One Was a Soldier (18 page)

He picked up the brochure and rolled his eyes at the overearnest pictures of waving flags and solemn soldiers. “What, another bunch of cripples? No thanks.” He tossed the brochure back onto the table. “I did that at Walter Reed.”

“Will. There are a lot of us who came back wounded. Some of us just don’t show it on the outside.”

“Yeah?” He leaned forward, his muscular forearms contrasting with the flowered tablecloth. “Where were you hurt, Reverend Clare?”

When did it stop being safe to fall asleep?

“I didn’t mean me personally.”

“You said us. You said there were a lot of us.”

Her fingers clutched around the stem of her wineglass. “I’m fine. We’re not talking about me, anyway.”

“That’s what you want me to do, though. Talk about what happened. Talk about how I’m feeling. With other vets. Like you. So. Are you like me?”

“No! I mean, yes, of course I’m like you, but no, I’m not … I don’t have…” She thought about the noise in her head, the constant roaring tumult she tried to keep in check with booze and pills. For a moment, she could see it all, the dark tunnel vision, the brilliant explosions, the blood, the broken bodies—she picked up her wineglass and swallowed the entire contents in one gulp. She reached for the bottle and emptied it into her glass. “I’m fine.” And she was. There were stresses coming back into civilian life. Everyone knew that. There had been stress in the seminary, for God’s sake. Lord knows, she’d experienced stress as the rector of St. Alban’s. So she ran hard—when her ankle wasn’t wonky—and relaxed over a glass of wine and maybe used a sleeping pill to help get a good night’s rest. That was dealing with stress in a healthy way.

“You’re fine,” Will said.

She nodded. Smiled at him. Her heart rate was coming back down. She hadn’t realized it had been pounding.

“Then I’m fine.” He leaned back. Unlocked his wheel brakes. Rolled away from the table.

“Will, wait.”

“No.” He looked at her, his eyes hard. He looked, she realized, like a man, instead of the boy she always saw. “Either you’re telling the truth, and I’m some sort of freak who needs a blankie and a blow job to get over what happened to me, or you’re full of it, in which case, you’re dealing with it the same way I am. By keeping your head down and bulling through from one day to the next.”

“Will, just because I don’t think I need help—”

“I’ll make you a deal, Reverend. If you go, I’ll go.” He wrapped his hands around the edges of his wheels and jerked himself into a turn. “Do you remember what you said to us in confirmation class? You said we should accept ourselves as God accepted us. And if we did that, no person, or job, or experience could define who we were. Because we were God’s beloved. Remember?”

She nodded. “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” The verse seemed to come from very far away.

“How’s that working out for you?” He rolled out of the wide dining room arch before she could come up with a response. “Dad,” he called from the other room. “I’m tired. Will you help me to bed?”

Anne poked her head in from the kitchen. Listened as Chris pushed Will up the hall, the wheelchair’s hard rubber tires rumbling over their wooden floorboards. She dropped into the seat next to Clare. “How did it go?”

Clare rubbed her hands over her face. “Not so hot.”

Anne pressed her lips together.

“I’m sorry, Anne.” She took another drink of wine to quiet the other, older noise, the one that named her a failure as a priest. “I thought we were establishing some rapport, but then I got him mad at me. He’s not really tired, he’s angry.”

Anne’s mouth dropped open. “He’s angry?”

“I’m sorry.”

Anne grabbed her arm. “No! That’s great! He hasn’t shown any anger in—God, I don’t know how long. Oh, Clare, I knew you could do it.” She threw her arms around Clare in an awkward hug. “Will you come and talk with him again? Soon?”

The dark tunnel reappeared outside the limits of sight. “Of course I will.” Clare swallowed more wine. “Of course.”

*   *   *

Chris Ellis gave her a ride home. She had planned on walking back, but it was a mile, and her ankle was wobbly—she thought it was her ankle, messing up her balance—and so she accepted the lift. He let her out in her drive. She waved as he drove away, feeling guilty for not finding the right words to reach his son. She limped up the kitchen steps and paused at her dark door, breathing in the scent of night jasmine and honeysuckle, listening to the mad chorus of crickets singing for love before the frosts came and mowed them all down.

She remembered something Russ had told her once.
I was drinking pretty heavily then. Of course, I never felt drunk. Just numb.
When would that happen to her? When would she get to stop feeling so bad?

