Untraditional

All I Knew, This Morning When I Woke . . .

Henry's alarm clock went off at 6:45 a.m.

"Ugh . . ." moaned Henry. She grabbed another pillow and shoved it over her head, rolling over in bed, as though trying to escape the beeping. Just five more minutes in bed, please. Five more minutes . . .

Then she remembered what day it was.

Suddenly, Henry was sitting bolt upright in her big, empty (lonely) king-sized bed, all traces of tiredness gone from her now happy and excited face.

Taylor was coming home to her today.

A grin dominating her face, Henry ripped the sheets back and swung her feet out of bed. She skipped in her striped pajamas to the bathroom and brushed her teeth, trying to push the curly strands of hair that had escaped the confines of her sloppy ponytail behind her ear. As she stepped into the shower, she still couldn't stop smiling.

Six months. Six long months of being apart from her precious fiancé. Six months of torture . . .But that didn't matter anymore. All of that was in the past. Now she could look to the future, because Taylor was coming home to her today.

She had never told Taylor just how much it stressed her out. Lying in their bed alone at night, biting her nails to nasty stubs, imagining her precious Taylor being blown to pieces by a grenade, or shot by some faceless sniper . . . Taylor knowing how scared she was would just make things more messy and unnecessarily complicated. Henry knew how much Taylor loved being in the armed forces; she wasn't going to take that away from her one true love, no matter how much it might stress her out.

But Taylor had promised to take a whole year off from the army after their wedding. A whole year. Henry had already spent hours planning all the things they would do; all the adventures they would go on together. And their next adventure started today: in the arrivals terminal of an airport at 3:57 p.m.

Half an hour later, Henry was ready for the day. Her mousy brown hair in a sloppy ponytail, she locked the door of the apartment she and Taylor were staying in until their house had finished being renovated and set off for work. She bought herself a coffee and Danish on the way to the garage.

Ever since she could remember, she had wanted to know how things worked. How they ticked. She used to take her toys apart to see how they worked, to see how they all fit together, and then put them together again like a puzzle. It had annoyed her mother to no end. "When I was your age, I braided my dolls' hair, not pulled them apart," she used to say, hands on hips. Well, Henry couldn't help it. That was just how she was. And when she had helped her dad revive an old pickup truck during her fifteenth summer, she had discovered her true passion: cars. Or namely, fixing broken cars, which was how she had ended up with a job as a mechanic at a nearby garage.

Her boss, Kris, looked up from some paperwork laid out on the hood of a car as she walked in the garage.

"Oh, hey, Henry," she said, straightening up to greet her, hands flying to the sore small of her back as she did so. "You're early," she noted, glancing at the clock hung up on the wall, which clearly read seven-thirty. As far as Kris was concerned, she could show up as early as she liked to work, but if any of her employees dared to copy her, something fishy was up. Admittedly, that was the case today for Henry.

"Yeah," agreed Henry, walking over to the tool bench and shrugging on her overalls. "There's a reason for that." She adjusted the straps on her shoulder and picked up a wrench to tuck in her pocket. She would need that for the Johnsons' car. And it may also come in handy having a heavy object at the ready once she told Kris her intentions. "I was wondering if I could have the afternoon off, please?"

Kris narrowed her eyes at Henry. "Dentist appointment?" she inquired dangerously.

"Dentist's appointment?" was always Kris's go-to response when one of her employees asked for a day off. If they said "yes," then she knew that they were slacking and more usually than not fired them.

"No, actually," said Henry. She tried to resist the smile that spread over her face, but she couldn't help it. "Taylor's coming home today," she shared.

Kris instantly mellowed. "Well, is that true?" she inquired, also trying not to smile, but she had always thought that Taylor and Henry were the cutest couple ever, so she had a soft spot for them. "Well, it isn't every day your fiancé comes back from the army. When do you want off?"

"Well, Jaime wants to see me about something and I should check to see how construction is going at the house, they're supposed to finish there today, you know, and since my grandparents live near the airport, I should probably go visit them . . ." listed Henry, wincing as she went on.

"Oh, fine, fine. Take the whole afternoon off," dismissed Kris, waving a hand. "I've got enough people here today to cover for you. Just work hard this morning," she added.

"Don't worry; I will. I'm going to finish the Johnsons' car by lunch," promised Henry, running off to grab her toolbox. "Thanks, Kris! You're a star!"

"Forget about it," ordered Kris, shaking her head. "Just tell Taylor I say hi."

"I will!"

"And your brother and grandparents, for that matter," Kris rolled her eyes. "I'm a soft one at heart, really, and she's taking advantage of that."

Henry spent the morning happily fixing a car's exhaust pipe, daydreaming happily about Taylor walking through the arrival gate at the airport, huge smile on face, walking to hug Henry . . . She wiped her oil covered hands on her overalls, glancing at the clock. It was almost lunch and the exhaust pipe was just about finished. She just had to do a couple of checks here and there . . .

"Finished!" she announced proudly. She flung off her dirty overalls and hung them back up on their hook. She grabbed her jacket and rushed for the exit, yelling, "Bye, Kris! Thanks again!" over her shoulder.

Kris watched Henry stumble over herself as she crossed the road. "Running won't speed up Taylor's flight, cupcake!" she shouted after her. She shook her head. "Young love. Pfft. Ridiculous how kids act, really." But she was smiling.