Save One Love

"The kid is fast on the basepaths. One of her coaches nicknamed her Scoot years ago."

Again, Hattie had to force herself to look up.

It was a pleasant meeting. Jack learned a little of Laeesha's earlier life and decided he'd pronounce her name in the more Gaelic fashion-because it seemed to bring a smile to her and color to her cheeks. She was thin and brown-haired and attractive. A runner, she ran a dozen miles a week.

"My running days are over," Jack said, "but my cycling days continue. My left leg can cover for my right. I'm not fast, but I can keep the cycle going when the one leg just doesn't have the endurance. Hills are a bear, though."

"The essay said you were a SEAL?" she asked.

"I wasn't really. I was team leader, but not officially a SEAL. I attended the Israeli version of SEAL school, and they needed to find a spot for me then. I was second-in-command for seven months or so-I was only team leader a few days; the assigned leader was wounded and I was next in line."

"If you named her Sarah, why do you call her Hattie?" she asked them both.

Jack replied after looking at Hattie, "Her mother was named Sarah, and I called her that that long day. After what her family had done for her...I didn't want her to ever forget her roots. I wanted her to explain to everyone who she is, where she came from, and remember how much she was loved. And still is." His arm was around his daughter, and he hugged her gently.

Hattie watched her father and Mrs. Rinker discussing their lives, and she mused, why hasn't this happened before? Does something hold Dad back? She hoped it wasn't she-she liked the way he acted around her teacher-who he obviously treated differently. He was boyish and a little less confident and was interested in the smallest detail. She sipped her pineapple milk shake, watched her dad laugh, watched her teacher stir her root beer float. She liked Mrs. Rinker, who at this moment in this ice cream shop seemed a bit like a little girl grown up.

*

Chapter 6: The Past in the Present

Two weeks later, Leslie was surprised to find an email message from Captain Luc Ormond, USN (Ret.) in his quieu.

Dear Jack,

I was surprised and gratified to receive a letter from Sarah Haddad Leslie yesterday. I scanned it and attached it to this. She's quite some kid! I told Julia about her and how I'd been wounded during the first mission to help the Haddad family. I knew only the infant survived. I showed Julia the letter-she actually cried!

'Hattie' you call her? I remember writing some essays supporting your candidacy for the adoption so many years ago. I hope the years have been happy. Have you found that wife yet? You always seem to skip a step: SEAL leader without SEAL school, family without the wife.

I was able to finish my career shuffling papers at the Pentagon working for the Secretary of the Navy and later the Chief of Naval Operations. I retired two years ago and live near Washington, D.C. with Julia and Luc Junior. Rose is a student at Stanford majoring in whatever she feels like at the moment, and Luc is a senior in high school.

I have a titanium knee now, and I set off alarms occasionally. I can't jog or run, but I always hated that anyway. I hope this finds your leg in as good shape as it can be.

I was already off the Bataan when you completed the mission, so I didn't get a chance to thank you in person-or any of the team. You should know how I feel.

Semper Fi, Marine. You were as much a SEAL as any of us. Regardless that Israeli shit.

Luc

Jack smiled, clicked the attachment and a pdf opened. It was handwritten-he remembered the pains he'd taken to be sure Hattie used cursive. Her writing was round and clear.

Dear Captain Luc Ormond,

I am Sarah Haddad Leslie (Hattie), adopted daughter of Captain Jacob Leslie, USMC (Ret.), who was your second in command during your missions in the fall of 2001. My father just told me the whole story of how I was evacuated from Syria and he included that your leg was seriously wounded during the effort to save my family.

I want to thank you for your suffering and for taking the risk. I wonder if I can ever be worthy of such a sacrifice. I take some comfort in the fact that no one expected me to express gratitude and so this missive probably is a surprise. I am so lucky that our country has brave men and women who were willing to risk their lives for mine.

I hope that you will tell your family the brave thing you did for me. Such things are hard for children to realize in their parents, as if there is another world in which parents existed. Tell them that at least one person knows what you did and will always be grateful.

Sincerely,

Hattie Leslie

She also included her email address and Leslie's.

