A Promise of Fireflies (17 page)

“Before I begin, shall we refresh our coffee? Mine has gone quite cold.”

And my heart
.

“However,” he said rising cautiously, “I do believe a bit of the Godiva liqueur is called for. Mocha. I shall add a splash. Warms from inside out and is quite soothing, like whiskey for a teething baby.”

Ambrose returned, the aroma of chocolate rising with the steam from the mugs. He sipped the hot liquid. “Ah, yes. Most delightful. I have a bit of a passion for chocolate. As did your mother.”

Ryleigh took the mug in both hands but remained quiet, her mother’s fondness for chocolate one of the more trivial things she did know. She took a sip and swallowed, the liquor stout and soothing. The sudden warmth bathed her in artificial courage from fingertip to toe.

Ambrose cleared his throat. “When Ryan and Eleanor began seeing each other Ben never admitted how much he loved her alleging it was merely a passing infatuation. But Ryan suspected. Ah, yes, he knew. In the jungles of Vietnam, Ben would read Eleanor’s letters aloud, but Ryan never reciprocated. He knew it would hurt Ben to hear the things Eleanor said to him.” He stared at something beyond her, the ghosts of the past rising to meet his gaze. “He called her Ellie, you know.” A glimmer of the boy masked behind watery eyes glinted at her. “Ryan was the only one allowed to do so and still own their tongue.”

“Mom always went by her given name.”

“Indeed,” he replied. “I learned the hard way.”

“You called her Ellie?”

“Ah, yes. Once.” He rubbed his forehead. “The only time I did so.”

A hint of a smile rounded one corner of Ryleigh’s mouth.
Served him right.

“Ryan wrote of the horrors of war, the land and people, bugs, disease—even fear and death. Exquisite prose.”

“You read the letters?”

“Your mother shared portions. Others were too intimate.”

Ryleigh lowered her head and twisted a strand of hair around her finger. It was impossible to picture her mother with anyone other than her father.

“Letters arrived sparsely, the wait excruciating. Eleanor marked the days and saved green M&M’s,” he said with a lazy smile.

Ryleigh’s eyes grew wide. “She never ate the green ones. Ever.”

“Indeed.”

“All those years. They were for Ryan.”

Night chiseled away the hours and though the room was bathed in warmth, a chill raced down her arms.

Ambrose squirmed, the lines of his face deepening.

She wiped her nose with the damp tissue. “I have to go,” she said, her voice clogged with emotion.

“There remains much to tell.”

She stood. “Not tonight.” Although the impulse to flee was seconds from becoming a reality, a ravenous fascination to stay held her captive. “I need to think,” she said, tugging on her ear. “Alone.”

“I sense you feel my pain. And it is true, I am in pain—but I am unwilling to close the story just yet. Please, Miss Ryleigh. Stay. Other commissions are in the winds when the sun rises.”

She frowned.

“Ah, yes. Those which require the light of day.” Long, bony fingers motioned for her to sit. The skin thinly covering the spiderwebbed crossroad of veins was wrinkled and spotted with age. She knew hands like his. Her mother’s were younger, but distinct with life’s scars. Two lives that had not been so dissimilar. Lives filled with secrets. She regarded them both as loners.

Once more, she eased herself into the cushions.

“The night is young. Ripe for stories of truth and honor.” Ambrose adjusted himself so he faced her. “This will not be easy for either of us, Miss Ryleigh. Bear with me. Your insatiable curiosity has kept you here, of that I am sure. Now the tenacity that courses through your veins will need to be called upon. You are of your father’s loins and he was strong—headstrong as well, as you are at times.”

Compliment or insult?
Producing nothing more than a hint of a smile, Ryleigh nodded for him continue.

“I was proud of those two boys—barely scratching the surface of manhood, yet beyond their years fighting a war. The days and weeks passed dreadfully slow. It was especially hard on young Ben, waging an inner battle alongside his best friend who was riveted in the heady bubble of love. Ben loved Eleanor with his heart, and he loved Ryan with his soul. But he never understood the darkness that seemed to surround Ryan, an ominous veil, if you will. He spoke fondly of the future with Eleanor and his child, but there were times when he wrote of being pursued by an unseen foe—not those that hunted him in the jungle, but something beyond that of which we see and his outlet was his words in a small journal he kept near his heart.”

