Stu exhaled deeply. “Rest in peace, brother.”
“He should have waited,” Hal said. “G-G-God told me weeks ago that we would go home soon. Joey didn’t b-b-believe me.” He guffawed. “God said he was sending an angel. I never expected it’d be you, D-Danny.”
“I heard the First Battalion was in the area,” Daniel said, “but I wasn’t sure who might still be in it. And I had no idea you’d been locked up.”
“He never forgot any of you,” Marion told them, recalling the stories Daniel had told her in his hospital room. Hal was from Ohio, she remembered. He farmed cattle with his dad, the only boy of four siblings. Stu was smaller than the others and rapidly losing what remained of his hair. He was from Seattle. Planned to be a lawyer.
And Joey. Sassy’s sweet Joey, with those beautiful green eyes, just like his sister’s, dreaming of baseball.
Bao radioed the hospital, and everything Marion requested was delivered within the next hour or so. When they were stable enough, the three men were brought back to the surgical hospital in Da Nang. Stu needed to be carried most of the way, and the other two took frequent breaks to rest, but Hal never stopped talking. Now that it had sunk in that they were truly free, Joey’s eyes were bright with relief, looking so much like his sister it took Marion’s breath away.
In the hospital, their bodies received much-needed fluid and medicine, and their heads rested on soft pillows. Marion and Daniel returned to the VPVN compound, and Marion finally collapsed into her own cot, dead tired, though she knew she would not sleep for a while. The psychiatrist in her wanted to sort through everything, to understand how and why she felt euphoria and dread simultaneously. Why she wanted to cry for days then dance for joy. Then she thought of Sassy, remembering how her friend could live in the moment in such a magical way. Marion wanted that. She took a deep breath then let everything out. Instead of analyzing it all, she decided to just feel it.
Daniel saw the change in her. She knew he did. He tucked her into her bed then left, but in the morning he returned. They went for breakfast, and he waited for her to begin speaking.
“I think I understand you a little better now,” she said.
“Me?”
“What happened back there keeps coming back to me, whether I want to relive it or not. I think I’m fine, busy with something else, and suddenly I’m in the dark, experiencing what happened all over again. I’m shaking in the bush, waiting for someone to kill me. I’m feeling that gun against the back of my head. I wonder if that fear will ever go away.”
“You’ll move away from it,” he assured her. “But like I said a long time ago, if you aren’t at least a little bit scared, you are putting yourself in danger. Not just in Vietnam.”
“I still feel my pistol firing when I killed him.” She held up her hands. They were shaking noticeably. “And I can’t forget what I saw. It’s so real, I still smell the gunpowder, the smoke from when you shot—”
She hung her head, ashamed. She had seen everything: the cool assurance in Daniel’s expression, the astonishment in the other man’s. The moment when the bullet struck and burst through his back, ending his life. How the dead man had flailed backward, out of time.
Why did it matter so much to her? Why was it stuck in her mind? Because it was Daniel. The contradiction between the gentle affection in his eyes and his detached ability to kill a human being was hard to reconcile.
How could she, when she was in love with him?
“I can’t help it, Daniel. I keep seeing what you did. You were so calm.”
“So were you, Marion,” he said slowly, but there was no judgement in his expression. “You watched me like a cat the whole time you put your gun behind you. You kept me in place. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t. Probably killed us both. You understand you did the best thing, right?”
She’d been deafened by the shot, which she appreciated later, because she never heard the man’s dying sounds. “I… I don’t know yet.”
“This is war, Marion. What you did, it had to be done.”
It had to be done.It had been either him or her. Or Daniel. The knot in her throat broke free. “I don’t know how to feel,” she sobbed.
“You’ll get through this,” he said, holding her again. “I’ll help you, like you did for me.”
The rescued prisoners slept solidly for two full days. Between that and fallingasleep again, they ate everything they saw. On the third morning, Marion was back to work in the operating rooms. When she walked past the area where the men were staying, she saw Daniel sitting with them. He touched his eye patch self-consciously, and they all laughed at something. It was the sound of brothers.
Marion paused, mesmerized. From where she stood, his shoulders looked smaller, then she realized it wasn’t size but rigidity. All this time, just like he had said, he had needed to see his brothers. Now they were together, the survivors, at least. And it was time to bring them home.
A thought struck her. These were American marines. Was it right to bring them to Canada? What did she need to do about that?
On his cot, Stu said something then dropped his chin, and Daniel reached out to pat his back. His brother smiled sheepishly in return, and a rumble of male, self-conscious laughter travelled to her.
Marion would figure out the politics later. Right now, these men needed each other.
She was about to move away from the door when Joey’s gaze caught hers. “Thank you,” he mouthed.
She smiled, feeling a rush of anticipation. She couldn’t wait to bring him to Sassy. To see her best friend in his arms, laughing and crying with him. It was more than she had dared to dream about this voyage.
On the night before they were to fly out of Vietnam, the midnight sky sparkled with stars, and for once, the air was clear of explosions, a strangely hollow vacuum without the jagged rhythm of death being shot into it. Daniel led Marion to a quiet spot overlooking the water, then he stood behind her, arms around her waist. She rested her head back on his chest, listening to his heartbeat and blinking at the sky.
