The Perfect Life
To My Dear Henry,
It is difficult to explain to you now my dear sweetheart, but for a short time, I was able to live with the best feeling in the world. I'm speaking of a feeling that you wish would've never left your body. Your fragile body, that you take for granted much too often, and oh, oh how I wish, I was able to simply cherish the feeling you gave me back then.
I can still remember the day everyone arrived. I was standing there, my younger, more energetic self, in the middle of the wide wooden dock that stretched out over half the sea, watching all the thrilled men rush down the stairs off the battleship. The light layer of fog had cleared now, and a thin strip of sunlight just peeked out over the top of the ship, where I had made my way to standing so it hit the center of my thin coat. One after another, the men would come down rushing into the sea of faces who awaited their arrival, and find someone, hopefully a loved one, to embrace, along with a smile that spread from ear to ear. Men dropped their suitcases to lift fiances up off the ground and plant a kiss on their lips that made up for all the lost time. Men called out names from the staircase as one particular face would catch their eye, while others on the dock weaved through the crowd to finally reach the family they had been missing. I stood patiently, with a smile on my face, taking in all the joy that surrounded me. I looked for your dear face to be the next out into the open air on the top stair, searching for my eyes. It was then that I realized that you, my dear Henry, would look slightly different now than from the time you had left me. At the top of the staircase I saw the son of our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson come barging out, and our good friend Mr. Davis, who each had a little more facial hair growing from their cheeks and chins than I had last seen them. I expected you to be coming out next, I fixed my eyes ever so tightly on the one top, white metal step, until I would’ve seen your tough, short stature arrive.
Oh Henry, we had it so well, “the perfect life” we said we had.
The feeling of me without you now was becoming all too real. You had been gone for so long, when we couldn't even write to one another, and now, finally, it was the day I was going to have you with me again. Lowering my glance from the top stair to the bottom as more and more cries of rejoice were heard, my hands started to shake. I attempted to wipe the sweat dampening my fingers into my coat pockets but my nervousness did not leave me. My excitement became overturned by this feeling that grew as you were still not the one coming to greet me. The other soldiers maneuvered their way around me, shoving, not taking a second look behind them.
This feeling was one I never wanted to experience again, and definitely not one to be obsessed with my dear.
I tried to calm myself and straighten my posture, but kept removing my hands from the coat pockets and weaving my fingers in between one another over and over again. I could feel my smile start to dip into a worried expression, but tried to raise my cheekbones and fix my hair out of its wind blown look. I simply convinced myself that that couldn't have been all the soldiers who had left with your crew. I convinced myself that your arms would be tightly wrapped around my torso in a matter of minutes. I picked up my chin and corrected my vision back on the staircase rather than my black shoes on the old decaying dock. That was when the nervous feeling reached it’s peak. My stomach dropped, I expected to hear a splash in the water, my heart nearly shattered, I'm surprised now that I didn't faint, and my feet froze, locked in their solid place of what had now transformed into fear. I saw the captain, clothed in his crisp white suit on the top step. He waved to all below him, turned around swiftly, and gave a proud salute to the USS Slater, shutting the heavy steel door. I raised myself onto the tips of my toes, trying to see over as many heads as possible. I was looking for the one man who would have his big brown eyes locked on me, that I simply must have missed at first. Looking in all directions around me, my hand became tired from blocking the sunlight from my eyes, and I sunk back down onto the balls of my feet. I saw no brown eyes searching for the small blue centers of mine, and the feeling I had been anticipating for months, was crushed into merely nothing. Thrusting both hands into my coat pockets, then back out again, I turned around, not being careful enough as I hit the man and women who stood behind me. Once I had recomposed myself, as much as I could in the moment, I moved quicker with each step making my way to the aged post office across from the dock. There they were, “the lists”. The freshly posted, long, thin white sheets, filled with only names. The names of those who would be returning on October 24th here in New York, promptly at 1036 military time. I fought my way through the mob of flustered people until I was almost pressed against the wooden wall.
In a voice that was more worried than confused I spoke, “The USS Slater, the Slater, where is it?”
I ran my shaking finger across the top of every list going from the right to my left until I heard another shout, “The Slater! Over here!”
My head turned to see a woman, possibly older than me, a mother maybe, with her finger scanning a list, that seemed shorter than most.
“This is the USS Slater?” I asked with a crack in my speech.
“Yes, who are you looking for?” Her voice was kind, yet forceful as she scanned the list up and down.
“Henry- Henry O’Connor, Petty Officer.” I told her.
The woman’s finger continued to lower from name to name as my eyes did the same. I was nearly halfway down the list until she turned to me, opened her petite mouth, when no words came out. She then quickly turned her head away to look down, and stepped off the platform back to go across the street before I could ask anything of her.
Her face, the one of that woman I will never learn the name of, is one that never seems to escape my thoughts.
My eyes then glued themselves back to the list, Henry, Henry, Henry, I thought to myself. It was before long until I reached the bottom. My finger had trailed off the page and was now only contacting the thin wall of the post office. That couldn’t have been the whole list, for I did not see my Henry I thought. I simply shook my head and looked again, and again, and again. There was a Henry Francis, and a Henry Phillips, but no O’Connor. My hands became too weak to scan the list yet another time, and my knees collapsed, leaving me to rest on top of my shadow on the cold, hard, gravel ground.
None of the other lists, for by then I had gone through all of them, had your name on them my dear sweetheart.
I must have sat in that position for hours, my body was too numb to move, and the constant flow of tears dripping off my chin and mouth were creating a puddle I watched grow in between my legs. My mind raced, spinning, attempting to grasp the situation that now faced me. I could no longer say I had a husband, a beloved husband. I could no longer feel your warm embrace around my frail body whenever I desired it, and I could no longer have the feeling of the love you had showered me with.
Oh my dear Henry, all the things we used to do together. All of the laughs, the rules we broke, the friends we had, all of the smiles, the photographs taken, the strolls on the beach, the quiet dinners we shared, all of the hugs and the sweet kisses, not being apart from each other for more than a day, oh “the perfect life”, now all seemed to vanish right before my eyes. Everything I took for granted, all of the love I let seem simply normal to me, was gone. I was alone, with only our memories. And the funny thing is my dear sweetheart is that, that is all it is now. That day that hasn’t stopped replaying in my head, the feeling of my heart being ripped out of my chest, and the feeling of your affection that I couldn’t help but be consumed by, is just, a memory.
With all of my love,
Your wife, Shannon O’Connor