Travelers Rest (7 page)

Minutes passed. Dirty drops of rain slithered wormlike down the glass. Voices drifted in from the hall, and a medicine cart clanked across the linoleum. Somewhere, a nurse’s bell rang and rang again. When Seth finally spoke, Jane turned away from the window to look at him.

“When we got off the plane in Germany,” he said, “we were put in buses and taken to Landstuhl, the military hospital. It was raining, like today, only it was cold. The rain was like ice. Everything was gray.”

Seth moved his gaze to Jane, as though to see if she was listening. She nodded for him to go on. He looked away, up toward the ceiling, and started again. “I didn’t know the other guys on the bus, but everyone was wounded to one extent or another. A couple of guys had had limbs amputated back in Iraq. One guy was blind, I think. At least he had bandages over his eyes. The person next to me had been burned pretty bad. And of course a few of us had been shot. Most of the guys tried to joke about it, saying things like our injuries were our ticket out, our pass to go home, blah blah blah, you know, like something good had happened to us. We were the lucky ones because we were getting out. Still, a couple of the guys were crying. They tried to be quiet about it, but I could hear them. I couldn’t talk at all because of the tube in my throat. I could only listen. What I really wanted to do was put my hands over my ears, but of course there was no way I was going to do that. It was like I was trapped in concrete. I was still inside my body, but I couldn’t make it move anymore. So I just had to lie there and listen to the jokes and the men crying and the rain beating against the windows.”

He swallowed hard. Jane watched as a crimson streak snuck up the side of his neck and fanned out across his cheek. Whether red was the color of anger or sadness, or both, she didn’t know. She waited. He blinked a few times while moistening his lips with his tongue.

“When we finally got to the hospital,” he went on, “the bus pulled up to the emergency room entrance, and a whole crowd of people came out to meet us. They opened the rear door of the bus and started taking guys out. I was just lying there waiting and watching them work. They worked with this kind of quiet efficiency that I found both comforting and frightening. I mean, I knew I was in good hands, but I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be part of this incoming paddy wagon of wounded soldiers, you know? I just kept thinking,
Can somebody get me out of this picture? I’m not supposed to be here. I don’t belong here. Somebody take me back to where I belong.

“But like it or not, I was there, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Finally my turn came to be lifted out of the bus. One of the nurses was holding an umbrella over the door, but she couldn’t keep out the cold and the rain. I looked up at the faces around me. A priest was there. I could tell by his collar he was a priest. He came up to my stretcher, and he leaned over me and said, ‘Seth, you’re safe now. You’re in Germany.’ And I remember thinking it was too late. There was no use pretending I was safe and that everything was all right. It was far too late for that.

“Then, just as they started to take me away, the priest raised his hand and made the sign of the cross over me. He was wearing the same kind of rubber gloves the medical people were wearing, like not even the priest could touch us with his bare hands or he’d catch our bad luck or something.” Seth paused and sniffed out a laugh. “So I watched his hand making the sign of the cross over me, and for the first time in my life I thought, ‘Maybe it’s all a lie. Maybe everything I ever believed is a lie.’”

Jane was beside his wheelchair now, gazing down at him. She wondered at his sudden calm. His expressionless eyes refused to meet hers but stared dully up at the ceiling. They looked like two round patches of frozen earth. Jane leaned down and pressed her cheek against his. “I’m so sorry, Seth,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened. But I promise you, we’re going to be all right. We’re going to make it all work somehow.”

She pulled back and waited for him to meet her gaze. But he went on staring at the ceiling, as though she weren’t there.

9

O
n the first floor of the VA Medical Center, just beyond the lobby, was a small canteen called The Bistro
.
Vending machines lined the back wall. A dozen tables with corresponding chairs were bolted to the floor. The wall between the corridor and the canteen was full of windows so that one couldn’t pass The Bistro without being enticed to stop and have a snack.

Jane stopped, but not because she was hungry. She stopped because she saw Truman Rockaway, alone at one of the tables, drinking from a pint carton of chocolate milk.

He raised a hand toward her, beckoning her in. She entered the canteen and sat down across from him. They were the only two people in the room.

“Got milk?” he asked, lifting the cardboard carton.

