Blast From the Past

"I'm glad you called, honey. I always enjoy hearing from you, and I'm happy things are going so well. Colorado and married life seem to agree with you."

"Thanks, Dad. Same here, and yes, I couldn't be happier with either my husband or where we live. Well, except for being so far away from you, of course. And speaking of enjoying yourself, are you still seeing Shari?"

"Shari? Nah. That didn't last too long. As in two-dates long. Lots of reasons. None of them worth talking about. It just wasn't meant to be."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I thought she might be someone you might really like."

"No, there were just too many differences to overcome. No big deal. I'm in no hurry. Your mom's only been gone two years, so I'm taking it slow."

"Well, you know you have my full support when it comes to looking, right?"

"I do, and that means everything to me, sweetie."

"Listen, I know how much you hate gossip, and I haven't confirmed this, but I'm pretty sure Emily is either divorced or separated from her husband."

"Our Emily?"

She laughed then said, "Yes, our little Emily. My best friend from when we lived in Okinawa."

"It's funny, but it's hard to imagine her anything but five years old like you were back then."

"She was six, but okay. I know I told you but she's married with two kids. Or...maybe...not married now. The few recent pics she posted on Facebook show her without a wedding ring, and it's like her husband, Mike, just vanished. She used to post pics of him or the kids nearly every day and talk about how happy they are. And then...poof! He's gone, the ring is gone, and she rarely posts anything. And when she does, there's no wedding ring. And yet that beautiful smile is there."

"That's really sad. I hope it's not true," her dad said.

"Yeah. No kidding. I can't imagine that happening to me at any time, but if I had children it would be devastating."

He thought about reminding her that death or other bad things could strike at any time, but she'd lost her mother when he lost his wife, so it wasn't as though she was unaware. He decided not to pass along his feelings of emptiness and just told her she was right.

"Oh, I meant to tell you that in one of her rare recent posts, she mentioned she's originally from the Seattle area. I had no idea. I guess that's where her dad lives. He and Emily's mom divorced several years back, and I've lost touch with both of the parents. I mean, Emily and I barely talk anymore, and that's really only through Facebook. Anyway, it's all just so sad, you know? If it's true, of course."

"I remember them both. He was a year or two senior to me as a captain, and she always struck me as the nicest person. Stranger things have happened, but they always made me think of oil and water, you know?"

"Well, that's why I never wanted to play at her house when her dad was home. Emily mentioned several times that her dad drank a lot and could get pretty mean. I think he may have even pushed her mom around, and I know he used to yell at her because I heard him do that several times when I was over at their house playing with her before I said 'no more'."

"Not every home is perfect, Abbie," he told her, knowing she also knew that.

"Except for ours," she said. "You and Mom were the best."

He dad laughed softly then said, "Thanks, Abs. I miss her like crazy and we did our best to make sure you felt safe and knew you were loved."

"I never once doubted that, Dad."

"Oh, speaking of Emily, didn't you tell me she married an Air Force guy?"

"You remembered!" his daughter teased. "Yes, he's a SSgt now. I think they got married about...gee, maybe six years ago or so when she was only 19. She's 25 and their kids are five and three if you can believe that. They've been living at Kirtland Air Base in New Mexico the whole time. As I recall, he got sent on an unaccompanied tour to Korea around this time last year," his daughter explained.

"Oh, okay. That could potentially explain a lot. I know of more than a few guys who fooled around on long deployments, and most of the time word got back to their wives and that was it."

"That's exactly what I've been thinking. I hope it isn't true, but it's not like Emily and I are close enough friends anymore for me to ask her. I just feel awful for her whatever happened, you know? Paul and I love each other so much, and if he ever cheated on me, I'd be crushed. And we don't even have kids yet."

"I'll never understand infidelity, honey. Then again, your mom was so beautiful and so amazing, the thought of cheating never even crossed my mind. All I could ever think of any time I was gone was getting home to her again. And to you, too, of course."

"Ahh! That's so sweet, Daddy!" his 23-year old married daughter said. "Listen, I gotta run, okay? Paul's due home any minute and I've gotta get dinner going."

"Oh, sure. I'm just glad you called. Not about Emily, of course, but you know I love hearing from you."

"Well, I love talking to you, too. And I know you hate it, but I do worry about you living all alone in that big old house."

"Ah, it's no big deal, hon. Piece a cake!" he said trying to sound strong for her.

The truth was it was awful living by himself. But dating was proving to be worse than staying home alone. No one seemed capable of even being close to the woman his late wife, Jennifer, was. There was nothing really wrong with these other women, they just weren't Jen. Maybe one day he'd find someone to love, but if the kind of women he'd met since he started dating six months ago was any indication, it was going to be a long, dry slog from here on out.

