American Wife (3 page)

“I don't expect you to know what the future is going to bring,” I told him. “And I'm not asking for a commitment right now. But I do want to know if it's possible for us to be something long term. If it's not a possibility, I'm not interested in doing this.”

Chris didn't answer right away, but when he did, his answer was perfect.

“I love you,” he said. “And I don't want to spend a day of my life without you.”

Whoa!

Whoa?

Instead of feeling happy and confident, I suddenly felt something like fear.

In my mind, what he was saying was that he wanted to marry me.

Was I ready for that?

No.

But I loved that I heard that he wanted to marry me and was so confident and open about it.

I quickly warmed up to the idea. But as the days and then weeks went by, I began to wonder. Did his answer really mean he wanted to get married? We didn't talk about it, and our relationship didn't change in any meaningful way.

So, were we headed toward marriage, or not?

Then came 9/11. The tragic attack, and the implications that going to war would have for Chris, pushed me to think harder about my future—our future.

One day I called him and said, “I just had this crazy idea—let's get married.”

I thought he'd say,
Hell, yeah! Let's do it!

His actual reaction: “What?”

As in,
What the heck are you talking about?

What!?!

“Oh, it's just an idea,” I said, quickly retreating. “I'm kind of kidding. We can talk about it later. I have to go.”

I tried to hide my disappointment: not so much at his answer—well, there was that—but at the fact that I had read him so wrongly. I was mortified.

A few days later, we were driving on the 405 Freeway, which is the major north-south connector between Los Angeles and San Diego.

“You want to talk about that thing?” he asked out of the blue.

“What thing?” I said.

“That thing you said on the phone?”

“The thing?” It took a moment before I got which
thing
he meant. “Oh, that thing. Getting married?”

“Um, uh, yeah.”

“I don't know. Do you want to?”

“Yeah,” said Chris. “If you do.”

“I do.”

“So?” Chris looked at me. “Are we engaged?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. I wasn't about to lose an opportunity like that—if that was the way he was interpreting it. Maybe this was the first of his many records—the record for most awkward marriage proposal ever, courtesy of me.

“I need to get you a ring,” he told me. “And I have to ask your dad.”

That was pure Chris: old-fashioned enough to actually ask
permission.

He did NOT want to do it over the phone—he wanted to go all the way to Oregon and ask in person. But I convinced him to use the phone. I was too excited to hold on to the news until we could get up to see them.

I was sitting on the bed when he called my parents a short time later. My father came to the phone.

“Mr. Studebaker,” said Chris in his most humble and polite voice. “I want to ask for your daughter's hand.”

“Her hand?” asked my father, not losing a beat. “What are you going to do with her hand?”

Chris got a little flustered, but it all worked out. We were getting married.

I didn't want a fancy engagement ring or a gaudy wedding band; for me, a plain wedding ring was a perfect symbol. I like simple, especially in a wedding ring: it reminds you that love is about love, nothing else—not money, not appearances, not showing off. But it seemed almost impossible to convince anyone of that. Including Chris.

He kept asking me what I wanted, and wouldn't take “simple” for an answer. Then my mother got into the act. My grandmother had left her a diamond from a ring that she had had. Mom suggested that I use it as the centerpiece of an engagement ring.

I told her thanks, but no thanks.

“I don't care whether you wear it as an engagement ring or a belly button ring,” she insisted after we went around a bit. “But I'm sending it.”

She did. It was lovely. Chris and I ended up taking it to a local jewelry store. We found a wonderful setting we both loved and had the jeweler set the diamond in it. We got our wedding rings the same day, adding an engraving on the inside.

“All of me,” Chris wrote on mine.

“My love, my life,” I said on his.

My dress was another nearly snap decision. I knew the overall look I wanted: sleek and elegant. I found something online I liked, then found a place where similar dresses were sold. When I saw it in person, I knew it was perfect: a strapless, fitted gown with rhinestones across the top and a mermaid bottom. I didn't want a veil, but my mom and the saleswoman talked me into it—and I'm glad they did.

