Maggie's car was in the driveway. Steve had no idea when the lab had finished with it and returned it to the house. He found it ironic that her car was home before she was.
The house had the stuffy unlived in feeling that homes get when their inhabitants are gone for long periods of time. He could tell the housekeeper had been in. She had given the house a thorough cleaning and had left several meals worth of food carefully stashed in labeled Tupperware containers.
He went into the bedroom, stripped off his rumpled suit, and headed for the shower.
An hour later and he was feeling almost human again. He went to the kitchen to see if the housekeeper had left the coffeepot set up and ready to go. At the last minute he decided against coffee. Doc had already accused him of living off the stuff. He opted for pineapple juice instead.
The house was too quiet without Maggie. It wasn't that she made a lot of noise, because she didn't. She was a still, soft presence who filled his life with light and love and laughter.
He didn't like to think about how close he'd came to losing her.
He was too tired and restless to sleep. He wandered into the dining room. There were a pile of notebooks on the tabletop, all dated by month and year. The top one was from October of '95, just a month before she had shipped out to Honolulu. Maggie always started a new journal on her birthday instead of at the new year.
She had been keeping journals since she enlisted. He knew she was trying to get them in some kind of order before she retired from the Army. He ran his hand across the cover of the top book in the stack. He'd never read her journals. He suspected that when she was ready, she would give them to him, probably neatly wrapped in ribbon. Cop instinct took over. When he wanted to know answers, he'd look until he found them, and what he wanted to know more than anything was what made Maggie, well, Maggie.
He opened the top journal. On the first page was a small yellow sticky note. The note read "It's okay, Steve, you can read this one. This is why I love you so much."
He took the journal back to the living room, hoping he'd be able to finish reading before he fell asleep.
What he found would give him nightmares.
October 9, 1995 Ft Bragg, NC
Bugger this. I'm tired. I've been alone since Micheal died. I miss my husband. I want to see my little girl. There's only one way that will ever happen. I will join them before this year is done.
October 12, 1995, Ft Bragg, NC
It's cold. Worse yet having to wake up alone when it's cold. Micheal, I miss you so much. Never felt so alone in my life. Researched the Army's policy on paying off life insurance benefits for suicides. I'm going to have to make this look like an accident.
October 15, 1995 Ft Bragg, NC
Cold weather is making my back hurt like hell. Got levy orders for Hawaii. Colonel Dale wants me on staff for Stars and Stripes Pacific. Lu's already there. Sophie's going to Vassar. Even with a scholarship it's going to cost a fortune. Changed my will and beneficiary. Sophie's my new heir. Now to find a way to make this work.
October 21, 1995 Ft Bragg, NC
Heard Bruce singing about suicide machines. I think I know how this is going to work.
October 25, 1995 Winston-Salem, NC
I found it! It's a brand new and heavily modified Mustang. Biggest eight cylinder Ford makes, modified to Coyote standard, hydraulic clutch and brakes and a tranny with enough torque to launch the space shuttle. A lovely little yellow and black ragtop with a primo sound system. Dealer wanted 45K for it. I talked him down to 39. I still have Micheal's life insurance and when the magic words 'cash sale' were uttered, he was more than willing to deal. Too bad it's going to be destroyed.
November 1, 1995 Grande Isle, LA
They say you can't go home again, they're right. My mom still thinks I need to find a man and settle down. Thanks, but no; had one, he's gone. Never going to risk my heart again. Hurts to damned much. Not planning on being around that long. Geeze, now she's saying I could go to nursing school like Vinnie or to beauty school like Trudy. Screw that. I'm going home.
November 7, 1995 Somewhere on I-10 West of Houston.
Houston sucks. Convinced every man in Texas driving a pickup truck is a dick.
November 8, 1995 Junction, Texas the middle of nowhere on I-10
Almost desolate enough for my needs. Maybe I'll wait until I get to the middle of the Arizona desert. That way lots of privacy and no witnesses. Nice people here in this part of Texas, though. Sweet as they can be. Maybe it's living in Houston that turns people ugly.
November 9/10/11, 1995, Tombstone, Arizona
Why am I still alive? Eventually I stopped shaking long enough to hold a pen. According to the trucker who saw it all, EMS should still be in the process of cutting my corpse out of my car. Instead, I'm at this lovely little western themed inn waiting for a truck from Tucson to bring in four new tires. I only really need two, but hey, what the heck, the tow truck guy was so sweet I'm springing for a full set.
Plus my little 'Stang deserves it.
It was road debris. Trash that had fallen off a construction truck. Took out both tires on the passenger side. I was only going about 90. Yeah I know, too damned fast. The back tire went first. Did the usual, slow down, steer into the skid, still got some control. Instinct has already taken over. I'm thinking, cool, got a war story, forgetting entirely about the reason I'd bought the suicide machine in the first place.
That was when the front tire said it had no more fucks to give.
Try doing 90 with duel blowouts on the passenger side. You don't have time to be scared. You don't have time to do much except hold on and try not to die.
The car does a 180 and thank goodness it's the middle of the night and there's no other traffic. Hit the median between east and westbound I-10 at about 80. Plowed up a giant cloud of red dust and dirt. Car comes to a stop, out of the road and facing the opposite direction.
I kill the engine and shut off the lights.
Got out of the car, and for some reason, looked up.
Stars everywhere. I've never seen so many stars in one place at one time. Millions and millions of stars, twinkling there in the sky, seeming almost close enough to touch. Big ones, little ones, little tiny wandering shooting stars. The most beautiful sky I've ever seen anywhere.
Then I was blinded by the light as the trucker who had seen me swerving all over the place and saw me do the 180 pulled over to the left shoulder of the Eastbound side to see if I was still alive.
Of course he had a CB radio. He hit the emergency channel to get EMS, the Arizona Highway patrol, and a tow truck out. EMS insisted I needed to go to the hospital, the nearest one being in Tuscon. After I showed them my military ID they agreed that I wasn't really hurt but should let the doctors at Ft. Huachuca have a look at me, especially since it was going to be a few days before my car was ready.
I must have been the most exciting thing that happened that night. About nineteen members of various state agencies standing around taking notes and pictures, looking a my little Mustang sunk to the axles in red sand, and then looking at me intently. Finally one of the trooper's comes over and asks me why I'm not dead.
All I could say was not my time to go.
He gave me his card and told me to call him when I got out of the Army. Said he could always use a trooper who could drive like that.
It was a nice drive to Tombstone with the tow truck driver. Lots and lots of stars and a big crescent moon. He was even nice enough to call ahead to the Inn and arrange a room for me. It seems that out here on the desert the military gets very good service.
The next day I fell in love with the town.
Don't know what I'm going to find in Hawaii. Maybe more bad memories. I think there's something there that I really need to get done. Don't know what it is. It's going to be interesting finding out. Then maybe, when I'm done there, I'll come back to the desert. It's quiet here, out in the hinterlands. And the stars are so worth it.
I wonder what the stars look like over the Pacific.
I wonder if I'll ever find someone to share them with.
Still lonely, only this time, I'm not suicidal.
Tomorrow, San Diego to drop off my car and then the next day I'm on a plane to Honolulu.
Let the adventure begin.
That was the last entry in the book. After that, it was only blank pages.
He put down the book, got dressed, and went to find the one person who knew Maggie better than anyone else.