Eight years later…
“Daddy tell us a fairytale!”
Our daughters, Ruby and Camellia, have a favorite game. They love to ask Kyle to tell them a fairytale, and what they really mean is stories of how we met—which are grossly inappropriate for a seven and a five year old—or our wedding.
They love to look at our wedding pictures and proclaim mommy a princess and giggle like they know the greatest of government secrets when Kyle agrees with them wholeheartedly.
And their newest favorite thing is to go flying in a small private plane that we borrow from my brother who flies his wife back and forth from her big news anchor gigs.
Ever since Kyle said he’d give me back my wings, he meant it. He takes me flying off and on to give me the sense of peace and freedom that the sky had always given me before my crash. I was medically retired from the Marine Corps six months after my crash and while I missed it, I knew I could never go back. Something was irrevocably broken inside of me when I woke up in that POW cell.
Hooter and Cinco are still flying. They’re both married now, Cinco is on his second marriage. They both have children of their own and they both dote on our girls. They never let me go when I retired, and I love them for it.
Kyle and I settled into a house in Virginia Beach so that we could be closer to his job with Cole Security. Occasionally, I help them out in the office, that is when I’m not driving to soccer practice or ballet lessons. But the girls don’t know about that either.
“Tell us! Tell us!” they cheer as the sun rises up and we soar through the beautiful sunrise skies.
“Once upon a time, there was an amazing pilot. She was smart, confident, and the best F-35 pilot I’ve ever seen,” he says. I look at our children, buckled up their seats with their headsets on. They look confused because we’ve never told them that mommy used to fly planes not wanting to tell them that a crash changed my life.
“Who was it?” Ruby asks.
“Mommy!” Kyle says with a smile.
“No way!”
“Yes way,” I laugh.
“But why don’t you fly anymore, Mommy?” Camellia asks.
I have to stop and think about it. I’ve always wondered how I was going to tell them about what happened, if I was ever going to tell them. Not that I thought it would be happening so soon. Kyle always told me that it was my decision either way and as I glance at him, I can see that he’s sorry he brought it up and put me on the spot. It was a rookie mistake. He should know by now that kids this age ask about eighty seven thousand questions per hour on a daily basis.
“There was something that happened,” I answer, not wanting to give them more information than they could handle so I keep it vague. “An accident. And it scared me. I was afraid to fly but I loved it so very much that daddy gave me my wings again and now I’m happy.”
They pause in their little girl contemplation for a minute and then they cheer. “Yay! We love fairytales!”
“Me too, babies,” I say quietly.
“Me too,” Kyle agrees.
I guess the girls are right, I’m living a real-life fairytale with my badass SEAL hero. It just so turns out, he’s living his happily ever after with a badass too. And I’m so very thankful for it.
THE END