Over the next few days Jack received email messages from Billy Jackson, 'Horse,' and Damingo Warren, 'Crate,' who thanked Hattie and gave a few details of their lives since then; a few days after that he received a message from Juan Ortiz, still in the navy, who also sent a message to Hattie saying he caught her as her dad practically threw her to him after being shot. He told Hattie it was one of the most wonderful moments of his life, and he was proud he'd been on that mission.

*

Hattie confronted her father the morning after his third acknowledged date with Laeesha.

"Are you carrying on an intrigue with my history teacher?" she demanded facetiously, brushing her hair and checking her skirt outfit before church. Whenever Hattie read a novel, she tried to incorporate its expressions into her own speech. She was reading Anna Karenina since she finished Mockingbird and the intrigue line must have come from it.

"I am, if you mean am I dating her. This one made three times, plus the ice cream parlor. You who are not allowed to date due to your age and immaturity should not practice your indignation facility over such things." He smiled at her. He liked using a larger vocabulary with her.

"I am not indignant. I am...pleased. You like her?" she asked, holding his arm as they headed out the door. It was a pleasant fall morning, leaves turning and some fallen.

"I do. Very much. But we are in no hurry...," he said.

"And why not? If anyone should be in a hurry, it's you and she. I mean, if you add your ages together don't you get like a gazillion or something? If I'm going to have a little brother you need to get t...

But Leslie was laughing. He patted her hand and said, "Time for that, Syrian. There is time. It's a long way to us having a child. You'll be the first to know if our friendship turns to more, okay? But it takes time, and the journey is enjoyable, too."

"Ah, Dad..."

"She's meeting us at church, by the way."

"Good. She usually goes to that Lutheran church. It's about time we got her some real religion."

"She teaches in a Catholic school. I'll ask her if that causes any mental reservation," Jack said.

"She says we have more ways to salvation. They think it's only by faith."

"Yeah, I think of it as we have more ways for guilt to develop."

*

In a quiet corner of a cemetery in Dearborn, Michigan they found Sarah Gillespie Haddad, her husband Adnan Haddad, Joram Haddad, 3, Adnan Haddad, 5, and Rifat Haddad, 8. The markers were simple stones flat in the ground, with birthdates of the two adults and date of death for all. Jack realized the names must have been supplied by Mr. Aglai, who had not known Sarah's. Rifat had physically saved his sister unnamed, Jack noted. Rifat.

Grandpa Leslie carried a bundle of roses. Hattie had a paper in her hand. She said, "I'd like to say a prayer." She held Jack's hand in her right, and read from the paper, "God in heaven, hear our prayer. We mourn for these five people who saved me. We miss their voices, we miss their hearts, we miss their lives. I feel their love. Keep them close and love them in heaven, for they were brave and selfless, and I am only here because of them. Amen." The adults added amen, and it was solemn.

Hattie divided the flowers among the five graves, two of which were very small.

Jack sent an email message to Laeesha describing the trip. His last line was, I wish I'd asked you to attend.

Laeesha understood that it was a family trip-and building a family always took time. She noted that Jack Leslie was thinking of her that way, and smiled.

*

Laeesha invited Jack to her condominium for a casual dinner and a quiet evening on a Friday in early November. To this point, their dates had been collegial but not particularly intimate. He held her hand on the dates, but never at other times. He'd kissed her goodnight each time, but there had been no awkwardness of him wanting a nightcap and she avoiding it. The end of a date was the end. They did not "hang out" together, and Laeesha thought that was probably because he did not want her bonding with Hattie. (Perhaps more accurately, he did not want Hattie bonding with her.) They conversed daily either on the phone or over the internet. At first, they'd discussed Hattie, but then they discussed family and romances and why they were single. They'd been to a movie, a long dinner, a dinner and a movie, to a show in Dayton, and now she was inviting him into her home for the first time. She intended this one to be different.

She wore a scoop neck sweater (showing a little cleavage) and nice blue jeans, he khakis and a long-sleeve polo shirt and jacket. It was the first time she'd worn anything revealing or that he doubted she'd wear to school. She kissed him as she stood in the doorway, and he noticed a fragrance. Her hands were on his arms, squeezing, and then she followed him into the home. He could smell dinner.

