And that was how I got over the first hurdle. I still had to get out of the house later, and I still had to come back home alive.
I know you know what it’s like to come back home again after a deployment, Spence. I worked a long time after the desert to get my tender feelings back. And now they were killing me. All that afternoon, every time I looked at Emma I’d have to fight back the tears. Then again while all of us were sitting there having supper together. I kept looking at all of them and wondering, what if this is the last time I ever spend with you? Then I’d look at Cindy’s belly, what I could see of it above the table, and think about the tiny little baby in there, and wonder, will I ever get a chance to hold you?
I knew I had to man up and face the music, Spence, but Jesus I was feeling weak. All I really wanted was to gather my girls around me and pull up the covers and shut out the world.
And then I heard your voice. I swear I did. After dinner I’d sent the girls into the living room, so I was out in the kitchen alone, loading up the dishwasher and wiping off the counters. And that’s when I heard you. Brothers stand together, you said. You find yourself in a shit storm, you call on your brother.
I actually turned around and looked, because it sounded like you were right there beside me. I know I didn’t imagine it. And I knew exactly what you meant. It was probably the clearest thought I’d had all day. Before every mission you said the exact same thing to us. We weren’t in it alone, that’s what you were telling us. No matter how afraid and alone we felt, we had our brothers there with us. “Time to do the dance,” you always said. The dance with Death. The one dance we all danced together.
Of course I would’ve called you, Spence, if you’d been here to call. And you would’ve come running, I know that too. But only one other name came to me. I kept asking myself, who else? Who else do I know around here who’s been where we’ve been and done what we’ve done? And I kept coming back to the same one man. The one man I didn’t want to call.
He’d been through it too. A different place and a different time, but it was still the same dance, wasn’t it? The one only soldiers know.
Need your help, I texted Pops. Call me a little before nine and ask me to come see you. Will explain when I get there.
It started thundering around eight that night. Deep, rolling growls that kept getting closer and closer, then finally exploding into booms that made the girls squeal and pull the covers over their heads. I sat there on the edge of Dani’s bed, reading to them and making jokes about the thunder so they wouldn’t be too scared. I could hear Cindy out in the kitchen gathering up the candles and flashlights the way she always did when a storm hit at night.
After I got the girls tucked in I sat out on the couch with Cindy, just sitting there with my arm around her, both of us jumping every time lightning cracked and lit up the windows. When Pops’ call came we both jumped again. But by that time the thunder and lightning had given me an idea.
“I gotta go spend some time with Pops,” I told Cindy after I tucked the phone back in my pocket.
And it was like she had already read my mind. “It’s Vietnam again, isn’t it?” she said.
“He didn’t say as much but . . . yeah. That’s probably what it is.”
“Bring him back here if you want,” she said.
“Yeah, I think he probably wouldn’t want you or the girls to see him that way. You be okay for a few hours?”
She nodded. “I’m awfully glad you got over yours,” she said. “You have, right?”
“For the most part,” I said.
We hugged for a minute in the kitchen, then I went out to the garage. She watched me driving away. I could picture her walking through the house then, making sure all the doors and windows were locked, probably taking a cover off the bed so she could sit bundled up on the couch with her phone, the flashlights, and a big-ass butcher knife lined up on the coffee table.
The first thing Pops said to me was, “It’s about those McClaine boys, isn’t it?” He was fully dressed and ready to go, and he didn’t even know yet what was waiting for us. Still tough as nails after all these years. I filled him in on everything that had happened that week, and he kept getting madder and madder. “Let’s go,” he finally said.
“Pops, I’m doing this alone. I’m only telling you this so that, I don’t know, you can give me some advice or something. I felt like you should know about this in case things go bad for me.”
What I was really hoping for was that he would have some kind of miracle solution to everything. He didn’t.
“Things already went bad,” he said, and then he walked right out of his little apartment and into the hallway. “Pull the door shut,” he said.
I followed him to the front desk, where he signed himself out. “My son’s taking me out for some Chinese food and fast women,” he told the attendant. “Don’t wait up for me.”
She chuckled and gave me a wink. “Make sure you use a condom,” she said.
As soon as we were in the truck, Pops said, “Where you keeping my .30-30? Is it at your place?”
“It’s at your storage unit.”
“Let’s go then,” he said.
“I already been there, Pops. To get the money in that shoebox.” He looked down at it on the floor by his feet.
He gave it a little nudge with his foot. “You say it’s short?”
“I took some out to pay my ER bill.”
“Why in the world didn’t you come to me for a loan?”
“I should’ve, I know. I didn’t want you to know I was in trouble.”
“Let’s find us an ATM then.”
“It won’t be enough, Pops. There’s a limit on how much you can take out in one day.”
He sat there thinking for a minute. Gave the shoebox another nudge. “Money’s not all they’re going to be looking for tonight.”
“I know that,” I said.
He looked at me then—a long, hard look. “Take me to the storage unit. We’re not meeting those fellas unarmed.”
“I already told you, Pops. I don’t want you getting hurt. You can wait for me out in the truck while I deal with them.”
He wasn’t going to hear it. “You can get yourself that old revolver of mine too. “You’ll need something you can keep out of sight.”
I pointed at the glove box. “It’s in there.”
He opened the glove box, took out the .22 and checked to see it was fully loaded. “You bring extra ammo?”
“I forgot and left it at home.”