It's funny. I usually think of myself as less than decisive, but when it came to the wedding I was very businesslike and made decisions quickly, without second-guessing. Maybe it was because I just wanted to be married to Chris; the trappings weren't important.

I've modified my view on that over the years, by the way. Trappings—flourishes and celebrations—can help us remember what's important rather than distract us from it.

Another reason I was so decisive may have been the fact that I wasn't planning much of it myself. Weighed down with work—I'd just gotten a promotion that would allow me to move to San Diego—I was far too busy to take care of all the details that go with planning a wedding. Luckily for me, my sister volunteered to step in as unpaid wedding director. She did all the heavy lifting.

The new job as well as the upcoming wedding convinced Chris and me that we should get a house in the San Diego area, where he was based. Buying my condo in Long Beach two years earlier had been a statement of independence, a sign that I was a grown-up. I'd wanted something practical, and an investment; it didn't take long to find. This was different. First of all, there were two of us: buying wasn't a statement of independence but rather interdependence—a new and very different phase.

And, prices were brutal. We were shocked when we saw what we could afford near the city: houses covered with graffiti, places that smelled like cat urine, structures more suitable for demolition than raising a family. We went farther and farther out, until finally we saw something in the suburbs in a decent neighborhood.

By that point, the decision was easy: grab it before someone else does. And so we did.

There was a lot of stress on both of us, and one night we had a fight over some detail about the house. The cause is lost to me, but I know I got really mad—mad enough to knock papers off the kitchen table, and then take a bowl of macaroni and cheese and fling it against the wall.

That's
very
mad, especially for me.

I also remember the solution. Sitting alone after Chris went to bed, I called a girlfriend and poured out my heart. I knew that I had gone too far, but I didn't know how to fix it.

“You love him, right?” she asked finally.

“Yes.”

“Then go in there, wake him up, and give him some hot sex.”

So I did. We didn't talk, but we sure did make love.

Chris seemed apprehensive when he left the next morning. I later found out that he couldn't quite figure out why his mad fiancée would come to him for hot sex and no talk. He was afraid he would come home and I would be gone.

He didn't mention it, though, because he didn't want to risk a talk when maybe I was over it. If he was wrong and I was gone, he would find me and fix it. Avoiding a “talk” was worth the risk of damage control later. He was his usual confident self, taking life as it came and handling the consequences IF they came.

On my side, I would have panicked if I thought he was going to leave me.

While we hadn't originally planned on living out so far in the suburbs, the location was good for my work as a traveling drug rep. The city and airport were nearby. There was a homey, even country atmosphere in town—the coffee shop was literally a log cabin, and one of the best places to eat was a country-style café. More wide-open areas lay to the east about a half mile, so it wasn't hard to get away temporarily.

There was one feature of the house that nailed it for us: a balcony off the bedroom.

“We'll sit out in the morning and have coffee together,” Chris said when we first looked at it. It was a wonderful, romantic idea.

Regrettably, we never found the time, not once, to sit out there together in the morning, with or without coffee.

Chris had a real knack for giving a woman a compliment. He was just so genuine about it.

“Damn, babe,” he'd say. “You look so beautiful.” Simple words, but the sincere tone and the look on his face made them mean so much.

You're so beautiful.

The words would catch me off guard. He didn't say them in that way often, but that made them more powerful. And he'd do it at the most unexpected times. I might be in the bathroom taking off my makeup and catch him looking at me from the bed.

You're so beautiful.

When the compliment came during a moment when I wasn't feeling particularly pretty, it meant so much.

He tried to hide his intellectual intelligence—he never bragged about being smart, and while he did okay in school, he didn't go out of his way to get good grades. But he couldn't hide his “EQ,” or emotional intelligence. It was always obvious in his eyes, and in his voice when he spoke to me, or really to anyone he loved.

