Corina was sitting on her lawn chair on her covered front porch. It was mid-afternoon, on a hot late summer day. Not much going on in this quiet tree lined street of row houses in Groton. Occasionally, a sea breeze would shake the leaves on the trees.
Corina was dozing off here and there in the shade of her porch. This had so far been one of the hotter summers in Groton in recent memory. In the afternoons, when Corina's daughter was at school, there wasn't much else to do. Her husband has been gone for almost two months now, and she didn't have many friends here.
Corina and her husband had moved to Groton earlier in the year with her 8 year old daughter, Sonya. She and William were originally from Louisiana and had known each other in high school. Just after graduation, Corina had gotten pregnant by her boyfriend at the time. As her pregnancy had progressed, so too did the distance her boyfriend maintained from her. She ended up giving birth and raising her daughter as a single mom. It hadn't been easy, but Corina did a good job with what she had.
Then four years later, she ran into William. He had joined the Navy out of high school, and to Corina, who had never paid him much mind while in high school, he seemed charming and sweet. A year later they married, and she moved with him when he got assigned to a base near Savannah, Georgia.
Now she was in Connecticut, alone. He had left out to sea on a submarine for an 8 month tour, the longest they had ever been apart from each other.
Corina was your typical housewife and young mother who lived next door, attractive, but unassuming. She was 26 years old, light brown hair, blue eyes. Short, at 5'4", with a body that had curves in all the right places, although she thought she was fat, as many women do. She always took care of how she looked. She spent many nights primping and making herself up, although she never really had an occasion to. She tried to go jogging at least once a week, but lately it has been too hot for that.
The heat has been so unbearable the past couple of weeks that the only thing that Corina had been able to do in comfort is to put her hair up in a ponytail, put on her shades, and lounge in her lawn chair, wearing only a bikini top, short blue jean shorts, and her sandals, which is how she was right now.
She sighed. She heard squealing children, and turned to look down the street to see some kids splashing through a yard sprinkler. She glanced at her watch. The school bus will be dropping her daughter off in a half hour.
A car pulled up the street and parked on the side of the street in front of her. She watched as a middle-aged black couple got out of the car.
"Hello Mr. and Mrs. Robertson," she waved.
They greeted her back. The Robertson's were her neighbors, and really the only people she talked to. They were a nice couple who sat on their porch in the evenings, where they would converse with her quite often. It was at times humorous to observe them. They made fun of each other during the course of casual conversations as only a long married couple are comfortable enough doing. They also had a young daughter, around 14 or 15 years old.
She picked up a magazine and flipped indifferently through the pages. After a while she got up, walked down her steps and down the sidewalk to the corner. Although she would normally have a shirt on, she just felt more comfortable with just having the bikini top on. She wouldn't have minded going completely topless, if only it were socially acceptable.
Soon enough, the school bus pulled up and Sonya hopped out. Corina waved to the driver, and her and Sonya walked back up the street and into their house.
Such was the life for this bored and lonely Navy wife. Her husband's income was such that they made a decent enough living without her working, but, oh, how she did wish she had a job, if only so she could socialize more. She thought to herself that this was looking to be a long and boring remainder of the year with her husband being gone.
Unbeknownst to her, this last half of the year would be anything but long and boring, and would in fact turn out to be a defining time for her and her marriage.
It was the last week of August, one day around mid-morning. Corina had sent her daughter off to school and then had sat down to write a letter to her husband. Afterwards, she did some laundry and other odd and end house chores. She was clad in her usual summer attire; bikini top and shorts.
Finishing her house chores, she went out to relax on her front porch. She hadn't been out for long when an SUV parked in front of her house. A young black man got out, casually dressed. Corina took notice of him because she had never seen the SUV or the young man in the neighborhood before.
At first he didn't notice Corina sitting there. As he walked past he did a cursory glance towards her, and then did a sudden double take as he spotted her in the shadow of her porch, lying on her lawn chair. With her dark shades on, it wouldn't have been apparent that she was looking back at him.
He walked up the steps to the Robertson's house and went inside without knocking.
Must be some relation to Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, Corina surmised.
Later in the afternoon, Corina was inside watching TV. She glanced at her watch and jumped up suddenly. Sonya's bus would be arriving any minute! She had completely lost track of time!
She quickly put on her sunglasses and sandals and bounded out the door and down the steps without another thought in mind. She went down the steps so fast that she almost ran right into the young man she had seen earlier. He was unloading the back of his vehicle and had several pieces of luggage on the sidewalk directly in Corina's path.
"Oh, pardon me!" Corina exclaimed, partly from surprise, partly from embarrassment.
"Here, let me get these out of your way." He bent down and moved his luggage aside.
"Thanks. Um, well gotta go," she smiled up at him, unsurely.
She trotted off down the street and got to the corner just as the school bus pulled up.
Corina and Sonya walked back up the street to their house. Corina saw the young man watching them as they approached while he continued unloading his vehicle.
I suppose I should be polite and introduce myself, Corina thought. Socially, Corina was shy and awkward when it came to meeting new people, and she disliked doing it, as she always felt like she made a fool of herself and made bad first impressions.
"Um, hi," Corina smiled bashfully as she walked up to the young man.
"Hello," he responded.
"Sorry about being in such a hurry a moment ago. It's just that I had to get my daughter, you know." Corina self-consciously caught herself over-gesticulating.
"Sure. It's all good, no worries," he smiled.
"My name is Corina by the way, and this is my daughter, Sonya."
"James Robertson. Very nice to meet you." He held out his hand and Corina shook it.
"So, you are related to the Robertson's?"
"They are my parents. I am returning from college, so I will be staying here for the summer until I resume my classes. You must have just moved here."
"Oh, yea. My husband and I moved in around beginning of March. He's in the Navy and we moved up from Georgia."
