Forgive & Forget (Love in the Fleet) (10 page)

Chapter 11

The tugboats had begun the workhorse job of pushing and pulling the USS
Blanchard
from the safety of her berth, and were now turning her toward the center of the harbor channel on her path to the river and the open sea. No small feat considering she measured over a thousand feet and displaced close to ninety-thousand tons fully loaded.

Many of the wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, parents, and children crowding the pier on that hot July morning were in tears as they waved goodbye, bidding farewell to their loved ones for the next six months. Probably more.

The
Blanchard
would operate twenty-four seven at sea. Crewmembers would hold down the fort in the fully staffed hospital, one of the six galleys, the four workout centers, the two barber shops, chapel, bank, post office, library, two general stores, brig, television studio, water purification plant, or two nuclear reactors. All designed to support the airport on the four-and-a-half acre flight deck on her roof.

The
Blanchard
’s primary mission was to provide a facility for aircrafts to launch and recover at sea in order to provide combat air operations while forward deployed.

Although only five percent of the crew would actually fly the aircraft, the jobs of the remaining ninety-five percent were there to support them with fortifying troops on the ground, protecting friendly shipping, deterring aggression, and defending freedom worldwide.

Along with her five thousand trained sailors and airmen, the ship would soon embark about seventy aircraft with price tags of up to sixty million dollars each, making the USS
Blanchard
an example of the most complex and expensive fighting machine in the world.

No other country possessed a vessel of this magnitude.

The United States had ten.

Eight hundred crewmembers, looking crisp in dress white Cracker Jack uniforms, their black neckerchiefs fluttering in the summer breeze, manned the rails of the flight deck as the tugs turned the carrier’s bulk one-hundred-eighty degrees before nosing her eastward toward the Atlantic Ocean. Two of the sailors did their best to keep their lips from moving while they talked in ranks. Petty Officers McCabe and Marini stood at parade rest: feet twelve inches apart, hands clasped in the small of their backs, chins high, chests out proudly. Lips barely moving.

“Look at her. See the pregnant one on the pier who looks like she’s going to deliver, like, yesterday? I can’t believe they wouldn’t let her husband stay behind for the birth.”

“Needs of the Navy, Gina. Needs of the Navy. At least he’ll get to be first off the ship when we return. I’ve always found that to be the most poignant Navy tradition, that the new dads are the first to disembark after a cruise. Makes me cry to see those guys meeting their children for the first time on a Navy pier. But I love that they get reunited with their families even before the Captain does. I guess rank doesn’t always have its privileges. And yay for that.”

Gina tried to stifle her smile. “Yeah, but that guy’s kid will practically be walking when we get back. I still say it sucks.”

“I wonder how many of those women out there won’t be on the pier when we return. Stuff can happen in six months.”

“You’re one to talk. When are you planning to spill the beans to lover boy that you’re living on his ship in a sailor uniform?”

Hallie’s overworked adrenal system kicked into an even higher gear. Maybe her head knew Philip would be down in the hole this morning, but her gut hadn’t gotten the memo. “I know. I know. I’m going to explain everything in a letter and send it through ship’s mail as soon as we’re truly underway. I wasn’t going to stress him out this week while he was getting the ship ready to leave.”

“And smacking into you in a passageway wouldn’t stress the crap out of him? Let alone the poor guy thinking he’s done something wrong. Come on, girlfriend, you’re running out of excuses. If you really love the guy, you’ll do what’s best for him and write that letter ASAP.”

A fist closed around Hallie’s chest making it difficult to breathe when she thought of him. Then it tangled with the guilt that rolled around in her gut. She was still kicking herself for chickening out that last night and not telling him the truth. But she was so ashamed, and couldn’t bear to see the hurt and disappointment on his face. Yeah, like he hadn’t looked hurt when she said it was over.

She’d moved on board the ship that very night. Knowing his job would be uber-stressful until they pulled out, she did not want to upset him further by telling him until they got underway.

Paranoid all week, she had rarely left the safety of Public Affairs, except to sleep in berthing or eat on the mess decks. She had simply performed her job, worked on her courses, and laid low. Hallie’s only foray to the outside had been to purchase some hair color. Her new light brown hair bought her a few more days before telling him the truth, but she couldn’t put it off forever. She felt like a selfish child after what she’d done to him.