She opened the door. Shut and locked it. Flicked on the kitchen light. “Don’t be alarmed,” Russ said from the living room. “I’m here.”

“What?” She limped through the swinging doors. She could see him, the outline of him, sitting in one of the chairs in front of the empty fireplace. “I thought we weren’t doing this anymore. Why on earth are you sitting here in the dark?”

He stood up. “You didn’t leave any lights on. I didn’t want to draw any attention.”

“Well, I’m here now.” She snapped on a lamp. She looked at his face, set in deep lines. “What is it? Is everyone okay?”

“I had…” He shook his head. “God. A day.” He looked down at his feet. He was still wearing his boots. As if she might not let him stay. He looked up at her. “I…” He opened his hands, palms out.

“Need someone?” She smiled a little. Stepped toward him, arms open. He embraced her with a force that startled her.

“Not someone,” he said into her hair. “You.” He buried his face in the crook of her shoulder. “Only you.” His lips were on her neck. “Always you.” Then he was kissing her, and it was a different kind of need, catching in her like a spark in dry pine needles, desire like a hot wind pressing them together, whirling them around and around, sending them staggering up the stairs, shedding their clothing on the way.

He flung her onto the bed and dropped on top of her with none of his usual careful control. He twined his fingers in hers, forcing her hands deep into the mattress and surging into her with a rough urgency that tore a cry out of her throat.

“Oh, God,” he gasped. “Did I hurt you?”

“Yes. No.” She gulped for air. Cried out again. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop!”

“I can’t. Oh, God.” His voice was like a raw wound. He pounded into her, stretching her open and more open, going deep, deeper, hard and harsh and unspeakably good.

She clenched his hands, shaking, all wetness and straining muscles. Her mouth was open, her throat working, but his ferocious battering left her breathless, wordless, mindless. She spiraled up, tighter, sharper, closer, until he groaned, “Oh, God, Clare, I’m going to—” and that was it, that was enough. Her head snapped back and it was the dark tunnel reversed, all white hot light and an explosion of joy that turned her inside out and left her trembling. Russ’s voice broke and he shuddered, once, twice, three times, then collapsed heavily on top of her, his face once more hidden in the crook of her shoulder.

She stroked his back while he worked for air, his rib cage rising and falling beneath her touch. He made a feeble attempt to push off of her. “No.” She tightened her grip. He relaxed then, sagging against her. She ran her fingers through his hair, watching the strands of brown and blond and gray catch around her knuckles, feeling the shape of his skull beneath her hand.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered.

“I won’t.”

“When I say don’t leave—”

“I know.” She pressed a kiss into the top of his head. “You mean don’t die.”

At some point, he fell asleep. She kept on stroking and smoothing his hair, watching her hand rise and fall, rise and fall, until she could admit to this exhausted, sleeping, damaged man what she couldn’t admit to herself. “I don’t think I’m fine,” she whispered. “I don’t think I’m fine at all.”

THAT IT MAY PLEASE THEE TO GRANT THAT, IN THE FELLOWSHIP OF ALL THE SAINTS, WE MAY ATTAIN TO THY HEAVENLY KINGDOM.

—The Great Litany, The Book of Common Prayer

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26

Sarah was late to her own group session. She scurried down the hallway, her footsteps slapping the linoleum flooring and echoing off the walls in a syncopated beat to the shouts of young men and the thud of the basketball. She opened the door too hard, slamming it against the wall accidentally. They were all there; McCrea and Stillman bookending the group, Fergusson hunched over her cup of coffee, McNabb stuffing an iPod into her too-tight jeans, Will Ellis smiling at nothing. Sarah felt like pitching her notebook and pen and shrieking at them all to go home. She wasn’t reaching these people. She wasn’t helping them. She’d never been any closer to a war zone than downtown Newark. What in the name of little green apples did she think she could accomplish here?

Fergusson looked up at her, her face pale with fatigue. Studied her for a moment that must have been shorter than it felt. Then she rose from her rickety metal chair, smiling. “Sarah. Thank goodness. We were getting worried.” She crossed the floor and touched Sarah on the arm, once, giving her a squeeze that seemed to say,
I know, and it’s all right.
“Let me get you something. Coffee? Somebody’s made hot cider in the Crockpot. Probably fresh from Greuling’s Orchards.” She looked at Sarah again, more closely, and for a second, Sarah wanted to lean against the priest, to feel someone taking care of her for a change, and then she snapped herself like a sheet and thought,
Oh, no, you don’t. I’ve got your number now.
Fergusson was a caretaker. That explained the way she only really became engaged when she was bucking up Will or settling down McCrea.

