ur remaining time together on my leave was much as

I had originally hoped. Aside from the weekend with my fatherduring which he cooked for us and spoke endlessly about coinswe were alone as much as possible. Back in Chapel Hill, once Savannah was finished with her classes for the day, our afternoons and evenings were spent together. We walked through the stores along Franklin Street, went to the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, and even spent a couple of hours at the North Carolina Zoo. On my second to last evening in town, we went to dinner at the fancy restaurant the shoe salesman had told me about. She wouldn't let me peek while she was getting ready, but when she finally emerged from the bathroom, she was positively glamorous. I stared at her in between bites, thinking how lucky I was to be with her.

We didn't make love again. After our night together, I woke

the next morning to find Savannah studying me, tears running down her cheeks. Before I could ask what was wrong, she put a finger to my lips and shook her head, willing me not to speak. “Last night was wonderful,” she said, “but I don't want to talk about it.” Instead, she wrapped herself around me and I held her for a long time, listening to the sound of her breath. I knew then that something had changed between us, but at the time, I didn't have the courage to find out what.

On the morning 1 left, Savannah drove me to the airport. We sat at the gate together, waiting for my flight to be called, her thumb tracing small circles on the back of my hand. When it was time for me to board the plane, she fell into my arms and started to cry. When she saw my expression, she forced a laugh, but I could hear the sorrow in it.

“I know I promised,” she said, “but 1 can't help it.”

“It's going to be okay,” I said. “It's only six months. With all that's going on in your life, you'll be amazed how fast that goes.” “Easy to say,” she said, sniffling. "But you're right. I'm going to

be stronger this time. I'll be okay."

I scrutinized her face for signs of denial but saw none. “Really,” she said. “I'll be fine.”

I nodded, and for a long moment we simply stared at each other.

“Will you remember to watch for the full moon?” she asked. “Every single time,” I promised.

We shared one last kiss. I held her tight and whispered that I loved her, then I forced myself to release her. I slung my gear over my shoulder and headed up the ramp. Peeking over my shoulder, I realized that Savannah was already gone, hidden somewhere in the crowd.

On the plane, I leaned back in the seat, praying that Savannah

had been telling the truth. Though I knew she loved and cared for

me, I suddenly understood that even love and caring weren't always enough. They were the concrete bricks of our relationship, but unstable without the mortar of time spent together, time without

the threat of imminent separation hanging over us. Although I

didn't want to admit it, there was much about her I didn't know. I hadn't realized how my leaving last year had affected her, and despite anxious hours thinking about it, I wasn't sure how it would

affect her now. Our relationship, I felt with a heaviness in my chest, was beginning to feel like the spinning movement of a child's top. When we wete together, we had the power to keep it spinning, and the result was beauty and magic and an almost childlike sense of wonder; when we separated, the spinning began inevitably to slow. We became wobbly and unstable, and I knew I had to find a way to keep us from toppling over.

I'd learned my lesson from the year before. Not only did I write more letters from Germany during July and August, but I called Savannah more frequently as well. I listened carefully during the calls, trying to pick up any signs of depression and longing to hear any words of affection or desire. In the beginning, I was nervous before making those calls; by the end of the summer, I was waiting for them. Her classes went well. She spent a couple of weeks with

her parents, then began the fall semester. In the first week of September, we began the countdown of days I had left until my dis'

charge. There were one hundred to go. It was easier to talk of days rather than weeks or months; somehow it made the distance between us shrink to something far more intimate, something that

both of us knew we could handle. The hard part was behind us, we reminded each other, and I found that as I flipped the days on the calendar, the worries I'd had about our relationship began to diminish. I was certain there was nothing in the world that could stop us from being together.

Then came September 1 1.