EVERETT — As her fiance walked off the USS Abraham Lincoln on Tuesday, Nora Kelty sat in her Arizona living room and watched the carrier’s homecoming on CNN.
"I was looking for him," Kelty, 19, said of her fiance, Airman James Flood. "Sometimes I would do a double-take because I thought it was him, but then I saw it wasn’t. I really wish I could have been there with him."
While hundreds of sailors tearfully reunited with family and friends Tuesday, many others were thinking of loved ones who couldn’t be there. In Kelty’s case, it was because she is expecting the couple’s first child May 21. Others couldn’t afford to travel to Everett or weren’t able to get time off work.
And even some of the sailors who were able to kiss their spouses or hold their children for the first time in more than nine months saw their reunions abruptly interrupted by having to report back for duty aboard the Lincoln on Wednesday morning.
Until Monday, Flood, 20, thought that no one was going to be at Naval Station Everett to greet him. But at the last minute, his grandmother and a friend bought an airplane ticket for his mother to fly here.
"I was so psyched when I heard she’d be on base," Flood said. "It would have been really hard to still be stuck on the ship with no one there for me."
Flood’s reunion with his mother lasted only two hours. After giving Carol Flood a tour of the ship and eating lunch with her on the pier while watching the sea lions, Flood returned to work for watch duty. The two spent Wednesday together in Seattle before Carol Flood, 41, flew back to Arizona.
"But it was totally worth it," Carol Flood said. "I had thought of how all those families were going to be there, and he wasn’t going to have anybody. I wanted to show how we care, and how we’re glad he’s safe and sound."
Now, Kelty and James Flood are praying that Kelty doesn’t go into labor before May 21, when she is due to give birth to a boy. James Flood is scheduled to arrive in Arizona on May 20.
Kelty has sent him photos of herself over the past few months, but Flood — who joined the Lincoln in January — said it’s been difficult not being there for most of his fiance’s pregnancy.
"You look at the pictures and think, ‘This is one of the most important things in our lives, and I’m not there for it,’" he said. "She’s been going through this pregnancy by herself, and I haven’t been able to help her out."
Seaman Tevita Brown, 20, already has a son. But 4-year-old Degarius is in Buena Vista, Ga., and he and Brown’s mother weren’t able to make the trip to Everett.
Brown was happy for shipmates who were having tearful reunions. But, even though she didn’t have to work Tuesday, Brown wasn’t in the mood to step off the carrier.
"I was just wishing my little boy was here," Brown said before reaching into her back pocket to pull out a worn green memo pad. Tucked inside between two small sheets of white-ruled paper was a photograph of a smiling Degarius in an Atlanta Braves jersey.
"I look at this every five minutes," Brown said with a smile as she stood in the carrier’s kitchen placing a piece of cake with white frosting on a sailor’s tray.
Brown will fly back to Georgia on May 27, when she goes on leave, and she’ll then bring Degarius and his grandmother to live with her in Snohomish County.
After the happy commotion of Tuesday, the Lincoln was almost eerily quiet Wednesday.
"It’s like a ghost town right now," Lincoln spokesman Lt. John Daniels said as he walked down a deserted ship hallway.
But even as the ship rests in Possession Sound, about 360 sailors must be aboard at all times to do everything from maintain the engineering plant to sweep the floors, Daniels said.
Nearly half the 2,661 sailors who arrived in Everett on Tuesday went on leave this week. The other half will be eligible to go on leave May 27. Most of those who remain will serve 24-hour shifts every four days.
Joshua Caldwell’s shift began on homecoming day and ended Wednesday morning. As the carrier docked about 10 a.m. Tuesday to the cheers of almost 20,000 people on the Navy base and at an industrial pier across Port Gardner, Caldwell was deep in the ship’s bowels helping to shut the carrier down. All he could hear was the roar of the machines.
"I wish I could have been on the railing to see all that, but I had to work," Caldwell said as he waited for a Navy shuttle bus under Wednesday morning’s sunshine.
Caldwell, 21, of Oakland, Calif., was headed to Everett Mall to shop for new clothes, and then to Vancouver, B.C., where he was planning to go out drinking Wednesday night with two other sailors. Caldwell will return to California to be with his family at the end of the month.
As Caldwell finally left the carrier to celebrate, the newest Lincoln sailors were already arriving. Several dozen stood in the cavernous hangar bay to check in for tours of duty that will average three to four years.
Down below was Petty Officer 1st Class Gregory Lincks, who spent the night in his Arlington home Tuesday before returning to work at 6 a.m. Wednesday as a physical therapist.
That was enough time to be alone with his wife and play with his 3-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son for so long that he exhausted them. But, even while he enjoyed his family’s company, it was hard to forget that he would have to return to the ship.
"I tried not to think about it, but I kept looking at my watch, just counting the hours before I had to go back to work," Lincks said. "I’m worried about what my children might think. They see me one day and then I’m gone again."
Reporter David Olson: 425-339-3452 or dolson@heraldnet.com.
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