“Thank you, Clare, that would be nice.” She let Fergusson fetch her the hot cider while she sat down, surreptitiously rolling her shoulders to get the last of the tension out, smiling at the others. When Fergusson handed her the paper cup, she let her eyes open just a bit wider than usual, showing her vulnerability and her gratitude. A little manipulative, maybe, but if she could use the moment to crack open Fergusson’s closed book, it would be worth it.

“We’ve talked about homecoming,” Sarah said. “We’ve talked about work, and about personal relationships.” She took a sip of the cider. Heavenly. “But all that is background. Reconnoitering the terrain. Tonight, we’re going to begin to dig deeper. The real issues, and the real work, are inside each of you. Tonight, we’re going to talk about why you decided to attend this group, and what you hope to get out of counseling.”

Tally McNabb glanced at McCrea, who bent over to rub a nonexistent speck from his hiking boots. Trip Stillman shifted in his seat. Clare Fergusson pinched her ring between two fingers and stared at it. Will Ellis looked up toward the sound-tiled ceiling.

Sarah let the silence lengthen. “Anyone?” More shifting, more looking at the floor or knees or coffee cups. “Somebody has to be first.”

“I came here because I want to know how to leave what happened in-country behind.”

They all stared at Tally McNabb. Her chin was tucked down, and she wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes, but she went on. “I did some things I shouldn’t have. Stuff I thought would stay there.” She pressed her mouth into a hard line. Sarah waited, one beat, two, for her to go on.

Finally, Fergusson leaned way forward so she could look up into Tally’s face. “But it didn’t.”

Tally shook her head, sending her straight, blunt hair jerking left, right, left. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.” She lifted her eyes and looked around the circle. “Everything seemed so clear-cut over there. Now I’m home, and I can’t get a fix on anything anymore. My relationship with my husband’s totally screwed up. My job is—” She dropped her head again. “My boss told me today he wants to send me back. As part of the construction team.”

“What?” McCrea stared.

“You’re kidding!” Stillman rocked back in his chair.

“Oh, no,” Fergusson said.

“It’s not like being on frontline duty. I’d be financial administrator for the ongoing projects. Probably get to spend ninety percent of my time behind a desk in the Green Zone.”

There was an awful silence. Everyone, including Sarah, knew there was no such thing as “behind the lines” in Iraq.

“How do you feel about this?” Sarah asked.

Through the thick cotton of her hooded sweatshirt, Tally rubbed the spot where her arm was tattooed. “How do I feel?” She looked at Sarah. “Like I’ve been locked in a box.”

“Do you feel like you’d like to discuss your options with the group?” Sarah kept her voice low and level.

“No. I don’t have any options.”

“You can always find something positive about any situation,” Will Ellis said.

“Oh, for God’s sake. Why don’t you just grow up and drop the damn pep talks already?” Tally shoved her face toward Will. “At least I can admit my life’s in the toilet.”

“What?” Will glared at her. “What do you want me to say? That I lost my goddamn legs? That I’m never going to walk again, I’ve got no goddamn prospects, and I’m going to wind up spending the rest of my life with my parents taking care of me? That make you happy?”

Trip Stillman shook his head. “There’s no reason you can’t—”

“And what’s your problem?” Will turned on the older man. “I haven’t heard anything out of you other than it’s been a pain cycling in and out of country for three-month rotations.”

Stillman sat up straight and angled his body so that he somehow seemed to be wearing an invisible white coat. “I, um, believe I’m showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“From what?” Eric McCrea said. “You didn’t get the DVDs you wanted in your air-conditioned lounge? You guys live like four-stars in those combat support hospitals. What the hell kind of stress could you have?”

“I wasn’t in a CSH. I was at a Forward Response Station, and the only AC we had was in the operating rooms.”

“Oh, cry me a fucking river. You wanna know what stress is? Try guarding a bunch of insurgents who’d just as soon kill you as look at you. Trying to get intel out of these fuckers, knowing they’ve got information that will kill Americans locked up in their heads, but for God’s sake, you gotta respect their rights and their religion and their culture. Then a bunch of fucking pictures that never should have been taken get out into the damn media—from another fucking prison entirely!—and suddenly everybody looks at you like you’ve been putting electrodes on Achmed’s balls.”