After you leave VFA-64, you’ll get that admiral’s aide job you want, and after we move to Washington, you’ll be working all day. And once again, you’ll be gone on travel with the admiral, and I’ll be stuck in a new and expensive town, not knowing anyone, with two little kids. Then you’ll get command, and we’ll move again back here, or to Lemoore, or Japan, and like everything else, it will probably be “get here right now.” When the war started, you flew back here to join the squadron. Then I drove from Fallon across the country by myself with a two-year-old, found a house, and moved us in while you did shock-and-awe over Baghdad on CNN. I am not going to do that again.
James, I look at Billie Lassiter and think, do I want that? Not only does she take care of her own houseful alone, but she has to put up with bitchy wives — and now girlfriends — as she leads our support group. She does it with a smile, and I do admire her because she is doing it with no help because your XO doesn’t have a wife. But I’m not sure that I can do it or want to do it.
And after command, there will more moves into key 12 hour-a-day jobs and then CAG, with more deployments, and then admiral… The point is, we’ll never see you. Your kids will grow up and graduate from college, and you won’t be there. Do all of us have to pay the price?
Wilson inhaled deep and exhaled long. Mary must have had this building up inside her for months or years. She was not prone to emotional outbursts in e-mails or letters. Sponge’s mishap must have been the catalyst. The next part hit him hard.
It kills me that you have missed so much of Derrick and Brit growing up. You are a wonderful father and have so much fun with them — when you are home. They miss you, Derrick especially. He’s enjoying first grade and he’s really doing well. Many of the dads in his class (and one mom — ugh) are Navy and deployed, but when they have parent events like the Thanksgiving pageant, it’s so nice to see the dads there. Derrick said he wished you could have seen him. (He was the Pilgrim leader.) By the time this cruise is over, you will have missed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then Easter… all the big family holidays, not to mention my family reunion in August while you were on workups. In fact, you have missed half of Brittany’s life. It is not fair to the kids that their father is gone so much of the time — by choice.
James, I need you too. Not only to help with them but as a woman. I knew you were a Navy pilot when I met you, and I went into this marriage with my eyes open, but after nine years the reality is I have a part-time husband. I want a full-time husband at home and in my bed. I’m lonely, and a future Navy career means more loneliness. Haven’t I supported you through your service to our country? I love you for that and America owes you and everyone out there everything. You, and I, have given so much. Can’t someone else step up and save the world? You have lived your dream, and every time you go out, you come back with more medals. At what point is enough, enough? Is it worth sacrificing your family?
