A/N: Thanks for the reviews. Every word is greatly appreciated. I'm sorry this is not a happily-ever-after story for Frank and Callie. I can see one of those is sorely needed around here.

Chapter Three

Waves rolled in and crashed upon the beach. The wind had grown colder and stronger. Time to go. I'd lived enough memories for one night.

I was staying with mom and dad for four days. I'd come home to celebrate their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. My brother was coming in tomorrow.

Joe and I owned a PI business in Illinois. Two years ago we'd fled Bayport. It was a feeble attempt to outrun our pasts and our pain.

Joe's girlfriend, Iola, had been killed in a car bomb in front of dad's PI office. Callie and I had divorced and she lived here with her new husband.

Neither Joe or I relished the constant reminders of what we'd lost.

Not that Joe and I actually talked about it. We kinda just sensed it in each other – the hurt and pain.

The logic was, if you don't talk about it then it can't hurt you.

Yeah, right.

My cell phone rang. Dad.

"Hey," I said as I walked to my rental car.

"You headed home?"

I could tell by dad's voice something was wrong.

"Yeah. What's up?"

"There's a missing child. Police Chief Stanton is organizing search parties. I thought we could lend a hand."

"Sure. Of course. I'll be home in five minutes."

"Better yet, meet me at the police station."

I opened the door of the rental car. "Roger that. Hey, who's the missing kid?"

Dad paused. I felt the weight of that pause. It told me a lot.

"Evan Christianson."

I knew the name – Christianson. Memories hit me like a freight train. Rob Christianson was Evan's father. Callie Christianson was his mother.

Callie had married Rob shortly after she left me.

You think love will be enough, that it can see you through anything. That might be true for a lot of people. It wasn't true for me.

I loved Callie with my whole heart, still do. I loved her with every fiber of my being and it wasn't enough.

I came home one day to find her packing. Two suitcases lay open on our bed. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She stopped packing and looked at me. She reminded me of a wounded animal – scared and in pain. She made a sound, something between a gasp and a sob. I could tell she was trying desperately to hold it together.

Now I was scared. Terrified actually.

She started talking, sentences punctuated by sobs.

She told me everything, all her thoughts and feelings.

I listened, stunned and dazed. My world had imploded. I felt like a paratrooper who'd just discovered his reserve chute wouldn't open.

What now? What the hell now?

Callie was talking. My mind tried to grab onto her words, tried to make sense of them. I fought to understand what she was saying.

She couldn't take it anymore; the Army, the crazy hours, the lonely nights, the deployments and uncertainty. She missed Bayport, her family, and friends. She didn't think she was cut out to be a military spouse. All the moving and constant good-byes. It just wasn't her.

Her words echoed in my head. It took me a moment to absorb what she'd said, what she meant.

I'm leaving you.

The words were a hammer to our past. Our first kiss on the beach. That first time in the back of my car. Our wedding day. The laughter and fun we'd shared over the years. All of it, everything, shattered.

Fear and hurt gripped me. How had this happened? How had I missed her unhappiness? Her loneliness?

I sat on the bed next to her. I reached for her hand. She reluctantly let me hold it. My heart couldn't take this. I felt like a stranger sitting beside the woman I loved, my wife of two years. Two very short years.

Her pain flowed into me.

At some inner, spiritual level I sensed that she didn't mean to hurt me. Not that the knowledge helped me.

Words tumbled out of me. I knew I couldn't change her mind, but I tried anyway. I promised her everything I could think of. I'd get out of the Army. I'd work for my dad again. We'd live in Bayport. We'd buy a big house with a picket fence.

I'd do anything, just give me a second chance.

My words were useless and I knew it. Still, I prayed they'd find a home in her heart.

Hope and denial are boundless emotions.

It took me years to learn to accept the pain. My pain.

I tried all the usual methods of coping; drinking myself into oblivion, taking on more dangerous assignments, driving too fast, and generally pissing off the people I worked with.

None of those things proved productive or effective.

At some point, I realized I had to own the pain. It was a part of me whether I liked it or not and it wasn't ever going away.

I accepted it as one does a benign tumor. It won't kill you but you wish it wasn't there. You have it removed and you're left with a scar. The scar's a reminder of the tumor.

That's the way I chose to view my pain. It was the scar.