“Take care.”
Jack jumped down from the truck at the edge of the driveway and waved off his ride. He didn’t know the driver, but the man was a local and had kindly offered him a ride when he’d come across Jack walking along the road, duffel slung over his back. The nearest bus station was five miles from his parents’ house, but five miles was nothing to feet that had covered a hundred, maybe a thousand times more over the last six and half years.
He’d heard the stories of men coming home from the war in other places, being greeted by protestors and signs vilifying their service. Thankfully, that wasn’t what he’d come home to. Granted, his return had been unannounced and low-key, but Pine Ridge was blissfully behind the times in terms of social “consciousness raising” awareness and moral outrage over American involvement in Vietnam.
Thank God. It had been hard enough as it was. If he’d stepped off the plane to a crowd of screaming, taunting protesters after what he’d endured, well... he didn’t know what he would have done. What he did know was, all he wanted was peace. Peace and the promise of waking up without facing another day of Hell.
Cold, white crystals drifted down and landed on his arms, his face. Snow. How long had it been since he’d seen real snow? How many times had he dreamed of it while he was away in the humid, tropical climate of Southeast Asia? It blanketed the lawn, frosted the trees and bushes; made the place look like a picture postcard.
He looked up to the sky, drawing in a full, bracing breath. Probably the first full breath he’d taken in years. The heavy, gun-metal gray clouds hanging low in the sky told him there would likely be more to come before long.
For one brief moment, he had the urge to fling himself down on the ground and roll around it in like he did when he was a kid. Him and Fitz and Brian, they used to live for days like this. They’d hover around the radio with fingers crossed, holding their breath until they heard the words: “Pine Ridge School District, closed.” They’d whoop and holler and minutes later, would meet each other outside, playfully arguing over who was going to ride the Flexible Flyer sled first. It would escalate to a snowball fight, and before long, they’d have built snow forts with three-foot walls...
Jack shook his head at the memory, both fond and bittersweet. Those days, like those carefree, innocent boys, were long gone.
Instead, Jack reached down and scooped some of the heavy wet stuff into his hand. So white. So cold. So familiar, yet not.
He stood there for a while, taking it all in. After all of these years, he was finally home.
Two and a half years, that’s how long it had been since he’d last been here. Since he’d seen his mother. Since he’d held Kathleen. It had been all he could think about, but now that he was here, he couldn’t seem to make his feet move forward.
He hadn’t planned on it taking this long, but life had tossed a few wrenches into the works. Within a month of returning to active duty, he and his unit had been ambushed and captured. For more than two years, he had been MIA, a POW, a “guest” of the enemy.
Did Kathleen and his mother even know that he was alive? Or had they believed the worst? Now that the war was officially over, did they continue to hold out any hope? Or had they moved on?
He knew what he wanted to believe, but the truth was, he wasn’t sure he believed in anything anymore.
It was why he hadn’t written, why he hadn’t called. Because if they had given up, if they had moved on, he hadn’t been ready to hear it. He still wasn’t ready, but after a couple of months in a hospital, it was time.
Jack forced one foot in front of the other, pushing himself forward. It was slow going, but he refused to use the cane they’d given him. Reuniting with his croie would be done on his own two feet, solely under his own power. The broken bones had healed, the open sores now closed over, but some pain lingered. It would take a while, but he would recover fully, the doctors had said. The scars, both mental and physical, would always remain.
He half expected the door to fly open any second, for Kathleen to widen those pretty green eyes in surprise and then launch herself at him, the way she used to. At least, that’s what he’d imagined happening thousands of times. Those mental images of returning to her, of keeping his promise, had sustained him through the worst of the worst.
But the door didn’t open, the curtains didn’t move. No one came running out of the house in joyous tears.