We're almost there - to the end of this story and the Christmas holiday! Thanks again for reading!
Father
Evening, Trish. It's a beautiful night here on the South China Sea. Well, that's only if you like to call hot and muggy beautiful. But we're still celebrating tonight. One of the other pilots, Mouse – that's his call sign because he's as quiet as a mouse – proposed to his girlfriend in a letter, and she finally wrote back and accepted. She says she'll have everything ready for the wedding when he gets home, and now quiet little Mouse can't stop talking about anything else. It makes me proud to be your husband, Trish. I love you, and I'll be home soon. Give Little Harm a hug and tell him that someday he'll feel the same way about a girl – and when he finally gets up the nerve to ask her to marry him, I'm going to be the proudest father ever, no matter where I am.
Harm paused the tape player, interrupting his father's recorded voice as he stopped along the beach to take a deep breath of salty ocean air. Although he wouldn't make it to the Vietnam Memorial on Christmas Eve this year, he felt the same connection to his father near the ocean tonight. It reminded him of the carrier life that he and his father had both led, with the mixed scent of saltwater and jet fuel always heavy in the air.
Thanks, Dad, he thought, settling down on the sand and listening to the surf crash rhythmically against the shore.
It had taken nine years. Nine years of dancing around a relationship with Mac, and tomorrow he was finally going to make her his wife. The cool breeze coming off the ocean whipped past his face, and Harm could hear soft footsteps in the sand behind him.
"How'd you find me?" he asked without turning around.
"Your mom said you went for a walk with your dad." Mac lowered herself onto the sand next to him and slipped her hand into his. "I thought you might be out here."
And as twilight faded into nightfall, two soulmates sat quietly on the beach, poised on the edge of the ocean – and the rest of their lives together.