Free Midnight Sun by Basil Sands

invited me to join him to watch the Berlin Wall come down. He had a ring and everything, and I wanted to marry him. But selfish me, I was not willing to share my husband with the Marines. I didn ’ t want a chaplain coming by to tell me how my husband was a great hero who gave his life for the glory of the Corps, saving some third-world village in a country I'd never heard of. ”
    “ That ’ s not selfish. ” Hilde turned to look back out her window toward the road. “T hat ’ s very understandable, actually. ”
    “ I guess, ” Lonnie said. “ Marcus was a very good Marine. As I understand it, h e and Mike worked together pretty frequently around that time. Anyway, we kind of broke up shortly after that. I mean, he still wrote to me and all, love letters, even poetry, trying to woo me to change my mind. And I kept waiting for him to come to his senses and get a normal job. Neither of us was willing to change, though, me especially. He was experiencing a pure adrenaline lifestyle in the Marines, jaunting around the world to wars that never made the evening news while I had my 'normal job' teaching math to bunch of hormone-crazed teenagers at my old high school in Fairbanks. ”
    “ You were a high school teacher? ”
    “ Yeah, nearly five years. ”
    “ Me too, ” Hilde said. “ Not that long, though. After two years, I couldn ’ t stand it. The boys seemed to be unlike any kids I remembered from school—one half of them were stoned out of their minds all the time in class, and the other half seemed to think they had a chance of sleeping with me . ”
    “ You should ’ ve learned the evil Korean Ajumma stare, ” Lonnie said. She turned toward Hilde and froze her face into an expression that could make a grown man begin to stutter in fear. She only held it for moment before softening back up, her face brightening with a grin, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. “ The boys were all too terrified to flirt with me. ”
    Hilde let out a laugh. “That is one scary look! I ’ ll have to give that a try sometime, but to be honest, I ’ ve never been able to look mean, no matter how hard I work at it. That's why I never made it as a field agent.” She paused for a moment as the sound of a loud metallic clang echoed across the yard.  She glanced out the back window toward the source of the sound, but saw nothing. As the stillness returned, she continued the small talk. “ So what made you join the troopers? ”
    “ One of my favorite students, a really good straight-A girl, died from a drug overdose at a rave party. That was the final thing that drove me to get more proactive. ”
    “ Wow, that ’ s so sad. ”
    “ Yeah, well, since then I saw a lot worse, sister, believe me. ” Lonnie stretched her lower back and contemplated getting out of the car, but her feet were swelling and she didn ’ t want to stand. She relaxed as best she could and went on. “ After I graduated from the state trooper academy and started on patrol, I began to understand the connection Marcus had with the Marines. It was too little too late, though. Just as we were starting to make up, Marcus ’ s whole unit was wiped out on a peace-keeping mission in Africa. He had been declared “ missing in action and presumed dead. ”
    “ Oh, my God, ” Hilde said. “T hat ’ s awful. Obviously he survived, though, so it was okay, right? ”
    “ He came out of the jungle two months later, ready to leave the Corps and marry me. ” Lonnie looked toward the rows of warehouse buildings across the parking area, silent and contemplative. The sound of a large hammer repeatedly pounding metal drifted toward them like the ringing of a bell. “ But I had given him up for dead. The chaplain had come like I feared, except to his mother instead of me since we weren ’ t married. ”
    Lonnie took a deep breath, then let it out with a resigned sigh.
    “ And I went out and got drunk and acted like a whore. ”
    Lonnie glanced over at Hilde,