My Kind of Christmas Read Free Page B

Patrick said. “Few weeks, few months, doesn’t matter. If you feel like you can do it, go out and have a little fun with a guy, it’s okay. Jake wouldn’t mind. You know that.”
    “I know. When I’m ready, I will. But, Paddy, I have to get through all the special days without him first. All the holidays and birthdays and anniversaries…”
    Is that what we have to do? Patrick wondered. “Did someone tell you that?”
    “I’ve heard it here and there. I’ve been doing a little grief counseling with my church group and some people said that after you’ve been through all the important dates, things get a little easier. Or at least a little less terrible.”
    “Listen, Marie, I have all this free time. Want me to come back there for a while…?”
    “Seeing you is always good, Paddy, but I’ve been surrounded by people since I came home to Oklahoma. I think it’s better if you take care of yourself. I think you miss him as much as I do. You have things to work out, as well. Your own things.”
    Patrick was silent for a moment and then said, “I’ve been thinking about giving up the plane,” he said quietly.
    “Why?” she asked in a stunned whisper. “Because of Jake? Paddy, you love the plane!”
    “Not because of Jake. Because in the long term…”
    “And do what? Fly a desk? What?”
    “Maybe not the Navy…”
    “Okay, now I know you’re all screwed up—you’re more Navy than anyone I know. You’re going to be a commander next and then Joint Chiefs one day.”
    Nah, he thought—never anything that elevated and political. He liked flying a fighter; he could exist commanding fighters. But after the accident, Patrick felt like everything in his life had suddenly changed and he wasn’t sure which way to move next. “It’s just something I’ve been kicking around,” he said. “I might not get out of flying, but I have been getting sick of that big, gray boat.”
    “Now that I get,” she said. “And that little cot? And the night raids?” She laughed. “When you guys got home, Jake actually said he missed it all, if you can believe it.”
    “That’s not what he told me,” Patrick said, chuckling. “He said his sleeping arrangements had improved a hundred percent.”
    “Such a wild man,” she reminisced sentimentally. And then with tears in her voice she said, “I don’t think it’s possible for me to ever feel that way about another human being again.”
    “It’s too soon to say that,” Patrick said. And his secret, which he didn’t speak of, was that the only way he could get through ten more years in the Navy was with a woman like Marie as a partner. That’s what had made Jake’s life right; that’s what he wanted—someone devoted to him. He was way too alone and he knew it. “We have to get through the year....”
    “Paddy, are you very lonely?” she asked him as if reading his mind.
    “No, I’m getting by. My brothers are here.” The brothers I try not to spend too much time with, he thought. Lonely wasn’t his problem; as a Navy aviator he was constantly around a lot of Navy personnel—pilots, rios, mechanics, et cetera. On an aircraft carrier the only place to get a little privacy was in the head or up in the sky and little was the operative word—there was always someone in the next stall or in the rear seat of the aircraft.
    But like an old married couple, he and Jake had never gotten bored with each other.
    When they got back to Charleston, Jake was always with his wife and Patrick was usually with Leigh when she was in town and their schedules meshed. Jake and Leigh, his two closest friends. But then Leigh broke it off after four years and, not long after that, Jake had been killed. Next thing he knew he was spending his time in port with the Navy shrink, working it out. Or not working it out—he didn’t have much to say to the doc and had never mentioned the breakup.
    The shrink told his commander to give Patrick six weeks. Getting six weeks out of