_*_ 69 _*_
A sharp knock woke me up.
“What’s-his-name is going to be here soon,” Dad said
through the closed door.
“I’m not going,” I said with a groan. “And his name is
Finn. Why are you up so early?”
“Are you sick?” he asked.
This was the day he’d normally stay in bed past noon,
resting up so he could drink himself blind by midnight.
“Have you been up all night?” I asked.
“Are you sick?” he repeated. “Honest now.”
“No, but the bus has already left,” I said. “I told Finn not
to pick me up.”
“Trish can take you.”
“I’d rather crawl over broken glass.”
Silence.
“Can I borrow your truck?” I asked.
He sighed loudly.
“I’ll come straight home after school, I promise.” “No,” he said firmly. “I’ll drive you. Be ready in ten.”
Five minutes later, I was ready. Dad was still in the shower so I headed to the kitchen. Trish was pouring water into the coffeepot, wearing a robe and slippers.
“Coffee will only take a minute,” she said.
I took an apple out of the fridge. “Thought you were leaving.”
“Never did like mornings much, did you?”
I took the keys off the nail by the back door and went out through the garage. The truck started on the first try, and the cab was toasty warm by the time I’d finished my apple. Ten minutes had come and gone. I turned on the radio and watched the front door, fearing the steadily increasing chance that Trish was going to come through it and say that Dad had changed his mind. I put my foot on the brake and shifted into reverse. The second she showed her face, I’d take off.
The front door opened.
A soldier stepped into the cold sunshine, an army captain in full-dress uniform: polished black boots, regulation-creased pants, blindingly white shirt, and black tie under a blue wool jacket decorated with captain’s bars, Ranger tab on his left shoulder, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, oak leaf clusters, and the fruit salad of ribbons and hardware that meant he had led troops into battle and tried his best to bring them all home.
I turned off the radio.
He walked slowly toward the truck, his eyes on me the whole way, black beret tilted at exactly the right angle on his head. The swelling around his eye had gone down. The plum-colored bruise looked painful.
I put the truck in park, opened the door, and got out.
“Well?” he asked.
One side of my heart tha-thumped like I was a little kid and he’d just come home and I could run across the hangar floor when the order releasing the troops was shouted, and Daddy would pick me up so I could hug him around the neck and, nose to nose, look into his sky-colored eyes and tell him that I missed him so much. The other side of my heart froze in panic because now I was old enough to understand where he got that limp and why he screamed in his sleep and that something inside him was broken. I didn’t know how to fix it or if it could be fixed.
He tugged at the bottom of his jacket. “There’s some stupid assembly at your school. I never promised your counselor that I’d go. I might change my mind in five minutes, just warning you.”
I nodded, speechless.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Is this a good idea?” I asked.
“Figured it was worth a shot.”
I nodded again.
He wiped away the tears rolling down my face. “What’s all this about?”
I cleared my throat. “Sun’s in my eyes, Daddy.”
“Bullshit, princess.”
“A llergies.”
He kissed my forehead. “You drive.”
_*_ 70 _*_
After signing in at the office, I took Dad to Ms. Benedetti’s office. She melted a little, the way a lot of women do when my dad is more-or-less sober, cleaned up, and in uniform. They chatted about her brother and a few wild things Dad had never mentioned he did in high school. Benedetti did not ask about the shiner. She explained how the assembly was going to be run: boring speeches, a short video, more boring speeches, and then each veteran onstage would be presented with a bouquet of flowers and a Belmont High Machinists stadium blanket.
A muscle twitched below Dad’s ear. He clenched his jaw. “The vets will be onstage for the whole thing?” I asked. “Absolutely! We want our veterans to know how much
we appreciate their sacrifice.”
“How many in the audience?” Dad asked.
“Eight hundred or so.”
He blinked like she’d just slapped him.
“How many vets?” I asked.
“Thirty-two,” Benedetti said proudly.
“That’s a lot of guys to crowd on the stage,” Dad said. “Four of them are women,” Benedetti said.
She did not point out that thirty-two people were not
going to crowd the stage. They wouldn’t even fill a corner of it. Just when I thought she was being deliberately dense, she added, “You’re probably sick of these things, aren’t you? I imagine they get a little repetitive after a while.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Dad said. “Plus, I’m not real fond of crowds.”
“Oh,” she said.
“You could hang out with me in the cafeteria,” I suggested. “If you want.”
