Afghanistan
In general, the military has hard and fast rules that cannot be broken. There are, however, exceptions, and the highly decorated Captain Mike Dennison was one of them. Not only had he continued to serve in the National Guard after his two distinguished tours in the Middle East, he was a West Pointer. Although he had left before graduating, there wasn’t an officer on base who didn’t know the reason was to raise his orphaned kid brother.
And now that brother was missing in action.
The army had aircraft and ground troops looking for him but so far they had not been successful.
It took some doing, and went up the chain of command, but within four days, Captain Mike Dennison had re-upped for an additional tour of duty for the minimum twelve months. Because of his National Guard training, he was flight and battle ready. He was to be deployed immediately, assigned to the search team that was looking for Lieutenant Kevin Dennison.
Now came the hard part. Telling Allison.
No one was at the house on Breezy Point when Mike got there. By now he knew where the key was and, like the rest of the extended family, he let himself in.
He could guess where she was. She had gone to St Thomas More’s to pray several times a day since Kevin had gone missing. It was the same parish church where most of Breezy Point had gone to pray after most of the community had been burned or flooded after Hurricane Sandy. He knew her dad and Jimmy stopped there to light a candle every morning on their way to work.
They had met Kevin only once but loved him immediately. That’s how his brother affected people.
He decided not to go looking for Allison there. She would need all the strength she could muster to receive the news he was about to give her.
He understood her fear of loss and the reasons for it. He hoped she would understand his need to go after his brother.
And she understood. She just couldn’t live with it. ‘Mike, you can’t go back. You’re not trained. You’re not ready.’ Allison was shaking so hard, she could barely speak.
‘I am as combat ready as I was when I left my unit. The whole purpose of the National Guard is to be trained and ready to go, should a need arise. I have to find Kevin.’
‘But a year?’ Allison could hardly speak through her tears. ‘You signed up for a year.’
‘I had to, Allison. They wouldn’t let me go to war for a couple of weeks, or until I found Kevin. It doesn’t work like that. I’m lucky they’re letting me go at all.’
‘Lucky? Lucky to be risking your life?’
‘I know what I’m doing over there,’ Mike said. ‘I already spent six years there. I can survive one more.’
‘Can you promise me that? Can you? Like you promised me, if I let myself love you, that you would not take risks. What was it you said? You’d get flu shots, look both ways …’ She was sobbing too hard to continue. ‘No cadet shall …’ She crumpled in a heap on the couch. ‘You said you understood how it was with me.’
Mike went to her and held her in his arms until her sobs quietened. He rocked her back and forth like a child. ‘It’s okay. It’s going to be all right.’
Finally, she looked up at him, her face red from crying. ‘I can’t do this, Mike, I can’t. I have to stop loving you. I don’t know how I do that, but I have to find a way.’
‘Allison …’
‘I pray you find Kevin. I pray you’ll be safe. But I can’t be part of it. I cannot go through that kind of loss again.’
Mike fished the ring box out of his pocket. He opened it and showed her the violet sapphire. ‘Wear this, my love. Wear it until Kevin and I come home. That will keep me safe. I promise you.’
He put the box on her lap.
She studied the ring. ‘Beautiful,’ she said. ‘It’s Art Deco, I think. You can tell by the way the diamonds are cut.’
She carefully closed the box and handed it back to him.
‘Don’t come back here, Mike Dennison. Just don’t. May God keep you and Kevin safe.’
She stood, then headed upstairs to her studio. Her pain was so intense she could barely walk.
Mike sat still for a long time, holding the velvet box. Finally, he left, locking the door behind him and returning the key to its hiding place.