Sons of Thunder (26 page)

Markos measured him, his eyes betraying nothing.

Dino looked away, his sins rising again to condemn him.

“Maybe it’s just that I didn’t want you here,” Markos finally said, using his finger to wipe out the final contents of his dinner. He licked it off, closed up the tin, set it in the dirt next to him. “Did you eat?”

“Not hungry. Never am after surgery.”

Markos unwrapped a piece of gum, stuck it in his mouth. He smoothed the wrapper between his finger and thumb. “How long have you been a doctor?”

“Four years. I had a year of internship in Minneapolis then joined up after Pearl. They gave me my training. I’m with the medical corps.”

Markos folded the paper in half. “A doctor.” He smoothed the crease. “Mama would be proud.” He didn’t look at Dino, but his mouth hitched up in a half-smile. “A doctor.” He gave a sort of chuckle and Dino let himself feel it, a harrumph of surprise.

You will be someone great.
For a second, a smile curled up inside him.
Leave your mark on the world.

“So—you got a wife back home?”

Oh. The question sliced fast, a blade through his heart. Dino shook his head, leveling his voice. “I never found anyone who would have me.”

Markos cut him a dark look. “No one?”

Dino heard the suggestion.
Not even Sofia?
He flattened his mouth into a line. Shook his head. “What about you?”

“I haven’t been out long enough to find a wife.” He caught the paper between his thumbs, pressed it to his mouth. A whistle leaked through.

“Out?”

Markos whistled again. “Of prison.”

Dino stilled, watching his brother as he blew again, ever so gently, a trickle of air through his thumbs that emitted a high squeal. He put down the paper, nodded, glanced at Dino.

“Yes, I said prison.”

Dino’s mouth opened—

“How? Uncle Jimmy. I tried to get away from him—even drove my car into Lake Michigan. Managed to escape, but on foot I couldn’t run from him for long. Luckily, the cops found me—and I use the term
lucky
lightly, because after the cops who were on the dole nearly finished
me off, they routed up a bunch of charges, including arson and murder, and sent me off to prison.” Markos’s mouth flattened into a grim line. “I counted myself lucky I didn’t get the chair.”

A chill went through Dino. The chair?

“The army had a deal—they let you out on parole if you joined up. Seemed like the right thing to do, you know?” He brought the paper to his lips again. The whistle tickled the night, barely a sound.

Yes.

“So, see, there’s a reason you thought I was dead. I should have been. Felt like it for a long time. But prison gave me a chance to catch my bearings. Hear the truth.” He took the wrapper, crumpled it in his hand. “So—how’s—Sofia?”

He looked away, and the staccato of bullets ripped through the screen of night.

Sofia. The way Markos said her name, more like breath than actual sound, brushed through Dino and he shivered.

Or perhaps trembled. Because even as Markos lifted his gaze to him, Dino knew he’d piled the truth right there in his eyes.

Markos frowned.

Dino looked away.

“What’s wrong?” It wasn’t a question, but more of a growl.

Dino turned his hands over, rubbing his thumb against his palm. “I—don’t know.”

Markos’s gaze was an ember on his skin. “You don’t know?”

“She wanted to wait for you, okay?” Dino winced at the desperation in his tone. “She stayed at the station.”

“What? You left her at the train station? What about the doctor?”

Off in the distance, the 105s ripped the sky. “She didn’t want to go—and she was fine, Markos. She did just fine. Got a job, and worked
and—” Only even as he said it, he saw her again, short skirt, fishnet stockings, Reg pressing her into the snow. “I found her later.”

He winced at that, and thanked the night.

“You—found her?”

Dino couldn’t tell if Markos’s voice held confusion or hope. “Yes—we saw each other again. While I was in medical school. She—she worked at a local theater.”

“Singing.” A little sigh, perhaps of despair, slipped from Markos.

“No—not singing. She checked coats. And cleaned. I don’t think she ever sung—well, after Chicago.”

