“Happy birthday, dear Ella… happy birthday to you!”

Everyone clapped as I took a deep breath and blew out the two candles on my cake. My party was a low-key affair with just my parents, paternal grand-parents, and Levi in attendance. Mom’s parents lived in Houston, which was too far to travel for a birthday.

Mom and Dad had treated us to a steak dinner at Lytle Land & Cattle Company in Abilene, and Levi McCormick had tagged along. He was practically family anyway, the son Mom and Dad never had and the man I was going to marry someday.

I’d known Levi almost my entire life. His family, along with mine, farmed sorghum near Hamlinton, Texas. Our families, the Johnsons and the McCormicks, owned two of the three largest farms in the area and were well respected in the community. We’d played together as kids while our fathers met to talk business with other farmers, had always gone to school together, and had started dating in high school. He was a couple months older than me, and the best day of my life was when he got his driver’s license. After that, we could see each other whenever we wanted without one of us having to beg our moms to drive us to the other’s farm. It was only fifteen minutes away by car, almost fifteen miles and too far to walk or easily bike. We visited each other a lot. When I wasn’t at the McCormick farm, Levi was here.

Since Levi got his license, it had become a running joke with our families that Mom and Dad had gained a son and Levi’s parents another daughter. We almost always ate together, and the only rule was we had to let our moms know so one would know they were going to have an extra mouth to feed and the other would know they’d be short one. Except when we were working on our respective farms, where one of us was, the other was nearby, and everyone in town knew we were going marry one day.

We were being smart, though. In the fall I would leave for Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, to get my BSN in nursing. In less than two weeks, Levi would be leaving for Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio for boot camp, or BMT—Basic Military Training—as he called it. He was joining the United States Air Force to become an MP, a police officer, with the goal of working with, then training, police dogs. I knew his parents wanted him to stay home to help work the farm, but he felt a strong calling to serve his country, which I admired him for.

Once I completed school, we’d evaluate how our lives had changed and try to determine where we went from there. Hopefully, I’d join him where he was stationed, we would resume our relationship, and if everything went the way we hoped, we’d be married a year or two later. The four years I was away at school and he was off in some godforsaken country helping keep the men and women under his care safe were going to be the hardest and longest of my life. I was, mostly, confident our love would survive the separation, and he was too. If it didn’t, it was just as well we didn’t get married in the first place.

I shook myself out of my thoughts. I’d been musing on our separation a lot lately. I knew, deep down, it was the right thing to do, but that didn’t make the impending separation any easier to swallow.

“Happy birthday,” Levi said as he gave me an innocent smooch.

In front of our parents our kissing was innocent. After all, we were only nineteen. We hadn’t made love yet, but some of our kissing and touching was pretty heated. I smiled to myself. For his nineteenth birthday I’d given him a lap dance that had left me panting with desire. I didn’t know if our parents suspected we’d gone all the way or not, because in front of them, we kept it clean, and saved the rest for when we were alone.

While Grandma cut her famous pineapple cake and placed thick slabs on plates, I began opening my presents. Normally I got one from Mom and Dad and one each from my two sets of grandparents, but this year there were far more than normal. Most, I knew, were practical gifts, items a young woman bound for college needed to start life on her own. As I started opening, I noticed Levi talking to Grandma, and I eavesdropped as I turned over the new computer to look at the back of the box.

“It’s nothing, really,” Levi said. “With me leaving in a couple of weeks, it’s all becoming real now.”

Grandma patted him on the hand. “It’s going to be okay. You and Ella have something special. I think you’re being smart, waiting like this, before you get married. That shows you both have good heads on your shoulders. You’ll get through this and be stronger for it.”

“Four years is a long time.”

She smiled at him. “It’s nothing compared to the life you two will have together. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know. You’re practically part of the family. That’s never going to change.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Johnson.”

She patted his hand again before handing a piece of cake to Grandpa.

Levi and I had talked about our separation, both of us promising to wait for the other, but I was still nervous. I found some small comfort that he was slightly worried about the upcoming separation as well. I worried the stress and dangers, if he were deployed to the Middle East or some other danger zone around the world, would drive him to seek comfort in the arms of another. Everyone heard stories of soldiers, men and women alike, destroying their families by fucking around on each other while on deployment. We weren’t married, and him fucking some Air Force bimbo to relieve stress probably wouldn’t mean anything. I supposed at some level I could even understand it, but Levi was mine and I didn’t want to share him.

