregnant, he realized with a flash of insight. But he hadn’t wanted a repeat of what had happened with Cheryl. If Lindy’s stomach was swollen with a baby when he returned, he didn’t want any question in his mind about who was the father.

Rush refused to believe he’d actually done anything so stupid as to play that sort of silly mind game. Lindy wasn’t going to cheat on him—he refused to even consider the possibility. But then he’d honestly assumed she loved him, too—the same way he loved her. It hadn’t even taken her a month to forget him.

* * *

Lindy let herself into the apartment and stopped when she found her brother sitting in front of the television, watching a late afternoon talk show. Steve’s behavior was really beginning to concern her. He’d been assigned shore duty, and when he wasn’t working he sat around the apartment with a lost, tormented look that reminded her of how she’d felt when she’d first arrived in Seattle. His behavior wasn’t the only thing that was getting on her nerves. He’d become so cynical and so sarcastic about life. His thinking seemed so negative that she didn’t like to talk to him anymore. There’d been a time when she’d admired him for the way he’d handled the emotional trauma of the divorce, but his letters had been a convenient front. It became clearer every day that the healing process hadn’t even started in Steve. He still loved Carol, and he needed to either patch things up between them or accept the divorce as final. Otherwise it was going to ruin his life.

“Hi,” she said, and walked into the kitchen, setting down the grocery bag on the counter. “What’s Donahue got to say today?”

“Who?”

“The guy whose program you’re watching.”

“Hell, I don’t know. Something about nursing mothers.”

“And that interests you?”

“It’s better than staring at some stupid game show.”

“It’s a beautiful day. You should be outside.”

“Doing what?”

Lindy sighed. “I don’t know. Something. Anything.”

Steve stood and came into the kitchen. “Do you want me to do something for dinner? Peel potatoes, that sort of thing?”

She thanked him for his offer with a smile. “I’ve got everything under control.” Opening the refrigerator, she set the milk inside and decided now was as good a time as any to wade into shark-infested waters. “Is Carol still living in Seattle?” Lindy asked the question and then turned to face her brother.

“Carol who?”

His words may have been flippant, but he couldn’t disguise the instant flash of pain in his eyes.

“Carol Kyle, your wife.”

“Ex-wife,” he corrected bitterly. “As far as I know she is.”

“I think I’ll give her a call.”

A year seemed to pass before Steve answered. “Before you start meddling in someone else’s troubles, you’d better take care of your own, little sister.”

Lindy’s heart flew upward and lodged in her throat. “What do you mean by that?”

Steve pointed toward the mail that was stacked on the kitchen table. “You must have put the wrong address on that long letter you’ve been writing all month to Rush, because it’s been returned.”

“Oh, no.” A sickening feeling invaded her limbs and her eyes widened with dread. “Returned? But why?” She reached for the thick manila envelope and checked the address. “Oh, Steve, what will Rush think if he doesn’t get any mail from me?”

“The only thing he can assume under these circumstances. That you married him on the rebound and regret it.”

She raised her hands in a gesture of abject defeat. “But I don’t feel that way, not at all.”

“Lindy, sit down. You look like you’re about to faint.” Her brother pulled out a chair and carefully lowered her into it. He walked a couple of times around her, as though gathering his thoughts on how to handle the situation.

Tears of frustration were hovering just beneath the surface. She’d faithfully written Rush each night, pouring out her heart to her husband, reassuring him each day how much she loved him and how proud she was to be his wife. She’d written about meeting the other wives and told him about the social get-together they were planning to celebrate the halfway mark of the six-month cruise. She’d drawn a picture of the lacy silk nightie the girls had given her as a wedding gift and told him how eager she was to model it for him.

There were weeks when she’d scribbled long epistles as many as six and seven times. Since the mail was only going to reach him once a month, Lindy had written it in journal form, marking the days.

