The Heart You Carry Home (35 page)

She did not respond to this remark. She wasn't buying it, or it wasn't enough of a promise, or it simply wasn't the right thing to say. And yet, he had to stay afloat. He had to do something. “Becca Thompson,” he said quickly, “I want to buy you a waffle.”

“What?” She sounded pissed off. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“No, you don't understand.” He stepped as close to her as he could without actually touching her and looked down on her beautiful head. “Becca Thompson, will you have waffles with me so that I can tell you a story about my dad?”

She didn't speak. He saw that she couldn't.

“For every bite I take, I will tell you one hundred stories. I will answer every question that you can think of to ask. I swear to God, you won't be able to make me stop talking.”

S
LOWLY BUT SURELY
, the group dwindled. Every fifty miles or so, a couple of men peeled away onto some northern- or southern-bound road. They headed back to their towns and their women or their empty beds. They returned to their day jobs and disability payments and hours spent on hold with the VA. They checked in with their AA sponsors, with Jesus, with their grown children. They went back to feeling steady and stolid or disconnected and discounted. And on parade days—Memorial, Veterans, the Fourth of July—they gave motorcycle rides to the white-haired Gold Star mothers; mothers like their own, except without sons.

And King? Becca envisioned him riding north into Canada, the air growing colder by the mile. She knew it was summer in Canada too, but she imagined her father's nose and cheeks turning red and the tips of his fingers burning as they clutched the Gold Wing's handlebars. She imagined him growing increasingly uncomfortable until the cold forced him to reverse course. To head south again, to his house with its fifteen door locks. Becca did not doubt that he would return as promised; she only hoped that it would be soon.

Elaine seemed unfazed by King's sudden departure. When Reno dropped her back home, she gave Becca her phone number and e-mail. “I expect you and Ben to visit,” she said as they stood outside of her apartment building in town. “If your daddy's still gone, maybe I can drag him back for one of the holidays? We'll be a big, cozy family.”

At this, Becca glanced back at the Hands of God van. Her mother stared out the window, her mouth set in a tight, flat line. Elaine was going to be just fine, Becca could see. Whatever contentment she'd found with King wouldn't suit most people, but it was good enough for her. For Jeanine, things were less certain.

By the time they reached Hands of God, the hearty pack had shrunk and scattered; just the Death Star, the van, and Reno remained. From the highway, they turned onto a series of smaller paved roads, which soon gave way to dirt. Up and up they climbed, their narrow route hemmed in by pine trees. Soon, Becca began to anticipate the summit around every bend. But these priestesses had sequestered themselves high atop their Parnassus, as though striving to be that much closer to heaven.

Finally, a boxy one-room building appeared among the pine needles. The Hands of God van was parked, and the women, Jeanine among them, filed immediately inside, like they were worker ants returning to the nest. Only the crucifix nailed above the doorway signaled the structure's intention. Becca had not stepped foot in a church since her childhood. Sometimes, when King raged, her mother took her to the First Methodist, just to get her out of the house. For a while, she sent Becca to Sunday school, hoping some lessons about humility and piety would sink in. Then Becca asked why the church spire was giving God the finger, and the pastor had kicked her out.

Now the remaining five travelers—Becca, Ben, Lucy, Jacob, and Reno—hung back. Becca could see that Ben was bursting to talk. He was like an overstuffed duffle bag, packed full of apologies. Two nights before, Becca had accepted her husband's waffle bribe, and for over an hour, she'd listened to him toggle between his father and the war. She began to see that another life—with its own set of fears and regrets—was hiding inside of him. She felt guilty for not pressing him harder, earlier on, about his father. He'd cut her a trail straight to his heart's core, but she had not followed it, preferring not to push him or cause tension. And, then, when it came to the war, of course Ben wasn't going to talk to her. He wasn't going to share these new heartaches, because he had no reason to trust that she could handle them. He'd had no clue how she would respond. She'd been so selfish, letting him prop her up but never considering that she bore him an equal responsibility. She was his load-bearing beam too, but since she'd never asked him how much weight he needed her to carry, she hadn't been able to perform her role very well.

