Pacific

Their brief tumultuous relationship began and ended in cities located six thousand, one hundred and eighty three miles apart on the Pacific Ocean.  When they met she was twenty-two years old and had recently graduated from U.C. San Diego with a Bachelor of Science in bio-chemistry. Her name was Kim, Choon-Hee which in Korean advises that she was a girl born in the spring.  Her college friends called her Kim even though that was in fact her surname, after the tenth attempt at explaining she went with the flow.  Kim was a smidge over five feet, weighed approximately 100 pounds give or take, and her long black hair perfectly framed her heart-shaped face.  On a fateful night in May, Kim’s roommates cajoled her into accompanying them to a local bar named “The Waterfront” which had the perfect view of the sun setting over the ocean.  

While her friends were chatting with folks, Kim sat alone unnoticed by the crowd.  She was staring at the waves crashing ashore and silently sipping her Michelob Ultra as she didn’t trust the wine selection or the cleanliness of the drinking glasses.  Just as she was preparing to duck out unnoticed three men in their late twenties literally sauntered into the bar.  Notwithstanding the lack of invitation the men decided to join Kim and her friends. The guy closest to Kim introduced himself as Jack and announced that he was a Navy SEAL, which would explain his close cropped hair what was left of it.  Jack was stocky and he appeared to be only five or six inches taller than Kim.  The night was a blur as Jack bought Kim numerous beers and regaled her with his sea stories.  Perhaps it was her overindulgence in alcohol but Kim agreed to meet Jack again on the weekend, which began several weeks of binge drinking and sex. Until one day when she woke up in Jack’s barracks’ room on the base and he greeted her as “Mrs. Jack.”  She looked down at her left hand and spotted a ring, what the hell had she done?  When she tried to explain that she may have made a mistake, Jack pleaded with her to just give it a couple of weeks as he promised they would be so happy together.  His tears looked so real and she reluctantly agreed. 

Three weeks later Jack announced that they were transferring to Guam an incredibly small tropical island in the Pacific Ocean.  The transfer he promised would allowed them to be so much closer to her parents in South Korea. After spending over twenty-two hours in route, they arrived at the Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport in Guam.  Once they settled into base housing Jack decided he was in control of all of their finances. Jack spirited away her passport, her credit cards and her cell phone, doling out small sums of money until she was totally reliant on him.  The loss of her independence was only the first of many indignities she would suffer.

If Jack’s uniforms were not ironed properly or dinner was served exactly fifteen minutes after he walked in the door Kim was punished.  Jack’s favorite form of punishment was to lock her outside at night with the brown tree snakes.  It was terrifying as there were over two million of the nocturnal venomous creatures on the island.  If Kim dared to cry out or protest Jack would remind her of his SEAL training advising that he could kill her with his bare hands and there would be no repercussions.  Further, as the island was only about thirty miles long and eleven and half miles wide there wasn’t any place for her to hide even in the jungle as Jack went wild boar hunting there.  When he was drunk Jack would tell her stories of his first two wives who just “happened” to disappear in between duty stations.  His Commanding Officers were none the wiser nor were the two different insurance companies who paid out.  Then his face would light up in a smile as they had been married almost six months and her insurance policy would not pay out for the first one-hundred and sixty days. In his countdown to day one hundred and sixty-one, his morning ritual included marking the days off on the calendar with a red sharpie.  Jack assured her that only one of them would be leaving Guam, the other would permanently reside in the vast Pacific Ocean surrounding Guam.

Everything changed when Jack’s left leg was crushed in a training exercise; as Kim now felt a glimmer of hope that she could alter her future.  While he was in the hospital Kim frantically ransacked the house.  While she located her passport, Kim did not find a marriage certificate or any paperwork from the military identifying her as a spouse/dependent.  This fact allowed Kim to plan her next move as her time was running out because the Navy was going to medically discharge Jack.  When Jack came home after his hospital stay Kim was the attentive wife with Jack’s tears of gratitude almost believable.  Kim, however, knew better and she vowed to put her college degree to use which she did. 

The water was fairly warm as it gently pulled the package wrapped in a blue plastic painter’s tarp out to sea.  The current was steady and low tide was at least twelve hours away.  While it was doubtful that the package would make it to the Marianas Trench, it would at least go several miles out.  Afterwards Kim changed into dry clothes and boarded a boat for Saipan where she would later connect to Narita and then Incheon-Seoul.  She reminded herself again that she was safe as no one would be looking for her since in the eyes of the military she did not exist.  For once she was so very grateful to be invisible. In the end Jack was right, only one of them left Guam.