It’s a quirky little duplex with no central heat source, but the price is right for our Navy pay. $60 a month rent. And it’s furnished, but oddly. Take the bed. The mattress is so soft and tired that it folds under the slightest pressure. We must levitate to get onto it. Space heaters help with the chilly October mornings, as I huddle over the gas stove, stirring breakfast cream of wheat. We’ve been married just one year. Our first baby begins to quietly stir inside me, the flutter of a butterfly wing. The excitement is overwhelming. I sew tiny garments for him or her out of soft baby flannel pastels. We stroll to the corner drugstore soda fountain and share a cherry milkshake. Friends drop by in the evening, one with a guitar. We feast on tacos and folk music, singing along with the chords, hitting the harmonies. “California Dreamin’”. “Proud Mary”. “Wichita Lineman”. And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time…
Along comes Thanksgiving, our first one alone together. I buy and roast a sing Rock Cornish Game Hen for both of us. He smiles. My first pumpkin pie, not a bad effort, makes up for it. After our feast, he rows me around on the nearby lake in the mellow November afternoon. Do I miss my family? I feel a twinge of guilt when the answer is “Not really!” We are more than enough for each other.