To her surprise, this long separation wasn’t anything like he’d suggested it would be. Rush had warned her that two weeks after he was gone she’d start to wonder how she ever imagined herself in love with him. Two weeks from the day he left, Lindy had made a giant card to tell him exactly the opposite had happened. If anything she loved him more than ever.

Over and over she had read the thick letter she’d received from him, until she had set each precious line in her memory. Rush’s letters had been her lifeline to sanity.

The realization that he had received only a short one from her early after he sailed out of Bremerton, if that, was almost more than she could bear thinking about.

“What are you doing?” Steve asked, when Lindy reached for the phone.

“Calling Susan.”

“What good is that going to do?”

“I…I don’t know.” But Lindy had to talk to someone before she went loony. Susan would know what to do.

“Hello?” Susan answered on the third ring, and Lindy could hear the twins crying in the background.

“Susan, it’s Lindy. Something terrible has happened, and I don’t know what to do.” She was speaking as fast as she could, her voice raised and shaky.

“Lindy? Slow down. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“My letter to Rush came back,” Lindy explained, doing her best to keep her voice as even as possible, although it wobbled like a toy top winding down after a long spin.

“Did you have the right address?”

Lindy reached for the envelope and read off Joanna’s street numbers.

“Lindy,” Susan muttered, interrupting her. “That’s not the mailing address for the Mitchell.”

“I know…. It’s Joanna’s. She said we were supposed to get all the mail to her by the fifteenth. Remember?”

“You weren’t supposed to mail it to her,” Susan cried. “It was supposed to be mailed, period.”

“But I thought she was in charge of that.”

“No, Lindy, Joanna doesn’t have anything to do with the mail.”

“Oh God, Susan, what will Rush think?”

Susan hesitated, then sighed. “It isn’t that bad. I wouldn’t worry about it, since it’s only the one letter. He’ll receive the others.”

Lindy felt like weeping all the more. “But there was only the one letter. A long, long one…. Oh Susan, Rush must believe…I hate to even think about it. He’ll assume I don’t love him.”

The line was silent. “The important thing is not to panic.”

“I think it’s too late for that.”

“Now calm down,” Susan muttered, and Lindy could picture her friend chewing on her lower lip, trying to come up with something. “Jeff will tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

“Everything. How you’ve gotten involved in the wives’ association and that we’re seeing each other regularly. Rush is a smart man, Lindy. Give him credit for some intelligence.”

“Right,” Lindy said, nodding her head once. “He’ll figure it out…. He knows I love him.” Lindy gnawed on her lip, remembering how the women’s group had told her if she had any problems, she should contact Joanna.

A long silence stretched over the wire before Susan spoke. “Should I call Joanna or do you want to?”

* * *

The phone rang just after midnight. Lindy rolled onto her stomach and checked the time. She hadn’t been sleeping well and had only turned off the light fifteen minutes before. The call was probably some prankster and she wasn’t eager to answer it, figuring Steve would. By the third ring, Lindy gave up on her brother and reached for the telephone receiver.

“Hello.” She tried to make her voice sound as gruff and unfriendly as possible.

“This is a ham-radio operator in Anchorage, Alaska,” the male voice explained. “A call is about to be transmitted to you from aboard the USS Mitchell. Talk as you would normally, but each time you’re finished speaking you must say over. Do you understand?”

“Yes….”

“Okay. Go ahead and hang up and I’ll connect you in about fifteen minutes.”

Lindy’s hand was shaking so badly she could barely replace the receiver. Rush. Somehow, someway, Rush had found a means of contacting her. She scooted off the bed and paced barefoot across the carpet, waiting. Fifteen minutes had never seemed to drag by more slowly.

When the phone rang, she nearly tore it off the nightstand.

“Lindy? Over.”

The line sounded as if it were coming from the moon. Static filled the air. Popping and hissing.

“Yes, this is Lindy. Over.”

“I only want to know one thing. Are you pregnant? Over.”