He smiled. She smiled in return. “I haven’t drunk chocolate milk since I was a kid.”

“We ought to remedy that. My treat.”

“Well . . .”

“I insist. After all, chocolate is a natural antidepressant, you know.”

She looked at him, chewed her lower lip. “Is it that apparent?”

“It doesn’t have to be apparent. It can be deduced. You’re in a hospital visiting your fiancé who is upstairs in the spinal cord unit unable to move from the neck down.” He rose and rummaged around in the pocket of his slacks while he walked to one of the machines. He dropped a series of coins into the slot and pushed a button. A carton of milk nose-dived off the shelf behind the glass and landed with a thud in the lip of the machine. Truman retrieved it and set it on the table in front of Jane. “Drink up, young lady,” he said.

“Thank you, Truman.”

He settled himself back down at the table as she bent back the spout. She took a long drink and nodded. “Tastes good.”

“I drink it every day.”

“You go straight for the hard stuff to drown your sorrows?”

He laughed. “I guess I do.”

They were quiet for a time, lost in their own thoughts, downing their chocolate milk. Finally Jane asked, “Where are you from, Truman?”

“Here and there,” he said. “But originally? I’m from Travelers Rest, South Carolina.”

“Oh yeah? I used to know someone from there. She was one of our cooks.”

“What was her name?”

“Laney Jackson.”

Truman thought a moment, shook his head. “It doesn’t sound familiar. But anyway, I haven’t been in Travelers Rest for a long time. So Laney, she cooked for your family?”

“Well, kind of. My dad and my grandmother ran a bed-and-breakfast in Troy. They still do. We have our own apartment at the back of the house, with a private kitchen and everything. Anyway, when I was a child, Laney was one of the cooks who took care of the guests. She left Troy years ago, though, and I’ve lost touch with her.”

“Uh-huh.” Truman finished his milk, crushed the carton with one hand, and tossed it toward the open trash can. It went in.

“Two points,” Jane said.

“I should have played basketball,” Truman quipped.

“Yeah, if you’d gone pro, you’d be rich.”

“You’re right. Instead, I became a doctor, and I can tell you, not all doctors are rich.”

“No, I suppose not.”

Truman folded his hands on the table and seemed to study them. “Have you seen Seth today?”

Jane nodded. “I just left his room.”

“And how was he?”

“Depressed.”

“That’s normal. Everyone in his situation goes through that. It’s part of the healing process.”

“I know.” Jane drew in a deep breath. “I’m trying to be patient. But he’s so different. I’ve never seen him like this before. It’s like he came back from Iraq a totally different person, not just in body but . . . I don’t know, in soul too, I guess.”

Truman tapped the table with the soft balls of his hands. “Tell me about him, Jane.”

“Tell you about Seth?”

“Yes. What was he like before?”

As Jane thought about his question, a smile spread slowly across her face. “He was just about the greatest guy in the world. Oh, I know, probably every woman says that about her fiancé, but I really mean it. He was a great guy. Everyone liked him.”

“You met him in Troy?”

“Yes. We grew up together. I’ve been in love with him since second grade. It took him a little longer—well, about fifteen years longer—but he finally noticed me.”

Truman smiled. “I’m glad he did.”

“Me too.” Jane nodded her head absently for a moment. “It was Christmastime, and Gram and Dad were hosting our annual open house. Dad always grumbles about it, but Gram does it every year anyway. Practically the whole town comes through, just to mingle and drink eggnog and listen to Christmas carols on Gram’s old phonograph. I think it’s kind of a nostalgic trip back in time for most people, since the house is so old and full of antiques. Anyway, in . . . let’s see, it must have been 2002, Seth came to the open house with his parents. For whatever reason, he’d never been in the Rayburn House before. That’s the name of our B&B. Fortunately for me, he was taken with the woodwork.” She laughed lightly. “Seth’s a carpenter. He says he’s addicted to wood the way a hillbilly’s addicted to moonshine.”

Truman laughed out loud, a deep throaty laugh. It made Jane smile.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I gave him the grand tour of the house, attic to basement. He pointed out things I’d never even noticed before or maybe had stopped seeing a long time ago. You know, the shape of the balusters on the staircase, the hand-crafted trim between the walls and the ceiling, the little rosettes carved into the woodwork above one of the fireplaces. I guess you could say he ended up giving me a tour of my own home. Well, afterward we sat by the fire in the parlor for a long time, talking about everything from spiral nails to cordless saws to what we planned to do with our lives. As they say, the rest is history.”

