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On the trees surroundingtheir slow turn toward the color of fire, glowing as the sun peeks over the horizon Birds have begun theircalls, and the air is perfumed with the scent of pine and earth; different from the brine and salt of my hometown In time, the front door cracks open, and it's then that I see her Despite the distance between us, I findmy breath as she steps into the dawn She stretches before descending the front steps and heads around the side Beyond her, the horse pasture shiate that leads toward it A horse calls out a greeting, as does another, andso easily a them But she was always comfortable with horses, and they were corass near the fence post, mainly quarter horses, and Midas, her white-socked black Arabian, stands off to one side I rode with her once, luckily without injury, and as I was hanging on for dear life, I re that she looked so relaxed in the saddle that she could have been watching television Savannah takes a reet Midas now She rubs his nose while she whispers so, she pats his haunches, and when she turns away, his ears prick up as she heads toward the barn

She vanishes, then es the pails on two fence posts, and a couple of the horses trot toward them When she steps back to make room, I see her hair flutter in the breeze before she retrieves a saddle and bridle While Midas eats, she readies hi hi exactly as she did six years ago I know it isn't true--I saw her up close last year and noticed the first fine lines beginning to forh which I view her re To me, she will always be twenty-one and I will always be twenty-three I'd been stationed in Gerhdad or receive her

letter, which I read in the railroad station in San; I had yet to return hoed the course of my life

Now, at twenty-nine, I sometimes wonder about the choices I've made The army has become the only life I know I don't knohether I should be pissed or pleased about that fact;back and forth, depending on the day When people ask, I tell therunt, and I mean it I still live on base in Gers, and I haven't been on a date in years I don't surf much anymore even on leave, but on my days off I ride my Harley north or south, whereverI've ever bought for h it cost a fortune over there It suitsof a loner Most of et sent back to Iraq in the next couple of months At least, those are the rumors around base When I first met Savannah Lynn Curtis--to me, she'll always be Savannah Lynn Curtis--I could never have predicted my life would turn out the way it has or believed I'd make the army my career

But I didthat e I fell in love with her ere together, then fell deeper in love with her in the years ere apart Our story has three parts: a beginning, a h this is the way all stories unfold, I still can't believe that ours didn't go on forever

I reflect on these things, and as always, our ti how it began, for now these memories are all I have left

PART I

One

Wilton, 2000

My naton, North Carolina, a city that proudly boasts the largest port in the state as well as a long and vibrant history but now strikes me more as a city that careat and the beaches perfect, but it wasn't ready for the wave of Yankee retirees up north anted soolden years The city is located on a relatively thin spit of land bounded by the Cape Fear River on one side and the ocean on the other Highway 17--which leads to Myrtle Beach and Charleston--bisects the town and serves as its major road When I was a kid, my dad and I could drive frohtsville Beach in tencenters have been added that it can now take an hour, especially on the weekends, when the tourists cohtsville Beach, located on an island just off the coast, is on the northern end of Wilton and far and away one of thethe dunes are ridiculously expensive, andThe Outer Banks may have more romantic appeal because of their isolation and wild horses and that flight that Orville and Wilbur were fao to the beach on vacation feelnearby, in case the little ones aren't too fond of the local fare, and wantactivities

Like all cities, Wilton is rich in places and poor in others, and since my dad had one of the steadiest, solid-citizen jobs on the planet--he drove a reat, but okay We weren't rich, but we lived close enough to the rich area for h schools in the city Unlike h, our house was old and s, but the yard was its saving grace There was a big oak tree in the backyard, and when I was eight years old, I built a tree house with scraps of wood I collected from a construction site My dad didn't help me with the project (if he hit a nail with a hammer, it could honestly be called an accident); it was the saht myself to surf I suppose I should have realized then how different I was from my dad, but that just sho little you know about life when you're a kid

My dad and I were as different as two people could possibly be Where he was passive and introspective, I was always in h value on education, school for me was like a social club with sports added in He had poor posture and tended to shuffle when he walked; I bounced fro it took me to run to the end of the block and back I was taller than hirade and could beat hi a year later Our physical features were completely different, too While he had sandy hair, hazel eyes, and freckles, I had brown hair and eyes, and my olive skin would darken to a deep tan by May Our differences struck sohbors as odd, whichthat he'd raised rew older, I so about the fact that h I later suspected my mom had met someone else, my dad never confirmed this All he'd say was that she'd realized she , and that she wasn't ready to be a mother He neither heaped scorn on her nor praised her, but he made sure that I included her in my prayers, no matter where she was or what she'd done "You remind me of her," he'd say sole word to her, nor do I have any desire to do so

