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thought process that took over me these days, and knowing what was true didn't always stop me from having these sorts of dark, fearful fantasies.
    I sighed, closed up the paper once again, and stepped inside with Bandit once again, in order to get ready for my day.
    I stood in the shower for some time, letting the hot water roll along my body in a manner that felt wonderful, yet was somehow strangely chilling. I felt like I lacked the strength to tear myself away from this beautiful heat, and I stayed under the water until it began to grow cold as it fell down onto me, and at last I admitted to myself that it was time to get out and get started with my day.
    I got dressed, not caring all that much what I looked like, because really what the hell did it matter, anyway? I patted Bandit one final time on the head, and then made my departure through the front door, and stepped into my car.
    I needed groceries, and drove somewhat dead-eyed off to the supermarket, unenthusiastic and disliking the notion of having to be out in public. As proud as I was of my husband, I hated the inherent feeling of being a military wife, and I somehow imagined that everyone else around me felt sorry for me when they looked at me, as though they somehow knew that, just because I was at the store by myself with a wedding ring on, I was worth pitying for my present life circumstances.
    But of course I knew that was ridiculous. There was no way that anyone would have that sort of insight, but like nearly everything about my life at that time, my reason did very little to mitigate the fear.
    This same feeling, of not wanting people to feel sorry for me, was one of the main reason I tended to gravitate away from other military wives, the only people who could really ever know precisely what it was I was going through.
    It was just so strange, really. The whole experience of it. Having as good as lost the man you loved, for an indefinite period of time, in some foreign city you've never heard of, for a cause that neither you nor even the man fighting for it fully understands.
    All the way through, you sort of just have to believe whatever it is people tell you, take things at face value, and try to avoid overthinking things if you want to make it through the whole ordeal with your sanity intact.
    And, I guess, really, that was probably exactly what Danny was going through himself, but to a degree that was far more palpable, and the stakes far, far higher. But, at the very least, Danny had the benefit of actually progressing through that hardship.
    His ability to come home and be with me again depended wholly on tangible actions he could take every day, so that it must have seemed like he was racing toward a finish line. But meanwhile, on my end, there was really nothing I could do at all to speed up the pace of time, or to bring the man I loved back home to me a minute faster.
    So in some ways, I guess I was just trying to stay afloat all that time. And, though the smart thing to do would have been to expose myself to those other military wives, and relate to someone who could sympathize so directly with my problems. I'm not really sure why I was so resistant to the notion, in fact...
    I guess the reason is probably a selfish one, really. I didn't want to share this experience with anyone else, as bad as it was. I wanted it to remain solely between Danny and I, confined and limited, and kept within our own private boundaries.
    Having to be around the other women who were going through the same thing felt like an intrusion of some kind, a butting in that I'd never signed up for, and I preferred waiting out the days leading up to my love's return in solitude, as painful as it may have been for me on a number of levels.
    Really, all throughout that time, these trips to the grocery store were about the only socializing I squeezed into my day at all, if you can really call it that. Once in a while I would call my parents or Danny's, and very rarely I would go