All Things Visible and Invisible

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by PC Donan

  Cover design and illustration by Benjamin Donan

  ISBN: 9781483511757

  For Tamara

  CHAPTER 1

  The first time I saw you, or was it the first time you saw me - it does not really matter - I knew you were going to be my wife. There are moments when time seems to stands still, and seeing you for the first time was one of those moments, a rare glimpse into the interweaving of time, space, and love. You, my dear Julie, are my salvation.

  When my memories fade, I know you will be there to stitch together the beautiful moments that are still etched in my molecular memory. When passages of pain are best forgotten, but could not be, you, my dear future wife, will keep me from being unglued.

  There was no quantum leaping from one space to another, just the classic transmission of light and thought, a certain movement of the eye, the contact, the breakaway, back to the glance, and that certain smile in that crowded room, warped by time and space, in the winter of 2005, when I fell in love with you. But, first, I had to fold the distance between us.

  I followed you as you walked toward the host. You gave your hips an extra subtle sway to the left and to the right, to the left and to the right, and I stared at your bottom's rhythmic swinging. The only time I looked up was when you glanced at me and our eyes locked again. You knew as well that the attraction was there.

  I followed you because your eyes and hips said so. You will be my wife, but I could not tell you that yet. You will get to know me. You will fall in love with me. I will ask you to marry me. I have patience. You will say yes.

  I have to fill in the space. Five feet. I am right behind you. A waft of Coco Chanel lures me in closer. Four feet. I curved in to face you and the host and she introduced us. I moved in to shake your hand.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Contact.

  I shook your hand and held it longer than normal and you did the same and you smiled and I smiled and we stayed there standing while the music played. The crowd moved to the music and their chatter became white noise. At some point the host disappeared, vanished, sensing she was not needed anymore. It was a hypnotic trance that sped time around us. We locked the world out. Your voice, your words, your eyes and eye lashes, and that thing that you do with your face, you lips, your nose, and the thousand and one ways you moved your facial muscles, the bounce of your brown hair and the sultry movement of your neck contributed to a beautiful time warp. No time machine could ever bring so much pleasure.

  CHAPTER 2

  And so it began. First a Friday night date then a Friday and Saturday then a whole weekend. The winter's cold wind never stopped me from seeing you; just to be with you, just to walk together in Pike's Place Market, just to see you touch the monkfish, just to listen to you, just to hold your hand and feel its warmth, just to look at you as we drink coffee at Starbucks.

  You always like to sit facing the door to watch people come in and out: adults, sometimes walking in alone, sometimes one holding a Bible and another listening; people conducting commerce; people who are lonely, wanting something warm to hold; sometimes women with children. You always notice the women with children; although you never told me you want children, your voice said you did.

  "Oh how cute. They have matching outfits."

  You looked at the mother and children. I looked at you and I knew you are falling for me.

  "Don't you think so, Nick?"

  "They are," I said, though I have no interest in others' children, just the ones I will have with you.

  "I love you," Julie said.

  You lost your subtlety. There are no more insinuations. You said it without pause or hesitation, but with certainty and absolute truth. From across the table, you reached for my hands and mine met yours in the middle of the round table.

  "I love you too. I've loved you the first time I saw you."

  With that, our lips met.

  And then there were telephone calls seven days a week. You began to worry about our future because of what I do. You knew I was a lieutenant in the infantry, but I suppose love makes people worry, especially when one hopes to spend a lifetime together.

  We kept moving forward through spring, walking past blooms and green buds of once dormant plants. At the end of the day, when the warmth of the sun was gone, we replaced it with the warmth of the fireplace as we sat drinking wine, watching a movie, your hand on my lap, my hand around your shoulder, my fingers barely touching your breast, and, often, I rested my nose against your head, inhaling your scent.

  One night we went to dinner. You looked radiant, lovely, graced by an ethereal presence. Your black dress cut a deep V in the middle of your chest and your milky white breasts pushed up in a rhythmic upheaval every time you breathed in, gloriously held back by a black-lace brassiere that played peek-a-boo. The necklace you wore just became a distraction tothe beautiful mounds of God's creation. The red shawl over your shoulders served as a soft sentinel, protecting you from my lustful gaze.

  I tried not to look down and I focused on your face and your emerald green eyes. I managed to do so for a few minutes then your fingers started playing with your necklace and I lost my focus.

  "You look lovely."

  "Thank you."

  The waiter came and asked what we would like to drink.

  "A glass of your house wine, please."

  "Same," I said.

  He bowed his head slightly and walked away.

  "What are you having?" she asked.

  "Not quite sure yet."

  My eyes lingered on the steak section of the menu. "I'm debating between the rib eye and filet mignon. What about you?"

  "Well, the alder grilled salmon sounds good, so does the seared tuna. Would you like to eat raw oysters if I get some," she asked.

  "Sure. I love raw oysters."

  "I just got a craving."

  She adjusted her shawl to cover more of her shoulders and arms. "Are you cold?"

