“I am grateful to you, too,” she said and knelt down and patted Hendrix lightly on his back. “You save my B?o. He safe because of you.”
In that second, Jack felt a softening of his shame and the embarrassment of his scars and humble circumstances melt away.
“Do you want to come in?” He surprised himself by the offer. “I mean, I never have people over, but I could make you a cup of tea or something.…” He lifted the basket of fruit and his face twisted into a smile. “It’s awfully nice of you to have brought me this.”
“Yes.” She dipped her head and followed him inside. “Thank you.”
The cushions on the soft brown leather couch that had followed him from his apartment in Foxton barely sunk under Anh’s delicate frame. With her hands folded elegantly in her lap, she looked around the sparse room for clues about this man who she knew so little about, other than he wore his suffering on his face. His scars, she knew, were a result from serving in the American War, his pain tethered to a place she once called her home—and she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with that knowledge. But Anh could do nothing but accept his wounds as a terrible fact she had no power to change.
As he went to boil a kettle of water on the stove, she looked around and noticed how few possessions he had. A hanging plant with ropes of heavy green leaves dangled from the ceiling, a stack of records was neatly placed by his stereo, there was a cardboard box that look liked it had recently been rummaged through, containing some papers and a purple medal on top. But in the corner of the room, where his bed laywith the coverlet pulled hastily to the top, there was a photograph of a young man with his arm thrown around the shoulder of a girl with long brown hair.
She took the cup of steaming hot tea between her two hands and breathed in the fragrant vapor with closed eyes.
“This smells good,” she said, blowing on the rim of the mug before she drank.
“It’s just Lipton,” he laughed. “But I like it.”
She lifted her cup for another sip and smiled.
“You are kind man,” Anh said. “I wish I could do more to thank you. Or thank Grace and her family.”
Jack sat back in the hard dining room chair he had pulled closer to the sofa. “Ever since I moved here”—he lifted one hand and gestured around the apartment—“from the moment I started working nights downstairs … I’ve thought the same thing … how can I thank them for everything they’ve done for me?”
She nodded and her eyes wettened. “It so hard at first when we get here. To be alone. Then B?o run away, and I feel …” She placed her cup down on his wooden coffee table. “I feel I fail him.”
In Anh’s company, Jack felt his typical steely veneer soften. Was it because they were relative strangers that they could be this open with each other? He wasn’t sure, but something in him welcomed being able to speak so freely.
“You didn’t fail him.” Jack leaned forward and put his hands on the table. “I think you’re very brave just to have even come to a new place. You study to learn a new language, to build a new life.…”
Anh looked down and knotted her hands. None of the things Jack described were the hardest things she had endured.
“My husband, the men they beat him. Killed him. My baby died soon later. If you not find B?o, I lose him too.” She bit her lip andtried not to let her tears fall. “You lose wife, girlfriend, too, Jack?” She pointed to the lone picture frame.
The silence that followed was thick as smoke. Jack lifted his tea to his lips and swallowed, his eyes staring into his cup. “Yes and no, I suppose,” he finally answered. He hadn’t spoken about Becky to anyone for years now, and yet she was still a part of his daily existence, never far from his every thought.
“She wasn’t my wife, but I loved her.” Jack placed the mug down and his eyes drifted toward the hanging plant. Did he dare unburden himself to this woman who was only starting to learn English, who he knew for far less time than he did Grace or Tom? Even they did not know his story fully.
“She didn’t die, and I didn’t lose her, exactly.” He took a deep breath. Then another. “I know exactly where she is.”
CHAPTER 69
HE TELLS HER SLOWLY ABOUT HOW HE’S ONLY EVER LOVEDone girl. Becky with the warm, bottomless eyes, the smile that could light up a room …
“Back in Vietnam, I used to tell my buddy Doc that Becky was like sunshine at midnight.” He swallowed hard. Saying Doc’s name with hers was almost too much for him to handle without breaking down.
“I called her after my last burn treatment. But I wasn’t exactly truthful with her.” He lifted a finger up to his face. “As you can imagine, this isn’t easy to look at.… It’s a lot for someone to take in and not get sick to their stomach.” He took another painful breath. “And spending a life with a monster … well, who’d ever be up for that?”
Anh put her teacup down. Her eyes didn’t waver from Jack’s face.
“So I made up a story. I told her I had a friend who’d had a serious injury to his face and asked if I could bring him home to live with us. But she didn’t like the idea too much. Let’s just say she told me she only wanted her ‘handsome Jack’ home.” He slid back in the chair. “And I ain’t too pretty now, as you can see.”
Anh wrinkled her brow, trying to concentrate and comprehend Jack’s every word. “Maybe I don’t understand. You never let her have a try? You never let this Becky see you when you come home from war?”
“No.”
“This story so sad. You never see her again?”
“I didn’t say that.…”
