The Light of Hidden Flowers (6 page)

CHAPTER TEN

JOE

Tuesdays were my toughest days, but they were also my best days. No longer just the second day of the workweek, the nondescript twenty-four hours following Monday, Tuesdays had become like a tough workout: some dread beforehand and suffering during, but usually a great feeling afterward. It was worth it.

The day usually started at work for a half day, trying to get a full day’s work done in five hours. I medically retired from the Marines four years ago following my injury, and went to work for a global security and aerospace company—basically a government contractor in business with the Defense Department. The job title they gave me was intel analyst, which meant that I took everything I knew about Afghanistan and Pakistan to help develop intelligence collection networks to defeat violent extremist organizations. Sometimes I felt like I was playing the game of war, rather than helping our government actually plan missions. Some guys from my old unit couldn’t stand that their lives now meant sitting at a desk all day. I was fine with it. I would be happy to never see the real deal again. At my desk,
playing
war games, I could convince myself there was a point to it. Over there, after a while, day after day of getting IED’d, it all seemed hopeless. Like the only way out was to raze the entire city or to die trying. I hated feeling purposeless.

From there, I rushed to my volunteer work at the National Military Medical Center, a veterans’ hospital just outside of Newark. I met with my group in the lounge, a group of six who had all lost either a leg or an arm while fighting in Afghanistan. This was a “post-rehab group,” meaning they had already endured months of therapy at Walter Reed in Bethesda, learning how to sit, walk, and function on their own. I’d been in their exact spot. Now they had been sent home to New Jersey, where each of them once resided. It was recommended that these guys would meet in a group for at least a year.

Most wounded warriors were resilient and determined, but this group in particular had yet to find the Zen in being an amputee. None of them was ready to commemorate the day he was wounded, his “Alive Day,” as a way of refocusing on the life ahead. These guys were in the pits, still struggling with what had happened to them, miles away from accepting that there was any good to being half-whole. They sneaked smokes outside, drank buckets of coffee, looked down at their laps and, for the most part, acted like teenagers who had been forced into therapy, only because their parents wanted them to.

Over fifteen hundred soldiers had lost a limb in Iraq or Afghanistan; over 20 percent had lost more than one. In the physical therapy rooms of Walter Reed, the attitude as a whole was encouraging, uplifting. These were our country’s finest men and women, and what brought them to dedicate their lives to fighting for our freedom was the same vigor and determination that drove them to walk again, to do the work necessary, to push themselves. They fed off each other, cheering one another on, a band of brothers. Many guys worked for five hours a day. There were a few remarkable guys: double and triple amputees with interminably positive attitudes. Indefatigable when it came to therapy, these guys were able to say “at least I’m alive.”

Compared to many, I was lucky and I knew it. I was an amputee, too, but just below the knee. A lot of these guys looked at me like I had it easy. And when I thought about some of them—a lost arm, two lost legs, eyelids singed off, faces burned—I couldn’t argue. With my prosthetic, I could walk. I had arms and hands to work and feed myself. I wasn’t confined to a wheelchair. A mosquito bite compared to many of these guys.

I poured myself a cup of black coffee. When I signed up to volunteer, I had no idea that I’d end up here, with this bunch. I was more thinking that I could help guys secure jobs in the private sector after coming home. After all, I had done pretty well, getting hooked up with my job at a Fortune 500 company. But I got assigned to this group, like I had the qualifications to administer therapy to guys who were this far down in the dumps.

The coffee was sludge and instantly stained the sides of the Styrofoam. I added a few creams and a few sugars. I didn’t trust drinking it straight.

I sat down and asked the guys to come to order, then initiated some chitchat that fell flat. No one wanted to talk about the Yankees, or major league baseball at all, for that matter. I opened my notebook, and called on my first guy. Tony was an above-knee amputee who lost his leg while on patrol, and had had a tougher time than most, having to endure over thirty surgeries, while battling grueling headaches, almost daily.

“How’s your week been, Tony?”

