Headed for Trouble

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Arlene sat in the now nearly empty waiting area by gate forty-two, with Maggie on her lap.

“I love you,” she told her daughter, who nodded as she clung to Arlene’s neck. “But I need you to get off of me now, because I have to give you something.”

Maggie wiped her eyes as she slid into the neighboring seat to let Arlene reach into her pants pocket. She pulled out the necklace she’d found on Maggie’s dresser. It was long enough to be hidden beneath the neckline of her shirts. And onto it Arlene had put the ring that Jack had brought over to Will’s apartment, that very first night he’d rocketed back into her life.

“I don’t want to wear this over there,” Arlene told Maggie. “So I was hoping that you would wear it for me until I get back.”

Maggie’s eyes widened. “What if I lose it?”

“You won’t,” Arlene said as she slipped it around her daughter’s slender neck. “You’ll be careful with it. I know you will.”

Maggie lifted the ring to look at the diamond as it flashed in the waning afternoon light shining in through the big terminal windows. “I will be careful with it,” she promised.

Over at the gate, Jules was deep in discussion with the World Airlines attendant, who was shaking her head. No doubt they’d held the gate for as long as they could. It was time to go.

Jules took out his phone and dialed it, but it was more than apparent now that not only had Jack’s phone given up the ghost, but that he wasn’t going to make it. Arlene was going to have to say her goodbyes to him via email.

She stood up, and Maggie threw herself into her arms and hugged her tightly. “Be careful of land mines and mortars and snipers and IEDs and truck drivers who are afraid of bees.”

Oh, God, now her daughter had yet one more thing to worry about. “I will,” Arlene promised. “You be careful of truck drivers who are afraid of bees, too, okay?”

Maggie nodded, getting the message that the accident could just as easily have happened here in Boston. “I love you, Mommy.”

“I love you, too, monkey-girl.”

“Hey! Hey! Arlene!”

They both looked up, and there he was, running toward them.

Jack.

And Maggie gave Arlene a push and it was all she needed to start running, too, toward Jack, and then, God, she was in his arms and he was kissing her.

His mouth was so warm, and he’d been drinking coffee, probably nonstop since he’d caught the plane from California, but he’d made it.

And she didn’t ever want to stop kissing him, but she had to go. And the tears that she always worked so valiantly to hide from Maggie escaped. “I’m so sorry,” she told him.

“I know,” he said as he turned her so that Maggie couldn’t see her, even as she dug through her pockets for a Kleenex. “I’m in love with you, remember? I’m in love with you, and if I had to answer the question What would Arlene do, I would say that of course you’d go back.”

She laughed as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, as she looked at him, trying to memorize him—his smile, his warmth, the width of his shoulders, the unruly lock of hair that fell into his eyes—for the cold and lonely days and nights she knew were coming.

He was looking at her just as intently, but then he pulled her close and kissed her face, her nose, her cheeks, her mouth, her chin. “Vegas schmegas,” he said as he pulled Arlene over to where Maggie was standing near Jules and the woman from the airline. “Mags, can I borrow your lucky ring?”

Maggie clutched the diamond ring that Arlene had just given her, but Jack was pointing toward the kelly green plastic leprechaun that she’d gotten at Laser-Mania.

“I need to borrow it for a few months,” Jack added. “I hope that’s okay.”

Maggie nodded as she handed it to him.

But then Jack’s full attention was back on Arlene. And as she gazed up into the warmth of his whiskey-colored eyes, he whispered, “With this ring, I thee wed,” as he slipped it onto the ring finger of her left hand.

She laughed both from her surprise and from the power of the emotion that filled her.

“We don’t need to be in Vegas to start our lives together,” Jack told her. “We don’t even need to be together. You’re mine now, and Leenie, I’m all yours, and when you come back, we’ll go and sign whatever papers need to be signed and filed. But that won’t change the fact that it starts right now. You and me. Forever.”

As Jack kissed Arlene again she heard the attendant from the airline say to Jules, “I’m sorry, sir, the flight is full, otherwise I’d be more than willing to bend the rules.”

“How about you let me go on and see if there’s someone willing to take the next flight to JFK,” Jules suggested, and Arlene knew he was trying to arrange a seat for Jack to go with her, at least as far as New York.

But Jack heard him, too, and he stopped kissing Arlene to say, “No, that’s okay. Thank you, Jules, but it’s best if I stay here.”

With Maggie. He didn’t say those words, but he didn’t have to. Arlene knew that whatever happened—what was it that Mike Milton had said? That line from that movie? Come what may …

Come what may, God help her, Jack would be there for Maggie, forever, too.

That vow he’d made may not have been legal, but it was real.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” the woman from the airline said, and she really was sorry. She actually had tears in her eyes. This was probably the most up-close-and-personal she’d ever been to the reality of a war that was being fought on the other side of the world.

Arlene picked up her carry-on bag, but then she dropped it so that she could hug Jules, and then Jack, and then Maggie one more time.

And then Jules was holding out her bag for her. She slipped its strap over her shoulder as she gave her boarding pass to the woman and started down the ramp. But she turned as she walked, to look back, one last time.

Jack had his arm around Maggie, and Jules was standing solidly on her other side. “We’ll keep the home fires burning,” Jack called.

She nodded. “See you soon,” she said, and got on the plane.

EPILOGUE

Sgt. Arlene Schroeder Lloyd received an honorable discharge from the Army in February 2009. She, Jack, Maggie, and three-year-old Ian live in Needham, Massachusetts, in a small house where they are joined several times a year by Jack’s sons Luke and Joey.

Jack recently sold his first novel, and has found some significant acclaim as a political blogger for a popular online news site. Arlene works part-time at a little bookstore five minutes from their home.

They are happy, but life is not without turmoil. Especially ever since Mike Milton joined the Marines.

He currently serves in Afghanistan.

And Maggie emails him every day, without fail.