Navy Men

She opened the little black book by the phone and flipped through the pages. “Ha, ha. Little black book,” she thought. Where was that man??? Always somewhere doing God knows what and enjoying every minute of it.

Getting a hold of each other was difficult now. Mostly quick messages or a meme she might catch at just the right time. Phil loved orchestrating life sized memes. The bigger the better. He was the kind of guy who would pay (not necessarily pay, but somehow creatively convince) a union guy to plaster a ‘Will You Marry Me’ banner over a billboard on I-90; but rather than get arrested, have the mayor of Cleveland offering to conduct the service for him. Every day a surprise. Not always perfect, but always a surprise.

“Baby, are you there? I can’t hear you.” She sat there crying, staring into a little lamp on an end table waiting for the words to get louder.

“Can you hear me? Wow, I thought our last carrier had bad service when you were working on the lines in Mexico. I wish you were home. You remember our favorite afternoon in the old house? All morning, all afternoon, all night ‘till the next morning … snuggled up like little kids. Our shitty couches pushed together into a four-sided sleigh bed with just enough room to reach through the crevice for the little lamp and ‘end table buffet’ of Chinese food and tequila? Down comforter on the bottom, your grey blanket, my pink one and all the pillows from the bed? TV streaming ALL day … Tesla and Edison documentaries … right before you took the electrician exam? I miss that house. You worked so much. I miss your face so much. Remember our cookie? An ounce of gold can’t buy and ounce of time??? Please come home for a minute,” she unabashedly begged.

She finally heard, “How’s your grandpa?”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “He’s at the VA hospital in Georgia. We can’t go see him. He’s too weak to talk. I feel like everything is falling apart when you aren’t with me.”

“I can get through. He loves you so much. Everything is going to be ok. Everything is gold.”

Phil and her grandpa were both originally Navy men. Seabee. Real, stubborn, hard-headed, Navy MEN. The kind of men you might occasionally like to murder in their sleep, but never did because they were also the kind of men that would never let you down when it counted. Her Grandpa had given Phil the ‘little black book’ as a wedding present. A joke of sorts (as it came with a stern stare and strong hand on his back) telling him to “fill this one up with what you want to spend your precious time on.” It was full of friends’ phone numbers, schematic diagrams for contract jobs, miscellaneous projects, or ideas… the occasional ‘I love you Katie’ with little hearts because he knew she looked through it. There were two 10-peso coins glued to the inside cover on the tops of a double Tesla Coil doodle. “In case we ever don’t have two nickels to rub together!” he would tell her. Beneath the squiggly towers it said, “I love you from everywhere I am.”

She heard him say, “I’ll ask for a minute.” And then, the loud and shocking silence. Her trembling hands shook the little lamp as she set the book down beside it. She wrote ‘I love you’ at the bottom of the page and set the pen down in the crease.

Days went by with no word from Phil and no word about her Grandpa. She couldn’t get through to the VA hospital. COVID. She couldn’t get through to Phil. Who knew? Then, 3 a.m. and curled up on the couch, eyes glued shut from the salty film over her contacts, she felt someone walking into the living room. Surely, her brother was looking for haven from the 2 a.m. drive across town from the bar strip. “Please don’t wake me up,” she thought. Half asleep in the glow of the burning Netflix logo, he touched her shoulder so gently, his hands so big and calloused … like lion paws. Rough one way, soft the other. Unmistakable. She opened her eyes and saw a figure standing up slowly from under a blanket like a Mary statue. She was a bewildered stone melting into the cushions.

Slowly the shroud lifted from around his head and revealed the most devious, ginning face. Happier than she had ever seen him, so proud like he had climbed a mountain and so excited for the moment she realized it was him and he was standing there.

“Baby how are you here!?!?” she belted. He just smiled bigger.

“How did you get here??? Never mind, tell me later. Don’t talk, just hug me.” He fell onto the couch engulfing her, she wanted to die. His smell, his ‘smooshy’ face in her hands. His so sloppy wet kisses. A hug so electric as to burn the air around them into a vacuum. She slept that night like she hadn’t slept in months.

In the morning she woke to the smell of the coffee pot brewing. Sunlight streamed through the windows with a cool breeze pushing pieces of dust around like fine gold flakes in a snow globe. She was wrapped in contentment from the short time he had managed to make it home to her. She thought about checking up on her brother as the phone rang.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you sooner. Grandpa passed away a few nights ago.”

Her first thought was, “Thanks bro, a few nights ago? Thanks a lot.” She could still feel Phil’s arms around her so instead of yelling at him she pursed her lips to herself and asked, “Was he peaceful? I couldn’t get through to the hospital.”

“Mom said yes, he was. She’s pretty upset that she couldn’t go to see him. So, get this though. Mom also said she had a dream about him the night it happened. You know how she believes in that stuff. Then she talked to Aunt Anne and she said she saw him in her kitchen a couple nights ago, too. Crazy, right?”

She sat in silence. The streams of light had moved with the sunrise to her face, burning her eyes but oddly without pain.

“Aunt Anne said she got through to him at the hospital before he died. She told me he said he left each one of us grandkids twenty, one-ounce gold coins in his will. Something about rubbing nickels together. Did you know anything about that?”

“No,” she said softly.

“Then … she said to tell you that, “he gave Phil a ‘minute.’” You got any idea what that means?”

“Yeah. I do,” she whispered.

The little lamp flickered over the book. Still open to the page as she had set it down days before, she looked at the words.

How’s your grandpa?

I can get through.

He loves you so much.

Everything is going to be ok.

Everything is gold.

I’ll ask for a minute.

I love you.

She picked up the pen. At the bottom of the page she wrote, “I miss you both so much.”