With the war, things were more complicated. Reno had shown her the gravity of those tales, the weight of those heartaches. Only now did she understand why Ben had withheld his war stories. He didn't know whether she'd be able to accept what he'd done and failed to do over there. And if she couldn't or didn't—that would break him.

Still, despite her newfound knowledge, Becca worried that they were both too damaged to move forward. She worried that Ben would hurt her again and keep on hurting her. She worried that despite his best intentions, the man she'd fallen in love with was gone for good. How could she possibly help him get better? And what if better didn't exist?

These questions weighed heavily on her as she wandered around her mother's home. In a clearing behind the church sat several small shacks with concrete porches and metal doors. Pine trees towered above, dwarfing everything. Becca followed a short path through the woods and was suddenly standing at the edge of the gardens, a buzzing world of lush fertility. Here was God's benevolence, exploding in leaves and flowers and rich, dark earth.

She roamed among the snap-pea vines and into a thicket of sunflowers. She took one of the sunflower heads in her hand, closed her eyes, and pressed its soft brown center and bursting yellow petals to her chest. For a moment, she imagined that this flower really could pour light and warmth into her body, heal her bruises from the inside out. But when she opened her eyes, she suddenly saw this place as it surely looked in winter, after the flowers and squash and snap peas had withered. Without these gardens, her mother's whole world looked bleak. Hands of God was not for the faint of faith. Which was probably the point. A person would come here only if she was fully committed to this life or if she needed total escape—a means of forgetting the world beyond these pine trees. Hands of God, Becca thought, wasn't so different from Kleos.

And what if her mother hadn't come here for escape but to somehow emulate King's experience? Just like Ben had done to reach his own father, picking up the fiddle and joining the army. “Please don't let that be true,” Becca whispered to the sunflowers. “Please let her life be something more than a shadow of King's.”

“Home, sweet home,” Jeanine said, appearing through the thicket as though she'd been summoned. She seemed thin as the sunflower necks but just as tough. Not nearly as happy as the flowers.

“The service over already?” Becca asked, afraid that her mother had heard her plea.

“I was worried you all were going to take off. I wanted to say goodbye to my daughter.”

Jeanine was jittery. She probably wasn't allowed to smoke here. Becca suddenly felt a strange need to comfort her. “I wasn't going to leave without saying goodbye,” she said, trying to coat the words in kindness. Her mother nodded. “Mom, are you sure you want to stay here? You can have the house back. I'm transferring schools in the fall. To Oregon. To run.”

Jeanine raised her eyebrows. “It's my house, Becca. It's not yours to give back to me.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don't aim to see Dry Hills anytime soon.”

“Do you want me to rent it out, then?”

Jeanine shrugged as though she didn't much care. “I know you don't want to hear it, Becca, but you're a lot like me.”

Hadn't King just said something similar? After all this time, suddenly each of her parents was trying to claim her.

“You want a regular kind of love, Becca. A love you can count on. A love that doesn't have to hurt so much.”

Becca didn't respond. If her mother really wanted a stable, reliable love, then why had she hung on to the other kind for so long?

“You're making the right choice, going to Oregon,” Jeanine said. “I hope my saying so won't cause you to change your mind.”

“I have a lot of pride, Mom, but not that much.”

But Jeanine, being who she was, couldn't leave well enough alone. “You can still break it off, Becca. You're still free. Don't lose your momentum.”

Becca couldn't keep her mouth shut either. “I didn't say that I was making a break, Mom. There's a difference between—”

But Jeanine only shook her head as if she couldn't stand to hear another word. “Hug your mother,” she said. So Becca did.

When they broke apart, Jeanine held her daughter at arm's length. The light showed the older woman's deep laughlines, but Becca saw that her mother was still beautiful. She could have remarried. She could have been happy. Or maybe not. Her love for King had taken a long journey, from Dry Hills to Hands of God to Kleos. It had been exposed to the worst of the elements. It had been beaten and battered. But it did not break. It was stubborn. As stubborn as the woman who felt it.

