Chapter 1: April, 1998 Jack Loved Janice
It was unusual. Janice called and said that they needed to talk soon, using that little girl voice she used when something was very serious. They were engaged to be married. He had asked her just two months ago, and they had gone ring shopping together that night. They'd picked one out but the size was not right-a little too loose, so they'd taken a few minutes and gotten it right and she walked out with it on her finger. They went to show their parents, proudly.
He had known Janice since they were first graders; they'd gone through school often in the same class, watched each other at sports and recitals and performances. She'd been class salutatorian senior year, he'd won a scholarship from the Marines. He had always loved her, always. Everyone assumed they would marry someday-after college, her parents insisted. His parents just nodded and smiled at that good advice. They were seniors in college now, and their virginity weighed heavily on them, but they had restrained ourselves. She wanted that for her wedding night, for him, for them. The ring told everyone what they had already known: Jack loved Janice, and Janice loved Jack.
They met that April day under the oak tree in her backyard, where her parents had placed chairs and a little table, and in the warm spring sun the place was peaceful and quiet. They often sat there with her folks and drank a pop or lit firecrackers on the Fourth or talked politics, religion or baseball. It was just Janice with him this afternoon; they had a month and a half until college graduation, she from University of Cincinnati and he from Miami. Different schools had been difficult, but she'd only lived on campus this one year and he was only a half hour away from home at his school. He thought it had worked out. The wedding was to be two weeks after graduation. He reported for duty to Quantico in July; they had a modest honeymoon planned.
She looked at him and took a deep breath. "I have something to say and it's not easy."
He felt something in his chest: anguish, fear and dread.
"I always said I wanted to be a virgin on our wedding night. We had so many chances to do it..." she said, holding his hand. They looked out on her house and beyond from the little knoll under that oak.
"Yeah, it wasn't easy," he said, smiling. "Have you changed your mind? We still have time..."
But no, she shook her head. She wasn't offering early access.
"I failed, Jack," she said, almost whispering. "I failed you."
"What do you mean?" he asked. He did not understand. She'd squeezed his hand each time she said failed. "A class? I knew you had trouble with that methods teacher but..."
"No, not class. I...I had sex with someone, Jack. A guy at school."
He had expected something serious but not this. She had made her virginity a symbol of purity, of righteousness, of love, of everything good that a man and woman could find in one another. He had lived with her standard, even embraced it when on summer activities with the Marines when far from home. He had been faithful to a woman who would not have sex with him...yet, not marry him...yet, not live with him...yet. He had that second beer on the Westpac cruise two summers ago instead of visiting with that floozie in some bar in South Korea. He'd had several opportunities then and other places and times.
But Janice had wanted them both to be virgins, to learn about sex together-and they had, he thought, having touched and kissed and done all those things they hoped would alleviate but only increased their sex drives, making it harder to say no but they did, they did say NO. Or at least they said, yes but not yet.
She said, her voice a definite whisper now, "I met him in class in November, and I fell in love, Jack. In love with him even though I was in love with you for so long. But he was tall and dressed so nicely and he took me to games and things..." She took a deep breath. "I slept with him two months ago, just one time. But then it happened again the Saturday you went on that Marine trip, and I realized I loved him, too."
His reality crashed. He felt a mass in his chest that had never been there before, overwhelming his heart and lungs and leaving them no room.
"Two months ago? Before or after we got the ring?"
She looked sheepish. "The next night."
She reached in her pocket, pulled something out and handed him the ring. He looked at her left hand. She was wearing a diamond engagement ring, the stone larger than that they'd picked out a month ago. He looked at the ring in his palm.
"You were engaged to two men at once?" he asked, incredulously. He shook his head.
She looked down. "I know I've not done right by you, Jack. I do love you, but Kevin is more the man I've always wanted. You're the man I always had. You belong to my past. He belongs to my future." It sounded prepared, rehearsed.
He looked at her and restrained himself. He remembered her professions of love over the fifteen years they'd been friends and classmates and unsexed lovers. He remembered all the kid things they'd done together like building a snow fort, pulling a bee stinger from her leg, her holding a snake in her hands to show him, tossing a baseball, playing tackle football with other guys and girls in the mud. He remembered her white dress at their Confirmation, the proms they attended, eating together in the cafeteria, all the things kids do as friends and then lovers. He felt the grip in his chest. He'd really been in love with her, only her, forever. Now that would become something else, and he'd live with that pain, forever.
He stood. "Yes, I agree. I've been had." He left her then despite her calling out that she wanted to say more, but he went on with the ring in his clammy palm. He saw only straight before him for the next few minutes.
He drove around Sky Grey, numbed and stunned, forcing himself to see the road and traffic and pedestrians. Tiring of that, he went home and talked to his mother, who called his father who came home to be there. His father, a solid, stolid man with jowls-and who had always loved Janice-shook his head as if he needed to clear it of a fog; he no longer understood the workings of the universe. He was Euclidean in a quantum reality. Jack without Janice seemed impossible.
The phone rang and Jack's mother answered. She spoke a few minutes, quietly, and then came back into the living room. "That was Marge," she said. Janice's mother. "Janice is pregnant."
His father looked at Jack, as did his mother, but Jack just shook his head. "No, not mine. She had sex with Kevin Somebody." He stopped and looked at his parents. "I feel like a fool."
*
Chapter 2: February, 2001 SEAL Squad Unnumbered
"Lieutenant, we are looking at your service record."
Leslie was at attention, standing before a table with Marine Colonel Samuel Lejoy, Rear Admiral (he preferred the archaic term Commodore) Elias Jansen (who wore a SEAL badge, Leslie noticed), and Navy Captain Juanita Estevez sitting on the other side. There were papers spread about the table. He sneaked a glance down and saw several pictures of himself-one portrait and several of him in action from the various schools and programs he'd attended. Because of the last one-20 months overseas-his term of obligated service had been extended to six as opposed to four years. He'd spent almost three years going to school since he'd been in the Corps. He did not regret the extra two years: he had no other responsibility, no wife, no child, and since leaving college he had thrown himself into these programs. He'd been home three times between schools, but most of his spare time was spent reading: professional journals, novels, essays about foreign policy and the military.
"Do you have a personal life, Lieutenant?" the captain inquired.
