“We’re going to base?” I asked.
“They have the best thrift store around. Since you’re not keen on spending all of Derrick’s money on shoes, which I must congratulate you for, we’re going to go see what accessories we can scrounge up at the thrift shop. Then we’ll finish with shoes at the mall and get something to eat.”
We had to stop to get me another pass. This seemed like it took forever, but Kim didn’t seem to mind.
“So what was your question?”
“Oh, yes. Liz said something about everyone getting a new squadron next year.” I paused. “What did she mean?”
For the first time, Kim looked grim. “The men’s squadron is closing next year.”
“What does that mean?”
“Each branch of the military has its own name for different groups of people with different numbers in them. One of the larger groups in the Air Force is called a squadron. It has lots of smaller units where different people work. And theirs is going to be closing probably sometime next summer or spring.”
I swallowed. “What does that mean for them?”
“It means that they’ll all be transferred to other squadrons.”
“Does that mean they’ll stay here?”
“Some of them will.” Kim tilted her head thoughtfully. When she spoke again, her words were slow. “And some of them will be transferred to other bases.”
My stupid heart was racing faster than I was giving it permission to. It needed to stop that. “But why?”
Kim just shrugged. “Missions change. What was needed ten or fifteen or even fifty years ago might not be what we need now. It’s better to dissolve the group in question and send the members places where they can better serve what the military needs.”
“Do you think you’ll go somewhere else? Or do you think you’ll stay here?”
Kim gave me a look that told me she knew the question I wasn’t asking.
“No one knows yet. Over the next six months, they’ll start to slowly parse out the airmen one at a time to this other squadron or to that other squadron, to this base or to another base. Only God knows where any of us will end up.”
Although the air conditioning in her car was on full blast to combat the summer heat, I felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the cabin, and I was suddenly sweltering. Gone. In less than a year, Derrick could be gone. And even if they kept him this time, I had no guarantee that he would stay for any other set length of time. The Air Force owned him before anyone else did, and it didn’t matter how much I cared or didn’t care for him, he could still be gone at the drop of a hat. And if I did what he had hinted at, leaving my family and my job and my plans and my future for the sake of marriage, I would be gone, too.
“How do you do it?” I asked, sounding like I had just choked on a grape. “Start over and over again with new schools and new jobs and new friends and new lives on someone else’s whim?”
Kim put the car in park and we hurried inside the mall away from the heat. “Let’s get something cold before we shop accessories,” she said, waving me toward the food court. We got iced coffee and found a table to rest at as we recovered from the heat. Once we were all settled, she took a long sip of her drink and gave a little laugh as she put it down on the table.
“I’ve got three kids, and uprooting them is never easy.” She leaned forward a little. “And people can tell you all they want that it gets easier to say goodbye with time, but in my experience, it only gets harder.”
“Then why do you do it?” I whispered. “The goodbyes to all the people you love and…and to the men when they deploy?”
“First of all,” she said, “we don’t have it nearly as bad as the Marines and their families. You want to talk separation? Try an eighteen-month deployment.”
I shuddered. That didn’t even seem humane.
“I mean, of course you’ve always got outliers. I knew an airman once who was deployed twenty-four months. But those guys are few and far between.” She stirred her drink with her straw. “But more importantly, I fell in love with my husband in high school. And when he decided to join, I had to make a choice. Did I stay with what was safe and what I knew? Or did I leave to face the world with him?”
“How did you choose?” I asked, staring into the depths of my sad, empty cup.
“I decided I didn’t want to wonderwhat iffor the rest of my life. So I chose adventure.”
“And you’ve never regretted it?”
She leaned back and gave a rueful laugh. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s hard. Leaving, church shopping, new friends, old friends, insurance, job instability for me, changing addresses and voting registration and driver licenses. Continually finding new sports teams for the kids. It’s tough on everyone. And it hurts every time.” She studied me. “What’s wrong?”
I frowned. “I don’t mean to sound rude at all. Because I completely respect your choice. I just…I can’t understand why anyone would willingly sign up for that.”
