From The First
He saw her from across the crowded room, standing out like a peacock among doves in the middle of the base party, her blonde hair set in a Farrah cut, sporting skin-tight knock-off Charlies, a chocolate colored dolman and golden sandals - a luscious package, made for unwrapping. Sam followed her with his eyes for a few minutes. He'd known her causally for awhile - her name was Amanda Miles, and she was the twin sister of one of the guys he went through basic with. He had scored an introduction the week before after watching her from a distance at various functions over the past two years. She was twelve months younger than him, fresh out of William and Mary, with a degree in criminology that she hadn't yet put to good use. Even if she hadn't been bright, her looks, charm and sense of humor would have drawn him in like steel to a magnet; Sam, who had dated frequently back in high school and drew more than his fair share of female attention as he neared the end of his training, was completely smitten with her.
She didn't seem to notice Sam's hovering - or she did she lightly passed it off as brotherly concern. But Sam was only biding his time, looking for a good opening to suggest they go out and catch a flick. It arrived when she asked Sam to walk her back to her brother's house.
On the stoop, she turned and pressed her palm to his cheek. "You don't have to be so shy," she said, becoming the first and only woman to describe Sam that way, charming him utterly.
***
Amanda had known Sam for nearly a year before they went on their first date - a showing of Saturday Night Fever. He was everything Tommy said he was - nice, funny, a little acerbic, sure, but his protectiveness made up for it. Not to mention his good looks. She would learn later that he could withhold his emotions with steely control - the sort that made her recall the unpleasantries of her childhood.
But that night he was all charm, all ease, comforting and stalwart. The sort of guy she could get very heavy with.
Unsurprisingly, she quickly did.
***
Amanda came from what could be called 'good stock'; Virginia horse breeders on her mother's side, Georgia military on the other, people of the local good standing who could trace their family trees all the way back to the founding fathers. She took Sam to meet the good Colonel and Missus Miles to Manassas for one overheated summer weekend, filling their days with horse races and mint juleps and their nights with parties and meetings. He had his first real experience with lying then, early preparation for his time in intelligence, as he wore white linen suits and tried to effect insouciance.
By the end of the weekend it was clear that the Colonel didn't approve of his little girl marrying some middle-class wet-behind-the-ears soldier fresh from training, a boy three months away from gaining rank and being shipped off to his first assignment. But the Missus was an army wife, who secretly seemed to hope that Amanda would give up the notion of a career and follow her into the happy bounds of wedded bliss.
She had her way of the stern older man - a family trait, Sam would learn. One obstacle down.
***
Amanda concealed her anxiety as she mingled among the Axes for the first time a Thanksgiving later. They were a large and gregarious middle-class family, four boys and a girl, all of them football obsessed, all of them pretty cheerful. Sam's father was an ex-Green Beret, who received an honorable discharge at the end of Vietnam and retired to his second love, coaching; his mother, like Amanda's, was a lifelong housewife, and the boys had grown, like their father, to become minor league coaches and military men. Amanda quickly learned that Sam was the family darling, the highest climber, the most praised, the best-looking and most popular.
Their loudness was something Amanda couldn't quite acclimate herself to, much as she tried. In their touch football games she was the last picked, stomping through the mud, trying to keep pace and bear up under the gentle teasing. Eventually she sought refuge with Sam's mother in the mind-numbing pleasure of making pie for the evening meal.
But Sam's parents - unwilling to deny him anything, Amanda would soon learn - found her charming, and the match was set in stone.
***
They married just before Sam was shipped to the Falkland Islands, after dating for just over five years - Amanda, placed in charge of gathering up their possessions and establishing a home on base in Little Creek found herself swamped with kitchen gadgets and drapery.
She sat on their bed in a white nightdress, her toes nervously worming their way through the shag pile. It wasn't the first time they'd had sex, and it wouldn't be the last, but tonight denoted 'special' and Amanda would be damned if she was to be denied something wonderful.
Sam came out of the bathroom in a navy blue robe, his hair still wet from the shower. He took a long look at her, the towel he'd draped over his shoulder falling to the floor.