“Great idea!” Benedetti’s enthusiasm returned. “Wait until you see the changes in there.” She scribbled me a pass. “Hayley could take you on a tour of the building during second period, after the halls have cleared.” She shook Dad’s hand again. “Thanks, Andy. It’s really nice to have you here again.”
Dad paused at the door to the cafeteria and scanned the nearly empty room. Most of the students who belonged there were at the assembly. Two dozen kids were scattered in small groups, the floor was abnormally clean and the aides were eating sticky buns and joking with the server ladies. I knew he was assessing the space: no visible threat, clear line of sight, and quick access to all exits. He should have been cool with it, but he didn’t move.
“You okay?” I asked quietly.
“Fine,” he said.
“I usually sit over there,” I said, pointing to the corner
where Finn sat, staring at us in wide-eyed surprise. He wasn’t listening.
“Dad?”
He’d made eye contact with one of the cafeteria aides,
the old guy whose belly bulged over his belt buckle. The older man checked out Dad’s rank and the Ranger tab then stood straighter and nodded, a brief dip of the head, to my father. One vet greeting another.
Daddy nodded back and said, “Let’s go bother what’shis-name.”
What’s-his-name said, “Hello, sir,” and gave Dad a carton of chocolate milk, without commenting on his black eye. A guy I’d never seen before, a baseball player, judging by the hairy legs sticking out of his shorts, came over, and asked to shake my father’s hand. “Thank for your service, sir,” he said.
I held my breath, hoping that if this triggered Dad, he’d just leave without doing or saying anything I’d regret later.
“It was my honor,” Dad said, extended his hand. “Care to join us?”
The guy grinned and asked, “Can my buddies come over, too?” He pointed his thumb at three hairy-legged dudes watching from a couple of tables away.
Dad opened the milk and took a long swig. “If they bring me more of this.”
He held court for the rest of the period, listening to their questions and not quite answering them. They asked about the guns and the helicopters and the enemy, and he made jokes about MREs and camel spiders and having to burn the poop bags.
The old cafeteria aide came over and introduced himself, “Bud.”
Dad asked him to join us and he settled in, wiping the sticky bun glaze off his fingers with a napkin.
One of the baseball players finally asked the questions that I knew had been the reason they came over in the first place. “Did you kill anybody, sir? Was it hard?”
Dad studied his hands and didn’t answer. Just as everyone started to squirm in the awkward silence, Bud jumped in with a story about being lost on a mountain in Vietnam. The guys listened but kept glancing at Dad, waiting for the answers.
When the old soldier’s story was finished, Dad asked, “You know how Veterans Day started?”
“The armistice, the end of World War One,” Finn answered. “At eleven o’clock in the morning of November 11, 1918, all the troops on both sides stopped fighting. That’s the day we honor vets.”
“Here’s what you don’t know,” Dad said. “By five o’clock that morning, the officers had all gotten the message that the war would end that day. But lots of them ordered their men to keep fighting.”
Bud snorted and shook his head.
Dad continued, “The end of the war meant that career officers would have fewer chances to move up in rank. The goddamn war was officially ending in hours and they sent their boys in to be sacrificed. Almost eleven thousand soldiers died on November 11, 1918. That’s more men than died on the beaches of Normandy on D-day in World War Two, twenty-six years later.” He cracked his knuckles. “Politics beats out freedom, honor, and service every time. Don’t ever forget that.”
The monitors around the room flickered to life, scrolling the day’s announcements and breaking the spell that Dad held over his audience.
Bud glanced at the clock. “Bell rings in a few. When it does, all hell breaks loose around here.”
“Good to know.” Dad stood up. “You guys are pissed, aren’t you? You’re thinking I didn’t have the balls to answer your question.”
The dudes didn’t say anything.
“Killing people is easier than it should be.” Dad put on his beret. “Staying alive is harder.”
We made it to the flagpole just as the bell rang.
“I can find the truck on my own.” Dad wiped away the sweat on his forehead. “You should go to class.”
“I have second period free, remember? She wrote me a pass.”
“Very funny.”
I walked him to the end of the sidewalk. “See you tonight?”
“Yep.” He stepped off the curb without looking back.
“Thank you, Daddy,” I called.
He raised his arm so that I’d know he’d heard me, then jogged to the far edge of the student parking lot, where his truck stood isolated from all other vehicles. He opened the passenger door, took off his blue wool jacket, and laid it on the seat. He removed his beret and his tie, unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. He closed the door, went around, and got into the driver’s seat where he sat like a marble statue, his hands gripping the steering wheel, eyes focused on things that weren’t there.