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Show Blue Run/36 heat, hoeing the garden and sling-blading grass and shoveling shit outside Sheriffs horse barn. The Rockersons, I learn, actually have a history of their men getting thrown in the poky. Uncle Elton went to Florida State on a swim scholarship, a full ride, only he got caught growing marijuana in the gutters of his dorm roof, which got him knocked out of butterflying and into Sheriff's ranch for six months. Nobody's supposed to talk about it, off limits entirely. Her eyes sweep the ocean. "There's one story nobody's ever heard." The story? What I'm thinking, deep in my gut, the question and the answer: what happens to a human body left half-a-day in a 104 degree chlorinated hot tub water? What happened to my Mama? Renee's voice rises. "You're supposed to say, 'What story?'" I kill the radio. "What story?" Cap was an Annapolis man, secretary for his 1954 Midshipman class After War College and the move to California then Hawaii, he made Lieutenant then Lieutenant Commander before getting the nod for his first tour as full Commander and CO on Destroyer Healey. The Navy's up or out, and Cap kept climbing. His second and third tours as Captain were commissioned out of Charleston. By then Renee was fifteen and Rocky was eleven. Life near a base was cake for boys, especially for officer's sons who could sneak keys to blasting zones and airplane hangars. For Meg and Renee, stuck having to entertain dingbat officer's wives, it was a different deal altogether. For one thing, a military wife is judged primarily on her loyalty to her husband. You followed where you were led. Cap was at the top of his game-I've seen the photo's of him on deck in that startling white uniform and gloves, six-hundred sailors snapping to attention. This was 1970, we were at war, and the luck of a war is the sailor man's greatest gift, the messier the |