Markos had drawn up his knees, hung his arms over them, drawn in a breath. “So where is she now?”

Dino ran his hand down his face. “Like I said, I don’t know. We lost touch.” He’d said it too lightly, though, because Markos, as if he’d seen him yesterday, as if he had sat with him in the window of their home in Zante, watching the storms roll in from the sea, feeling Dino’s fear, simply sighed.

“What happened, Dino?”

Death stenched the air—smoke, rotting animal, the iodine embedded on his skin.

“What happened?” Markos asked, softer this time.

Dino picked up the discarded wrapper Markos had tossed into the grass. Smoothed it out.

“I loved her too, you know.”

Markos didn’t speak.

“She left without saying good-bye. Just—vanished. I tried to find her. But…”

“What does that mean—‘she left’?” Dino heard the years of prison, the brutality of war in Markos’s voice.

The words burned in his mouth. “It means that I should have stopped her. That I wish I’d stopped her. That she thought I was in love with someone else.”

Markos drew in a quick breath. “And she was in love with you?”

Dino ran his fingers into his eyes. “I don’t know. I—maybe.”

Markos said nothing.

“It’s complicated.”

“Simplify.”

Dino watched the fires burn. “We were lonely. And for a long time, it felt—right. Like we were supposed to be together.” Dino shook his head, looked away. “I never meant to hurt her.”

In the distance, explosions tore into the night.

“What did you do to her?”

Markos didn’t have to ball his fist and swing for Dino to feel the blow, although perhaps it would have been easier.

In fact, please.
Yes.
Dino wanted Markos to hurt him, wound him, explode the ball of guilt so webbed inside his chest that sometimes he thought he might suffocate. He ached for the blow, really. He put his hand over his face.

“Tell me.”

Dino let out a breath, hated the shudder in it. “I—I slept with her.”

It was the first time, really, that he’d said that out loud, and it shucked the wind out of him. He’d slept with Sofia.

He deserved whatever Markos dished out. He didn’t even brace himself.

Except…

“It seems we just can’t get it right, doesn’t it?”

Dino glanced at him, jolted. “What?”

“I don’t want to know any more, Dino. I just—” He closed his eyes. “I failed her first. Don’t forget that.”

Dino just stared at him, unable to breathe. “What?”

Markos picked at the dirt embedded in his hands. “I—was so full of myself when we came to America. Angry. And afraid. I held so tightly to both of you.” He pulled off his helmet. His hair had been buzzed short. “I felt like God abandoned me, but I was just trying to figure out how to not need Him.”

“You were just trying to protect us.”

But the words felt hollow, suddenly, as fire exploded in the distance.

“But Mamma was right—God does deliver—”

“Really? Where was He the night Kostas died? Or when Uncle Jimmy was beating you nearly to death?”

The words punched the night between him, but Markos didn’t flinch. “He was there, Dino. See, we created this mess of our lives, and we think God abandoned us. But He didn’t, He hasn’t. He’s the hope that we have out of our darkness.”

Dino stared at Markos’s dark profile, the one he remembered from when they’d watch the storms striding in over the sea. He leaned his head back against the stone. “I joined the army in hopes I could do something with my life. But sometimes it just feels so—twisted. I just can’t seem to get it right.”

Markos said nothing. Perhaps he hadn’t even heard him. But then….

“Maybe you’re not supposed to. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re all supposed to be a little broken, a little afraid, a little overwhelmed by our own sweeping mistakes. Otherwise, we might believe we can save ourselves, instead of letting God deliver us. Maybe being on our knees is the only way we can ever be used by God.” He looked up at Dino, emotion in his eyes. “Because without knowing what grace feels like, how will we ever really know how to give it away?”

The words cut through Dino, through his scars, piercing so deep it took his breath. “I’m sorry, Markos. I’m so sorry.”

And then Dino became a child, right there, quiet sobs punctuating the chaos around him. If he’d been younger, he might have actually found himself with his arms over his head, his body curled tight.

Instead, he looked away, mortified.