Trixie kept the berthing area informed of how Bill Gates had been a real pill lately—“because he obviously wasn’t getting any.” But it was way more than that. Hallie knew how empty she felt without him. She could only imagine what it was like for Philip, who didn’t even know why she’d walked away.

And there was no way she could let him find out by accident. He deserved better. To just bump into her somewhere on the ship or for Trixie to casually mention her name one day was unacceptable.

She would write the letter and explain everything.

Tonight.

Then he could go off by himself to read and digest it, and she wouldn’t have to witness his disappointment in her.

The crowd continued to wave their flags and posters, but many of the well-wishers were disbanding. Probably headed home to start marking off days on the calendar until the
Blanchard
’s homecoming.

Hallie flexed her knees inside her dress whites, a little trick she’d learned in boot camp to keep her circulation going. She turned her head ever-so-slightly to see the last of Naval Station Mayport. “This is pretty weird. Exciting, but weird, to know I’m not going to see U.S. land until after New Year’s.”

Gina snorted in an attempt to keep from laughing. “Honey, you’re not going to see hardly
any
land until after New Year’s. See that big blue thing out there? That’s an ocean and that’s your new home. Welcome to haze gray and underway.”

The crew didn’t know where they were headed. They assumed it was the Persian Gulf, but they never knew for certain. It depended on the whims of the President and the Secretary of Defense, and whatever was going on in the world on any particular day.

Hallie knew in case of a natural disaster, the
Blanchard
could be at the scene in record time with her floating hospital, SAR and Med-Evac capabilities, water purification system, and the electricity from her two nuclear reactors. It boggled her mind that, aside from fuel for the aircraft, the
Blanchard
needed little to no fossil fuel to travel or perform all these tasks. Or fresh water either, since her Evaps could purify four hundred thousand gallons of seawater a day.

Philip had told her he would be in charge of the plumbing and air conditioning systems for what was essentially a small city, with all the occupations needed for that small city to function.

But most small cities didn’t need intelligence specialists, weapons handlers, bomb disposal teams, catapult experts, jet mechanics, search and seizure personnel, and checkers who walked around the town checking people’s living and working spaces to ensure nobody was using drugs or having sex.

Having sex. Ha. Something Hallie McCabe wouldn’t be doing for a long, long time.

“Now hear this. Now hear this,” called the Executive Officer over the 1MC communications system. “This is the XO. Very impressive departure. Thank you for setting such a professional tone on our first day at sea. Secure from manning the rails. All hands get in your working uniforms and turn to. That is all.”

Gina reached for the sky, then bent and touched her toes. “Man, I thought he’d never release us.”

The tugs were now guiding the
Blanchard
into the St. Johns River. Hallie watched the jetties slide by as she stretched. With a pang she realized it was the same river that she and Philip had sailed.

“You’re thinking about him again. I can tell.”

“Am not.”

“Never bullshit a bullshitter. It’s written all over your face. Either go tell him you can’t live without him or cut him loose for good, but either way you gotta come clean with him.”

It only took a few minutes for the carrier to clear the mouth of the river and head out into the open blue. Hallie looked back one more time to bid a silent goodbye to home.

No. The USS
Blanchard
was her home now.

She reached under the hem of her blouse and turned on the “brick” she had clipped to her waistband.

The handheld radio squawked immediately. “McCabe, Marini,” said Chief Bernard. “Where in the hell have you two been? Go change and head up to the Admiral’s Bridge. You’ve been assigned to cover the aircraft fly-on. Commander Scott wants you to collaborate on a story for the ship’s Facebook page. And hurry up. The helicopter squadrons are already airborne and due to land in thirty minutes.”

Philip had grieved for Hallie for the past week. For what they’d had, or what he thought they’d had. He’d been miserable most of the time, and then he’d switch to steaming mad. His parents had come and gone, but his despair stayed put.