Jeanine smiled her brittle smile. “I'm going back to the service now. Let me know when you get to Oregon.” She turned and walked off through the garden.

Back at the church, Ben and Lucy were saying their goodbyes while Reno stood slightly apart, puffing on a cigar. “I don't think you're allowed to smoke up here,” Becca said, walking over to him.

“Does the Bible have a rule against cigars?”

“I think that's beside the point.”

Reno continued to puff as Becca listened to the subtle pop of his lips opening and closing.

“So would you reckon we're friends now?” he asked. He didn't look at her. He kept his eyes on the others. The adults were laughing, fawning over the boy.

Becca was suddenly flooded with feeling and could not speak. That night at Motorcycle Mountain, she had felt something for Reno—a feeling so particular that she would never have it again, not even with him. Somehow, it would remain tucked inside of her, unshared. She would try to preserve it, to keep it strong and clear, all the while knowing that it would eventually weaken, its power draining by degrees. She knew that one day she would call upon the memory of them dancing that night and find it merely a pleasant moment, a powerless if happy reminiscence. It seemed unfair. The best memories faded so soon, while the worst of them kept on battering the psyche like gale-force winds.

“Yup,” Reno said, yanking Becca back to the present. “I reckon we're friends now. We've been through the shit together and neither of us can go back.”

“You're saying I'm like one of your war buddies?” Becca replied, sarcasm being the only way she could recover her voice.

“More outrageous claims have been made, Becca.” He put the cigar between his teeth.

She left him to finish his smoke and walked to the others. Ben gave Jacob a hearty handshake and Jacob grinned back, his smile as electric as his silver jacket. Becca's heart swelled. In these simple gestures, could she dare to see a vision of their future? She didn't know. She and Ben would have to match each other's rhythm. When the war pulled at him, they would both lose momentum. They would give up ground together, even fall behind.

“You can still break it off,” her mother had said. “You're still free.”

But her mother was wrong. Because here was Ben, reaching for her, pulling her into his arms. He held her tight and close. She let him.

I
AM ENORMOUSLY GRATEFUL
to the men and women of Carry the Flame and Rolling Thunder for their service, and especially to the amazing individuals who carried me three thousand miles across this great continent. That journey remains the pinnacle of my career as a journalist and one of the defining experiences of my life. Special thanks to John Dooley for offering me a spot on the trip (and suggesting that I write a book about it), to Frank Bair, Steve Britton, and Leon Curley for sharing their stories and keeping me safe on the road, and to German Hernandez, Deno “Paco” Paolini, and Vinny Scotti for always speaking the truth to power. Last but not least, thank you to King Cavalier II for his leadership on the road and for serving as this project's motorcycle guru.

Dan McArdle, I wouldn't have had the balls to take this journey without you. Thank you for being such a wonderful photographer, roommate, and friend—and for coding up that alarm clock in a pinch, so we didn't get left behind in New Mexico.

I am honored to have had translation assistance from Marian Makins, whose ancient Greek is clearly good enough for government work. Dr. Nicole Herschenhous was a fastidious early reader and expert counsel on all matters PTSD. Karl Marlantes and Chuck Pfeiffer kept my military facts straight. Books by Jonathan Shay, David Finkel, David Maraniss, Robert D. Schulzinger, and Brian Castner proved to be invaluable research sources.

Mollie Glick, you were once again my dedicated early editor and advocate; I am so lucky to have you on my team. To everyone at HMH, I am thrilled to have worked with you again. Jenna Johnson, you always support my vision while pushing me to mature as a writer. I will cut thousands of words for you any time.

Thank you to my parents for taking me to the National Mall each Memorial Day and for introducing me to America's most badass subculture. You have long supported my far-reaching, sometimes risky explorations. And to my husband, Jason: You had enough confidence in me and in this book to drive the highways and back roads of Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah in search of nothing specific, which turned out to be absolutely everything. Without you there would have been no Motorcycle Mountain and certainly no heart of Durga.