Love At Long Last-True Romance Story

 Love At Long Last

PETER: I was at a skating rink one night when I was 16, in 1958, 

and I saw this young lady. I waited for you to take a break and get 

a Coke before I made my move. I grabbed you by the hand and said, 

“My name’s Thomas Peter Headen.” And you said, “My name’s 

Jacqueline LeFever.” I looked in those big green eyes, and it was a 

done deal. So we dated. Then, in 1959, your father got transferred 

to Japan. I decided, Well, I’ll go get her. I joined the Marine 

Corps, and I said, “I want to go to Japan.” The Marine Corps said, 

“You’ll go to Japan when we tell you you can go to Japan.” So I 

went to a base in California.

JACQUE: I dated a Marine while I was in Japan, and I ended up 

getting married — I guess just because I thought that’s what I was 

supposed to do. We came back to the States in 1962, but I didn’t 

know what happened to you.

PETER: Well, I finally got orders to Okinawa. And I said, Oh, boy. 

I’ll go see Jacque when I get to Japan! I was home on leave — you 

always get leave before you go overseas — and stopped by to say hi 

to your mother. And she said right away, “Jacque got married. But 

here, you can have this picture of her.” I made some excuse that I 

had an appointment or something — the walls were kind of crawling 

in on me — and I left. I went overseas for 14 months, and then I 

came back to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, not knowing you were 

right outside the gate of that base. I got discharged, and I went 

home to Maryland. One night the phone rang — it was you.

JACQUE: I came to visit my mom. And I was calling your mother to 

see where you were, and you answered the phone — I was shocked, 

needless to say.

PETER: You said, “I want to show you something.” We went to your 

mother’s house, and here was this little baby. Your daughter was 

about three months old, and she had those same big green eyes. You 

went back to North Carolina, and I re-enlisted. That was 1964, and 

I said, “Send me overseas.” I didn’t want to be in North Carolina 

where you’re sitting outside the gate. So I left on August 12 for 

Vietnam. I came back to the States after 26 months and was 

stationed at Camp Pendleton, California. One day I was sitting in 

the barracks, and I decided, I’m going to write her a letter and 

tell her how I feel, because we were going back to Vietnam.

JACQUE: You wrote, “I just have to get this off my chest — I love 

you. I’ve always loved you. I have to say it and get it over with, 

and I’m done.” In the meantime I’d had another child — a little 

boy. So there I was in an apartment with two little babies and just 

miserable, actually. I got married for all the wrong reasons. But I 

came from a divorced family, and I didn’t want my kids to have a 

broken home.

PETER: When I came back from Vietnam, I spent 24 hours at home, and 

then I went to my mother at about 4 a.m. and said, “I’ve got to go 

to North Carolina.” And she kind of looked at me: “I think you 

better leave that one alone — she’s married. But I guess you got to 

do what you got to do.” I said, “Yeah, I got to do what I got to 

do.”

JACQUE: I sent you away.

PETER: That was September 25, 1968.

JACQUE: Thirty years after that, I left my husband. It wasn’t easy. 

My kids were grown, they had their college education, they had 

their families, but I was lonesome and miserable.

PETER: I was sitting there one night, and the phone rang — matter 

of fact, it was September 25, 1998.

JACQUE: That night, I had made up my mind: I am out of here. I’m so 

unhappy. And I sat there and I said, Nobody ever loved me but 

Peter. And that’s when I thought, I’m going to go find him. I asked 

the operator, “Do you have a T. P. Headen in Waldorf?” And she 

said, “No.” And I said, “Well, I’m really desperate to find this 

person. I know he’s in Charles County, Maryland, somewhere.” And 

she said, “I have a T. P. Headen in White Plains.” So I said, “Oh, 

my God, that’s it! That’s him!” I started crying, and I said, “I 

have been trying to find this person for 30 years. He’s the love of 

my life.” And she said, “You want me to dial the number for you?” I 

said, “Yeah, you can dial the number.” She said, “Can I stay on the 

line?” I said, “I don’t care what you do!”

PETER: And you said, “You know who this is?” I said, “Yeah, I know 

exactly who this is.” You said, “I bet you’re mad at me.” I said, 

“No. Matter of fact, I’m still in love with you.”

JACQUE: I felt like I was 15 all over again. We decided we would 

meet in Memphis, and I picked you up at the airport. You jumped in 

the car and gave me a big old kiss.

PETER: We got married in May, the 15th. I took you down to Key West 

and out on a three-masted schooner, and we married at sunset. 

There’s no address on our marriage certificate, just a longitude 

and a latitude. It’s worked out well. It’s just sad, the time we 

lost — you can’t get that back. We could have been together when we 

were 18, 19, you know? But I got you back. And you’re just as 

beautiful as you were when you were 15.

JACQUE: That’s because you make me feel beautiful.