He came into the store to buy a pack of gum with five sticks. I told him he should buy a multi-pack--he could save money that way and not have to stand in line so many days, always in my line, at the convenience store on the Army base in Germany.​
“I like coming here every day. I’d come if I had nothing to buy, but Snodgrass would probably chase me out.”​
  I’m sure I gave him a blank stare. He was right; my store manager was in the habit of telling enlisted men to “move on” if they loitered in the store.​
“And, by the way, my name is Mack,” he said as he took my hand and held it until I looked in his eyes with more than a hint of curiosity.​
“Hi,” I responded, and looked away.​
“I’m trying to figure out if your eyes are blue or green.”​
My eyes met his and I wasn’t afraid.

He was there the day I tried to hide my bruises, and he wasn’t fooled by the thick make-up. I could see it in his eyes. We weren’t alone, and he didn’t embarrass me by asking, but I knew he knew. I saw the range of his emotions ​clearly through his brown eyes: first, curiosity, then realization and anger, then something I couldn’t put my finger on at the time.​
He was waiting for me when I left work that day. I sized him up as he shifted from one foot to another in the cold. He reminded me of a Roman soldier in a painting I had seen, with his slightly elongated nose and brown, wavy hair. All he needs is a toga and a wreath on his head. I used my imagination until he broke in.​
“I’d like to walk with you, if you don’t mind,” he offered.​
“For a little bit, I guess,” I said, looking around to make sure we weren’t being watched. I had learned by then that I shouldn’t let my guard down.​
“What happened?”​
“I--blocked a punch with my face,” I joked, pulling my brown bangs over my black eye.​
“Who was throwing punches?”​
“My--husband.” Why did I tell him? I had never told anyone, but at that moment I felt like I could float with just a little puff of air.​
“Bastard,” he said with a strength I wish I had.​
“Yeah.”​
“Where is he now?”​
“He’s in the barracks, under house arrest.”​
“For how long?”​
“I don’t know, yet. I’m trying to get out, to go home, but they keep saying it’s the holiday travel season, and there’s just not any room for me to go on a military flight. It looks like I’ll have to wait until after New Year‘s Day.”​
“Hope they can hold him that long.”​
“Me, too. I can’t sleep at night.”​
His eyes seemed so sympathetic and kind, it almost made me cry. I somehow knew that this man would never hurt me. Pity I had not had some discernment about the monster I had married when I was so young.​
“Are you hungry? Let’s go to the Rod and Gun Club for something to eat.”​
I hesitated, thinking if someone saw us and it got back to A.H., he would kill me, even though we were separated and I told him I was filing for divorce when I got stateside. I knew him, and I knew he still thought of me as his property. That was all I had ever been. I had already decided that I hated men, and I was swearing to a life of celibacy.  Standing in the cold, I was afraid to move in one direction or the other. “I don’t know...” I replied, but my answer was weak.​
“You’ve got to eat, don’t you? You don’t want to go home and eat alone. It’s bad for the digestion.”​
I laughed at him then, and lingered the rest of the evening, laughing and smiling as we ate. My almost constant depression was lifting more than a little.

We spent the next few weeks together, and I had no illusion that this would be anything more than temporary. I had to go home to Florida, and he had about a year left in Germany, then it was Colorado for him. Worlds apart.​
He walked home with me when it was nice, and we took a taxi when it was nasty--praying that the next slide the driver took wouldn’t get us down to the valley in one long tumble.​
Mack listened to my sad stories, laughed at my jokes, and kissed my tears away. He told me I was beautiful and intelligent. Maybe it doesn’t seem like much, but it meant everything to me.​
I had been married for two years to a woman-eating beast, and the kindest thing he ever called me was stupid. The physical bruises always healed, but the emotional abuse lingered on in my soul.​
Mack and I made snow angels and rolled around in it like a pair of kids, and he kept me warm by opening his coat to enfold me. He didn’t try to change me. Most of all, he restored my faith in men.​
Our time was cut short when A.H. escaped house arrest and broke into our off-base apartment, looking for me and finding a friend of mine instead. She said he was stone-drunk, ranting and raving about wanting to kill me, and he tried to rape her. She resisted, reported, and had him officially locked up. All things I should have done when he first beat me. So the Army finally decided to get me out of Germany before he carried out his threats against me.
I was notified that I had less than a week to get ready--that I was flying out one week before Christmas. I was relieved and saddened at the same time. I worked my last day and met Mack at the Rod and Gun Club, and he walked me home, down the steep, snow-covered hill into the valley. I savored every moment, not feeling the cold.
“What made you keep coming back for those packs of gum?” I asked him.
He stopped walking and took me in his arms for a long time, then pulled away and held my face in his hands. “I looked into your eyes every day, and there was a lot of sadness there, but I saw something else. I saw that there was still just a little spark left, and I was hooked. I kept wanting to see that. I guess what I mean is--I just wanted to see you happy.”
I cried that night, but mixed in the tears of loss, there were tears of joy, and of hope. I had never known such unselfishness in my life.
There is always the “rest of the story”, and this is mine. Up to that point, I had left A.H. seven times in two years. I believed his promises that he would change--six out of seven times, but the last time I just gave up and went back anyway. My parents were still married, and my dad was abusive. I guess I thought that was normal, and I thought I didn’t necessarily have the right to be happy.
This time I didn’t go back to him, because I had hope. Mack gave that to me. After that I resisted lesser men, and a few years later, I met Bryan.
Bryan and I have been married nineteen wonderful years so far. We’ve been through hard times, but he still puts a sparkle in my eyes.
Sometimes when I’m standing in a checkout line of a store looking at the packs of gum, I think of Mack, and thank him, wherever he is, for giving me hope.
I still can’t help smiling when I see a pack of gum.