Like Sunshine by Helen Rowe

It is June. We are staying at your parents’ house on your two-week leave before you deploy again. I always love coming here. Not just because we are surrounded by family, and your mom is the best cook on the West Coast, but we have so much history here. Our relationship took root in this valley, it bloomed and grew and became a stepping-stone to the rest of our story. Our first apartment was in this valley town and the memories are saturated in these streets like the hot summer sun.

We are in your parents’ pool. Little Man is inside playing with Grandma, and we are enjoying the momentary break from being parents. We’re both floating on ridiculous pool toys. We’re darker than when we first got here. My tan, round belly is sticking up out of the water. I am almost four months pregnant with our twins. Our baby girls will join us later this year. I look over at you. You are tanned and relaxed as you float and look up at the cloudless sky. I am so in love with you.

We lay around for a while, and then you jump in and swim around me, while I laugh and cling to my inflatable island.

“Don’t you dare flip me!” I say, giggling like a teenager at a pool party. You tease me, grabbing my toes underwater and splashing me. You don’t flip me but soon I’m in the cool depths with you. We tread water and laugh and then you are pulling me in for one of those summertime kisses. The kind that tastes like sunshine and summer break. And then I laugh and push you away, swimming back to my inner tube. You swim to one side of the pool, putting both arms up on the side, and tip your head back to take in the sun’s warmth.

“I don’t want to go back to work,” you say after a bit, breaking the sleepy silence.

“Yeah,” I sigh, paddling nowhere in particular. “Me, either.”

We look at each other and you smile. “God, it’s going to be so hot there. It’s going to be so fucking hot.”

“And no pool there.” I trail my fingers in the water.

“Nope. Just dust, heavy gear, and shit.”

We’re silent again as we float, both thinking about that place. That distant land that seems worlds away from us who are sitting here in this pool. I try to imagine you there but realize I can’t. Not because I’m incapable, but because my heart won’t let my brain paint that picture. The one of you in camo, holding a gun, walking through villages. Not just yet. Right now, I am floating in blue water with you in sight and everything is quiet.

“It would suck to die there.” Your tone is calm like you could be commenting on the weather and how it would be inconvenient if it rained tomorrow. Your words hang over us for a minute. They float down and sink into the pool and every inch of me.

“Well, sorry,” I say casually, leaning back and peering up at the blue sky. “You’re not going to die there. You’re going to come home and help me have these babies.”

“I know, I know,” you say, almost annoyed. “But it would suck to go that way. All hot and covered in sand.” And I realize you’re not done talking about it.

I slide off my inner tube and swim to the side, pulling myself up, out of the pool.

“Babe,” I say. “You’re not going that way.” I pick up my towel and dry myself off. You follow me out of the pool, water dripping off your tattooed frame. I shamelessly check you out as you grab your towel next to me, but you’re too deep in thought to notice.

“And you know if you do die out there, you’re not getting any memorials.” You shake the water from your hair, still drying yourself off. “It’s not like you stormed beaches on D-Day and people are going to be talking about you for years. Nope. Just ‘Hey, remember those dudes who died in Afghanistan?’ and ‘Yeah, sure, I guess.’”

You stop and reach for your beer on the table. I take a long time getting my towel arranged on the lounge chair, trying not to think about you bleeding out in the sand in a faraway desert. Or about losing you to a war that most of our country has already forgotten about. Our very own Vietnam. I pull myself out of that scene and instead lie down on the towel, adjusting my bikini. I start to think about replying to you, trying to explain how there would be a memorial in my heart for the rest of eternity. How every day would be remembered by the sheer lack of you. How I would tell our children how you faced what humanity fears the most and walked into it. A response starts to form in my head, and I look over at you to answer. You are sitting down in a chair next to me, your body relaxed, a beer within reach, and I realize you weren’t looking for an answer. You just needed to say those things. You needed to release them here in this safe place and watch them sink into the pool. I realize this as I glance at your face. So, instead, I say,

“Let’s just enjoy our last day here, okay?” I settle down in my chair, thinking, I’m not going to be able to lay on my stomach for very much longer. As soon as my eyes are closed, I feel you next to me, your fingers outlining the edge of my bikini bottoms.

“You look good, babe,” I hear you say, and soon you are lying down on a chair next to me and tickling my ribs and trying to kiss me. We are teenagers again, and war and death and everything that might await us next month are gone, replaced by sweet summertime love.

You taste like sunshine.