"The food is all ready, but it can wait," she said from behind him. Her arms went about him then, around his waist, and she pulled herself into his back, her breasts pushed against him and her right cheek between his shoulder blades. Her right hand slipped down his front to the bulge in his pants, and caressed it lightly.

"I didn't think this would ever happen for me," she said softly.

His hands were behind him, on her hips, pulling her into him. He liked the feel of her hand on him, and he turned and bent to kiss her and she was against him, arms about his neck, and their lips were locked. His tongue was in her mouth, and she groaned, and he found her breasts with his hands.

The passion of years gripped them. He had been with few women-it had just not seemed appropriate, his life was full with work and study and especially Hattie, and no woman had seemed worth the trouble, worth the commitment. Sex was real for him, deep, emotional...it involved more than the acts, more than pleasure. He didn't want to have sex with every woman he saw. Indeed, he didn't want to have sex with any woman at all unless he knew her, liked her, and felt he could love her. Janice always came into his mind. Some wounds were forever.

There had been a fellow student in graduate school, but she was not serious about him, she did not feel the same way-sex to her was only physical, and maybe she'd fall in love with him someday. Hearing that rationalization, he looked at her as a representative for all intellectual women, and found them wanting. Wanting of full lives, of interconnectedness, of self-actualization. He did not want compartmentalization; he wanted synthesis, fullness, consilience. He wanted someone who loved because she was athletic and smart and active and bright and thoughtful. He wanted someone who could cry at a sappy movie and read War and Peace; he wanted someone who became excited at the start of a squeeze play and still liked a walk in the woods. He didn't want a great scholar, nor a great athlete, nor any other single superlative. He wanted a whole person. He was often disappointed.

Labhaoise liked Jack and thought she was falling in love with him. For every factor Sharon had mentioned, Jack was a man she thought did not exist. He cried in a sad movie, he was completely his daughter's support, he was good-looking, mildly religious (if not Lutheran), and openly in love with his country. He was conservative except when he was liberal; he voted Democratic depending on who the Republican was. He was accomplished; he'd written several histories and novels. But she also saw a pain behind the laugh lines around his eyes. Pain.

Perhaps he'd seen too much that night in Syria, or the other missions added to it. Too many sad things, too many dead men or women, too much evil that he could not fix or prevent. He was still a young man, with pain. One night she thought about it, a school night of course, and she wondered if he were not the perfect man, the man they all described when they said, THESE are the characteristics I want: good and decent and loving and fatherly and active and sexy and smart and humorous. His conscience...perhaps he'd done something he regretted? Or not done something? Or just wished some decisions had worked out differently? Maybe that was it. Laeesha wondered if there could be a decent man over 35 who did NOT need therapy.

They moved to her couch and sat, kissing, petting like teens... That realization hit them together, perhaps as it should, and they slowed. Their kisses continued but without the frantic quality, they became softer, slower, wetter, deeper. His hand remained on her right breast, but his left was on her arm. Her hand slowly caressed his member, but it was gentle, soft, tickling. He was rigid, big.

"I'm falling in love with you," he said between kisses, his lips against her cheek.

She was in no hurry, her cheek against his chest, thinking as she petted his dick. "I'm no child, Jack," she said. "I've held my love for a long time," she said, aping a line from a movie, knowing he'd know it.

"You are a sexy romantic, I'll say that," Jack said, smiling and squeezing her breast. "I liked 'Open Range' also."

They kissed, and again.

They were naked, and his dick was hard, and she was little, he realized. She was a runner, and like most runners she was thin and he wondered if he was too big, sexually and just bodily. He engulfed her thinness and normal height. He did not want to hurt her, but she was there on the couch, spreading her legs, left foot on the floor. He looked at her eyes as he put his dick to her hole, and she said, "Put it in, Jack. I want it in me. Please." Not frantic. Not begging despite the words. But as if there were years of longing for this moment, for someone like him, and now the time was here. He pushed, and the head of it was in and she inhaled, her right leg up on the back of the couch.

"Okay?" he asked.

Her eyes wide like her pussy, she nodded, gasped, "Yes, Jack, push, I want it as much as I can..."

She yelled out as he pushed it in her, and they were joined, he was buried in her. He leaned to her and kissed her mouth, felt her breasts against his chest, pulled out and rammed into her, and she said, "YES!"