Tony grumbled then proceeded to report in short, angry sentences how the week was crap, how physical therapy was a joke, how he couldn’t sleep, the Ambien no longer worked, how the food sucked, and how he woke up in the night and felt like his leg was there, but when he reached for it, it wasn’t. “It’s like a goddamned prank, every night.” At that, his voice cracked and he had to wipe at his eyes. “It’s not fair.”

The wipe at his eyes was my signal to move on. None of them wanted to cry in front of the others. “Andy, what about you? How are you making out?”

Andy had a better attitude than most. He lost both his arms when clearing a schoolhouse that had been booby-trapped by the Taliban. When Andy moved a box of books, it detonated and blew off his arms. Thanks to his buddy, who’d tied some expert tourniquets and administered blood-clotting powder, Andy was dragged away from the scene and then evacuated to Germany, and then to Walter Reed. A miracle, really. The fact that his face was spared was even more of one. I had yet to point that out.

“I’m getting used to this thing,” Andy said, lifting his prosthetic right arm. “Still, though . . . what I’d do for just one arm. I’d trade a leg, even. At least I’d be symmetrical then.”

A few of the guys laughed awkwardly.

I prided myself on listening more than talking. These guys had been through enough without having to hear a bunch of sanctimonious babble, but there were some facts about amputees and moving on that these guys needed to know.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s get to it. The sooner you accept that your limb is gone, the sooner you will heal—not just your body, but your mind and spirit. Every day is a challenge, guys, but it’s not a challenge you can’t overcome.”

The guys shot me dirty looks.

“Think of Michael,” I said. “Think of Rob and Derek.”

Michael Gordon was a soldier who’d visited us about a month ago, a triple amputee—both legs and an arm. He had a wife and a baby waiting for him, and his determination was ironclad. He looked at my group of sad sacks and told them to get on with their damn lives, to live for the guys who didn’t make it. After that meeting, a couple of my guys—Rob and Derek—had complete turnarounds. Started working harder at their PT and OT, reached out to family members, found at least some shreds of the spirituality they had lost. Those guys had since been moved to another group—a step two group, further in their recovery.

I reined in my urge for further platitudes. Lecturing them on why they shouldn’t feel shitty wasn’t going to make them feel less shitty; I knew that. I just wanted them to know they weren’t alone, to remind them to hold in their heads the examples of three men like themselves—guys they knew, who’d lost pretty much what they’d lost, but who’d found it in themselves to push on to the next step. I believed in each and every one of them, but couldn’t come right out and say it. Instead, I sounded like a hard-ass, telling them to man up.

Lucy had accused me of this more than once or twice: of being too hardheaded to let anyone in, of being incapable of just feeling rather than fixing.

I never claimed to be blameless in our divorce. There was plenty to go around.

After two hours with the guys, I left the hospital and drove to the kids’ schools. Kate was at St. Agnes, the middle school, and Jake and Olivia were just down the road at Holy Angels. On my way, I called Lucy.

“I’m on my way to pick up the kids,” I told her. “Anything you want me to pass on?”

“I’ll call them later,” she said. “I have good coverage from here.”
From here
being the middle of New Zealand, nearly eight thousand miles away.

I squeezed the steering wheel, gritted my teeth. “I heard from your lawyer today,” I said. “She said we’ve satisfied the waiting period for the divorce and she’s ready to proceed.”

Lucy sighed. “Don’t act surprised, Joe. Don’t act like you didn’t know that was the direction we were headed in.”

“What about the kids? What about Katherine?”

“I’m ready for something new,” she said flatly, as though we were shopping for a new dishwasher and she suddenly decided on stainless steel rather than black.

“I didn’t know that was an option,” I said. “When we got married, I didn’t know we were allowed to just walk away because we wanted something new.”

“Don’t make me sound so one-dimensional, Joe,” Lucy said, raising her voice. “You know it’s not that simple. We’ve been through hell and back. I deserve a little peace.”

I pulled up to Holy Angels. “I’m here,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said, but her tone was anything but apologetic, the tone Olivia was famous for using when forced to apologize when her heart wasn’t in it.

“Yep,” I said. “Bye.”

