Deployment

“What was that?’ he asked, still squinting up into the trees.

She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “I said I can’t believe how the past six months have flown by. You have everything packed, right?”

He was looking at sun light glistening on ice coating the tree branches above; a thousand diamonds dangling above his head in the January breeze. His shoulders shook from the cold. “This time next month I’ll be sweating in desert sand.”

Her eyes, already red started to well up again. She hooked an arm through his. “Just be careful, I need you back home. You know how much I’m going to miss you.”

His eyes traced a line across the snow, blanketing the field they stood at the edge of when he spoke. “You know I put a lot of work into this farm the past couple of years; both barns needed roofing and the fields were overgrown…” His gaze came to rest on deer tracks that ran toward the fence line he had worked on the past summer, replacing rotted posts and clearing brush that had woven through the rails; a confusion of leaves, branches and function. Now that fence formed a shadow of two parallel lines that ran across the snow. It’s so peaceful out here; he was thinking when she interrupted his thoughts again.

“You are going to miss me, aren’t you?”

He was still looking at the fence “Yeah…yeah I’ll miss you.”