Truman nodded; his eyes shone. “It sounds like a nice story.”

“It was. It was like a fairy tale. But then two Christmases later, Seth was in Iraq and”—she shrugged—“now we’re here.”

“I see.” Truman nodded and gazed back down at his hands. “You’ve entered a chapter you didn’t expect.”

Jane slowly shook her head. “I didn’t expect this at all. We would have been married this summer if he hadn’t been wounded.”

“And now?”

“Now?” Jane sighed. “I just don’t know.”

“What does Seth say?”

“Mostly, he says he wants me to go away.” She tried to laugh, but her laughter fell flat. For a moment she wondered why she was spilling her thoughts to a stranger. Yet, oddly, she felt perfectly comfortable in the company of Truman Rockaway. Maybe he was just one of those people who’d never known a stranger in his life. She looked at him, locking onto his gaze. “What should I do, Truman?”

“Give him time,” came the reply. “He’ll come around.”

“You mean, you’re not going to tell me to just forget about him?”

“No. Why should I tell you that?”

“Everyone else is, it seems. Even his own mother. After she spent a month with him at Walter Reed, she came back and said to me, ‘If you no longer feel you can marry Seth, I understand.’”

Truman frowned and leaned toward her over the table. “Do you still want to marry him, Jane?”

“Of course.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I love him.”

“Then that’s good enough for me.” He leaned back and seemed to relax. “And it should be good enough for everyone else.”

“But it isn’t. Not even for Seth.”

“Well, now, like I said, Seth will come around. He’s suffered a huge loss, you know. There’s a whole lot of grieving ahead of him, and that’s something he can’t get around. He has to go through it. But once he’s through it, he’ll begin to see things more clearly.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes, I do. I’ve seen it happen plenty of times. You wouldn’t believe what some people survive, only to go on and lead productive lives. Happy lives too, for the most part.”

“But some people don’t. I mean, some people never adjust.”

“A few, maybe. But they’re in the minority. The will to live can’t be underestimated, Jane.”

“That’s what I’m counting on, I guess. Seth was always so—I don’t know—full of life, happy, upbeat. It made me happy to be with him. We laughed a lot together.”

“It’ll be like that again.”

Jane felt suddenly nervous. “Right now, Truman, he doesn’t even want to live, much less laugh. I mean, he really doesn’t want to live.”

“Like I said, that’s normal. Give him time.”

“But—” Jane stopped and took a deep breath. “Truman, he said if I loved him, I would help him die.”

Truman’s eyes, placid only a moment ago, now flashed anger. He leaned over the table again and laid both large hands on Jane’s slim shoulders. “Now you listen to me, Jane. Are you listening?”

Jane nodded. She was rendered mute by his sudden surge of emotion.

“We never let anyone die. Never. Do you hear me?”

Another nod.

He squeezed her shoulders lightly. “Tell me you won’t help him die. Promise me that.”

She drew in her breath and let it out slowly. “Of course I won’t.”

“But do you promise?”

“Yes, I promise. I could never . . .”

She couldn’t finish. For a moment they sat staring into each other’s eyes, unable to look away. Finally he loosened his grip. His hands fell to his sides.

“I’ve got to go. Got to finish my rounds.” He stood, stared off toward the hall.

“All right.”

He took a few steps toward the door, then turned back. “Jane, I—”

“Yes?”

He started to say something, stopped, then said, “I’ll see you later.”

“All right.”

She watched him walk away, her eyes moving with him as he shuffled past the row of windows and out of sight. She looked down at the half-empty pint of chocolate milk on the table. When she lifted it to her lips, her stomach turned. She threw it away and headed home.

10

O
verhead, the stars flickered like far-off firestorms while a half-moon squatted among them, pale and serene. Jane lay on a reclining lawn chair in the Penlands’ backyard, one arm tucked beneath her head and one cradling Roscoe, who was curled up beside her. The other dog, Juniper, was stretched out on the grass beside the chair.