Once all three kids were buckled up, we drove downtown to a brick medical building where Kate saw a counselor once a week. This year of middle school had been tough, but we were assured that much of that was normal. “Middle school is hard,” the school counselor told us. But then Lucy found a notebook of poems Kate had written.
I’m disgusting in every way
, a number of them began. That’s when we decided to seek outside help. Just in case there was more to be worried about than what was considered “normal.”

“She feels out of control,” the counselor had explained. “We just want to keep a handle on it. We don’t want it to escalate.”

I was to blame as much as anyone. First I was gone, deployed. Lucy told me how much Kate worried about me when I was away. “What if he’s killed? What if I never see Dad again?”

And since I had returned, her mother had essentially left, swept off with her new career, traveling to glamorous destinations every few weeks. And middle school was the biggest uncertainty of all. Kate didn’t stand a chance in that group of girls. She was smart and kind and loved her books and her journal. There had to be another girl like her. There had to be a way to make her feel not so alone.

At the end of Kate’s session, the counselor called me in. I was always included in the last ten minutes, so as to ensure we were all on the same page.

The counselor smiled at Kate. “It’s May—you’ve almost made it through your entire first year of middle school.” She clapped little claps. “What do you think the takeaway from that is? Any lessons learned to better equip you for next year?”

Kate shifted in her seat, stared toward the window. “I’d say the takeaway is to always save a round for yourself. Just in case you’re captured by cannibals or headhunters?”

“I beg your pardon?” the counselor asked.

“That’s what the soldiers were told to do in World War II,” Kate said. “That’s kind of how I feel about middle school.”

“Kate!” I said sternly. “Are you being funny, or is there truth to what you’re saying?” Being smart was one thing. Being a smart aleck was another.

She flashed me a half smile. “Just being funny, Dad,” she said. “Can we go?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

There is a photo on my mantel of Dad and me. It has been there since I moved into my town house a decade ago. Before that, it occupied space on Dad’s mantel. In the photo, we are standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I was maybe thirteen—rail thin, a mouth of giant teeth I hadn’t yet grown into, enough unstrained hair to cover five heads. Dad was in his late forties, early fifties, I would guess, with his thick brown hair, beautiful teeth, and shoulders as square and broad as the Hulk’s. In the photo, I’m leaned into him as though he were a pillar—unstoppable, immovable. As though he wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard I pushed.

Today, as I swung through the doors of the community center for our Fletcher Financial seminar and found Dad milling about, it occurred to me that I had never stopped seeing him the way he looked in that photo: robust, indomitable. But now, as I examined him closely, the artificial lens through which I’d been viewing him came into focus. Dad was a seventy-year-old man with thinning hair, a scattering of sun spots on his weathered skin, and purple circles under his eyes as delineated as the rings of Saturn.

Dad had aged, and I hadn’t seen it.

Dad called the seminar to order. “Folks, so good to see you here!” This time, he was flawless throughout. Not a single blunder. Afterward, he circulated through the room, socializing while I broke down the electronics. As I was wrapping the cords into neat circles, Dad’s longtime clients and friends, the Andersons, found me by the projector. With them was a good-looking guy, maybe forty.

“Missy, darling, hello!” Mrs. Anderson said. The Andersons had both been born and raised in Richmond—the west end, with the country clubs and private schools. Mrs. Anderson spoke with a drawl and dressed in Talbots twinsets; her hair was highlighted and bobbed.

“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson,” I said, looking up from my cords.

“Have you ever met our son, Lucas?”

Lucas was their pride and joy; I knew that. “I’ve heard all about Lucas,” I said, “but no, we’ve never met.”

“I guess we might have mentioned him before,” Mrs. Anderson said, blushing.

“The brilliant tax attorney,” I said to Lucas. “Your parents are very proud of you.”

“Parents make the best fan club,” he said, holding out his hand for me to shake. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” I said. “I imagine you’re keeping busy in this crazy economic/political environment.”

Lucas nodded. “There is a lot going on, tax-wise.”

