by: MacSas

Shawna Quinn-Hardy hated moving house. It made her feel like she was uprooting her entire life and relocating it to an alien area. Around her stood boxes that held parts of her life, both as a Marine wife, and as a widow. Each box had a bold mark on it, naming where it should go in her new home. She found it slightly amusing that her entire life could be packed into nothing more than a few cardboard boxes. It made her wonder just what she had done with her time on earth. How would she be remembered? By nothing more than just a few boxes with labels on them?

She had gone from a happy newly wed wife to a woman waiting on her husband to come home. The wait was against the odds, she knew, but what else was a woman to do? It was expected of her. Not just by others but by herself. As a teen bride she had taken her vows seriously, so much so that she hadn’t even dated since her husband, Kane, had disappeared somewhere in Vietnam. The following month would mark the 16^th anniversary of his disappearance.

They had purchased the four-bedroom country home with such high hopes just weeks before their wedding. Of course, the house was too big for her alone. Yet she had shunned the well-meaning advice from friends to sell up and move on. What if Kane made it home some day only to find that home wasn’t his anymore? What would he think if he turned up on the doorstep and found some other family instead of his wife?

And so, for nearly 16 years she had stayed and waited.

Earlier that year, she had been advised by military representatives that there was no hope of there being any military personnel left alive in Vietnam. There was a point in 1973 when there had been some hope for her. The government had made an agreement with the Vietnamese to allow some POW’s to be flown out. However, her beloved husband had not been one of the nearly 600 to be rescued. Now, she finally had to admit to herself that it may just be time to move on.

So she had reluctantly put her marital home on the market. She had been surprised by how much she had made from the sale. It was enough to buy her a small home on the outskirts of San Antonio and put a nest egg in the bank.

She smiled to herself as she walked between the boxes. She was thinking like she was an old woman already. She had just turned 33, yet she had lived at least two lifetimes. She knew that her friends were hoping that buying a new home meant that she was willing to find a new love as well. That was something that could never happen though. She felt it was bad enough that she had decided to sell the home she and her husband had dreamed of raising their family in. To replace him with another would be unthinkable. She had simply loved the man too much. Heck, she still loved him as though her life depended on it.

She selected two small boxes and walked to the front porch. Deciding she’d put them in the car later, she took a moment to observe the neighbourhood. It was a typical Saturday afternoon. A couple of young children rode their bikes along the footpath; her neighbour Jack Marrow was mowing his lawn. He had lived beside her for the last 6 years or so, yet she knew very little about him. He was a quiet man, yet had a friendly disposition. He always had a ready smile for her. A friend had even suggested Shawna be bold and ask the man to dinner. Shawna smiled at the thought. She just couldn’t imagine herself ever being that bold. Across the road, Nettie Adamson was getting ready to walk her two lively terriers. At the last moment, she turned back to her house, obviously having forgotten something.

Kane had always called Nettie ‘Netty Forgety’ In all the years Shawna had known Nettie there was very little the poor woman had remembered. Actually, the only thing she seemed to remember was Shawna and Kane’s wedding anniversary. Which was amazing, considering that the couple had only lived in the neighbourhood for a year before Kane had been sent to Vietnam. Every year, Nettie discreetly left a small bunch of flowers on Shawna’s doorstep to mark the occasion of her vows. It was a small gesture that had given Shawna a large dose of courage in the years following Kane’s disappearance.

Kane.

Shawna took a deep breath as she called his adored face to mind. There had been a time when she hadn’t needed to pause to recall his face. His presence had been with her every waking moment. His voice had haunted her dreams, calling to her, begging her not to give up.

16 years. Was that too soon to move on? Even as she planned her new life, she questioned her every move. She often wished that Kane had simply been killed in action. At least then she’d have had a body to bury, a place to go to grieve, an ending not a constant question. How could a man simply vanish? During the first few years, she had often wondered why the military didn’t just go into the area Kane had disappeared and search for him. Of course, during the ensuing years she had educated herself a lot about Vietnam. The bush was simply too dense, the weather too humid for anything to not decompose quickly. Then there was the fact that the Vietnamese had kept their records of POWs somewhat secretive. If Kane were alive, chances are that he wasn’t on anyone’s list. He could easily have been passed off as dead in the jungle somewhere, and the military would be none the wiser.

She clearly recalled the day a Marine officer had knocked on her door. She’d been stunned to see him there, knowing it couldn’t be good news. Before the man had completed the standard, “Are you Shawna Quinn-Hardy, the wife of Kane Hardy …” she had fainted. When she came too, the Marine had informed her that her husband of just over a year was MIA. “What?” she asked.

“Missing in Action, ma’am”

“Oh” she’d replied simply. “Well, you will find him … won’t you?”

How naïve she’d been.

“It’s not quite that easy, ma ‘am”

Well how hard could it be, she recalled thinking. Just go in with guns blazing and bring him home.

A few years later she had found the support of other MIA/POW wives an essential part of her life. She had made lasting friendships through a shared burden. One of her closest friends was a Navy wife who started a National League that enabled women like Shawna to have a voice, a godsend during a time when many in the government preferred them to remain quiet about their missing men. Shawna had lived with the hope that Kane wasn’t a POW. She’d heard such shocking stories from both returned POWs and their wives. Many of the men had endured beatings, brainwashing and being forced to sign ‘confessions’ to war crimes against the Vietnamese people. One woman had horrified her with stories of how her husband had been tortured by having his joints stretched. Shawna refused to believe that Kane had been enduring the same thing. She couldn’t stand not knowing what had happened to him, but, at the same time, she didn’t want to know that he might have endured the same brutality as some of his comrades. It was a classic catch twenty-two.

Shaking herself from the dark thoughts, Shawna stepped off the porch to take the short walk to the mailbox. Being a Saturday, she wasn’t expecting there to be anything there. So she was a little surprised at the small envelope she found. Cream in colour, it was addressed simply to ‘Shawna’ She slipped her nail under the flap and removed a small card. Reading it, she felt a chill sweep over her despite the humid Austin afternoon. She looked around her, wondering if the sender was nearby. All she saw, however, was Jack Marrow. Having finished his lawn, he was now busy pulling weeds in the garden on the far side of his front yard. The muscles in his back rippled under the afternoon sun. The man didn’t seem to break a sweat however. Nettie was long gone, and the children riding their bikes were now at the other end of the street.

Shawna frowned. It was silly to suspect people around her. Whoever had sent this note had to be sick, or just stupid. Still, she decided, it would be best to talk to someone about it. A friend from long ago sprang to mind. She hadn’t talked to him in years, but she knew that he would know what to do.

Putting the card back into the envelope, she started walking back to the house. Questions crowded her mind. Who was the sender? How did they know about her past? What was the purpose of this? It made no sense. Surely it was nothing more than a sick joke. She consoled herself with that thought as she placed the long distance call. It took only a few moments for someone to answer the connection. The deep voice revived memories from long ago. Memories she had worked hard to put to rest, hoping that he had done the same.

“Duke residence, this is Luke”