He was standing on the corner outside his building wearing a tan flight suit and a desert camouflage jacket, an overstuffed duffle bag at his feet.

She had never seen him in uniform, and the reality of it sent an involuntary shiver through her. She felt tears spring to her eyes. He couldn't see her this way.

She pulled up to the curb and leaned across the passenger seat. "Hey, soldier," she said seductively through the open window. "Need a lift?"

He grinned as he opened the back door and threw his bag in. "Soldier? God forbid. We're airmen, not soldiers!"

"Sorry. I guess I don't know my military lingo," she said as he slid into the seat and took off his hat. "Hey, nice hair."

His hand flew self-consciously to the stubble at his neckline. "Yeah, they're pretty lax about hair-length in the Guard. On active duty, it's another story. We all had to get haircuts yesterday. What do you think? Do I look like Tom Cruise in Top Gun?"

She could see down to his scalp at the back and sides of his head, but the barber had left an unruly shock of dark hair on top. She smiled and rolled her eyes playfully as she pulled away from the curb. "More like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump."

"That bad?"

"No. It's actually kind of growing on me."

It was a half-hour drive to Hanscom Air Force Base. She tried to make light chit-chat, but it was hard to ignore the heaviness that had descended on them as they drew closer.

She felt her throat close in as they approached the front gate. He signed her in at the Visitor's Center, and they took the long perimeter road around to the flight line. It all seemed so alien to her. Men and women in anonymous green fatigues saluted each other snappily, planes buzzed overhead, and somewhere, she heard the ominous sound of artillery file.

She slipped into the parking lot next to the flight line. Woody wordlessly grabbed his bag from the back seat, and they walked out onto the tarmac to where several planes sat on the runway: great, grey birds that hardly seemed capable of flight.

"What is that?" she said pointing ahead.

"That?" He laughed admiringly. "That baby is the C-130! The good old 'Dirty One-Thirty!'"

"You're not going to fly in that thing all the way over the Atlantic, are you?"

"I'm not going to just fly in that thing, Jordan. I am going to fly that thing."

She blinked in confusion. "You're going to fly it? Like as in pilot?'

"No, I'm not a pilot. I'm a navigator. Don't tell the pilots," he said conspiratorially, "But we're the ones who actually fly the planes."

"You're a navigator?" she teased. "You get lost in the mall, and they expect you to find Iraq?" A half-smile pulled at one corner of his mouth, and then she drew her eyebrows together. "Wow, you're a navigator. I didn't know that, Why didn't I know that?"

He shrugged lightly. "You never asked."

She had never asked. She knew that he had joined the Air National Guard in high school to earn money for college after his father had been killed, and she knew he had this other life that he ran off to each month, but she had always been vaguely uncomfortable with the military life and everything it entailed.

"So." She drew in a deep breath. "What is it that you're going to be doing over there? Are you allowed to tell me?"

"Jordan, I'm not in the CIA, I'm in the Air National Guard," he said with a comforting laugh. "The C-130 is mostly a transport plane. We'll be hauling cases of Ultra-Soft Charmin for the generals and ferrying around some USO girls, if we're lucky. It's pretty dull."

"But it's Iraq."

"I'll be safe and sound in a heavily fortified compound most of the time, Jordan. We've got air-conditioned tents and free DVDs and all the Lucky Charms you can eat. I'm probably in more danger walking down the streets of Boston. I'll be fine."

She grimaced. She knew that he had meant to make her feel better, but she also knew just how dangerous walking down the streets of Boston had been for him.

The tarmac was crowded with families saying goodbye to their loved ones. They hadn't married soldiers, they had married school teachers, airline pilots, and mechanics, and now found themselves sending their loved ones to war. She stood awkwardly in the middle of it. She was an outsider, and she felt as if she were intruding on their private grief.

A mother-to-be ran a hand over her round belly as her husband brushed at her silent tears. A young woman in fatigues rocked her infant daughter in her arms, knowing that she would miss her first words, her first steps. Next to Jordan, a wife looked on in pain while her airman husband gathered their sobbing four-year-old daughter into his arms. She felt her own eyes well up.

Woody saw her watching the sad little scene. "They say it's tougher for the family members," he said. "I'm glad I'm not leaving anyone behind like that."

She nodded and blinked back her tears. "Yeah. I don't think I could live that way. Being the 'little woman' back home. It's not for me."

He caught her eye, and she looked away again quickly. "So, Jordan, when you called the other night. You said you wanted to talk to me about something?"

"Oh, that. It doesn't matter anymore." She gave him a wave of her hand.

There was a silence. When he spoke again, his voice was strained. "Does it ever seem like someone up there is trying to tell us something? We just don't seem to be able to catch a break, do we?"

"I guess we just weren't meant to be," she said in a rough voice, and then added dramatically, "But we'll always have Littleton." It was supposed to be a light joke to break the tension, but he looked back at her with dark eyes, and the laugh died in her throat.

"Poor kid." His eyes had cut back over to where the young airman's daughter clutched at her father, and he gently tried to pry her arms from around his leg. "A year is a long time, Jordan. A lot can happen. If I don't come back..."

"You said you were going to be fine!"

"Even if I do come back. Feelings change. I wouldn't expect you to put your life on hold, Jordan."

She wanted to speak. She opened her mouth to tell him something, anything, not to leave things like that, but the propellers of the C-130 began to spin, and the engines blasted. "Well, my ride's here," he joked over the thunder. His eyes dropped onto hers, and his smile was gone. "I guess I should go."

She nodded in resignation. "Can you write or call me?"

"I'll try and write, but I don't think I'll be able to call. We can only patch calls through to family members." They stood looking awkwardly at each other, not altogether sure of what to say or what they now meant to each other. "Thanks for the lift, Jordan."

He grabbed his bag and was gone before she could speak. It wouldn't end this way, without another word or even a brief, platonic hug. She called out to him.

"Woody! Wait!" He seemed at first not to hear over the roar of the plane, and she called out again. He stopped and turned around, cocking his head as if he hadn't been sure if he had heard something. She waved her arms over her head, and he dropped his bag on the tarmac.

She was in his arms then, her mouth on his, and his fingers were caught up in her hair. He was smiling at her when she opened her eyes, and he kissed at a tear on her cheek. She ran her fingers over his face, wanting to burn every curve and line of it into her memory. He mouthed the words, "I'll be back," but his voice was lost in the roar of the engines.

The planes took off one by one, screaming down the runway. She stood and watched Woody's plane until it was a dot in the sky.

She sped home, dropping her keys and her coat inside the doorway and sat crossed legged on her bed in front of her laptop, her heart racing. She typed "C-130" into the Google search window and hit return. Her search results popped up, and she clicked on the first one: an Air Force FAQ sheet. Her head swam with the meaningless technical jargon and specs on fuel capacity and minimum landing requirements.

But her eyes zeroed in words that jumped out her ominously. Infiltration. Exfiltration. High-threat environment. Blacked-out landings. She didn't know what it all meant, but she suddenly knew that his job was much more dangerous than delivering toilet paper to the brass.

She gently closed her laptop and curled up on the bed, allowing herself the tears that she had fought for too many days.