  "No. Just a little draft."

  "Do you want to wear my jacket?"

  "I'm fine, honey."

  I looked at her again: her hair, face, eyes, and moved down to her bosom. "You are cold. You have goose bumps on your chest."

  She covered it with her shawl.

  "Don't cover it."

  She looked at me. "Now I'm feeling warm," she said.

  The waiter came back and threw cold water on our intense moment and took our order.

  It was late by the time we were done with dinner. I took her home, walked her to her door, and I kissed her softly. I broke off the kiss. In the dimly-lit entryway to her apartment door, I touched her cheek, cooled by the spring night, and I cupped her face to warm her and kissed her some more. She fumbled for her keys as I broke off the kiss once more. The keys jingled, and she dropped them as she inserted a key in the keyhole. She picked them up and I looked at her bottom. The keys jingled again and this time the key went in, the door lock clicked, she opened her door and it was dark. I flicked the switch and I came in.

  CHAPTER 3

  The planned January deployment to Afghanistan hastened my plans. Time with Julie was running out. What comes before every fight is training; lots of training; and more training to perfect our skills, tactics, and reflexive action. This meant time away from Julie, zoning her out and focusing on the mission. We must zone out our lives outside the unit when we go to war. Family and love is a distraction that could hurt
your combat effectiveness.

  So, how do I tell her this? She knows what I do. She knows one day I will go away for a long time and may not come back the same man. One day I will fly out and fight a war against terrorists who did harm to us. I, along with thousands of others like me, will go hunting for Bin Laden. Why is it so hard to tell her I am going to war? Is it because I do not want her to waste her emotions on me because I may not come back? What am I talking about? I want her. I love her. She loves me. I am going to marry her and when she opened her heart and door to me, I could not escape the magic and the warmth. Yet, here I am, in full emotional retreat.

  In August I found the courage to ask her to marry me. I did not create a moment. I did not make an elaborate plan such as posting the question on a billboard or ask an entire restaurant crew to help me. The moment revealed itself naturally and I captured it.

  Why drag this dating thing for a year or two or three? Some people date for years. Were they waiting for a better option to walk into their lives? Her eggs will be older then, on their way to ultimate entropy, and I am sure my sperm will be swimming with broken tails and whacked out DNA, barely treading semen to meet a decaying egg. Now is the time. But, I admit I was scared. What if I am reading her wrong and she really is waiting for a better option out there and I am just filler?

  How much time do you really need to get to know a person? Do you really need time when you know that she is the one? I heard of a man who asked his future wife to marry him on the first date and she said yes. How crazy is that? And that was twenty-three years ago.

  Let's see, what do I really want in a woman? Beauty. Check. Brains. Check. A nice ass. Check. Nice pelvic bones and girdle meant to push out lots of babies. Check. I'm not into bony ass women with ribs you can strum. I go for the mean, the median, and the mode. A good wife: a good possibility, but I will never know until I make the plunge. A good mother: I have a hunch she would be. Again, I will never know, until I commit. Am I going to be a good husband and father? I'm not sure either. That's part of the crapshoot of life.

  In reality, I knew she was going to say yes. During our strolls in malls, she would veer off into jewelry stores. Like a woman lost in the woods who ends up walking in a circle because the dominant leg inescapably forces her to make longer strides, her dominant love brain forces her to look at bright shiny objects and so her legs take her to where those things glitter. And this subconscious behavior of hers-is it really subconscious or is she trying to penetrate my skull; or is this the beginning of husband training - has repeated itself a few times.

  One day, in Westside Mall, she veered off again to a jewelry store and just so happened to look at engagement rings. I kept a healthy distance while the salesperson discussed diamond, cut, carat, color, and clarity. I was overwhelmed. From where I stood, the rings all looked the same: bright, shiny, and reflective. Their conversation continued for minutes. I finally wandered off in a circle around the display, ending on Julie's other side, and closed in on her personal space.

  "Are you bored?" she asked.

  "Ah, no."

  "Yes you are."

  The woman looked at me, probably thinking her commission is gone.

  "I'm hungry," I said. "Let's have a quick bite."

  "Sure." She looked at the woman and said, "We'll be back."

  We went to the food court and looked and smelled our way around until we decided on Thai food. We sat. We did not eat right away.

  "Are you okay?" she asked. "You look like your mind is somewhere else."

  "Just overwhelmed. All I want is to marry you."

  She smiled. "And..." she said.

  "I'm not gonna ask you in the food court."

  "I don't care. I'm low maintenance."

  "I know you are. That's why I like you." I sipped my soda and she began to eat.

  "Does the ring shopping go first or does the proposal?"

  "I don't know," she said. "I've never been engaged before."

  "You must have heard or read about it somewhere."

  "I really have not spent my every waking moment thinking about these things."

  "Me either," I said.

  "For the sake of openness and honesty, if you do ask me to marry you, and I'm not saying you will, but I want you to know now before you ask, I want at least five children. I don't want you to commit if you're not into a big family. I don't want you to waste your time or my time."

