His face had healed considerably over the years. He had been wholly unprepared for that initial moment at the hospital in Texas, when they unwrapped the bandages. His reflection could have been Mars for all intents and purposes, as there was nothing he remembered of his former self. The skin was mottled and his face, once bronzed from the sun in Vietnam, the cheeks that Becky had caressed and kissed, had all been burned to an unrecognizable canvas. But now the skin, although damaged and half of his face was clearly deformed, was hardly as bad as it had been when he’d first arrived at the hospital.
He hated thinking of his former self. The photographs he had from his younger days had been put away, though he did still have that single photograph of Becky and him beside his bed. He would hold it between his hands sometimes when he was feeling especially bad about things. On those nights time stood still in a different way from his night terrors or memories of Vietnam. It was like peeking into a time capsule of another life, its jagged edges softened like sea glass in his palm. He could peer into it and remember what it was like to be touched. To be loved.
Oddly enough, his face had actually helped another veteran heal, or at least enabled an old man to finally put a painful memory to rest. Jack came to consider their brief interaction together sacred, for not onlyhad it between two people who knew the horrors of war, but the man was also Tom’s father.
He met the senior Golden early on in his friendship with Tom. In the weeks that followed after he had lost his job at Foxton, he offered to visit Harry at the veterans home while Tom was busy at the store. He was happy to make himself useful with so much extra time on his hands.
“You’d really pay him a visit? Maybe read to him or something?”
“It’ll be my pleasure,” he told Tom. “I don’t have much else to keep me busy these days.”
That afternoon he went to visit Harry, Jack tried to make himself look halfway decent. He wore a pair of khaki pants and a button-down shirt he had bought for himself at the Salvation Army. He brought the most recent copy ofNational Geographic, thinking Harry might enjoy hearing about the Aboriginal people in Australia. He thought the photographs of the warriors with their hunting spears and native jewelry might spark some interesting conversation.
He knew the layout of the veterans hospital very well, having gone for countless appointments to appraise his scar tissue and healing.
Harry’s room was at the end of the corridor, number 707, as Tom had written down for him.
But when he entered Harry’s room, Jack found a man who had no interest in the magazine underneath his arm.
Harry, tucked underneath a yellow blanket with pillows propped behind his head, turned to greet him. An old Bulova military watch was strapped to his wrist as he waved hello.
“Jim? Jimmy Connelly? Hell, is that you?” Harry piped up, a flash of excitement washed over the old man’s face. “Why, I thought you didn’t make it.… All I saw was that pant leg and boot after your jeep exploded.…” He squinted at Jack, tears pooling in his eyes.
“Jesus Christ.” Harry shook his head. “You have no idea how happy it makes me to see you survived.”
Jack stood near his bed, frozen, not sure whether he should tell Harry that he wasn’t his old friend Jimmy or instead allow the man a chance to revisit someone he clearly cared about and kept trapped in memory all these years.
“Guess you got wounded pretty bad, though.” He touched his face and looked sympathetically at the man standing across from him.
“Yeah, I did,” Jack answered honestly.
“Sit down.” Harry patted his bed. “I don’t get many visitors who’ve been through what we’ve been through. The only people who stop by are my son and his family.”
Jack shook his head. “I know it’s tough to find someone who gets what we’ve been through.”
“Yes,” Harry nodded. “It really is. I’m always waking my wife, Rosie, with my bad dreams, but I’d never tell her what they’re about. Why upset her? Right?”
“Uh-huh.” Jack knew far too well what it was like to wake up screaming in the middle of the night. Even if he did have someone to share his bed with, he was sure he’d never burden another soul with what was inside of him.
“I brought you a magazine, I could read it to you if you want.…” he offered, trying to bring something more lighthearted into the conversation. He lifted the cover so Harry could see. “Thought the photographs looked pretty interesting.…”
Harry peered over and shrugged. “I’m just happy to see you’re still alive, Jimmy. Can’t tell you how much I’ve thought about you over the years.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at Jack more closely. “That burn seems pretty bad.” He lowered his voice. “I’m real sorry about that. No one gets the war out here.…” He tapped his head. “But you have it written all over your face.…”
Jack’s eyes fell. Harry’s mental deterioration had put him beyond polite small talk, but ironically it enabled him to speak the truth more freely.
“It’s not easy, that’s for sure,” Jack answered.
“Yeah. I get the worst nightmares sometimes. I wake up thinking I’m standing in front of corpses. Still got that smell in my nose.” Harry touched the edge of his nostrils. “You know that stench of death.”
“Yes,” Jack said. It wasn’t something one could ever forget.
“And, God, I saw you go up in flames.… I didn’t know how you’d ever survive that.…”
Jack felt his stomach flip.
“It wasn’t easy. A lot of surgeries. A lot of rehabilitation.”
“I can imagine,” Harry sympathized.