Of course, cheating cut both ways, and those who were left behind also betrayed their loved ones, but for that part, I was in control of myself and knew it would never happen.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, gesturing with the laptop so Levi wouldn’t know I’d been listening.

I opened packages containing bed linens, pots and pans, dishes, and other household items. After I finished I hugged everyone. I was grateful for all the gifts, but there hadn’t been one from Levi. He never forgot my birthday, and I wondered what surprise he had up his sleeve for me.

I’d just finished hugging Grandpa when Levi pulled a thick packet of envelopes, neatly tied with a red ribbon, from behind him.

“Happy birthday, Ella,” he said softly, holding them out for me. He looked almost ashamed or embarrassed. “I didn’t know what to get you so…” he shrugged.

I took the envelopes, unsure of what they were or why he was giving them to me. Levi wasn’t exactly the letter writing type. He was very much a Texas farmer, tough and self-reliant. He was also a practical joker par excellence, and I wondered if he was having me on. I pulled the ribbon to release the packet. The letter on top was labeled Open When You First Receive These Letters. I carefully opened the envelope and read the letter inside, my eyes filling with tears before I looked over the top of the paper at him. He was looking at me with a mix of fear and hope. I cleared my throat.

Ella, I read aloud. These letters are for you when the miles between us are great and the days many. I’ve written them so I can, in some small way, still be there for you if you need me. Know that you are always in my heart and in my thoughts. My love, always, Levi.

It was all I could do not to cry as I thumbed through the letters. Each sealed envelope had a different message on the front, printed in a font that looked like elegant handwriting. Open When You’re Feeling Lonely. Open When You’re Feeling Stressed Out. Open When You Need to Know How Much I Love You. Open When You’re Doubting Yourself, and twenty-five more unopened letters. I handed them to Mom so she could see them. Mom flipped through them, passing them to Grandma as she did. He couldn’t have given me a better gift, and he’d proven once again he was all the man I’d ever want.

Levi McCormick, the youngest of three and only son of William and Judy McCormick, was, in my mind, perfect in every way. I liked his steel-like resolve and soft-spoken nature. I liked that he treated my parents, as well as his own, with respect and was always willing to lend a hand. He might not be attending college, but he was far from stupid. He’d made good grades in school and seemed to have an intuitive grasp of, or solution to, any problem presented to him. Most of all, I liked how he treated me.

Levi was panty-dropping handsome. He didn’t play sports because he was too busy helping on his dad’s farm for that, but he’d still been one of the most popular boys in school. Girls flocked to him with his tall, muscular build and the dark hair and eyes that gave him a slightly brooding, dangerous, appearance…until he smiled. His smile, quick and easy, lit his entire face and banished the darkness like it had never been. He could have any girl in school he wanted, but he only had eyes for me.

Best of all, he was just Levi. He never let his popularity go to his head. In his senior year, I knew at least two girls offered themselves to him, but he had gently turned them down. I was the envy of every girl in school, but he hadn’t made a single unwanted demand on me for the privilege. On the night we graduated high school, we’d had a serious talk about our relationship becoming physical. He was already eighteen, and I would have willingly, even gladly, given myself to him when I was eighteen and legal, but we’d decided to wait. Not for piety, but because we could sense we were still too young and didn’t want to ruin the good thing we had.

“Thank you,” I said as I rose from the table.

He rose as well, and I pulled him into a hug. I closed my eyes as his big, strong arms surrounded me and drew me in tight. My grandparents and parents faded away and we were alone. I tipped my head into his, savoring the closeness of his body and soul.

“Thank you,” I whispered softly so only he could hear me. “Those were the best gift anyone could give me.”

“I’m going to miss you,” he murmured.

“I’m going to miss you, too.” I pulled back and kissed him again. I didn’t want him to release me, but we were being watched, so he let me go.

“You big softy,” Dad said with a smile before giving Levi a firm push on the shoulder.

“I think they’re lovely,” Mom said, her eyes shiny as she looked at the envelopes again. She looked at Dad. “Why don’t you ever write me letters like these?” she asked as she waved a couple for effect.

“Because I’m right here.”

“So?”

“Now look at what you’ve done, boy,” Dad said, his grin teasing. “You’re making the rest of us menfolk look bad.”

