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By Root 1394 0

since she had somehow managed to deny to herself that she was about to become a mother. But now she saw, in vivid detail before her, how she had taken that precious life for granted. How could she have gone canoeing that day? How could she have had so little regard for the miracle happening inside her? Her feelings both sobered and depressed her. For a while, she functioned like an automaton, a little Stepford wife, doing everything Joe asked of her, as if complete obedience were her penance for her transgression. Her parents had stopped helping them financially now that there was no baby to consider. She and Joe needed to learn to make it on their own, they said, and, of course, Joe agreed. That was only the beginning of Joe’s agreements with her parents.

She was coming to realize that, had it not been for her pregnancy, she and Joe’s relationship probably would have died a natural death after high school. They were so dissimilar. He was straight-arrow, goal-oriented, money hungry. He weighed every move before he made it, thinking through every possible consequence. Yet, she did love him, despite his stodginess. He was handsome and kind, and she could talk easily to him—as long as she didn’t talk about things that upset him, like her longing for adventure or her boredom with her bank job. She liked that she was helping to put him through school. Once he was out, though, and had made a little money, it would be her turn. She planned to study aviation—although that was one of those things she couldn’t talk to him about.

She knew the very day her depression began to lift. She was getting ready for work, watching the early-morning news in their studio apartment, when an ad came on the TV.

“Learn a trade,” the announcer said, “and earn money for school at the same time!”

The images on the screen were of young men and women, Army Reservists, dressed in camouflage, crawling on the ground with rifles, pushing buttons on huge computers and…flying planes! Her heart pounded against her ribs as she watched the ad, as if it were beating life back into her body after a long illness, and she longed to rip off her stuffy bank teller clothes and dial the phone number displayed on the screen right that minute. She managed to wait until her afternoon break at the bank before making the call, but within a week, she had signed up for the Army Reserves—without the knowledge of Joe or her parents.

It was another week before she dared to tell Joe what she had done. They were in their apartment, sitting at opposite ends of the sofa, eating their dinner of canned chicken soup and grilled-cheese sandwiches. He had a textbook on his knee, as usual; he was always studying.

“Joe?” she said, when she was halfway through her sandwich.

It was a moment before he looked up, and he kept his finger on his place in the book.

“I did something this week that I’m really excited about,” she told him.

“What’s that?” He glanced down at the book again, obviously distracted.

“I enlisted in the Army Reserves.”

He actually laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

She shook her head. “I saw an ad on TV, and I—”

He withdrew his finger from the book and shut it. “Why would you do anything so stupid?” he asked.

“I don’t think it’s stupid. I’ll be getting training and money for college, so it won’t cost us as much for me to—”

“We aren’t—” Joe hunted for the words “—we’re not army kind of people. Your father even refused to fight in Vietnam, remember? Do you know what he had to go through to get that conscientious objector status? And here you join up? We don’t even know anyone in the military.”

She looked at him curiously. “When did you get so bigoted?” she asked.

“I’m not bigoted. I’m just being…realistic. I mean, can you really see yourself in a uniform, taking orders? You, of all people?”

“Yes, actually, I can.” She felt herself toughening up as she spoke. “And it’s only the reserves. I’ll just have to be away from home for one weekend each month, although I’ll have to be on active duty for a while first, while I’m in Warrant Officer Candidate Development.”