I think my dad was happy I phrase it like this because he seldorowing up, and when they did happen, they often struckhe did because he felt he was supposed to, not because he wanted to I know he loved me by the way he devoted himself to my care, but he was forty-three when he had me, and part ofa monk than a parent He was the quietest oing on in ry, he rarely joked, either He lived for routine He cookedand listened as I talked about school over a dinner he'd prepared as well He scheduled visits to the dentist two , did the laundry on Sunday afternoon, and left the house everyat exactly 7:35 a hours alone every day, dropping packages and bunches ofhis route He didn't date, nor did he spend weekend nights playing poker with his buddies; the telephone could stay silent for weeks When it did ring, it was either a wrong number or a telemarketer I kno hard it must have been for him to raise me on his own, but he never complained, even when I disappointed him

I spent s alone With the duties of the day finally completed, my dad would head to his den to be with his coins That was his one great passion in life He wasa coin dealer newsletter nicknaure out the next coin he should add to his collection Actually, it was inally started the coin collection My grandfather's hero was a , a Baltimore financier who is the only person to have asse all the various dates and mint marks His collection rivaled, if not surpassed, the collection at the Srandrandfather beca a collection with his son During the surandfather and dad would travel by train to the various mints to collect the new coins firsthand or visit various coin shows in the Southeast In tirandfather and dad established relationships with coin dealers across the country, andup and irandfather wasn't rich--he owned a general store in Burgaw that went out of business when the Piggly Wiggly opened its doors across town--and never had a chance at 's collection Even so, every extra dollar went into coins My grandfather wore the same jacket for thirty years, drove the same car his entire life, and I'm pretty sure my dad went to

work for the postal service instead of heading off to college because there wasn't a dih school education He was an odd duck, that's for sure, as was oes When the old man finally passed away, he specified in his will that his house be sold and the money used to purchase even more coins, which was exactly what my dad probably would have done anyway

By the time my dad inherited the collection, it was already quite valuable When inflation went through the roof and gold hit 850 an ounce, it orth a sal dad to retire a few times over and more than it would be worth a quarter century later But neitherfor the money; they were in it for the thrill of the hunt and the bond it created between the and hard for a specific coin, finally locating it, then wheeling and dealing to get it for the right price Sometimes a coin was affordable, other times it wasn't, but each and every piece they added was a treasure My dad hoped to share the sa the sacrifice it required Growing up, I had to sleep with extra blankets in the winter, and I got a single pair of new shoes every year; there was never money for my clothes, unless they came from the Salvation Army My dad didn't even own a camera The only picture ever taken of us was at a coin show in Atlanta A dealer snapped it as we stood before his booth and sent it to us For years it was perched on my dad's desk In the photo, my dad had his ar In em condition, a coin thatthe rarest of all buffalo nickels, and we ended up eating hot dogs and beans for a month, since it cost more than he'd expected

But I didn't mind the sacrifices--for a while, anyway Whento rade at the ti an adult, especially your dad, treat you like an equal is a heady thing for any young child, and I basked in the attention, absorbing the information In tiles were minted in 1927 as compared with 1924 and why an 1895 Barber dime minted in New Orleans was ten times more valuable than the same coin minted in the same year in Philadelphia I still can, by the way Yet unlike row out ofIt was all my dad seemed able to talk about, and after six or seven years of weekends spent with him instead of friends, I wanted out Like irls and cars andlittle tiroell Little by little, I began to notice differences in the e lived when I compared myself with o to the lasses, I foundfor quarters in the couch to buy er at McDonald's More than a few of my friends received cars for their sixteenth birthday; an silver dollar that had been minted in Carson City Tears in our worn couch were covered by a blanket, and ere the only family I kneho didn't have cable television or a ht a used one that was the world'selse in the kitchen I was e friends come over, and I blamed my dad for that I knoas a pretty crappy way to feel--if the lack of money bothered me so much, I could have mowed lawns or worked odd jobs, for instance--but that's the way it was I was as blind as a snail and duret my immaturity now, I can't undo the past