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a cul-de-sac, Miles nosed his truck between the pickups already parked alongside the road. When we rang the doorbell we heard the scratching of nails from the other side and an excited yipping.
    â€œYou get back,” a woman’s voice called.
    Miles and I looked at each other. The door opened and a woman shooed away a miniature collie.
    â€œThat’s Captain,” she said. “Don’t worry about him. He’s just happy to see you. Aren’t you, Cappy?”
    The dog pranced in the doorway, looking from the woman to me to Miles.
    â€œI’m Teresa.” She stuck out a hand. “John’s wife.”
    â€œNice to meet you,” Miles said.
    â€œJohn’s told me all about you. The new CW2.”
    â€œThat’s right. Straight out of Fort Rucker. Trying to get the hang of things.”
    â€œDon’t worry. John will show you the ropes,” Teresa said. “Come on downstairs. Everyone’s around the pool table.”
    We followed her to the first floor where sliding glass doors looked out on the lake.
    â€œGlad you guys could make it,” John said.
    He pulled two beers out of the fridge behind the bar and handed one to each of us. To me, Teresa pointed out the men in the unit and introduced me to their wives. I shook their hands and smiled politely, but as I tried to follow the conversation I realized I did not have the vocabulary for this language of Army wives.
    â€œThey’ll be going to Hood in July.”
    â€œI heard August.”
    â€œWho’d you hear that from?”
    â€œA wife in Bravo Company.”
    â€œThe commander’s wife? I thought they got divorced.”
    â€œDidn’t you hear—”
    â€œI saw them at the commissary—”
    At the pool table, the men talked about flying. Miles ate guacamole out of a bowl and followed the conversation with his eyes. Our knees bumped and he looked at me and we gave each other half smiles. Teresa was talking about the military bases where John had been stationed, the cross-country drives she made alone, and how many months he’d been gone on his two previous deployments. It struck me how lonely that life must have been for her. She talked about their two daughters, their seventeenth wedding anniversary in January, and their plans for John’s retirement.
    â€œWe’re going to buy a boat,” John said. “Bigger than the one we have now.”
    He traced the route on an imaginary map while Teresa stood beside him and nodded.
    â€œWe’ll cruise down the Mississippi. Go across the Gulf of Mexico. Head back up the Atlantic.”
    â€œThe girls will be old enough to take care of themselves by then,” Teresa said. “But we’ll bring Captain. Or our next dog.”
    I sipped my beer and thought of days spent on the water, the sun beating down, a succession of collies nosing into the wind.
    Spring gave way to early summer. The clouds disappeared but the humidity stayed so that Fayetteville was suddenly hot and muggy like the inside of a mouth. Our neighbor sent over bags of cucumbers and tomatoes from her garden and I baked loaves of zucchini bread that Miles ate standing up in the kitchen, still in his uniform. He told me about the guys in the unit and the funny things they said during the day. One of them claimed that seventy-five percent of all warrant officers have two of three things: a pickup, a boat, and an ex-wife. We laughed and ran through the pilots in the unit and, sure enough, the statistic held true. We agreed that the military must be hell on marriage.
    That summer theaters showed Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds, every radio seemed to be playing “Mr. Brightside,” and the cover of Time explained “Why we’re going gaga over real estate.” I was hired in the marketing department at the local sports arena and they gave me free tickets to hockey games and dirt bike shows. I decided to close my bank account in France.