Fifty-Five
Thank you for the postcard, Cary.
Is that a picture of your ship on the front?! This is going to sound strange, but it’s smaller than I was expecting.
I showed it to Junie, and she wanted me to point to your “apartment.”
Also, thank you for the engraved Zippo lighter. It cracked me up—and, no lie, I’ve always wanted a metal lighter. I love the
way they smell.
I feel like this is the sort of lighter someone would have used to light my mother’s cigarettes in 1978.
What else can you get with your ship engraved on it??? Silver flasks? Belt buckles?
***
Shiloh, I have sad news about the shortbread you sent. The package looked like it got mauled by a thresher. I had to throw
out the cookies.
But Junie’s drawing survived—please thank her for me. I’m pretty sure that’s all of us at McDonald’s, including my mom, right?
I laughed out loud at the oxygen tank.
And I salvaged the photos, even though they were battered. Your dining room looks great. I like how you painted the chairs
green.
Thanks for the picture of Mikey with Otis—babies change so fast, it freaks me out.
There were no photos of you, so I have to assume that you continue not to age a single day.
That is my ship. I could also send you patches, T-shirts, baseball caps and coffee cups. (I just thought of something else to send
you. I won’t spoil it.)
You said you want to know how I’m feeling...
I felt like my dog died when I saw that your cookies were ruined. I’ve never had someone sending me care packages this consistently,
and I’ve appreciated it more than I can say.
I thought I was beyond caring about something like that; I’ve spent so much time at sea. But I’m not. Thank you.
We have about a month left out here, and everyone is itching to get home. We have to work not to be lax or get distracted.
I have to work on it myself—and I have to watch for it in everyone else.
You’re right, the ship is small. Three hundred people. This is the smallest ship I’ve served on so far. I wasn’t looking forward to that aspect of
it—but the assignment was good for my career. A step forward.
Living on a destroyer is like living in a small town compared to the big city of a carrier. You get to know each other better,
faster. There’s nowhere to hide. It’s easier to spot weak links, but then it’s also easier to notice when people shine.
I was worried about the job being too big for me to manage. It’s a lot of oversight and supervision. Synthesizing information.
Directing communication.
(Does that mean anything to you? I’m trying not to use jargon.)
In the past, I was the assisting officer. But now it’s just me.
As it’s turned out, it’s been fine. I’m trained to do the work, and I do it.
So I’m feeling relieved.
Don’t send any more packages. There’s a chance they won’t get to me before our deployment ends.
I hope you’re well, Shiloh.
***
Drat!!!!
I guess our luck couldn’t hold with the packages. There were two kinds of shortbread, lemon and cardamom. And I’m sorry to
tell you they were both splendid .
It makes me really sad to know that you haven’t been getting care packages—though I can see that it wouldn’t be your mom’s strong suit. You probably send her care packages.
(Didn’t you say you were engaged for a while? Was she not a mail person?)
I can’t help but feel like it should have been me sending you care packages all along.
Now that we’re talking again, I feel sick with regret over letting our friendship die.
It feels like such a waste .
Like—I get it. I GET IT. I know why it happened. I lived through it! I am at fault! But it just feels like a spectacular waste—to have had your friendship and lost it—especially now that I remember what it feels like to have you in my life.
The next time I send you something nice, give it to the 20-year-old version of yourself, and tell him I’m sorry I was such
a dick.
***
Hey, Cary—I’m trying to talk about my feelings. But you should tell me if you want me to stop.
***
Don’t stop, Shiloh.
***
Gus has used the potty chair all day today. Even at daycare. He even STOPPED WATCHING BOB THE BUILDER to use the potty chair. Unprecedented!
This feels like the first day of the rest of my life.
***
P.S. Cary, it only sort of makes sense when you talk about your job, even though I can tell you’re trying to explain it the
way you’d explain it to a 10-year-old.
***
Cary, I think about you almost every day when I drive home from work. I drive down Redick Ave.—the same way we used to walk
home from school.
When I moved back home, all my childhood memories got sharper. Like I had moved onto the soundstage where my childhood was
filmed.
Do you remember how we used to stop at the pawnshop, and you’d buy me Laffy Taffy? And then I’d make you listen to the terrible
jokes printed on the wrappers?
***
Shiloh, I’m sorry, the last week has been nothing but long days and late nights.
