Chapter 14
Tony held her, but he couldn’t help her. He murmured toher, but she stood deaf, her body shaking with the memoryof the one boy who had been too much. An eighteen-year-old who had died on his birthday, and Claire left behind tohold her friend in her arms.
Above them, the sun winked in and out of clouds, and thebreeze rustled the trees that crowded the shoreline. Trafficdroned in the distance, and somewhere a ship bleated amournful call. Tony heard these things and didn’t move. Hejust held Claire in his arms and let his heart break.
He’d seen what she’d brought with her from that oldsteamer trunk. It had been sitting on the front seat next toher, a clear plastic bag filled with brightly colored bars.Swatches of ribbon, pressed metal in old colors.
Her medals. Her service ribbons. She’d brought them outthe night before and carried them away with her.
Johnny had been right. She did have the Purple Heart. She had it lying right atop the yellow-and-red-and-greenVietnam campaign bar. Hidden away beneath her babythings and wedding memories all these years. Closed in anold trunk.
Tony understood. The day he’d come home from Vietnam, he’d closed up his ribbons and medals in a box and leftthem in the bottom drawer of his mother’s breakfront. Hehadn’t worn them on his service uniform for the rest of histour or brought them out on Veterans Day. He hadn’t evenhad the courage to look at them for another fifteen years.
“Now you know,” she said, her voice flat and empty.“You know why I didn’t want to see you, why I’ve avoidedThe Wall like the plague. Why I’d rather just get on with mylife and leave the rest where it belongs. Not a very worthy story, but all I have.”
Tony pulled back just enough to see her face. There wasdesolation there, a wasteland of loathing and recriminationthat was directed only one place.
“Because you tried too hard and had to face too much?”
“Because I should never have tried. Because I ended up hating it. Hating them all, every boy who came in beggingfor help, every villager who wanted treatment for her baby,every fenuge who hadn’t had the time to learn how to put on a helmet and clamp an artery at the same time during an attack. Every short-timer who was going home before I was.”
“And then you came home and found you wanted to goback.”
She closed her eyes again, turned away.
“It won’t stay there,” he told her. “You know that.”
She straightened, literally pulling herself together. “It willif you leave me alone.”
Tony had never heard harsher words in his life. He struggled to keep his voice calm in the face of what he realizednow would be the worst nightmare he could face. “I can’tleave you alone, Claire. I haven’t been able to since the moment I saw your eyes.”
She all but shoved him away. “You got me confused witha voice you heard a long time ago.”
“No, I didn’t.” He reached out to her, caught hold before she could get away. “I found someone I hadn’t expected at all.”
She trembled in his hold, her hair lifting from her face, her eyes so sad and lost. Tony wanted the right words, the right action that would take her away from this place, thisempty, lonely place she thought she deserved.
“Let me take you home, Claire,” he pleaded. “Let metake you to find your friends and find what you lost.”
“I can’t....”
“You have to.”
She shook her head, tried to pull away. “I have an inn torun. A job to do. I have children who need me there with them, who need me to be stable and understanding andsupportive.” Finally her eyes flared, and Tony saw thedepths of her real fear. “They onlyhaveme,” she insisted.“No relatives, no father, nothing. Just me to make sure everything’s all right. If I let you drag me into this...”
“You’ll end up like Sam?”
The question was a quiet one. It seemed to strike her likea physical blow. Again she closed her eyes, as if the lightwere too bright, as if Tony were too close. “He went to TheWall,” she whispered. “He went to group therapy and the storefront counselors who said they knew what he’d been through. He let them talk him into thinking that if he just told them about what he felt, it would get better.”
Her eyes opened now, and Tony felt their heat like a highsun. “Well, it didn’t get better. He walked right up The Walland put his hand against it, as if it had some magic powerto heal him. He went in real close so he could see all thenames and he cried, and then he came home and he drankuntil he couldn’t see and he killed himself.”
“You’ve never gotten that close, have you?”
She didn’t answer. Just glared, as if the words were too terrible, as if the emotions were so strong they locked uptogether trying to force themselves free.
“You went to The Wall,” Tony told her, still holding on,knowing that if he let go he’d lose her. “But you were a treevet, weren’t you, Claire? You stayed back up the hill whereit was safe. Back in the grove where you didn’t have to seethe families and the other vets who were crying. Where youcould say you’d paid your respects and put your demons tosleep, but you didn’t have to get really close enough to seethe names.”
“Yes.” The answer was an anguished whisper. “Yes! Iwas supposed to go, wasn’t I? Everyone was supposed to go,so I did. I did my time, and now I want to go home!”
