by Marina Bradaric

Created on: March 16, 2011

A young woman sat on the bay of the largest window in the high-ceilinged living room, her legs tucked to the side and bare, calloused feet dangling from the edge. The rest of the room was just as bare, with only a few hand-sewn throw pillows spread neatly across the large, beige couch and a tall plant drooping by itself in a corner, its yellow leaves dangling precariously from a lifeless stem. With a slow movement of her fingers, she carefully parted the long, bronze-colored drapes to let the amber glow from sunset flood in. As the light poured over her lightly wrinkled face, she closed her dark eyes for a moment and let out a long sigh before returning to what lay in front of her. Before her, an envelope from an APO address bore her name as the receiver. She turned it to the side and started to slip her fingernails under the open flap, but hesitated. After another long sigh, she scrunched her nose, inhaled, and opened the letter.

MIA. Missing in action. Elizabeth re-read the words. What does that mean? They LOST my fiancé?  Frozen in place with her fingers still clutching the letter, she found it difficult to remember how to breathe. She had read this letter over again every day for the past three months, and each time, it hit her just as the first time had, and each time, she felt the same anger. It’s their job to know where he is at all times! Reading it made her feel some kind of connection; his name in the print proved he was a real person, not someone from her dreams. He was real, at least somewhere in the world, even if not in this empty house.

Elizabeth found strength to sit up. She picked up her feet and walked over to her favorite chair, the over-sized, red lounge chair seated next to the balcony overlooking a bountiful garden, their garden, that they had put so much time and care into. Rows of tomatoes and carrots stood proudly in the soil that she had been spending so much time with these days. Pulling her legs up to hug them, she lifted her hand up and moved another set of bronze-colored curtains to the side. With color depleting from eyes that were once young and bright, she closed her eyelids. This is nice, she thought. A world of nothingness. Moments passed, or maybe hours; she didn’t know. When her eyes finally awakened, she felt the warmth of the sun on her cheeks and looked outside with a smile that quickly faded.

She immediately recognized her fiancé’s squadron commander at the forefront of a group of

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