“True enough,” I said. “I’m a bit of a tax junkie myself.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” he said with a grin. We held gazes until I felt my cheeks flush. Somehow, his parents had disappeared from view.

Lucas was tall with an athletic build, blond floppy hair, and earnest blue eyes. I had the urge to trace my finger along the ropy edges of his biceps.

“Your dad is quite a presenter,” he said.

“Yeah.” I laughed. “Most people dread public speaking. He craves it.”

“Not me.”

“Me either,” I agreed. “I’d rather get my teeth drilled without Novocain.”

Lucas smiled and lifted the projector into its case, placing the cords carefully in the side compartment. “So public speaking isn’t your thing,” he said. “But what about discussing taxes?”

I looked at his handsome blue eyes. “Oh, I’m all over taxes.”

“What about lunch? Do you eat lunch?”

“Excuse me?”

“Maybe you’d like to grab lunch sometime?” he asked tentatively, less confident than his first try. “Talk about taxes?”

I looked up, let the pieces settle.

Lucas stammered again. “I mean, some people don’t break away for lunch. Work right through. That’s me, usually.”

“I love lunch,” I said. “And taxes.”

For the first time in months, I had just been asked out to lunch. And with a guy who shared at least two interests of mine: lunch and taxes. Lucas said he would call to set up a time. When he left, in my flustered state, I unpacked the projector that Lucas had already put away so neatly for me. I checked my e-mail, though I had just scrolled through it a minute ago. And I sipped at a cup of coffee that wasn’t mine. I was elated. I had a maybe lunch date with tax attorney Lucas Anderson, and rather than feeling my usual contentedness—a zero on the number line—I suddenly felt hopeful, eager, and expectant. A good twenty-five points off the norm.

My dating history left much to be desired. The truest relationship I’d ever had was in high school and the few years afterward with Joe. He was as good a man as my father. We were just too young. He knew before I did that being each other’s first “everything” meant that we couldn’t be each other’s last. I begged to differ. I fought him on this, like a toddler who didn’t get her way. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have other experiences, that I didn’t want to explore the world. I just wanted to do it with Joe.

After Joe, while in college and graduate school, I gravitated toward the Mensa crowd, brainiacs like me. All-night study sessions, coauthoring journal articles with top professors, earning assistantships. Then there was Jason, my on-and-off boyfriend of three years, when I had just turned thirty. With Jason, I attempted to re-create the passion I had had with Joe so many years earlier. Jason was dark, brooding, and athletic, just like Joe. He flew his handsomeness like a cape. Sometimes I would stare at his perfectly symmetrical features and compare him to Joe, yet I knew Joe was a thousand times more beautiful because his good looks penetrated to every atom of his being, unlike Jason’s, which were skin-deep.

Jason was one of many siblings from a large family full of traditions, Catholicism, and delicious family-style meals. There were no boundaries with Jason or his family. They touched; they hugged and kissed. They overstepped, and I loved their every trespass. I adored how his parents kissed me like they kissed their own daughters. I treasured time with his sisters, how they fooled with my hair and handed me down clothing from their closets.
Try this on,
his older sister Mary would say, tugging at my shirt without regard for my privacy. Being a girl who came from very little family, it was exactly what I craved.

I tried to want Jason as much as I wanted the rest of his family, but he was the weakest link. While he had all of the physical attributes that Joe had, and while his family was everything I would want in an extended in-law family, Jason was sometimes cruel, bordering on misogynistic. He was insecure, and to build himself up, he often criticized me, his sisters, and even his mother. One night we were playing Trivial Pursuit with his family. I happened to be on a streak; I answered most of the questions. On the drive home, he looked at me with a cruel sneer. “So, what’s it like to be such a know-it-all?”

I was stunned. “I’m hardly a know-it-all,” I said. “Just lucky tonight.”

“Whatever,” he said. “It’s cool . . . to date a girl who’s more concerned with Trivial Pursuit than stuff like how she looks.”

I had never been self-conscious about my looks—I was average enough, cute enough—but Jason was beautiful, and his comment was intended to make me feel ugly. It did. So much that the only rejoinder I could muster was, “Uh-huh.”