“Do you think Joey will be all right when he gets home?”
Marion observed her over the rim of her wineglass. “In what way?”
“I don’t mean physically. Nobody can predict that. But what about… the other thing? Will he be crazy? Will he be like one of those rubbies in the street?”
“Those ‘rubbies’ are people, Sassy. People who need help.”
“Sorry. You know what I mean.”
“I can’t say if Joey will come back all right. It varies with every man. Some of them live at home with their families.” She hesitated, deliberating what to say. “My father has had trouble for twenty years, and yet he has lived what many would consider a normal life.”
“I’m so sorry, Marion. Thank goodness he has you.”
Marion’s cheeks reddened. “I wasn’t always the most supportive daughter. When I was young, I felt embarrassed by him. I saw him as weak, which I suppose is natural. We’re used to men being, for lack of a better word, bulletproof.”
“But now you help him.”
“When I can.”
“If Joey comes back… that way… what can I do to help him?”
Marion let out a long breath. “I wish I had better answers for you, but that varies, too. You will have to wait and see what he needs.”
Would she still know him when he returned? Would he know her? Would there be room for her in his life? Would he even want her help? Would she know what to do?
Every time she wondered about how he would be, the inevitable question cut through the noise in her head. A question she would never ask out loud.
Wouldhe come home?
She dropped her gaze to her glass, not wanting Marion to see the doubt in her expression, but her friend seemed aware of most things that were going on around her. She probably knew exactly what Sassy was thinking.
“You have to think positively,” Marion said.
Sassy had been doing that for so long. Without any answers, it sometimes felt like she was lying to herself. But Marion was right. There was nothing else she could do about it, and living in fear would ruin her life.
So she ordered herself to be positive. Sassywouldsee Joey again. He would be all right, and even if he wasn’t, she would stick with him. She couldn’t let herself think any other way. She needed her brother, whoever he turned out to be.
seventeenMARION
Marion had never really had a best friend before. Pat had been the socialite in the family, the one invited to parties and wooed by football players. Marion hadn’t been interested in meeting people. Her mind craved facts, and she wanted little more than to learn. Everything. In high school, instead of sitting with friends, she spent her time in the school library, reading.
Marion had completed grades nine to thirteen, sheltered in that quiet haven. She had been happy, but she couldn’t deny having had moments of envy in those tender teenage years. Of sadness even, that she’d never bothered—or dared—to try anything else. At the end of school every day, she’d passed by the field, where students congregated in little clusters, but their conversations never interested her.
Sassy would have been one of those girls on the high school field, surrounded by friends. Had she carried her guitar to school and performed for them? With those dancing green eyes and her way of making people feel good, Marion had no doubt she would have been popular. Sassy had been right in the elevator: they probably never would have met if they’d been in school together.
Now that Marion was getting to know her, she could see what a waste that would have been. She’d never had a close friend, then all of a suddenSassy turned up, eager to get to know her. She left Sassy’s apartment on that first night with her arms full of books and her mind buzzing with input. The next Monday, Sassy came to her place after supper and exclaimed at all the differences in their decor, declaring that Marion’s plain white walls were calming.
A week after that, Marion was sipping wine and listening as Sassy stood by her record player, moving from one album to the next, carefully dropping the needle onto the songs she wanted to explain.
“This is ‘Early Morning Rain’ by Gordon Lightfoot,” Sassy told her, looking serious. “I actually heard him play a few years ago at the Purple Onion in Yorkville. He was in a duo then, called the Two Tones. His voice is kind of nasal, can you hear it? But his poetry’s great. Now this one,” she said, moving to the next record, then the next, leaving Marion in a contented stupor. The girl was a whirlwind, and even if Marion didn’t ingest all she was saying about the music, her energy was contagious. She made Marion long for a record player of her own.
Between the songs and the books and the wine, Sassy told Marion about Joey. Left without a mother, in the care of a father who had never stopped grieving, the children had formed a deep bond, finding security in childhood games, and trust when they needed it most. Joey’s decision to go to war had shattered Sassy. Some nights, she sobbed on Marion’s shoulder, thinking of him there, wondering if he was all right.
Marion never said it out loud, but she didn’t think he was. He might have found purpose, fighting communism with his band of “brothers,” but he would have lost so much more. Marion knew what that kind of violence could do to the body and mind of a man. Especially a good one. Sassy asked her once about the topic, wanting to know what she’d seen in her practice, but Marion had little to add to what Sassy already surmised. Men like Joey were not built to withstand the brutalities, the cruelties, the inhumanities of war.
But now Marion had a new source for answers: Daniel Neumann.
“How did you do it?” she asked him one day. “How did you keep going in the face of enemy fire? It goes against human nature not to flee a threat like that.”
