My love for Charlie didn’t begin today. But now, the rest of them get to see how their lives would be impacted by his third marriage.
“Until Rhoswen, I never thought I’d speak of my third wife ever again unless it was during a clearance investigation.”
This causes every male who Charlie’s ever worked with in the room to sit with a little more awareness. It occurs with a scrape of a chair, a glass being placed on a table too hard. Little movements that show he has their full attention.
As I knew it would be when he finally came around to speaking about Mara, my sole purpose is to provide Charlie with as much strength as I can. From my own heart being shattered, albeit in a completely incomparable way, I know presence can be its own form of devotion.
That’s what he needs right now.
He draws in a slow breath before speaking, “I met her again at our ten-year high school reunion. Her name was Mara Flores.”
There’s a subtle reaction to the name—a softening before everyone stiffens at the past tense. “Was” seems to echo around the room bringing a darkness I’m certain few in the room are prepared for.
“We grew up two houses apart,” he reminisces. “Same schools, same teachers. Same summers at the pond that felt endless when we were kids. She was my first kiss, my first love. Notdramatic. Fond. The memories you pull out when you’re lying in a desert wondering about people from home. That’s the relationship I had with Mara.”
His voice is calm, but something under it warns the room there’s worse to come.
If only they knew what I do, I think. Maybe they’d have stuck to the jesting and cheer of Twelfth Night instead of forcing Charlie’s Epiphany.
His smile is just as bittersweet as when he told me the story six months ago. “When I left to join the Navy, I wasn’t leaving her. I was just doing what I planned from the time I was a kid—I was going to become a SEAL.”
Someone exhales softly. He goes on, “We lost touch when I joined the teams. Life happened. She stayed. I left. Ten years passed.”
His gaze turns inward. “After the Middle East, I went home. I needed some R&R. Walker was sent back to his wife. The two of us had six months to get our heads on straight. My mother—God rest her soul—had this idea of feeding me with enough fried chicken and apple pie to make me resign my commission. When that didn’t work she said I should go to my ten year class reunion. Reconnect with some friends.”
I allow myself a slow blink because here’s where Charlie’s story becomes both beautiful and heartbreaking.
“When I walked into that reunion, I wasn’t expecting anything from anyone.”
“What happened?” That question comes from Kee Long. Her husband Benedict squeezes her shoulder.
“Mara was there. Older, but still Mara. She had this innate talent for taking one look at me and knowing I was lying about being okay.”
A faint smile ghosts his mouth. I know it won’t last for long. “We left the reunion. Walked to the lake. Talked until sun up. Caught up on a decade in what felt like minutes. Things I would have had to have explained to other people? I just had to look at Mara.” He blinks his eyes rapidly. “She was so much like the female version of me, I felt like I regained a part of myself I didn’t know was missing.”
His fingers flex once at his side. “We were engaged two months later.” No one challenges it. The people in this room know this wasn’t impulse; it was inevitability.
“She wanted a big wedding.” Charlie’s lost in his memories. “It was the kind you only do once—the kind if we’d have had the money, we’d have paid someone like Cassidy to plan. It was so important to both of us that it was done right.”
Cassidy, honored by Charlie’s words, scrubs her face against my shoulder to wipe away her tears.
He keeps on going. “The whole town was invited—family, neighbors, teachers. Seemed like everyone who was there remembered us when we were just kids and had a story that ended with ‘We always knew you’d end up together.’”
He swallows. “She was a vision in her white lace gown. Me? I wore my dress blues.” Something in his voice must alert them because the tension in the room ratchets up. I can feel it. Cassidy’s hand reaches for mine. That’s when Charlie exhales. “That was the second to last time I ever wore them.”
I hear a voice murmur, “I have a bad feeling…” I don’t take my eyes from Charlie to suss it out.
But they’re right.
Instead, I take shallow breaths so I can support Charlie better than I did the first time I heard about Mara.
May God rest her soul.
“We returned to San Diego after my R&R. I passed all my psych evals. They deployed me back with the team three months later. Routine assignment. But nothing that raised alarms. I knew I’d be out of the country for a while, but we talked when we could. Letters when calls weren’t possible.”
He pauses.
“She always ended the same way. ‘Come home to me. I love you.’ I always promised I would and told her I loved her, too.”