He dropped to his knees at the foot of her bed. "Damn, you're beautiful tonight."
Later, she would be mad at him for leaving a wet towel on the carpet - but for a moment, Sam was everything she wanted in a husband and more.
***
He was gone, always.
She tried to make friends at the base, but many of the women her own age were absorbed in the rearing of children, their own private fears, and it was hard for her to make connections. She spent much of her time decorating their small house and learning how to make Sam's favorite foods.
In this, Amanda grew restless. She began to see her mother's face in the mirror, eyes rimmed with purple circles and nerves tamped down with constant self-affirmation.
When Sam came back from the Falklands, he'd changed somehow, become colder, quieter. When she tried to ask him about the mission, he shut down and stared at the TV. The next week, the week after, the month after, he was off in Russia, or Germany, or some water-forsaken country that left him tanned.
For their first anniversary, she'd bought him an easy chair. He spent the night there, watching TV, his once lively eyes dead and half-shuttered.
Amanda considered going back to college, to use her criminology degree, but Sam didn't want her to work. Then they tried to have a baby, without success.
Ultimately, Amanda was bewildered by their union. She had envisioned marriage as an impassioned correspondence when he was away, followed by passionate nights of togetherness on his return. She got mountains of blueberry donuts rotting on the shelf, airless summers filled with the sound of heavy aircraft flying overhead, and constant worry.
At night, she dreamt of wild paints jumping wooden fences, never quite clearing the top rail before she woke up.
***
He didn't know how to deal with what he'd been forced to do back there, how to touch Amanda after all he'd done. She wanted to know how he hurt and how to help, but he'd be damned if he could explain it. It was the guilt, and more than that, the knowledge of knowing he'd killed someone, that blood would always be on his hands.
After awhile the feelings calloused over - he was a SEAL at heart, always would be, and he had done what he needed to in the name of his country - but he still couldn't bring himself to tell her about what happened when he wasn't with her.
The bottles mounted up beside his favorite easy chair, but he never grew drunk.
***
She would wonder later if he meant to start the chain-reaction. Sam had met Mack in the Gulf; he had broken his leg on a covert ops mission and would be at the base while Sam was gone, and could she look after him, make sure he was all right?
Amanda never knew what drove her to it - boredom, or fear, or the realization that the Sam she had married was changing and she wasn't ready to change with him.
But it was easier to love Mack at the time. So she did.
***
He asked her later - during the divorce, after he had come home to find out that she had moved in with Mack during his last deployment - if she had been lonely. He never got an answer from her, only downcast eyes and claims that he had changed.
But he never really blamed her.
He sure as hell blamed Mack, who knew how he felt for Amanda and had allowed himself to seduce Sam's wife. It took him a long time to stop fantasizing about beating the man's face in, and he sublimated all of his violent wishes into his work. Soon he was out of the SEALS and in intelligence, and didn't have the time or space to dwell on it anymore.
***
Mack was a calm man in those days. Quiet, just, and easy to get along with. So much like the Sam she had sent into combat. With him, she thought, she could have the family she wanted without worrying he would shut her out.
It took her awhile to figure out he was just a substitute for Sam.
Mack was quicker on the uptake. It's not hard to figure out your wife still has a thing for her ex-husband when she says his name while you're making love.
***
After the divorce, he changed into a new person. Gone from his personal life was the stone-cold, serious Sam - though the often came out to handle the heavy lifting on the job. In his place was the attentive ladies man. He made note of birthdays and preferences, paid extra attention to them in bed, made himself memorable in their lives. It would be a useful skill, later.
There was an almost mercenary quality to his seductions, but he never got a single complaint.
More than he could say for Amanda.
***
After she left Mack, Amanda moved to Las Cruces, to a little hacienda. She raised pintos, taught criminology and spent her nights in dive bars. She wouldn't admit it to herself, but she was looking for a new Sam. She still is.
But her life's easier without him. And when she dreams now, her horses always clear the fence.