“Truth is, he saved our lives. Mine, and three other guys who got hurt. My leg—well, it was covered with parts of Albert, as well as dirt and metal.”
My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh, Charlie!”
He sat up and turned away, not wanting me to see him cry. For some reason this touched me more than the tears themselves. I watched him wipe his face with his fists, the same way he’d donewhen he fell off his bike in his front yard when he was seven, and my eyes grew wet, as well. I scooted toward him and put my hand on his arm.
“I relive it in my mind over and over,” he said. “I hear the thud of the grenade landing. I can hear John Ansom scream, ‘Live grenade!’ I remember feeling kind of frozen for a second, not sure what to do.” He wiped his face with the sleeve of his free arm and gazed at the river. “The whole time I was in the hospital, I wondered why Albert had done it. Why didn’t he just run, too?”
His throat worked and he drew a ragged breath. “There’s something else, I wonder, too. Something I can’t stop thinking about.” He closed his eyes for a long moment. “Why didn’tIthrow myself on it?”
“You can’t think like that, Charlie.”
“Why not? I was closer to it than Albert. He had to kind of shove me out of the way—out of harm’s way.” His throat moved again. “He had courage, and I didn’t.”
“You had plenty of courage, just being over there.”
“That’s not how it feels. And I’ve got to tell you, I’ve struggled with it. Still do. And I hate everyone treating me like a hero, when the truth is, I’m a damned coward.”
His expression reminded me of how he’d looked in first grade, when one of the older boys had called him a sissy for not fighting when they tripped him on the school bus. I’d stood up for him then, and I felt the same tug to do it now. “Listen to me, Charlie McCauley. You are, too, a hero. You were over there in a trench, fighting for freedom, and you were wounded. And that makes you a hero, absolutely and positively.”
He shook his head.
“I bet you were trained to run when a grenade is thrown, correct?”
He slowly nodded.
“Well, then, you did the right thing, the absolute right thing, the thing you were trained to do. And it must have been harder foryou than for the others, because you were sick and weak with dysentery. So don’t you waste one more moment of your life thinking you’re anything less than the hero you are. Do you understand me, Charlie?”
A lone tear tracked down his cheek. He brushed it away and pressed his eyes tight together.
“Tell me you understand,” I demanded.
He opened his eyes, gave a slight smile, and snapped a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
I grinned at him. “That’s more like it.”
“Boy, you’re beautiful when you’re bossy.” He reached out and touched my hair. “You have such a way about you, a way of making everything better.” He twisted my hair strand around his finger. His eyes glowed with a soft love light, so adoring and tender that it made me queasy to know I would hurt him. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Addie. Thinking about you was what pulled me through. And now—well, I can hardly believe you’re here.”
A torrent of love poured from his eyes. He was about to kiss me.
I couldn’t let that happen. I abruptly lifted my fingers from his arm and shifted away. I tried to hide the awkwardness of the moment with a bright smile. “You meanyou’rehere. You’re home! And everyone is so happy and relieved.”
“Everyone?” His gaze practically burned my face. “Areyouhappy and relieved?”
“Of course.” I busied myself opening the picnic basket.
“Happy and relieved enough to marry me?”
My hands froze on the picnic lid. “Oh, Charlie... no.”
“Because of my foot?”
“Of course not!”
“I’m getting special shoes. They say that after a while, I won’t even have much of a limp.”
“Oh, Charlie—that’s wonderful. But that has nothing to do with this.”
Silence pulsed between us. Blue jays chattered in the trees, anda car motor purred down the road behind us. I opened the picnic basket and pulled out a covered dish of fried chicken just to have something to do.
