Spencerville by Nelson DeMille Page A

world had finally intruded, and her letter made it clear that, indeed, it was now over between them, forever. But he never believed that.
    After he was stationed in Europe, some months after her wedding, she wrote again, apologizing for the tone of her last letter, and suggested that writing was okay, but to please write care of her sister Terry in the next county.
    He waited until he returned to the States, then wrote from Washington, saying little, except that he was back and would be at the Pentagon for a year or so. Thus began a two-decade-long correspondence, a few letters a year, updates, the births of her children, changes of address, his transfer to the Defense Department, her local news from Spencerville, his postings all over the world.
    They had never exchanged photographs; neither had asked for a picture and neither had offered one. It was, Keith thought, as though they each wanted to hold on to the moving, living memory of the other, uncomplicated by a succession of rigid snapshots.
    There had never been the hint of anything but an old and maturing friendship — well, perhaps once in a while, a letter written late at night with a line or two that could be taken as more than "Hello, how are you?" He wrote once from Italy, "I saw the Colosseum at night for the first time and wished you could have seen it, too."
    She wrote back, "I did see it, Keith, when I was in Europe, and funny, I had the same thought about you."
    But these types of letters were rare, and neither of them went too far out of bounds.
    Whenever his address changed to some new, exotic locale, she wrote, "How I envy you all your traveling and excitement. I always thought I'd be the one leading the adventurous life, and you'd wind up in Spencerville."
    He usually replied with words like, "How I envy you your stability, children, community."
    He'd never married, Annie never divorced, and Cliff Baxter did not conveniently die. Life went on, the world moved forward.
    He was in Saigon on his third tour when the North Vietnamese arrived in 1975, and he took one of the last helicopters out. He wrote to Annie from Tokyo, "I knew this war was lost five years ago. What fools we've all been. Some of my staff have resigned. I'm considering the same."
    She replied, "When we played Highland, we were down 36-0 at the half. You went out there for the second half and played the best game I ever saw you play. We lost, but what do you remember best, the score or the game?"
    Keith listened to a nightingale in the far-off tree line, then looked out at the Mullers' farmhouse. The kitchen was lit, and dinner was probably being served. He supposed that he'd played a more interesting game than the Mullers, but at the end of the day, they gathered together for dinner. He honestly missed having children, but in some odd way, he was happy that Annie did. He closed his eyes and listened to the night.
    He'd almost married, twice in fact, during the next five or six years; once to a colleague he served with in Moscow, once to a neighbor in Georgetown. Each time, he broke it off, knowing he wasn't ready. In fact, he was never going to be ready, and he knew it.
    He decided that the letters had to stop, but he couldn't make the break completely. Instead, he let months go by before answering her, and his letters were always short and remote.
    She never commented on the change in tone, or the infrequency of his letters, but went on writing her two or three pages of news, and once in a while, reminisced. Eventually, though, she followed his lead, and they wrote less frequently, and by the mid-eighties, it seemed as though the letter relationship had ended, except for Christmas cards and birthday cards.
    He had returned to Spencerville now and then, of course, but he never told her in advance, intending each time to see her when he was there, but he never did.
    Sometime around 1985, she'd written to him after one of his visits, "I heard you were in town for your aunt's funeral, but by