Free Flying High by Gwynne Forster

talk with him. And why? Because another woman, a very good-looking woman, would ring his doorbell Saturday morning at eight o’clock.
    I’d laugh if I thought it was funny. And I’m getting off this merry-go-round before the thing starts turning.
    As if she’d never made that pledge, she got in bed with a copy of Thomas E. Ricks’s study of Marine Corps life, Making The Corps, and fell asleep reading it.
    * * *
    Two afternoons later, when Nelson reached home after his day in the office, he parked in the garage in order to get Ricky’s birthday present into the house without his seeing it. He’d have to maneuver that when Ricky’s attention was centered on something. Audrey. That would do it. He’d bring it inside when she came.
    As usual, Ricky greeted him as if he were the most special person on earth. It gave him a feeling of relevance that neither flying that Super Cobra AH-1W copter nor crippling or destroying enemy targets gave him. Nurturing and caring for his nephew for only four short months, receiving and returning the child’s love, had sustained him as rain nourished plants, and had made his life meaningful. Somehow, responsibility for Ricky validated him.
    He picked up the boy, tossed him in the air, caught him and delighted in his happy giggles. “You stay down here with Miss Lena while I change my clothes.”
    “Will I have a birthday tomorrow, too, Unca Nelson?”
    “Sorry, no. We get one birthday a year. Your next one comes when you get to be six years old. Stay where Miss Lena can see you.”
    “Okay. I could help her, but she said I have to get a little bit bigger before I can make biscuits.”
    The seriousness of Ricky’s expression made him suppress what would have been a laugh. He ruffled the child’s hair. “That’s a fact.” He dashed up the stairs.
    “And Unca Nelson,” Ricky called up after him, “she said I don’t have any business downstairs in the family room. I stayed up here.”
    “Good boy. I want you to obey her.”
    “I do, Unca Nelson. Just sometimes she talks so much I can’t remember everything I’m supposed to do.”
    “As you get older, you’ll manage,” he said, and ducked into his room as laughter finally escaped him. When she put herself to it, Lena could really talk. He’d have to tell her that giving a five-year-old ten different instructions in five minutes confused the child and guaranteed his disobedience.
    He changed into a collared yellow T-shirt, khaki trousers and a pair of Reeboks, and got downstairs just as the doorbell pealed. As he opened it, he worked at settling his pounding heart. He wanted the caller to be Audrey.
    “Eeeow,” Ricky squealed when he glimpsed Audrey. “Eeeow! Audie! Audie!”
    “Ricky, darling!” She knelt and gathered him into her arms, stroking and hugging Ricky as he plastered her face with kisses.
    Nelson gazed down at them, his heart constricting in his chest. Steeling his willpower, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers and shifted his gaze to the carpet on which he stood. “I wonder how long I’ll manage to stay out her?” he asked himself, knowing he couldn’t count on her, that she lost herself in him whenever they came together. “It’s hooked both of us.”
    “Hi.” She smiled up at him. He couldn’t bear it and, in self-defense, looked toward the door where he saw two girls and a boy about Ricky’s age edge into the half-open door, evidently having tired of waiting for their cue to enter. Behind them, a red-nosed clown followed. Audrey released Ricky so that he could see who she’d brought with her. Obviously curious, but pleased as well, Ricky gazed up at the clown, a twelve-year-old boy who lived next door to Audrey’s sister Pam. When the children introduced themselves to Ricky, joyous noise signaled the beginning of the party.
    As he observed Ricky’s self-assurance and his ease with the other children, he thought of the child he’d brought to his home a mere four months