They screwed then, slowly but deeply, and he delighted in her moans at each thrust, until with one rapid series he came in her and hoped she was on the pill.

Dinner was cold, the wine was good, and they knew they had crossed a bridge.

*

"Intriguing," said Sarah when Leslie returned about midnight.

Jack shook his head. "Go to bed, Syrian. I will tell you what I've said after every date: we had a good time, we are growing closer, and it will take time."

"Ah, Dad, jeez," she said. She kissed him on the cheek and went to bed.

She wanted him to find a woman to love, and Mrs. Rinker seemed perfect, for a Lutheran.

Jack poured himself a drink. It was October. He'd known Laeesha two months. He had yet to meet her family. But the evening had been wonderful, he had to admit, smiling and finishing his Rob Roy. He felt loved. He felt the asterisk, the Janice warning that women can't be trusted, but there was a difference: Laeesha was not Janice.

*

"Hi, Mom," Laeesha said into her phone, "how are you? How's Dad?"

"Oh, we're much as we always are. He's around here someplace. Probably hiding out with a book, you know him."

Laeesha laughed. She didn't remember her father ever without a book in hand, or a cigarette.

"I've got a new boyfriend, Mom."

"Oh, Eesha, are you serious? Who is he? How'd you meet? How long have you known him?"

"He's father of one of my students. He's a writer, an historian, and he used to be a Marine officer."

"Divorced?"

"No, he never married. He adopted his daughter." Her mother thought about that a few seconds.

"He adopted a child when he was single?" her mother asked, surprised.

"Yeah, when she was an infant. She's 14 now."

Her mother was silent for quite some time. "This one's different, isn't he?" She remembered a series of boyfriends, all serious at first, dropping by the wayside for one good reason after another. She was engaged once, but he refused to set a date and she left him, too. Then work took over-it was all she spoke of for years. They decided their attractive daughter was just not interested in men, nor they in her. They were wrong.

Some men were interested. She said several of the men teachers hit on her-including some of the married ones-but they all seemed just academic. She was more interested in men who had done some things besides teach. She wanted something she had not found: a man like her father. She thought of that and smiled. Her little, shrinking, scatterbrained father, bent by age and disease, was who she saw in Jack Leslie: tall, big, hobbled by war, focused, with-it, but like her dad. She saw in him the kind of commitment her father had for her mother and her, complete faith in their goodness, replete hope for their lives, for a future, as Dad must have felt for the church at one time. Dad would have sacrificed himself to save an unknown child or mother or man. She remembered the mysterious scandal of his early years: Perhaps he had.

Jack had refused his own safety because a child he had never seen might be lost and in need. Might be. He ended up crippled in body but with a child to love. It was something her father would have done and never regretted. Laeesha decided they were more alike than appearances.

"Yes. Very. I've never felt this way. He has a depth and yet a presence I've never seen in men. Maybe some ministers I've met. But he's not the religious type."

"I want to meet him. What's his name?"

"Jack Leslie. Jacob, actually."

"I know that name... Writer? Jacob Leslie? Wrote Mary's Mind? That guy?"

"That's him, Mom."

"Can you ask him over for dinner some weekend? I know it's a drive...he could bring his daughter, too, if you'd like."

"I think that's a good idea. I haven't met his folks yet, either."

"Dad will love meeting a published author," her mother asked.

"If he's up to it. How is he?"

"It won't be long, Dear. He needs oxygen a lot."

Laeesha was quiet remembering good times-but too much smoke. Always, smoke. Smoking is a literary device for life. It foreshadows a bad end.

*

"I have to tell you about my dad."

Jack thought that sounded ominous and very serious. Laeesha had told him almost nothing of her family, other than that she was an only child, and apparently they were the only devout Irish Lutherans in northern Ohio.

"He's older-76 now. Originally, before he met my mom, Dad was a Catholic priest, he was actually a priest when he was a young man. But he was one of those priests who scandalized the church-he was accused of improper conduct with a lady. He denied it, she denied it, but it was in the newspapers in Chicago, where he lived. This was back in the 1960s. His bishop didn't believe his story, and he was defrocked-I think by choice and disgust at his treatment. He went into a depression, left the church, drank, smoked, and finally moved to Ohio to get away from anyone he knew.