Dear Diary,
The next few weeks were even harder for me. I think that I really came into my own at
work though during this time. I hadn't realized how much I relied on Harm and
the Admiral for friendship. I had been
in Harm's shadow for five years and while I had proved myself well there, I was
doing even better on my own in my professional life. My personal life was somewhat a different matter though…
I was spending more and more time
with Bud, Harriet and Young AJ. Part of
me was afraid that I would lose them too but the rest of me decided to not
worry about that until the time came.
Harriet was a kind-hearted person and she welcomed me into her family as
did Bud. I was finally able to get them
to call me Mac instead of ma'am when we were not in public. Young AJ had no problem about that. He had been calling me Aunt Mac for a while
now.
I saw the Roberts every day at JAG
then often outside of work also. Even
though Harm was on the other side of the country he still managed to call me
once or twice a week. Renee's job was
going very well and the more I heard that, the more I suspected that they were
not going to be coming back. We had fun
chatting one night when I had another call beep in. I told Harm that I had another call and he quickly said good-bye
but not before he asked if his plants were still alive.
I shook my head in amusement as I
answered the other call.
"Hello."
"Sarah," I heard a
familiar voice say.
"Admiral."
"Mac, I'm retired. I'm not an
Admiral anymore."
"I know. It will just take me a while to remember
that." I paused for a few moments
before I spoke again. "Is
everything okay there? It's past 3am
your time."
"Everything is fine. I knew that you would be busy during the day
so I thought that I would wait until now to call you."
"Calling to check on your
plants like Harm did?" I joked.
"No. Just calling to see if you are having any
trouble with the alarm system," he said.
"No problems at all. And by
the way your plants are doing fine," I said half joking. I knew that one of them just wasn't going to
be the same but I wasn't going to tell him that. I heard him softly laugh, somehow I thought that he knew about
the plant.
"Well, I had better go. I'll talk to you later," he commented.
"Okay. Good night."
"Good night, Sarah," he
said softly before he hung up.
I held the phone in my hand as I
suddenly realized that he had called me Sarah.
He had never called me that before.
I slowly put the phone down and I couldn't stop the smile that crossed
my face. The smile stayed there while I
got ready for bed and it even stayed into my dreams.