A cheer rose up from the crowd, a thunderous applause.
Someone else stepped up to the podium. A grizzled, old-before-his-time vet in stained fatigues. “Thank you for finally remembering us.”
Reporters and cameramen pushed through the crowd, seeking statements for the nightly news.
Frankie drifted down the sloping grass, drawn to the Wall. She saw women holding framed photographs of the men they’d lost, and a teenager wearing his father’s too-big dress uniform.
As she neared the mirror of black granite, she saw her own reflection—a skinny, long-haired woman in fatigues and a boonie hat—superimposed over the names of the fallen. She glanced down the black line, saw men in uniform standing tall in front of it, while women knelt before it, children and parents at their sides.
“Frances.”
She turned and saw her parents moving toward her.
“You came,” Frankie said, overwhelmed with emotion.
Her mother held a framed photograph of Finley to her chest. Dad held tightly on to Mom’s other hand. “I wanted to see his name,” Mom said quietly. “My son. He would want me here.”
The three of them moved as one to the Wall, searched the names and dates.
There he was.
Finley O. McGrath.
Frankie reached out to touch the stone; to her surprise, it was warm. She traced the etching of her brother’s name, remembering the sound of his laughter, the way he teased her, the stories he read her before bed. I’m going to be a great American novelist … Here, Frankie, that’s your wave. Paddle hard. You got it.
“Hey, Fin,” she said.
It felt good, to think of him as he was, as he’d been. Not just as a casualty of war, but as a beloved brother. For too many years, all she’d thought of was his death; now, at the Wall, she remembered his life.
She heard her mother crying, and the soft, wrenching sound of it brought tears to Frankie’s eyes, too, blurred her vision.
“He’s here,” Frankie said. “I feel him.”
“I always feel him,” her mother said in a voice that held on to sorrow. Beside her, Dad stood rigid, his jaw clenched, afraid even here to show his grief.
“Ma’am?”
Frankie felt someone tap on her shoulder and say again, “Ma’am?”
She turned.
The man who’d tapped her shoulder was maybe her age, with long sideburns and a straggly beard. He wore torn and stained fatigues. He pulled off his boonie hat, which held patches from the 101st. “Ma’am, were you a nurse over there?”
Frankie almost asked how he knew; then she remembered that she was wearing her fatigues and boonie hat, and her winged ANC pin.
“I was,” she said, studying the man, trying to remember him. Had she held his hand or written a letter for him, or taken a picture with him or brought him a glass of water? If she had, she didn’t recall it.
She felt her father step closer to her. “Frankie, do you—”
Frankie held up a hand for silence. For once, her father complied.
The soldier reached out to hold her hand, stared into her eyes. In that moment, on the Mall ground, with the Wall shining beside them, the two of them shared it all—the horror, the grief, the pain, the pride, the guilt, the camaraderie. She thought, Here we are, for the first time since the war, all of us together.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, and she nodded and let him go.
Frankie felt her father’s gaze on her.
She turned, looked up at him, saw the tears in his eyes. “Finley loved his service, Dad. We wrote letters all the time. He found himself over there. You don’t need to feel guilty.”
“You think I feel guilty for urging my son to go to war? I do. It’s a thing I live with.” He swallowed hard. “But I feel more guilt about how I treated my daughter when she came home.”
Frankie drew in a sharp breath. How long had she waited to hear those words from him?
“You’re the hero, aren’t you, Frankie?”
Tears blurred her vision. “I don’t know about a hero, Dad, but I served my country. Yeah.”
“I love you, Peanut,” he said in a rough voice. “And I’m sorry.”
Peanut. God, he hadn’t called her that in years.
Frankie saw him crying and wished she knew the perfect words to say, but nothing came to her. Life was like that, she guessed; it was all wrong until suddenly it was right, and you didn’t really know how to react in either instance. But she knew love when she saw it, and it filled her. “I don’t know about heroism,” she said. “But I saw a lot of it. And…” She drew in a deep breath. “I’m proud of my service, Dad. It’s taken me a long time to say that. I’m proud, even if the war never should have happened, even if it went to hell.”
Her father nodded. She could see that he wanted more from her, absolution maybe, but there was time ahead for that.
This. Here. Was her time. Her moment. Her memories.
She left her parents standing in front of Finley’s name, and walked along the Wall, looking for 1967–1969, seeing the flowers and pictures and yearbooks that were being set up at the base of the black granite. She saw a Gold Star Mother standing beside a pair of confused-looking teenagers trying to construct their lost father from letters carved into granite.
She followed the line of names, looking for Jameson Callahan—
“McGrath.”
Frankie stopped.
He stood in front of her. Tall and gray-haired, with a jagged scar along one side of his face and a pants leg that ruffled against a prosthetic.
“Jamie.”
He pulled her into his arms, whispering, “McGrath,” again, into her ear.
Just that, being called McGrath again, hearing his voice, feeling his breath on her neck, sent her back to the O Club, beaded curtain clattering, the Beatles singing, Jamie asking her to dance. “Jamie,” she whispered. “How—”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small gray stone that read:
YOU FIGHT
MCGRATH.
The stone she’d been given by the young Vietnamese boy in the orphanage, and which she’d slipped into Jamie’s duffel bag. “It was a hellhole over there and worse when we got home,” he said quietly, “but you got me through it, McGrath. Remembering you got me through.”
“I saw you die.”
“I died lots of times,” he said. “They kept dragging me back. I was in bad shape for a long time. My injuries … Christ, look at me…”
“You are still as handsome as ever,” Frankie said, unable to look away.
“My ex-wife would disagree.”
“You’re not—”
“It’s a long, sad story with a happy ending for both of us. I stayed with her for years. We had another baby. A girl. She’s nine, and a real spitfire.” He stared down at her. “Her name is Frances.”
Frankie didn’t know how to respond; it was hard to draw a breath.
“How about you?” he said, trying to smile. “Married, with kids?”
“No,” Frankie said. “Never married. No kids.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly; he of all people knew how much she’d wanted that life.
“It’s okay. I’m happy.”
She gazed up at him. On his face, she saw all that he’d been through: the jagged jawline scar, the pucker of skin along one ear, the sadness in his eyes. His blond hair was long now, threaded with gray, a reminder that they’d been young once together, but weren’t anymore, that there were scars on both of them. Wounds that remained, seen and unseen.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he said in a cracked, scratchy voice.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Frankie said. “You could have found me.”
“I wasn’t ready. It’s been rough. Healing.”
“Yeah,” Frankie said. “For me, too.”
“But we’re here now,” he said. “You and me, McGrath. Finally.”
He gave her a smile that made her feel young again. For a moment, time fell away; they were Frankie and Jamie again, walking through camp, keeping each other upright, sharing their lives, laughing and crying together, loving each other.