  Her statement actually turned me on but I said, "I'll have to seriously think about this then."

  "Jerk."

  "Five is a lot."

  "Yup, it is." She sipped her soda; I took a bite of my prawn in coconut milk.

  "Why so many?"

  "You look like good breeding material, Nick."

  "Thank you? I feel like a stallion, used for my stud services. Maybe I should hang a shingle and offer my services to women."

  "Just for me, honey," she said. "You and me, sharing genetic material."

  "So unsexy when you say it that way."

  "Oh, I'll make it sexy. Go ask me."

  "Not in the food court. It'll be my biggest regret. You're funny, Julie Earharth. Are you ready to get out of here?"

  "Yeah, let's-"

  "Go downtown and look at boats."

  "No more looking at rings?"

  "Yup."

  So we drove down the hill, crossed the renovated Olympia-Yashiro Friendship Bridge, passed Capitol Lake on the right, found a place to park on 4th Street, and walked to Percival Landing. We walked to the water's edge. There were two cargo ships docked at the port. There were children learning how to sail and there were sailboats and motorboats in the marina. The tide was high and I could clearly see the barnacles underwater on the posts, and schools of fry swimming about. A seal appeared once near us and swam away.

  In the landing there is a statue of a man and a woman kissing. The man, slightly shorter than the woman, craned his neck to kiss the woman. It was there, when the sky opened for a few moments and a sun ray beamed down on the statue as we admired it, that I asked. "Julie Earharth, will you marry me?"

  When I asked her this, I did not kneel nor did I have a ring, but I did have courage and a serendipitous sunbeam on a statue, and that was all I needed.

  "Well, of course, yes, I will marry you, Nick Bayan. Now that that is settled, let us discuss the number of children we should have."

  I did not answer. I kissed her instead. It was a long kiss and we hugged for a long time next to the "The Kiss" in Percival Landing.

  CHAPTER 4

  We decided that the wedding be as simple as we could possibly make it. We sat down for hours, writing down who to invite, how many people should be invited, where it would be, when, the guest list for her and for me, and, after a couple of weeks of this headache, I was thankful she was overwhelmed.

  "Can we just go to the courthouse?" she asked.

  Not wanting to show too much enthusiasm for her idea nor feigning disappointment, I kept a neutral facade that reflected a hint of concern that she was not going to have a beautiful wedding. I did not say anything for fear the words that came out of my mouth would betray me. After what I thought was an appropriate pause, I said, "If that's what you want."

  "I think that's what I want."

  I shifted my weight, got out of the sofa that we had turned into a nest of papers, walked to the kitchen, and grabbed a glass of water. "It'll definitely save us a lot of money."

  "And headache," she said.

  "It's going to disappoint your mom."

  "She wants to see me walk down the aisle."

  "She can watch you walk down the courthouse hallway."

  "What should we do?"

  "Vegas. We can go to Las Vegas and have an Elvis wedding."

  "That's tacky."

  "It doesn't have to be Elvis."

  "Are you being serious?"

  "Yeah, I am. I'll ask for a two-week leave. We'll go to Vegas and get married then it's over with."

  "What about our parents?
"

  "They'll be disappointed. My mom will bring it up for a long time, but my dad will just shrug his shoulders and say congratulations."

  "That's horrible."

  "We need to get married as soon as possible because my unit has a lot of field training before we deploy."

  "What?"

  "I am going to deploy."

  "When were you supposed to tell me this?"

  "I should have told you as soon as I found out, but I couldn't. Technically, I still can't. It's a secret. But, I didn't want to be an ass."

  "When?"

  "January, I think."

  "When can you get your vacation?"

  "Labor Day weekend. We'll take a 14-day honeymoon."

  "I'll tell my mom. She'll understand, I hope." There was determination in her voice. "This makes it easy," she said. "I just want to be married to you and skip all the wedding stuff."

  "Glad we settled that one," I said and walked to her, still sitting in the sofa. She was more relaxed now. I stood in front of her, knees touching knees.

  "We'll have a lot of paper work to do after we get married," I said.

  "Well, at least all the wedding preparation we need to do is book the flight and the hotel."

  "True."

  Silence. Eyes locked.

  "I'll be gone for a year or more."

  "That's a long time."

  "I'll introduce you to the spouses in my unit."

  "Spouses," she said.

  We both smiled.

  "It's a support system."

  "I'm stronger than you think, mister."

  CHAPTER 5

  From the air at night, Las Vegas looked like an island of lights and the space around it dark like the sea. We'd packed light. Just carry-ons. One-armed bandits greeted us in the walkways. We took a shuttle to the strip, driven by a driver who seemed to get paid by how fast he drove from hotel to hotel. It is like any other city except that the neon lights have a unique form of gaudiness and a liberal infusion of sexiness, which explains why advertising it as a family vacation spot failed and the 'what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas' stuck. It is appropriate and a great advertising campaign. It is a city for adults.