“To say thank-you. Just like I said.” He shifted, uncomfortable before her noncommittal consideration. “Youprobably don’t even remember me,” he said. “Chu Lai was a hoppin’ place back in ‘69. I was brought in on November15 from up near An Dien.”
“You were with Americal division?”
He shook his head. “First Marines. Not a whole lot of usleft down there by then. We were with a CAG unit.” She nodded at that, and he went on, needing to tell her. Needing it for years now. “We’d been out on recon and hadpicked up a prisoner a couple of klicks out who had info ona big operation that was being planned. On the way back,five of us got caught out in the middle of a paddy. I sent therest of the platoon on with the prisoner, but I was stuck.Three of my men were dead, and Smitty—my radioman—was unconscious. And, uh, I couldn’t get very far, either. SoI tried to wait it out until the weather cleared enough to callin support. The dust-off brought me to the Ninety-first. Youtook care of me.”
“But I took care of a lot of guys, Mr. Riordan.”
“Tony, please.”
She inclined her head a little, her smile soft. “Tony.”
He cast a look down at his hands and sought the wordsthat would convey what she had given him.
“I tried to die,” he said. “I wanted to. I was responsiblefor those three men, and I knew Smitty wasn’t going to make it. I’d made up my mind that I was going home in abag.” He looked up to catch a sheen in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “You wouldn’t let me. I don’t remembermuch about that time. I don’t really remember participating until I was in Japan. But I remember you. I rememberyou held my hand and you yelled at me and you clobberedme on the jaw and you told me that I wasn’t going to die on you. I had to come back and tell you that it worked. I didn’tdie.”
Her hands fluttered, and Tony noticed that the only ring they carried was an old opal on her right hand. She looked away for a second, down at the delicate china in her lap, atthe eddies she created in her tea with her distracted movement. Tony waited, not sure what he wanted, knowing he’dmade her terribly uncomfortable. Suddenly beset by theoverwhelming feeling of dislocation.
This shouldn’t have been happening here in this civilized place. It should have happened at The Wall, when the windwas so cold it chapped your skin and the skies were heavyand gray. It should have happened in the shadow of the statue, those men he knew so well and had left lying in adeadly swamp in the middle of nowhere.
Not here.
And yet, when she lifted her face again, her eyes were fullwith the kind of gentleness he thought she might have bestowed on him all those long years ago when he hadn’t been able to see her.
“Thank you,” she said simply. “It’s been a long timesince I’ve even thought about it. I’m glad I did somebodysome good.”
“Oh, you did,” he told her. “You did.”
Tony had the night to think about it as he drove back toAtlanta. He thought about it as he sat outside his housewhen he pulled up and when he sat alone in his kitchenoverlooking the pond before Gina woke up. He thoughtabout it as he told her what had happened and later as hetold his friends.
He thought about it and he realized that maybe Gina hadbeen right when she’d said you can’t go back to the block.It was more than wearing the boonie hats and sharing old stories and remembering all the good times, as well as the moments that still woke you up sweating. It was more thancelebrating the ones who came away, as well as the ones leftbehind.
Claire Maguire Henderson had been hospitable to him. She’d recovered from the shock to share some stories andhear about the man who had come into that hospital with him and then been shipped home in a metal box. She’d laughed that old laugh and then brought him out of that office to introduce him to the pixie in the black, who hadapologized for her impetuous drama. She’d introduced himto a behemoth of a human in an apron and gold earring whowas, indeed, named Peaches, and to the teenage boy in the picture, whose name was Johnny and who lost interest inTony the minute he found out Tony hadn’t been a pilot.She’d acquiesced to his request for a tour of the entire inn,and she’d heard about Gina and the life Tony led in Atlanta, where he ran the construction company his father hadleft him.
When he made it home and Gina appeared in the kitchenin her robe to brew them some coffee and bestow daughter’s kisses, Tony found himself telling her all this with anexpression of bemusement. He looked out onto the still,deep pond at the back of his house and thought about peaceand knew he still hadn’t found it.
And so it was that two days later, instead of pulling outthe barbecue pit like everybody else in Atlanta and toasting the advent of summer, or closeting himself in front of CNNlike the other half to watch the misunderstanding that was escalating to war, he got back in his sports car and headedback to Virginia.
He couldn’t say why. He couldn’t explain it to Gina or theguys who called from the vet center or his brother Pauly, whom he’d left in charge of the company. He just knew hehad to get back to that comfortable old inn near the banks of the James River.
By the time he pulled up, he’d driven through a hell of athunderstorm. Tony liked thunderstorms, but he only likedthem when he was outside, when he could see that it was astorm. His brain told him he was driving through the hillsof Virginia, just as his radio and his map told him. But everyonce in a while, instincts bred a lifetime ago caught himwondering just what was hiding beneath that dense, green canopy of trees. And thunderstorms, with the sudden noiseand shattering light, only made it worse.
The sun had long since set by the time he found the inn.The building was dark and silent, with only a couple oflights on in the old brick carriage house that sat tucked awayin the trees behind the parking lot. He had no businesscoming back here. He’d already harassed this womanenough. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. Evenso, he shut off his motor and opened the door onto thesound of crickets and early night birds and the rumble of distant thunder that still lit up the horizon in sporadic fingers of light. He limped up the walk lined in freshly plantedimpatiens and pansies, and he knocked on the heavy greencarriage house door.
There was no answer. Tony looked around to see a hot redlittle car tucked away to the back by what looked like a garage. That probably meant there was a back door that wasused more than the front. He stepped off the porch andwalked around back. Somewhere a cat mewed. Deeper intotown, a dog or two noticed the scrunch of his feet on gravel and barked, but here only the crickets broke the silence.
It was so quiet here. So isolated and green.
Tony stepped up onto the narrow porch that spanned theback of the house and tapped on the kitchen door. Throughthe window to his right, he could see herbs hanging inbunches over the sink and the glint of copper pots fartheralong the wall. He saw the flicker of light from a TV screenin the darkened room and heard the stutter of gunfire andon-the-scene commentating. He saw the shape of a bottle onthe counter, and another lying empty next to it.
It was the TV that betrayed her. Its light fell on her like afaulty spotlight.
Tony didn’t think anything about opening the door. Before he had a chance to admit to himself that he was breaking and entering, that he had no business being in thiswoman’s house, he was all the way across the pristine whitekitchen floor to where she was crouched against the wall.
Crouched. With her back wedged into a corner and herhands at her ears. Shaking. Staring.
Oh, God. That was what had been wrong. That had beenwhat he’d sensed all along.
Tony came just so close and no closer. He saw the ghostof televised light sap the color from her skin and turned toflip off the Technicolor destruction she’d been facing. Thenhe hunkered down himself so he could be at eye level and nohigher. He didn’t even realize that his heart had begun tothunder in his chest.
“Claire?” he said, his voice nothing more than a murmur.
She was wearing scrubs. He noticed now. Her hair was pulled back, only one or two strands hanging loose abouther face, and there was an empty tumbler lying on its side byher bare feet on the floor.
“Lieutenant Maguire? It’s all clear now, ma’am. You’reokay.”
Finally she lifted her gaze to him, fixed him with thosesweet, soft blue eyes he’d searched for for twenty years ormore. Only now those eyes were a wasteland Tony recognized with dreadful certainty.
“You bastard,” she sobbed, broken and shaking. “Thisis all your fault.”
