Chapter 31
So, If I Couldn’t Hold a Conversation…
“I’m taking Shadow for a walk”
That conversation didn’t go well at all.
Sometimes, a girl just has to be alone with her thoughts.
I stopped at the edge of the driveway to decide.
Meet people, turn right, head toward the park and the post office.
Stay away from people, left toward the neighborhood.
I never should have let Shadow choose.
There were more puddles to the right.
Dogs have their own priority list.
The air felt the way it always did—breezy and 80 degrees.
Shadow had already been around the block a couple of times that day, so he was willing to take life slow.
James was on the same sidewalk as me going in the opposite direction.
I really didn’t want to talk to people.
I wanted to think.
But, if I must talk to someone, James would be it.
His face lit up.
“Hi there! Headed for the park?”
“I was thinking of checking the mail.” I jingled the key to the box.
He turned on a dime and fell in step beside me.
“I’ll go with you.”
He bent over and gave Shadow a good petting.
Shadow sniffed around his feet looking for his dog.
“Molly isn’t with me today, boy.”
Shadow didn’t believe him.
He continued looking for the Shih Tzu.
James led slightly down the road.
“I got another job offer stateside.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t put your resume out there.”
“Really, huh. It’s a compliment, but frustrating.”
“What’d Jennifer have to say.”
“She’s still deployed. I’ll talk with her this weekend.”
“I’m afraid if I wait the two more years, my experience will be considered a dinosaur.”
“Is the solar industry making strides that quickly?”
“Yes and no. It’s the storage containers for the energy that need the most improvement.”
“True. What good does it do to have clean energy if all your storage devices are either too bulky or toxic.”
He stopped and stared at me.
“It’s weird.”
I pushed him into motion before Shadow tore my arm off.
“Not really, just battery limitations.”
“No, it’s unusual to have someone that understands what I’m talking about.”
“Tell me about it! Quote me the quadratic formula please! Feed my brain.”
We had a laugh.
“Being a man and a mom isn’t all that challenging. What is difficult is being talked to by other men like I’m a freeloader.”
“Oh! Then you aren’t just a mom anymore, you are a wife.”
“How do you handle it?”
“Not very well, for years!
Not very well.
You have your education though.
When I was doing it, it was JUST a housewife.”
“Ouch.”
“I take it back. Maybe what you are giving up is even harder.”
“Well, there’s Stacey. She makes it all worth it. Jennifer’s a soldier, what am I supposed to do?”
“Splitting the family is not any way to live.”
“I just feel useless and I know there are companies out there right now that want me.”
“I felt like a nobody.”
“Well, you have a career!”
“Right now, I do. But, there was a time I didn’t understand what I was worth.”
“Then you got your degree.”
“No, it dawned on me during a job interview, my last semester of college.”
“When you start seeing a dollar sign attached to all that study time, that changed me too.”
“Not that.
During the interview, the interviewer asked me if I had any questions.”
“I can’t even imagine you saying no to that.”
“I did have one, but I swear, I never told anyone this so no talking about it, okay?”
He zipped his lips with two fingers.
“I asked why she wanted me to apply.”
“That’s odd.”
“Not really. I had a 3.7 GPA. There were other people who were smarter.
But she picked my resume out.
I wanted to know why.”
“And?”
“Well, as it turns out…
It was the volunteer work that I had been doing in Europe and Fort Benning.
It was the languages that I learned.
She pointed out everyone else had a degree, but I did it raising two kids.”
“You’re smart. You had to have already known that.”
“That’s what she said.
It was totally embarrassing not to know my own worth.
I’m just saying, don’t sell yourself short.
Now, or two years from now, solar power is still going to need creative people.”
He held shadow while I went in to get my mail.
I waited for him to come back out.
I was thinking how often I felt alone too.
A solar power engineer might be able to work from home one day. If the internet turns into what they say it will be with this fiber optic cable.
I had an idea, but it came out in a word.
“Salt!”
“Its volume would take up too much space. Even if you used the California desert, the battery would cost more, and heat protection would be another problem.”
“You knew what I was talking about with one word?”
“You were just finishing our conversation.”
“I’ve got something to say… “
“And you need to announce it?”
“Yes, it’s awkward.”
Being the only man-mom here on base makes life strange for me.
Lately, I have found myself thinking of what we could talk about next.
Especially with Jennifer gone.
I can’t live that way.
I know it sounds like I’m…
but I’m not…
“We just need to stay acquaintances.”
I didn’t make it less awkward.
“So, what does that look like?”
“We wave at the pool, but don’t sit together.
If we pass each other on foot, we just keep going.”
“It’s the first time I’ve been the one receiving this speech.”
“Please don’t tell the other moms about this.
It would be embarrassing.”
“Honestly, you and Colonel Staffer’s wife are the only friends I have.
And she talks to me, I don’t really talk back.”
“So, agreed? Not friends.”
I stuck my hand out to shake his.
We shook.
As I watched him walk away…
I decided to challenge some of my own convictions.
Daniel's Den 