“The journal.” Ryleigh straightened, her eyes wide. “Ambrose, please—tell me,” she said, excitement punching through the despondency.

“Ryan wrote during lulls in combat and as tracers filled the skies. He wrote in the black of night and under the vast leaves of banana plants when it rained. And he kept the journal in an inside left pocket for safekeeping and to assure the love inside his heart would seep into its pages.”

The stain
. “Oh my God.”

He pressed a gnarled finger to his lips. “Do not interrupt.”

She nodded, eager for details.

“In late September of ’67—”

“September 21st? My birthday?”

“Ah, yes—although the news of your arrival came to them late. Still, they celebrated quite earnestly.” His voice grew hoarse. But a boyish grin emerged from the tangle of his mustache and then gradually disappeared. “They were Screaming Eagles and I assure you, the two of them lived up to the name. The picture you possess was taken the day Ryan received the telegram announcing your birth.”

Realization stunned her to momentary stillness. “The photograph.” Understanding bypassed all rational thought and settled as an ache in her heart, a piece of which she gave willingly and without reservation. “One of blood. One of heart.”

He nodded.

The significance of his words sucked all feeling from the room. Words failed her. As did her tears.

“This page of the story is nearly complete,” he said, rising to his feet. “I shall proceed when I take care of this frog that has carelessly lodged itself in my throat. I believe I could do with one more cup of that delightful coffee.”

She reached for his mug. “I could use a refill too.”

“Much appreciated.” Ambrose paused by the window. “And please, a generous splash of the Godiva, if you will.”

Ryleigh returned with the filled mugs.

His nostrils flared as he inhaled the steam, tilted his head back, and downed two more pain pills with a long sip of coffee. He nodded. She answered with a nod of her own, a shared affirmation that needed no words. He took a breath. “The day they celebrated your birth was four months before their tour of duty was to end, but it was also the day they received orders of Operation Wheeler—in the Quang Tin Province in South Vietnam. Their celebration was short-lived and they prepared to be flown out two days later. September 29, 1967. You were a mere eight days old.”

Ryleigh sat curled in a ball, her hands wrapped tightly around the coffee mug. Her stomach churned, yet her rapt attention remained on the old man.

“The 327th arrived in full force on the battlefield. Orders were to meet their battalion, but they were already engaged in heavy battle,” he said, his eyes distant, the words fading into a monotone as if read from a book. “The air reeked of gunpowder, blood and death.” He shook his head. “Massive casualties. Their chopper lurched and dodged in a small clearing surrounded by mangrove trees. Gunfire exploded around them, a circle of death.” Misshapen hands drew an imaginary circle. “Planes bombed the VC. Tracers pummeled the ground. Massive firepower assaulted them from all sides when Ryan emerged from the jungle, carrying a wounded Eagle. Ben spotted VC hidden near the perimeter and signaled for him to take cover, but Ryan ignored him and flagged a chopper hovering over a small rise.” The old man’s hands rose and fell. Talking had become a rusty effort. Ambrose paused to clear his throat, or perhaps needed a moment to swallow the heightened emotion. “He did not heed the warning.”

Ryleigh focused on the man whose eyes refused to blink, her breath heavy and shallow, struggling from her lungs.

“The battle raged on. The enemy surrounded them. And then the chopper rose, turned and retreated. Ryan fell. Ben dropped to the ground and crawled to him, then dragged him into the cover of the jungle.” Ambrose’s voice wavered, but somehow he continued. “He tossed Ryan’s helmet, ripped the bandana from his head, and pressed it to his chest. So much blood.” He paused to take a breath, anguish distorting the old man’s weathered face. “Ryan dug his heels in the muddy ground and all went quiet. No gunfire. No choppers. Not even a bird. The silence seemed as deafening as the sounds of war.”