Jeff Crisler had been widowed for just over two years and retired for a little over a year. He'd never intended to make the Marine Corps a career. Hell, he'd never even thought about the military until he was starting his third year of law school. But having a wife and daughter meant struggling month to month when he was in law school. Only then did he start really looking at any and all options to make ends meet.

One day he was BS'ing about finances with a friend in one of his law classes who told him he was getting everything paid for by the military and earning a salary. It turned out that his friend was a Marine Corps captain who'd gotten selected for something called The Funded Law Program, and the military was paying for it and his full pay and allowances the entire three years. He'd flown F-18s for five years, and decided to get it out then heard about going to law school on the Marine Corps' dime. He applied to several law schools, got accepted, then put in for Funded Law and several months later was sitting in class and getting paid for it.

Not being on active duty himself, Jeff couldn't get a sweet deal like that. But if he was willing to give the Marine Corps five years, his friend told him they'd pay off all of his student loans and that the pay wasn't bad.

"Where do I sign up?" he'd asked immediately.

"It's not that easy, my friend," the captain told him. "You have to make it through Marine Corps OCS and TBS first."

"OCS and...what? What's that? Some kind of alphabet soup?"

His friend laughed then explained.

"OCS is 'officer candidates school' and TBS is 'the basic school'. OCS is ten short weeks and TBS runs about six months. Can you run ten miles?"

"I can't run one lap anymore," Jeff told him. He'd run track in high school but hadn't run a lick since starting law school.

"Yeah, then you might want to check with the Air Force. Every Marine, lawyers included, have to understand what it's like to be a grunt. An infantry officer. I was a pilot, but I had to go through OCS and TBS, too. You'll be a lawyer, but you'll be a Marine first, and Marine officers have to be able to lead. OCS screens people to see if they've got what it takes, and TBS is where you learn how as a new lieutenant. If you can't do that, well, as I said, go see the Air Force."

Jeff took that as a challenge. Within three months he was running five miles again then challenged his friend to sign up for a 10k with him. He did and when Jeff beat him by nearly 30 seconds, his friend told him it was time to meet someone called an OSO, another of a thousand acronyms he'd learned in the 20 years he spent serving his country as a lawyer and later as a JAG or Judge Advocate General, the equivalent of a civilian judge.

The OSO, or officer selection officer, was a recruiter who only recruited future officers from college campuses. Finding a lawyer was a dream come true, as each OSO had to find one per year as a quota imposed on them, and Jeff Crisler made someone's day in a big way when his captain friend introduced him to another captain, an infantry officer, who was serving as an OSO in the Seattle area.

Jeff took a physical and some aptitude tests, and when he graduated from law school the following June, he found himself in Quantico, Virginia, in July. OCS was ten grueling weeks of running and hiking his ass off in the heat and humidity. It was boot camp for future officers only after the third week, the officer candidates essentially had to run the platoon. There was always a former drill instructor around, though, and any time a candidate screwed up, that Marine was in his face reading him the riot act.

At the end of OCS, he found himself wearing the silver bars of a first lieutenant, one small advantage of being a lawyer, while all of his peers were commissioned second lieutenants. The entire company moved across the base to TBS, where he was treated like every second lieutenant and where he learned how to lead an infantry platoon as well as all the basics any new officer needed.

He then attended a short course on military law then found himself spending his days in the legal center at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, North Carolina, where he honed his skills serving as a prosecutor and a defense attorney.

After spending three years there, he was sent to Okinawa, Japan, on a three-year, accompanied tour meaning Jen and Abbie would go with him at government expense. Abbie was almost six when they arrived there, and the three of them lived off base for nearly a year waiting for government housing to become available. When it did, they were moved into officer's quarters at Camp Lester just a few hundred yards from a military base hospital. And that's where Abbie met Emily and where he and his wife had met her parents.

Jen and Emil'y mom hit it off immediately. He and Emily's dad, John Jensen, were cordial to one another but never friends. He was much too moody for Jeff's liking and always seemed to have a chip on his shoulder. By the time John and his family got ready to leave Okinawa two years later, he'd been passed over for promotion to major twice and was being forced out of the service.

Jeff hadn't seen the man or heard from him since. But because he deeply believed in 'once a Marine, always a Marine' he decided he'd try and look him up. If he did live in the Seattle area it shouldn't be too hard to find. He knew his first and last name so tracking him down would be as easy as typing the name in one of those 'people finder' sites online. He made a mental note to try and so within the next couple of days, and if he turned out to really be in the local area, he'd go check in with him and see how he was doing.

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.