Beyond the Spring Breeze novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Burned Form

The Academy acceptance form is gone and Dean admits he burned it, then says he already told the congressman's office she declined.

I came down the stairs slowly, because my knees expected to hurt and did not.

The kitchen smelled of bacon and coffee and the cigarette my father thought I never noticed.

I had not smelled that kitchen in fifty-three years.

I stopped in the doorway with my hand on the frame.

My father sat at the head of the table in his work shirt, forty-nine years old and broad as a barn door.

Dean leaned against the counter with a coffee mug, one ankle crossed over the other.

He was twenty.

His sandy hair fell over his forehead, and he looked up and smiled at me.

It was the same smile as in the photograph.

My stomach turned over.

Some part of me, the part that had loved him, wanted to cross the room.

The rest of me had read a letter an hour ago, and it stayed where it was.

"There she is," Dean said. "Sleepyhead."

"Morning," I said.

My voice came out low and level.

I was proud of that.

My father pushed out a chair with his foot.

"Sit down, Thea. Eat something."

I sat.

I looked at the two of them, and I thought about how many mornings I had sat in this chair and trusted them.

Dean set a plate in front of me.

"Eldon and I were talking about the yard," he said. "About after the wedding."

"Were you?"

"I'll take the books off your dad's hands. You won't have to worry about anything."

He kissed the top of my head.

I let him.

My father cleared his throat.

"Have you thought about what we discussed?"

"What did we discuss?"

"The Navy business." He waved his fork. "That letter."

He said the word letter.

"It's an honor, I'll give you that. But you're getting married in June."

"I know," I said.

Dean's eyes flicked to my father, then back to me.

"We just want you to be happy, Thea. You wouldn't be happy in Annapolis. Those girls will be miserable. They're sending women in to fail."

"That's what the paper said?"

"Everybody says it."

I buttered my toast.

"The reply form is due Friday noon," I said. "It has to go to the congressman's district office, in person or by mail."

"Right," my father said, too quickly. "Friday."

I stood up.

"I'll go and find it."

I went back upstairs and opened the desk drawer where the cream envelope's other papers should be.

The acceptance form, the physical exam notice, the instructions.

I remembered putting them there.

In the old life I had signed the decline page myself, at this desk, with tears on it.

This time the drawer was empty.

I checked the second drawer, then the shelf, then under the bed.

Nothing.

I went to the window.

Down in the yard, beside the burn barrel, there was a thin curl of gray paper ash, caught on the grass.

Someone had burned something this morning.

I walked back down to the kitchen.

My father had gone out to the shed.

Dean was washing the mugs.

"Where are my Navy papers?" I asked.

"What papers?"

"The acceptance form. The exam notice. They were in my desk."

He turned the water off.

For a moment I saw him decide how to answer.

Then he dried his hands on the towel and came to me, and his face went soft and sorry.

"Thea, honey. I burned them."

"You burned them."

"Last night, after you went to bed. I couldn't stand to watch you tear yourself up over it." He took my hands. "You'd have gone, and you'd have hated it, and you'd have come home broken. I did it because I love you."

I looked at his hands holding mine.

They were warm and steady and they did not shake at all.

"That was my decision," I said.

"It was a bad one."

"It was mine."

"Thea." His thumb stroked my knuckle. "Don't be upset. It's done, and it's for the best, and I already took care of the rest."

"The rest."

"I called the congressman's office yesterday afternoon. Told them you'd decided to decline and that you were too emotional to write it yourself."

He smiled.

"So you don't even have to sign anything," he said.

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