Part of the reason I wanted Chris in my life was that he had such a
zest
for things. He was exuberant about even the simplest things: lingerie, a bag of Laffy Taffy, a good meal. And while he was a hard-core warrior, a tough-guy SEAL, he had a romantic side: the idea of spending every morning sharing a cup of coffee with his wife was his idea of bliss. Hearing his laugh, or seeing him saunter into a room—everything he did brought me energy and cheer. I knew I could make him laugh, no matter what was going on—and that laugh infected my soul. The more he laughed, the more I wanted to make him laugh.

Maybe I shouldn't take too much credit: he used to watch
America's Funniest Home Videos
and just guffaw and guffaw. Silly stuff tickled him.

I loved it. As a SEAL, he certainly knew dark times. But he could go from darkness to light with a hearty laugh in zero flat.

THE WEDDING

As a young girl, I had a vision of my perfect wedding: it would be at a lodge somewhere in the Oregon mountains, at night, with the snow falling and a huge fire warming the hearth.

What we ended up having was a wedding on a boat, in southern California, during the day—180 degrees different in nearly every possible way. We had to have it during the day because that was the only time they had available; it had to be in southern California because Chris couldn't get a lot of time off from work . . . you get the idea.

Knowing Chris was getting married, his fellow Team members decided that they had to send him off with a proper SEAL bachelor party. That meant getting him drunk, of course. It also meant writing all over him with permanent markers—an indelible celebration, to be sure.

Fortunately, they liked him, so his face wasn't marked up—not by them, at least; he'd torn his eyebrow and scratched his lip during training. Under his clothes, he looked quite the sight. And the words wouldn't come off no matter how he, or I, scrubbed.

I pretended to be horrified, but honestly, that didn't bother me much. I was just happy to have him with me, and very excited to be spending the rest of my life with the man I loved.

It's funny, the things you get obsessed about. Days before the wedding, I spent forty-five minutes picking out
exactly
the right shade of lipstick, splurging on expensive cosmetics—then forgot to take it with me the morning of the wedding. My poor sister and mom had to run to Walgreens for a substitute; they came back with five different shades, not one of which matched the one I'd picked out.

Did it matter? Not at all, although I still remember the vivid marks the lipstick made when I kissed him on the cheek—marking my man.

Lipstick, location, time of day—none of that mattered in the end. What did matter were our families and friends, who came in for the ceremony. Chris liked my parents, and vice versa. I truly loved his mom and dad.

I have a photo from that day taped near my work area. My aunt took it. It's become my favorite picture, an accidental shot that captured us perfectly. We stand together, beaming, with an American flag in the background. Chris is handsome and beaming; I'm beaming at him, practically glowing in my white gown.

We look so young, happy, and unworried about what was to come. It's that courage about facing the unknown, the unshakable confidence that we'd do it together, that makes the picture so precious to me.

It's a quality many wedding photos possess. Most couples struggle to make those visions realities. We would have our struggles as well.

We wrote our own vows; I take them to heart even today:

I give you my heart, soul, and everlasting love.

I promise to be there during both laughter and tears and to protect you in the days to come.

I will be faithful and truthful, whether near or far, and will never give you cause for doubt.

I will embrace your happiness and hold you when you are sad.

I will be your biggest supporter and your constant friend.

I will remind you of who you are when you forget.

I will consider your happiness with every action.

I will celebrate your soul and work to enrich your life as you enrich mine.

Most of all, I will love you and show my love all the days of my life.

Instead of traditional wedding music, we chose Enya's version of “How Can I Keep from Singing.” The words of the song talk of a hymn that can always be heard, no matter how dark the night or how difficult the day. The song speaks of faith and endurance, and through it all, music. It seemed to perfectly capture our love and commitment to each other. The words and tune—hypnotic and soaring—would come to me at various parts of my life. I gave birth to it. I hear it in my head today.