Ambrose had gone quiet too.

Breathe.
She released her breath slowly and rubbed the marks her nails had dug into her palms.

Though raspy, his voice remained steady with an air of respect. “Ryan’s body arched. He gasped and begged Ben to take care of his baby girl and Ellie and to give her the journal. Ben promised, pleading with him to stay awake. Ryan’s breathing slowed. His body relaxed. Tiny dots of tracer fire reflected in his eyes. And then a gradual smile spread across Ryan’s face and he asked Ben if he could see the fireflies.” Ambrose fell quiet, his gaze fixed, not on her, but perhaps on a land as distant as the memory. He dragged a hand over his face. “With one last breath, Ryan surrendered his body. His life. Holding the lifeless body in his arms, Ben closed his best friend’s eyes and wept.”

Ambrose turned to her, blue eyes gone gray and moist, his curved mouth masking the grief that spilled from his eyes. “Your father—the boy with eyes the color of the inside of an ocean wave—died in the shadow of fate cradled in his best friend’s arms, the flash of tracers—his last vision of fireflies—and Ben’s promise the last thing he knew of this world.”

ALL FEELING SEEMED
to drain from her body. Ryleigh hadn’t expected the shock this man had delivered, nor the queasy emptiness she felt in response. The father she worshipped had been stripped from her like dignity from a rape victim, and the father of her flesh had died a soldier’s death mere hours after he’d been born to her.

“The ending,” he said, his brow creased in a deep frown, “went all wrong.” The withered storyteller rose and stared out the window into the black night, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. “Not the way it was supposed to be.” He turned to face her. The pain leaking from his passive gray eyes matched the physical pain. He straightened and raised his chin. “The only thing more difficult than being a soldier, Miss Ryleigh,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion, “is loving one.”

The impulse to run overtook the will to stay. Pulling her sweatshirt over her, Ryleigh gathered her purse and satchel. She wrapped her scarf over her shoulders and slipped quietly past the old man, the only sound the cruel objection of the door.

The black SUV was barely visible in the darkness. Without warning, her strength vanished, and with nothing short of sheer tenacity, she crossed the distance and opened the Tahoe’s door.

“Come on, come on.” The last bit of insulation protecting a mess of raw emotions dissolved in a jangle of keys. Ryleigh crammed the key into the ignition, shoved the gearshift into reverse and backed up. She jammed it into drive. Gravel pelted the wheel wells. Light from the windows grew smaller in her rearview mirror, as did any intention of returning.

Darkness swallowed her as she entered the tunnel of trees. Tears blurred her vision. Headlights bounced over the rutted road. Strange shadows formed along the tree trunks and stood sentinel, the guardians of the night. Adrenaline pumped her heartbeat into her ears, drowning the beep of the seatbelt alarm.

The cave of trees opened. She slowed and eased the Tahoe over the hump marking the road’s end. The atmosphere changed. The moon shone more brightly. Trees grew straighter. Stars twinkled. She pulled to a stop at the railroad tracks, leaned against the cold window, and allowed the disbelief, pain, and emptiness to flow from her eyes without pardon.

Moments ticked by. Or had it been minutes? Unaware of time, she drove to the Inn in a fog of confusion. A missed text from Evan explained he was studying for finals, and with a sigh of relief, she replied to say she’d fill him in later. How would she approach the subject? Or could she even attempt it? Her phone chirped again, this time a text from Nat reminding her to call with details. As inevitable as it was, she couldn’t. Was it too much to want to disappear? To be alone? To close her eyes and forget?
To run?

Ryleigh took a deep breath, forced back a jumble of emotions and dialed.

The phone rang once. “I’ve had the phone glued to my hand like a sixteen-year-old. How’d it go?” Her voice bubbled with enthusiasm. “Spare me no details.”

Natalie’s familiar voice erased what defenses she’d roused to make the call and she squeezed her eyes shut, desperate to contain herself.

“You there, Ryleigh?”