He’d texted and emailed her but received no response. He had even dropped by Rebecca’s to talk with Hallie in person, but was told she’d moved. After a few days that’s exactly what he did too. There’d been so much to do on the
Blanchard
before they got underway, it was simpler to just move on board. And it helped to be out of that apartment where he and Hallie had shared so much together.

A clean break.

For the past week Philip had poured himself into his work, often taking his frustration out on his entire division. Trixie became so fed up with him that she called him on it. “Am I doing something wrong, sir?”

When he told her no, she continued. “Well, you’ve been riding my ass lately like nobody’s business and I don’t know why. If I’m not performing like you want, then feel free to tell me. But if you’re on me just because you’re in a bad mood or something, then I have a right to be pissed and come in here and tell you.”

He had to admit he admired this little pistol. She didn’t mince words and she knew how to take care of herself.

“I’m sorry, Williams. You’re doing fine. I have no complaints. I had some bad news. That’s all. And I’m sorry if I’ve been taking it out on you. I appreciate your coming in here and bringing it to my attention.”

Trixie almost blew him away when she suddenly turned all soft. “Everything okay? Anything I can do, sir?”

He would never have guessed Trixie had an ounce of maternal instinct down there under all that crust. But she was still a woman and he was none too enamored with women these days. Who the hell could figure them out? He just wanted her to leave. Leave him alone and let him wallow in his misery. “No. But thanks for the offer, Williams. I appreciate it.”

“Well, if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here. I’m a chick. I know how they think. But I’m on your side.”

That left him smiling. Yeah, like he’d talk to
her
about it, but it was a tender gesture on her part.

Trixie went back out into the spaces and, thinking she was out of his earshot, debriefed the working party. “He apologized for biting my head off. Said he got some bad news. And you can bet your sweet ass the bad news has something to do with not getting any.”

No matter how hard he worked, by the time Philip crawled into the rack in his stateroom at night, all the memories were waiting for him. The good, the bad, and the beautiful. He’d lie awake nights, staring at the underside of his roommate’s bunk, reliving the good times, and then trying to figure out what the hell “we can’t be together anymore” meant.

Philip Johnston held a mechanical engineering degree from the United States Naval Academy. He was experienced at taking things apart, analyzing the pieces, repairing the broken parts, and then putting them back together again. And although this worked on the job and he could fix most of the problems in his corner of the Engineering Department, he was not always as adept at fixing problems in his life.

Every night when he crawled into bed, he dissected their relationship and reexamined it. Piece by piece. Trying to figure out what the hell had gone wrong.

He had loved Hallie enough to tell her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And it wasn’t just about the most incredible sex in the entire world. It was about the intelligent conversations, talk of the future, their shared joys in a sailboat, the same sense of humor, and not needing to talk to communicate with each other. But he’d always end up fast forwarding to that last night.

How had he fucked things up?

What was it she had to figure out? Why couldn’t they be together? Besides him deploying. Was it personal, something wrong with him, or were there circumstances he didn’t know about?

“There are still things you don’t know about me,” she had said.

Was she already married? Maybe legally separated from an ax murderer? Did she have a couple of children tucked away somewhere? Maybe she was a vampire. Or an alien.

He knew she would have thought that humorous, but he couldn’t even laugh any more.

Wait. Maybe she was a peacenik.

Eventually, “we can’t be together anymore” morphed into “I don’t love you anymore.” That was simpler and easier to process for Phillip. She had gotten tired of his nice guy ass. He was boring. Didn’t talk enough. Worked too hard. Never wanted to go out and have fun. The kinds of things other women had kindly tried to tell him.

Then why would she have continually told him that that’s what she liked about him? That he made her feel safe.

That he was her anchor.

So he tried to move on. Planned to work hard during this deployment, just put one boot down in front of the other every day. And then maybe when they got back to the States, he would look around again for a good woman who his mom swore was out there looking for somebody just like him. Although he knew for sure that he’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever finding someone he would ever love as much as Hallie McCabe.

Dear Hot Mama: I was sad leaving you today
.
I’ll miss you while I’m gone, but I know you’ll be strong
.
I’m sorry I’ll miss our anniversary on September 9, but I will have a surprise for you
.
I have everything I need to make it, so I promise it will be ready on time
.
I love you, Randy
.