Markos’s arm went around his neck, hard, fast.

Pulled him tight to himself. Held him there.

Let him sob.

“Me too, brother. Me too.”

The 105s had stopped arguing with the night; the morning, a hand drawing a mist across the countryside. Dino lay next to his brother, listening to mosquitoes, his brother’s solid breathing, smelling the earth in his nose. Dew slicked his skin, and he closed his arms over his chest, holding in heat. Probably he should push himself from the hard ground, check on his patients, prepare for today’s onslaught.

No. For just a moment, he’d capture this moment, savor it.

Let himself travel back to Zante, to the lap of the ocean against the hull of his brother’s boat, the skies so blue above him he could dive in, the sun licking his face.

“Thinking of fishing?”

His brother’s voice jolted him, despite the husky, low tones. “How did you know?”

“I used to wake every morning in my cell, and I’d be back in Zante, watching you dive after Lucien, or on the dock with Papa, repairing the nets.”

“Sometimes I’m in the kitchen with Mama, stealing bread. Or in the olive grove overlooking the village, watching the sun glide through the buildings, the jangle of goats’ bells in the background.”

“Remember how Lucien would sneak into our bedroom at night?”

“You know it was because he was running from his father.”

“I know.”

Sunlight began to burn away the mist, heat licking Dino’s neck. He waved at the mosquitoes that harassed him.

“I’m going back there after the war.” The words from Markos sounded more like hope than decision.

Dino said nothing. But maybe, yes. “Do you think Mama is still alive?”

“I hope so.”

Dino smiled. “I can’t imagine what she’d say to us—”

“I expect she’d tell us to stop lying around and get to work.”

Dino let his own smile leak through. “He who laughs not in the morning, laughs not at noon.”

“Add not fire to fire.”

“Thinking evil is much the same as doing it.”

“As long as you have the blessing of your parents it does not matter even if you live in the mountains.”

Dino’s smile died. “Do you think she’d give her blessing?”

“I think she already did. She told you to leave your mark on the world. I think she’d be proud of you,” Markos said quietly.

Dino’s stomach growled. Oh, he wished he could remembered her better. He strained to hear her soft voice, or had it been harsh? He reached back into his memory, dug around.

Markos hummed. Dino couldn’t place the song.

Then, “We’ll go back, someday,” Markos said quietly.

“Yes.”
Yes
.

“I’d better check on my men.” Markos pushed up from the ground, and Dino realized how close they’d been when a chill slipped down his spine. He sat up, ran his hands over his face as Markos tromped across the field, his helmet and pack left behind.

Markos stopped at the pump, ran water over his head, then greeted soldiers who sprawled around the courtyard, some smoking, some still asleep, most cradling their .45 Tommys. It didn’t surprise Dino that the men peered up at his brother with respect in their eyes, nor that Markos occasionally reached out, touched a man on the shoulder, banged him on the helmet.

A smile edged his mouth. Markos. Alive.

Yes, someday they’d return to Zante. Together.

Markos moved into the house, probably headed toward the surgical wing.

Mosquitoes. He thought he’d escaped them when he’d left Minnesota, but they seemed to have found him, zeroing in—he waved his hand again, shooing them—

Only, across the courtyard, men were getting to their feet, rousing others.

No—

The buzzing turned into a hum, then a rumble as Dino found his feet, propped his hand over his eyes.

Two Stukas dropped from the clouds, set on a course toward the hospital.

“Take cover!” Dino sprinted toward the hospital, screaming, even as the first fighter peppered the yard with bullets. Men shouted, some dropped behind sandbags, returned fire.

Dino zagged into the yard. “Markos!”

The Stuka dove, aimed toward the hospital, and unloaded his payload from under its wing.

No!

Dino threw himself into the bunker of sandbags as the hospital exploded. Fire punched the sky. Metal and cement in a cloud of debris rained down as he curled into a ball. Around him, men screamed, the shrapnel biting into their skin, severing limbs, burning—