Always a Marine 21 - Lest Old Marines Be Forgot Read Online Free PDF Page A

thoughtful, sometimes introspective, other times…other times filled with ideas for what we might do five years, ten years, twenty years down the road. Sometimes I think we lived an entire lifetime together in those letters.”
    She sipped the wine, but made no move to take her hand from his.
    “In October of 1983,” she began and stopped. Ice slithered through his veins. It didn’t take a leap to put together military service, grief and October of 1983. “He was on deployment in Beirut.” Dampness shimmered in her eyes.
    “The Marine Barracks bombing.” Tom had lost good friends that day.
    She nodded once. “Yes. He didn’t die right away, so many others lost their lives that day—but he was gravely injured. They flew him to Germany….”
    “Ramstein.” He covered both of her hands with his now, cradling her fingers and stroking his thumb across her wrist. Her pulse raced, hammering against her flesh like it wanted to escape.
    “He didn’t wake up, and the doctors weren’t hopeful. But they did everything they could. When he lapsed into a coma, they suggested that perhaps it was his body’s way of trying to heal his brain. I flew overseas with his family and we went to see him. We were there for two weeks, but he didn’t wake up. I had to go back—I didn’t want to, but….”
    “You had school.” He supplied the words when her voice faltered.
    “Yeah, and tests. Steve would have been furious if I screwed up my GPA or any of our plans because I was wringing my hands in the hospital.” She shook her head, and for a moment exasperation sparkled behind her very deep grief. “So I went home, I spoke to Amelia and her parents every day. Eventually they came home, too. Steve was still in a coma, and the doctors were guarded, but optimistic. Every day, he seemed to improve some stat or another. So perhaps—perhaps he needed a good long sleep and he would be better.”
    That hadn’t been the case. She didn’t have to say that for him to recognize the danger of hope. In all likelihood, the physicians had been trying to be kind to the family. He released her long enough to pick up her water glass and hand it to her, and she rewarded him by taking a drink.
    “I’m sorry.” She sighed and reached out to settle her hand on his. “Sometimes it all feels like yesterday and other times it feels so very far away.”
    “Grief comes and goes, usually when we least expect it. It’s not the friendliest of companions.” He’d picked up his share of ghosts along the road.
    “No, it really isn’t.” She glanced down at their joined hands, and when he cradled her palm between his again, she smiled. “On Christmas Day, Steve woke up. I was at the hospital having flown over to see him for the Christmas break. I put a lot of miles on my brand new passport that year. But I was there when his eyes opened—I can’t begin to describe the joy I felt.”
    He wanted to scoop her out of her chair, sit her in his lap and shield her from whatever came next. Every instinct in him wanted to protect her, but he couldn’t stop whatever had already happened.
    “It was amazing, he was laughing and talking and he was him again. Best Christmas present ever. I spent the whole week, just being with him, talking to him and living again. New Year’s Eve, they let me sleep in his hospital room and at seven a.m. that morning—it would have been midnight here—a clot broke loose and went straight to his brain. One moment he was sitting there smiling and the next moment—he died.” A tear trembled on the edge of her lashes and when it tumbled over, Tom brushed it away with his thumb.
    “I’m so very sorry for your loss.” He could imagine exactly how hard that had been—or maybe he couldn’t. It really didn’t matter what he felt, it only matter that she’d been hurt. She’d loved a Marine and she’d lost him. No matter whatever else happened that evening, Tom had a mission—and that was to take care of this woman and