“Oh, uh, yeah, of course.”
“So would your wife like one?” She glanced at my wedding band.
“One what?” I was so lost in her eyes that I couldn’t focus on anything else.
“A copper rose. All sales go to support my mother-in-law and her struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s uh…terrible.” I scrounged through my jacket pocket and managed to pull out two twenties. “A rose, please. Here, keep the change.”
She smiled wide. “Thank you. I hope she likes it!”
“Yeah, me too,” I mumbled.
It was after our first major fight that I started the tradition of the roses. It was an immature spat, something about Rachel spouting off to the commander’s wife. She was always feisty, and I was obstinate. We yelled, we threw a few things, and I stormed out.
Stuck in the squadron for hours, in the vault with no cell phone, I asked the squadron admin to send my girl roses. When I arrived home at two in the morning, a giant bouquet of yellow roses sat spilling from a too-small Mason jar on our tiny kitchen table.
“Hmm, yellow,” I remember worrying aloud. But when I climbed into bed next to her, exhausted, she wrapped me in her arms.
“You smell like cookies,” I whispered into the dark room. It was nearly Christmastime, and I assumed she’d been baking.
“Bath and Body Works on sale – Vanilla Bean Noel, I think it’s called. Too sweet?”
“You are,” I said. “And I’m sorry for earlier.”
Her legs wrapped around my waist. “Me too. Thanks for the roses.”
“I told her to send red – but we were in the vault. I’m sorry, baby.”
“I didn’t have a vase. Let’s get one, and whenever you bring me roses, I’ll know it means you love me.”
As I sank into her, I said into her ear, “Roses every day for you, Rachel, because I love you every single day.”
From that day forward, no matter where I was, I managed to send or bring Rachel some sort of rose. Even if it was in an email, a text, or scheduled from our florist, every single day she received a rose from me. And, always I hoped, she knew that regardless of how tense things might be between us, I loved her.
At her funeral, wracked with grief and stoned out of my mind, I dropped a dozen yellow roses on her casket. And then my spiral downward began. I continued to fall into the abyss until once again, on that fateful summer day, she saved me.
That night in my room, I stared at the popcorn ceiling, a giant crack snaking across it. The memory hurt so badly that once again, as I had so many times, I wanted to end it all. If only I believed in an afterlife, that I could be with her.
Instead, I feared, I’d only leave this body with her memory and nothing more.
I clung to that copper rose and the hope of a future where I could love again, and it kept me from going to the dark side until dawn.
3
The next night, I decided to wipe away the cobwebs and finally go to the Club with the boys. Staring in the mirror, under the florescent lights, I saw myself as I was. Not how I used to be – the debonair, cocky fighter pilot ready to take on the world. Back then, I was everyone’s heartthrob. There was no one I couldn’t charm. And better yet, I was the best fighter pilot on the planet.
Now – well, I was still the best fighter pilot on the planet. But the eyes were a bit hooded, the face a bit drawn, the shadow a bit past five o’clock. Sure, I still had the same piercing blue eyes, the dirty blond hair, the square jaw that exploded ovaries. But I could see the effect of a year of binge drinking, a year of not giving two shits about myself or anyone else. A year of being consumed with grief, and even worse, of guilt, over Rachel.
I was slowly killing myself. And now, it was time to get myself together and be the man she wanted me to be. As far as the copper rose girl, I was headed back there the next day.
“Hey, she’s kinda cute, right?”
I scanned the dark Nellis Club for the source of Razor’s attention. “Who?”
“Widow of that two-striper, the guy who got shot up in Afghanistan last year.”
“Airman’s wife?” I raised one eyebrow.