First, let me congratulate Gus. Is he holding the line?
I was engaged. She was also in the Navy—which made some things easier and some things more difficult. I should have sent her more
cookies.
I’ve gotten packages now and then, but you’ve always been especially great at mail. So the last few months have been a premium
experience.
I remember the Laffy Taffy. Reading your e-mail made my molars hurt.
When I go back to North O, I feel like I get hit by wave after wave of intense memories. I can’t imagine what it’s like to
live there. Is the nostalgia suffocating?
“Waste” is exactly the right word.
When I think about the last 14 years and everything I’ve missed in your life, I feel like I squandered something precious.
Like I was given something rare and valuable—a true blessing, an unearned gift—and all I had to do was hold on to it. And
I let go.
I worry that it shows my true measure.
That I couldn’t be trusted to get Frodo to Mordor.
I was young; is that an excuse?
There are 18- and 19-year-olds on this ship. They’re like toddlers. I trust them to do their jobs, mostly, but I wouldn’t
trust them with anything else.
I can’t believe that I thought I had it all figured out at that age—that I thought I had you figured out.
I should have done less thinking and more holding on.
What would I give 20-year-old Shiloh?
My attention. The loyalty I promised her.
***
Cary, you sent me a fanny pack with a Naval destroyer on it.
***
I’ll be crushed if you don’t wear it, Shiloh.
***
Too late, Junie has already claimed it. She’s carrying scented markers and naked Disney princesses in it.
***
The intended usage.
***
Cary, it always feels lucky when you’re online at the same time as me. Did you have a good day?
***
Yeah. No big mistakes. No big concerns. So busy that I hardly noticed time passing.
How about you?
***
Yeah. It’s Junie’s seventh birthday tomorrow. I’ve been baking the cake.
***
What flavor?
***
Hummingbird. Your favorite.
***
That is my favorite. Do you do their birthdays separately—you and your ex?
***
No. Ryan and I do it together. We’re having the party across the street, at the park. That’s what Junie wanted. It will be
mostly family—Ryan’s siblings and their kids. These are the strangest times for me, because it’s almost like we’re still a family. His parents still treat me like a daughter-in-law. (His dad loves me.) And I’m in all the group
photos.
I asked Ryan not to bring his girlfriend. This is probably the last birthday party where I’ll get away with that.
I am truly dreading the next fifteen years of parties.
I would never tell the kids this, but I feel like I’m serving out a sentence.
And I can’t even complain about it, because I brought it on myself.
***
You can complain about it.
***
I’m going to miss having you as a captive audience, Cary. Maybe when you get back to land, you can set me up with a handsome
young guy who’s headed out to sea.
***
Or a lovely young woman?
***
Huh. Maybe. I don’t know.
***
Is that still where your head is at?
***
You wondering if I’ve gone full Sappho since the last time you asked?
***
I’m just making sure I have the most current information.
***
I think I could probably date a woman. (This feels very weird to talk about. Can you talk about homosexuality on a military
computer?) Like, I don’t seem to have any emotional or physical objections? I feel very enthusiastic about women, conceptually.
But, in reality, I can hardly stand anyone . Not at close range, anyway.
(I think this is getting worse as I get older... with exposure to humanity.)
It’s murder all day long trying to be patient with people and to give them the benefit of the doubt. To remember that they
probably mean well, even when they don’t do well.
And I don’t like the look of them, either. (People.) (Human beings.) Their clothes are embarrassing, and their voices are
piercing, and I never want to see their feet or their ankles or their knees or their elbows.
Maybe there are only five people in the whole world who I could stand for more than ten minutes and who I’d also like to kiss—and
maybe one or two of them are women.
***
Is one of them still Val Kilmer?
***
One of them will always be Val Kilmer.
***
Shiloh, I’m coming home when my deployment is over. I have 20 days of leave, and my plan is to spend that time in Omaha, getting
my mom’s house ready for sale.
I’m going to stay with Mikey.
I know that you and I haven’t had the best track record with face-to-face interactions—but I hope you’ll let me take you out
to lunch.
***
Cary!!
Of course!!!
I want to see you as much as you’ll let me.
Please don’t worry. We’re going to be golden, I promise.
Tell me when you’re coming. I’ll bake you a cake.