people saw it, saw how he rallied people about to panic, shouting for them to charge, and then he went down. I thought you knew. You passed within feet of him when the counterattack started.”
John couldn’t speak.
Kellor sighed.
“John, he’ll leave behind a child you shall be proud of. Proud that Ben was the father. Someday I’ll come up and tell Elizabeth about him. Hell, I helped to bring him into the world seventeen years ago.”
He shook his head.
“We might of lost the fight without kids like him, a lot of kids like him. “John, he asked me to tell you that he was sorry if he had disappointed you. And asked that you love the child he and Elizabeth will have.” Kellor began to cry.
“Damn all of this,” he sighed, then looked back at John. “Now go home to Elizabeth.” John could not speak.
He walked over to the body and was about to remove the sheet, but Kellor stopped him.
“Don’t, John; remember him as he was.” John looked down at the body.
“You are my son,” he whispered. “And I will take care of your baby; I promise it. Son, I am proud of you.”
Woodenly John turned and walked away.
Going around the building, he came out onto State Street. Another truck was pulling up from the front, half a dozen wounded in the back, three of them with twos marked on their foreheads, the others with ones.
He walked around them, barely noticing.
“Colonel, damn it, we won!”
He didn’t even bother to look back at who was speaking.
His old Edsel was parked in front of the town hall. A crowd was gathered round. Someone had written on the bulletin board but one word: “VICTORY!!!!”
Some began to ask questions as he approached, others asking for orders, others asking what they should do now.
He did not reply; he simply got into the car. The keys were in the ignition, the engine turned over, and he backed out.
The radio was on. Voice of America.
“This morning, a containership from Australia docked in Charleston. Our allies have sent us over a million rations, a thousand two-way radios, six steam-powered railroad locomotives—”
He switched it off.
The barrier was still up at the gate into the Cove, two students guarding it. He rolled to a stop. “What’s the news?” He looked at the girl holding a pistol. “Sir, are you ok?”
“We won,” was all he could say.
The girl grinned and saluted, motioning for the other student to move the Volkswagen that blocked the gate back.
John drove through and turned onto Hickory Lane, rolling to a stop at number 12, Jen and Tyler’s house.
As John pulled into the driveway, all four of them were out the door, Jen, Jennifer, Ginger wagging her tail… and Elizabeth.
He sat in the car, unable to move as they came running down to him.
He looked at Elizabeth, all of sixteen and a half. No outward sign yet of the life inside her, still not much more than a child herself.
Jennifer reached the car first and then stepped back.
“Daddy, you look terrible!”
“I’m all right, honey. Just a little singed.”
Elizabeth was beside her now, Ginger up between them leaning in, wanting to lick him.
God, but two months ago this was the way it was. Come home after a lecture and office hours, if a Tuesday or Thursday when he had a 2:30 to 4:00 class the girls home ahead of him. Always the dogs would come piling out, Jennifer with them, his teenage daughter at least still following a bit of ritual and joining them with a hug and kiss.
He was unable to move, to get out of the car.
Jen was now up looking in.
“What happened?”
“We’re ok,” he finally said. “We won; they’re gone.” Jennifer shouted and grabbed hold of Ginger, dancing around. “We won; we won; we won!”
He stared ahead… the victor returning from the wars, he thought. The triumph, the parade, the ovation. The stuff, yet again, of film, but now, this the real reality of it?
“John?”
Jen was leaning in through the window. “You’re hurt.”
“Nothing much. Concussion, some burns, I’ll be fine.”
“Daddy, where’s Ben?” Elizabeth asked. John looked past Jen to his daughter. “Let me out,” he said softly.
Jen opened the door and as they exchanged glances he could see that Jen knew. She could read it in him.
He stepped out of the car and slipped his hand into his pocket.
He remembered that the ring was caked with dried blood. Frantically he rubbed it with his hand.
“Daddy? I asked you about Ben. Did you see him?”
“Yes, honey.”
John walked towards the door, Jen rushing ahead to open it.
“Then he’s ok?” Elizabeth asked. “I knew he’d be ok.” John could hear the wishful strain in her voice.
He walked into the house. Jen had opened all the windows, airing out the stale, musty smell that had greeted them. Sunlight flooded in through the bay windows that faced the creek that tumbled down through their backyard.
It had been Tyler’s favorite place in the house, the bay windows open unless it was freezing cold, the sound of water tumbling over rocks, the deep, comfortable sofa facing it.
John sat down.
“Elizabeth, come here.”
“Daddy?”
She was beginning to cry even as she sat down beside him.
He reached into his pocket and drew out the ring.
“Ben wanted you to have this,” John said, fighting to control his voice, to not let the anguish out.
She took the ring, cradling it in her hands. He had done a poor job of cleaning it. Flecks of dried blood rested in the palm of her hand.
“Someday,” he said softly, “someday you will give that to your child and tell them about their father, what a wonderful man their father was.”
She buried herself in John’s arms, sobbing, hysterical, crying until there were no more tears to give.
The shadows lengthened. He could recall Jen bringing him some soup, saying it was sent down by the chaplain from the college and she had been over to see Ben’s parents, who had moved into an abandoned house. John remembered Jennifer’s voice, in what was now her bedroom, talking to Jen, crying, then saying a prayer, the two of them reciting the Hail Mary together. The sound of Ginger paddling back and forth, then finally climbing up to sleep alongside Jennifer, sighing as she drifted off to sleep.
As darkness settled, Elizabeth came back out, nestled against his shoulder, and cried herself to sleep.
He held Elizabeth throughout the night, and would hold her until the coming of dawn.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