I grinned as Levi reddened and looked down. “You hush, Dad,” I chimed in, leaping to his defense. “You could learn a thing or two from him.”

I happened to see Grandma catch Levi’s eyes as she nodded in approval and looked at me. “That’s a fine young man you have there. You better hold onto him tight. I remember when your grandpa used to say things like that to me.”

“Yes, ma’am. I intend to,” I replied.

I couldn’t help but smile when Grandpa rolled his eyes. He was the kind of man who would give you the shirt off his back, but he was well known for his taciturn way of speaking. He once described a twister that took the roof off our barn as ‘we had a little wind,’ and if you got him to say more than a dozen words at a time, he would consider that bending your ear.

We spent another half-hour eating cake while talking about my future at college and how the gifts would be useful when I was away. I looked at Levi, who was smiling and chatting with Mom, but I caught him looking at me several times. She doted on him like he was her own, and he was far too polite to take me away from my family on my birthday, but that was exactly what I wanted him to do. The time remaining to us was growing short, and each minute we were alone together was precious.

“Want to get out of here?” I asked when Mom and Grandma were distracted.

“It’s okay.”

I smiled. I could read him like a book, but as I suspected, he wouldn’t try to take me from my family today. I took matters into my own hands. “What if I said I wanted to get out of here?”

“Then let’s go.”

“Mom, Dad, Levi and I are going for a ride. We’ll be back in a while.”

“Okay. Be careful,” Mom called from the kitchen.

He took my hand and led me outside.

My house was centered on a large lot set well back from the highway, surrounded by sorghum fields with equipment sheds and silos behind. We farmed just under 2,300 acres to the northeast of town, while Levi’s family did about the same with almost 2,400 acres to the northwest. Over the years, our parents and grandparents had bought out farmers and leased acreage until our lands met in places. It was possible, if impractical, to walk from my front door to his without ever stepping off one of our two farms. The third largest farmer in Hamlinton were the Calhouns, who farmed about 1,800 acres south of town. The rest of the farm land around Hamlinton was divvied up among a dozen or so smaller farmers whose spreads ranged from around five hundred to a thousand acres.

Farming was in our blood, in our family’s blood. We’d be back, someday, but unlike so many, neither Levi nor I wanted to be born, grow up, and grow old within fifty miles. We wanted to spread our wings a little and see something more than Hamlin County, Texas.

We had our future completely planned out. In four years, I would join Levi as he served his country. As a nurse, I would be employable almost anywhere. We would get married, and after twenty years of service, he would retire from the Air Force and we would return to Hamlinton. We would barely be forty, but our fathers would be in their mid-sixties and early seventies and ready to retire.

As the only child, I would take over our farm, and Levi would likely take over McCormick Farms from his dad. He had two older sisters, both married with families of their own, but they weren’t interested in farming. With almost five-thousand acres under tillage, Levi and I couldn’t tend both our farms as a family run business, so we’d incorporate and operate our combined farms as a small corporation. We’d either have to buy out his sisters or pay them a stipend from JMF—Johnson & McCormick Farms—but we had plenty of time to work out the details. I’d continue to work as a nurse, probably in Hamlinton, to provide a buffer for the bad times, but it was our dream to combine our legacies and pass our combined farm down to our kids. We’d talked endlessly about it, but first we had to get through the next four years.

That was the future I was thinking about tonight. I wanted to bank as many memories of our last few days together as possible before he left.

We were fortunate that his call had been set for now. It was the middle of growing season when the crops didn’t need extensive tending. Having the slight lull in the work allowed me to spend more time with Levi before he shipped out. Dad had taken the afternoon off so we could go to Abilene, and Will McCormick had given Levi the afternoon so he could attend as well. Had it been in the spring when we were planting or in the fall when we were harvesting, none of us would have been able to go.

Levi’s birthday was in the middle of planting, so unless the weather was bad, his birthday was always a subdued affair of a cake served to a weary family after a long day in the fields. I hadn’t missed his birthday in years, but I felt sorry for him because his dad was always too busy to do anything special for him, but that was farm life, and we all understood it. Farming wasn’t for everyone, but if it got in your blood, you were hooked. Levi and I were spreading our wings, but we both knew this was home, and this is where we would return.

Levi led me to his truck, a sad looking thing that had belonged to his grandfather, but we’d had some great times in it, and I had plans to add to the good memories this evening.