The weather was humid, a little too humid, but I didn’t care. It could be one hundred and ten degrees tonight and I’d still be in heaven, knowing that I was back in Blackwell.

My feet kicked up some dust as the sun set on Cherry street, and I walked to the bar my friend had just started after we’d made it back from the great war.

After seeing what we saw in four years, some absorbed themselves in farm work. Others turned to whisky.

Me?

I held onto the same crumbled letter Marie had written me while I was still training at Fort Bragg four years ago.

I was seventeen. She was sixteen when she wrote it; barely kids.

I take a deep breath as I pull up on the bar that Sebastian started.

The Watering Hole.

I smile a little bit, and a deep joy overcomes me at having made it back here, to Blackwell, and as a hero nonetheless.

Although, it’s hard to feel like a hero when you’ve witnessed what I have. At war, the full spectrum of humanity is on display.

Inside, I can already hear the boys getting rowdy, and I’m pretty sure I make out Frankie singing on the jukebox. They’re probably a few whiskys deep already.

I pull Marie’s letter out of my pocket. The folds of the paper are pronounced, and the ink faded. The letter is the remnants of a time when life was supposed to be simple, when I knew what I wanted and it seemed so set in stone before me.

A job at the Maytag factory, a big family with Marie, a little plot of land to tend to.

I run my eyes over the words in the last paragraph Marie wrote.

Max,

I read your letter again last night in the moonlight by the window in my room, and have to admit I cried. I know you’ll be fine no matter what happens, but you have to know how loved you are, and how proud all of Blackwell is. You’re so young to do such a thing.

Then again, some people might say we’re too young to have done what we did the night before you left…

Every night my heart pounds when I can’t sleep and I think of that moment. I’ll never forget it, Max.

Love,

Marie

PS I’ll keep writing when I can.

I must have written her a hundred letters.

All returned to sender, and I didn’t know it until I returned to Blackwell last week.

Where are you, Marie Rose?

I take a deep, full breath of the fresh country air and head inside the tavern.

The first thing I see is Mason behind the bar with a giant, stupid grin on his face.

He jumps over the bar and damn near attacks me with a hug.

“You came, Max!”

I shrug stoically. “What the hell else am I gonna do on a Friday night in this town?”

He glances down on the wooden floor boards. “I thought maybe you had a lady.”

I laugh. “Ain’t no ladies in this town.”

“Had a couple pass through today. Matter of fact they’re still at a table. Why don’t you go have a drink with them.”

I shrug. “Okay.”

I approach the table by myself. “Hey ladies, I’m wondering if I could have a drink with you.”

They’re shy. They look down at the ground, and one of them catches my eye.

“I guess,” the redhead shrugs.

Undeterred, I wink at Mason and he brings me a beer and a round for the ladies too.

When I have a moment to examine them a little further, my jaw drops. My heart hits the floor, and bounces back up.

“Oh my God...Marie...is that you?”

Her skin goes as red as the American flag, and her eyes widen. “Maxie?”

I smile. “Yes.”

The redhead watches us, a little awkwardly.

Suddenly my heart is in my throat. There’s nothing I can say that could express what I want to tell her about the past years. How her letter got me through the toughest time of my life.

A new Frank Sinatra song plays, I’ve got you Under My skin.

“You want to dance?” I simply say, extending a hand.

“Yes,” she says.