Stephanie Brent

The Expat's Wars Stephanie Brent

There was a time I imagined running away from home would solve all life's problems, including the unreliable husband who visited my bed now and then at his convenience. Teaching abroad and living in a center for foreign professionals sounded like a year of relaxation and fun, like a working vacation, and I had family in my mother's homeland to arrange a teaching contract for me there. Summer school went fine. Then-with no warning-came an invasion on all fronts. We expats coped as best we could with our new normal: frequent air raids, blackouts, shortages of food and transportation, exhaustion from disrupted sleep, and sometimes boredom. However, a war zone is not without benefits as well as unexpected risk. There is intense intimacy in a group sitting outside together in a blackout or below the ground in an air raid shelter. It is a warmth and closeness not attainable without danger. Eventually an American resupply plane arrived bringing military resources to the army-and bringing to me a newly retired Navy SEAL named Tommy Eggert, my on-again-off-again husband, who was determined to rescue me whether I wanted to be rescued or not. A war within the war began as I battled Tommy for freedom while he fought to keep me safe from reckless misadventures. At the same time, I wrestled with the decision of whether to give Tommy another chance at marriage if we both came home alive.