Wave Hello, Say Good-bye

My sister and I walk along the pier in Myrtle Beach as the sun sets. For the first time in years I feel utterly alone. Stopping in our spot I stare out at the water, listening to the way it crashes against the shore. The skirt of my black dress flutters around my legs as the wind blows gently, softly caressing my skin with cool air.
“Are you okay?” My sister asks quietly.
“No,” and that’s all it takes for me to break down and fall into sobs. Sam wraps her arms around me in a tight hug.
“Oh Ellie,” she rubs my back gently. “I know honey.”
And really, it’s all she needs to say, because she does know. Six years ago Sam got married to a Marine. Mark Jones swept her off her feet one day when he and Jack Booker, a friend from the office on base, walked into the shoe store Sam had been working at. He had been looking for a pair of shoes that weren’t boots or tennis shoes, Sam set him up with a pair of skate shoes and gave him her number. He called her the next day. Next thing you know they’re moving in together. After a year of being together, when they were on a date at the restaurant I was waiting tables in at the time, he proposed. Three months later I met Jack Booker during preparations for the wedding. I’d heard plenty from Sam about how he was really funny and cute in a dorky way but totally not her type and how he was Mark’s best friend. I wasn’t really interested in dating, but there Sam and I were finishing off some final decoration touches and this guy with stunning blue eyes behind black glasses rams right into me. I was about to yell at him until my breath caught. Then he looked me in the eyes and my heart skipped a beat.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Mark asked me to bring this down to Sam and I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. I’m Jack by the way, Jack Booker.”
“Uh, I’m…” Sam had to elbow me in the ribs, because of course my older sister loved watching me stutter on a normal day, but today she was in a hurry.
“Elena,” I finally managed to get out. “I’m Sam’s sister Elena Jones.”
A few days later at the reception he asked me to dance, and I was compelled to say yes. Later that night we exchanged numbers, I honestly thought nothing of it and a week later had forgotten about him entirely until I was at work, now teaching in a high school, and a man came into the classroom and delivered a large bouquet of white carnations to me. The card had an address on it and a time, asking for me to go to dinner.
Admittedly I was pretty blown away; it had been two years since I’d even considered dating a man and now here I was, fresh out of college and getting asked to dinner. What else was there to do but show up? And of course, when I did, there Jack sat.
Two years later Sam stood behind me zipping up a magnificent white dress and the rest is really history. A beautiful history that as of two weeks ago became nothing more than a memory. A memory that’s full of laughter and tears and thrills and kisses and love until the war broke out.
Six months ago the war with North Korea broke out and of course the Marines were deployed first. Jack and Mark both left, even though it wasn’t their job. Two months ago, Sam got the news that Mark had died. A few letters came, his body was sent home, and there was a full military funeral, twenty one guns and all. I had never seen my sister so sad, and in all honestly I didn’t really understand. Until two weeks ago, when it all happened to me, and I was devastated.
So here Sam and I stand, wearing black on the pier in Myrtle Beach. Crying for both our own losses, and each other’s we stand, listening to the waves.
“He was my best friend. My best friend and my protector. What am I supposed to do now?” I ask Sam.
She wipes her eyes, and then mine, and we turn to face the ocean.
“I don’t know Ellie, I just don’t know.”