He hung up with his daughter then sat there and spent some time reflecting on life with Jen even though he knew he spent far too much time living in the past. He really did need to move on, he just could find the gumption to do it.
Jen had been everything Jeff had ever wanted in a wife and more. She was not only the most beautiful woman he'd ever known, she was also an amazing new mother, and a truly superb partner when it came to practicing baby-making. While many of his friends routinely complained about their wives and how it was like pulling teeth to get them to have sex with them, Jeff never had that concern.
They'd even wanted to have another child after settling in at Camp Lester, but after a full year of trying—a lot—Jeff decided to go see a doctor. He was shocked with the Navy Commander who set him down said, "Captain Crisler, it's truly amazing you have a child considering your 'motility rate'. Your sperm count is in the very-low category meaning it's not impossible for you to father another child. It's just extremely unlikely."
Jen told him several times it didn't matter, and although they were both disappointed, they had Abbie, and having another baby became a non-issue for them.
If that wasn't enough, she was fully supportive of him in his career and loved being a Marine wife. She really was insanely attractive, and Jeff loved the way heads turned whenever she joined him for lunch at the club or at events like the Marine Corps Ball.
When they learned she had an aggressive form of breast cancer nearly four years ago, it was so devastating to him that for the first time in his adult life he cried. It was more a couple of tears falling than crying, but Jeff Crisler never cried.
He was with her through it all, the ups and downs, the false hope of remission at one point a year before she died, the cancer's vicious return, and ultimately her inability to fight it any longer. He was still there right beside her until the very end when she took her last breath. Jen had been in a coma for nearly two days but he refused to even go home to shower and stayed by her side until the battle was over.
Feeling beaten and broken, he really did cry when the monitor stopped beeping and the doctor on call told him how sorry he was. She was gone, and to him, it felt like everything else was, too.
And yet he knew that wasn't true. He still had Abbie, of course, and for another year or so, his career to sustain him. He was on track to make colonel, but that meant staying in at least another 3-5 years, and his heart was no longer in it. He gave it everything he had that last year, but the law he'd so loved had become nothing but a grind.
And now here he was, a little over a year later, alone and as sad and unhappy as he'd ever been. But he'd vowed to never let his daughter know that no matter how bad it got. He knew she had some inkling as he rarely left the house let alone tried to get a job as an attorney or even at a big-box store just to keep busy. But he wasn't about to tell her that.
She'd convinced him, or more rightly, twisted his arm so hard he'd finally agreed to try dating, but his heart just wasn't in that, either. Neither was his head for that matter, and the few women he'd gone out with made him think it was borderline hopeless. And yet somewhere deep inside himself he knew he couldn't live like this for the rest of his life. At some point, he'd have to get back in the saddle and make a real, no-kidding effort both at finding a wife and a job. But for now, he just didn't have the mental energy.
The only thing he enjoyed doing anymore was working out, a habit he'd inculcated since his friend in law school had warned him about OCS. So three days a week he ran somewhere between four and eight miles. Three others he went to a local gym to lift. And on his day off he mowed the lawn if the grass needed to be cut.
Other than that, he went to the grocery about once a week, and if his new-model SUV needed maintenance, he took it to the dealership. The rest of the time he read, piddled around on his iPad, or...something else he'd never tell his daughter...he watched romantic movies on TV. No matter the plot, no matter how canned the scenario, he always put himself in the role of the lead male and cast Jen in the role of his love interest. In the end, he always got the girl, and for those couple of hours, she was there with him just as she'd been for all those years.
Financially, he had no incentive to work. As a retired lieutenant colonel he was bringing in just over $4,000 a month after taxes. He and Jen had also saved close to fifty grand, paid for Abbie's tuition many years earlier as part of a new program that let them lock in the price at the rate back then, and he'd also received a hundred thousand in life insurance when she died. He'd used a good chunk of it to buy the huge house he now lived in—alone; a house far too big for one person or even a married couple. But he owned and did his best to at least keep in clean.
He knew that at 46, he was much too young not to work, but until he could get his 'give-a-shit' factor back up, work was out of the question. And since he still didn't give a shit, he saw no reason to even look for a job let alone put his nose to the grindstone.
He took a look around at the big fixer-upper he'd bought thinking at least that would keep him busy. And yet he'd done next to nothing in just under a year of having lived there. The house had four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a decent-sized pool, and an in-law suite. Okay, it wasn't anything close to a suite, but it was reasonably clean and livable with electricity and running water. Maybe later on he'd run to Home Depot and buy a few things to fix it up.
He almost laughed at the thought. He knew better. But just as with dating, he constantly told himself he just needed a little more time. It was a little game he almost enjoyed playing with himself, but he knew that at some point he'd have to pay the piper. But because he knew today wasn't that day, he grabbed his iPad and opened up his favorite poker app, and settled in to see if he could win a few cyber chips.
Two days later he remembered his most recent promise to go look up former Marine Captain John Jensen. As with home renovation, the thought of actually doing it irked him. It took every ounce of willpower he had to sit down at his desktop computer and type in the name. There were three John or Jonathan Jenson's with an 'o' and two Jonathan Jensens with an 'e'. One of them was 87 years old while the other was 49. That, he concluded, had to be his man.
It cost him $39 to get the other information he needed to be sure, and even when he was, it took him another three days before finally following through.
Jeff knew that was the right John Jensen when he saw from the online report he'd paid for that the man had served in the Marine Corps for 13 years during the time they were in Okinawa together. He wrote down the address and phone number on the report then forced himself to get started.
He'd tried calling, but the number was no longer in service. Now out of stay-at-home options, he was forced to get in his car and actually drive somewhere if he really wanted to see the guy.
He didn't really want to drive anywhere, but the weather was unusually good for mid-June, so he forced himself to get in the car and set the GPS to the man's last-known address.
Jensen didn't live in Seattle, he lived in the city of Spanaway, which bordered McChord Air Force Base. Both places were about 45 miles south of Seattle and roughly 25 miles north of Olympia, the state capitol. Jeff lived in the small town of Orting which was about 15 miles due east of Spanaway.
Jeff had grown up in the town of Sumner, not too far north of Orting, and gone to college and law school at the University of Washington. Orting appealed to him because it offered a slower pace of pace of life. With just over 7,500 people, it had that kind of small-town charm but was only about 30-45 minutes or so south of Tacoma, a city of some some 210,000.
He loved the rural scenery and was actually enjoying the drive. June could be an absolutely beautiful month or as cold and rainy as March or April. The last few days had been spectacular, and for the first time in quite a while, he found himself in a pretty good mood. He even popped in a CD and listened to some music as he drove.
Spanaway was about five times as populated as Orting, but still wasn't a large city. It was kind of a mixed bag as far as being 'nice'. It had newer, upscale housing developments and some really, nasty, rundown parts, and as he followed his GPS's commands, he could tell Jensen lived, or at least had lived, in an area that was more rundown than nice.
