"Tell me what you saw today." She says at the start of every conversation. Some times it's in a whispered voice, heavy with exhaustion from a long day of hearing her own voice too much and ready to hear his. Some times it's lively, full of curiosity and excitement at the world he's seen. But no matter how she asks, it's always his favorite.
He can almost see her every time she asks, curled up in that big bed–their bed–her small body trying to wrap itself around his pillow with the phone pressed to her ear as if she were trying to force her way through it to him.
He lies back from sitting at the edge of his bed–no bed is ever the same without her next to him–and waits for the dial tone to stop, and to hear the question again.
He never has to wait long.
"There you are," She breathes into the phone, a smile clear in her tone, and he doesn't try not to smile back at his phone.
"Here I am." He says back, adjusting slightly against the mattress and kicking off his shoes.
"Tell me what you saw today." She sighs, as if she were doing the same thing as him from thousands of miles away.
He tells her about the city he's in, the attractions and advertisements that kept flashing and demanding his attention as he walked, the people he heard and passed.
She listens, she laughs, she groans, and before long, Duke turns it to her.
"Tell me what you saw today." He says, something in the words makes them feel strange coming out of his mouth, as if the question isn't his to ask.
"Oh." She replies, uncertainty in her voice. A pause falls over them as she seems to be thinking about it.
Finally, carefully, her voice creeps across the line to curl up next to him, "I went for a walk. Or, well, I guess I went for a trek. I walked until I was well outside of city limits and I started getting into farm territory."
"I've heard that's dangerous–wear the wrong plaid and you'll anger rival farm gangs." Duke jokes over the phone.
He can almost hear her eye roll, "Well you, Audrey, and Nathan would know that better than me."
He laughs back, conceding, "You're probably right."
She giggles with him before she continues, "The sky was so blue and the sun was so impossibly hot. It's been dry here for the last couple of weeks–the grass was so tall and brown by the road. The wind rushed over it making it look like the waves of the ocean I'd left behind. But I could hear birds singing in it, all clamoring over each other–probably clinging desperately to the stalks of the grass as the wind knocked them around. I could almost hear the other half of their flock singing back from the other side of the field."
He closes his eyes to imagine where she was.
"And then," She continues quietly, "something spooked all of them so they all took off–from both sides of the field. They called to each other as they met and reformed their flock high above my head, and when they came back together–oh Duke, I wish you could've seen it."
"I am." He says quietly over the line, eyes still closed as he imagined a great flock of birds split and reforming as they flew–form constantly changing and adjusting as they flew higher and higher.
"When will you be home?" she asks carefully. No matter how the conversation starts, or what else they talk about, it always comes back to this. And more often than not, he wishes he had a real answer for her.
"Soon, Jennifer." He answers, seeing her pull her lips into her mouth so it forms a straight line like she does when she's thinking something she's not sure how to express.
"I miss you."
The words land on his chest, almost thumping against it.
"I know." He replies, saying quickly back, "I miss you."
There's a pause where he knows she wants to tell him to hurry back, to come home as soon as he can, to come back to her.
But all she says is, "I love you."
It's the first time she's said it–at least out loud, he knows it's always there in what she says and does for him–but to hear it…
"Now why would you say that when I can't kiss you?" He asks, smiling.
He hears her breathy laugh on the other end of the phone, "Consider it incentive to get back to me as soon as you can."
"Hell of an incentive."
"Only if it works."
There's another pause, as he forms the words silently in his mouth a few times as if they're words in another language that his mouth isn't made to use.
Then, just when she thinks she's lost him, just when she's about to fall asleep, she hears, "I love you."
Her smile is so wide and so big it makes her cheeks hurt.
"Come home, Sailor."