“I know. But we’re better now. We’re going to be.”
John took a step toward his father.
Alex pulled his son into his arms and hugged him tightly. They held each other there beneath the sign.
Alex drove back out to Maryland. He stopped at the property once more to check on some questions of space and feasibility that had been nagging at him since the morning. When he was done measuring and eyeballing the interior, he was satisfied that his original instincts were sound.
Going through Wheaton, heading for the nursing home where Elaine Patterson stayed, he thought of his son John and the pain that he’d been in since Gus’s death. How inward and selfish Alex’s focus had been. It hurt him that Johnny knew that Gus had been his favorite. Alex had not denied it, and this was something that John would carry, perhaps for the rest of his life. There would come a time when they could talk about their relationship more freely. For now, turning the store over to him, a gesture and an affirmation, was a start.
But we’re better now. We’re going to be.
It was not completely a lie. Alex was better than he had been. He had come to terms with his sadness. He’d become resigned to the knowledge that he would never be cured of Gus’s death. That he would grieve for Gus until his own passing.
But he had Vicki and he had John. The wounds he’d suffered at seventeen were beginning to heal. A new challenge lay ahead. There was room for grief, and good things, too.
Twenty-Five
Lady, the brown house dog at Walter Reed’s occupational therapy room, trotted across the carpeted floor to Sergeant Joseph Anderson, who sat snapping the fingers of his right hand. The Lab came to him and smelled his hand, licked it, and allowed Anderson to rub behind her ears. The dog closed her eyes as if in pleasant sleep.
“She digs it when I rub her there,” said Anderson.
“And she doesn’t even have to guide you,” said Raymond Monroe.
Sergeant Anderson’s left forearm was flat on a padded table. Monroe sat beside him, kneading his muscles. This arm ended with a prosthetic hand that was decorated with a continuation tattoo, the word Zoso spanning flesh and synthetics.
“I don’t like it when a woman tells me where to put my hand,” said Anderson. “I like to find that spot my own self.”
“You’re into the challenge, huh?”
“When they get to moanin, it’s like, yeah, I just did something special. Like the sign said: Mission Accomplished.”
Monroe said nothing.
“Do you think I’m gonna do all right, Pop?”
“What do you mean?”
“With the women. Am I gonna be hittin it when I get out of here?”
Monroe looked into the young man’s eyes. He pointedly did not look at the raised red scars crisscrossing the left side of his face.
“You’re gonna do fine,” said Monroe.
Lady broke off and walked across the room to a soldier who had said her name.
“I’m not exactly what you’d call handsome anymore, am I?”
“I’m no Denzel, either.”
“No, but I bet you were plenty handsome when you were young. You had your strut in the sun, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. And so will you. Women gonna be all over you, boy. With that personality of yours. What do they call that? Infectious. You’re gonna do fine.”
“We’ll see,” said Anderson. “Still, I been feeling like, you know, the best times are behind me. You ever get like that?”
“I do,” said Monroe. “But that’s part of being a middle-aged man. You’re just getting started.”
“It doesn’t feel that way, sir.”
“Maybe you ought to talk to the shrink about all this.”
“It’s easier talkin to you.”
Monroe rubbed his thumbs deeply into the brachioradialis, the major muscle of Anderson’s forearm.
“It’s funny,” said Anderson. “People think we were in some kind of living hell over there. Make no mistake, it was rough. But alongside the confusion of war and the general shitstorm we were in, there was also… well, I was at peace. Strange to say that, I know, but there it is. I woke up every morning knowing exactly what my job was. There wasn’t any doubt or choice. My mission was not to liberate the Iraqi people or bring democracy to the Middle East. It was to protect my brothers. That’s what I did, and I never felt so content. Don’t laugh at me, but that year I spent in Iraq was the best year of my life.”
“I’m not laughing,” said Monroe. “They say men are goal oriented. You had your mission and it made you feel right.”
“That’s what’s got me down, Pop. I should be back there, with my men. Because I didn’t finish. I wake up in the morning now and I feel like there’s no reason to get out of bed.”
“You want to do something? Go out there and tell people your story. Say what you did. Folks in this country are so divided right now, they need good people like you to tell them that we’re one community. That we’ve got to rebuild.”
“Don’t go putting me up on a pedestal. I’m not proud of everything I did.”
“Neither am I.” Monroe stopped working on Anderson’s arm. “Look, Sergeant. You’re gonna realize something as you get older. Hopefully it’ll come to you quicker than it did to me. Life is long. Who you are now, the things you did, how you’re feeling, like your world is never gonna be as good as it was? None of that is going to matter as you move along. It only will if you let it. I’m not the person I was when I was young. Shoot, I had an incident today… Let’s just say I had to walk a whole lotta miles to learn how much I’ve changed. Whatever you did before doesn’t matter. What matters now is how you make the turnaround. You’re gonna be all right.”
“Did you get all that off a greeting card, Pop?”
“Aw, screw you, man.” Monroe blushed. “I told you to see a professional.”
“I should have known a Redskins fan would be an optimist. Me, I don’t see any Super Bowls in your future with Coach Gibbs at the helm. What is he, ninety?”
“You think he’s old? Cowboys coach wears his pants any higher, he’s gonna choke hisself.”
“We’ll see you this fall.”
“Twice,” said Monroe.
He went back to his task. He turned Anderson’s arm over and worked the flexor ulnaris and radialis.
“You know, sounds to me like you got some real depression,” said Monroe. “You really ought to talk to the house shrink.”
“She’s not as entertaining as you.” Anderson grunted. “That feels good, Doc.”
“I’m no doctor.”
“You’re good as one.”
“Thank you,” said Monroe.
Alex Pappas arrived at the nursing home on Layhill Road and found Miss Elaine Patterson in the group dining hall, not far from the reception desk where he had signed in. An orderly pointed to an old woman with thinning white hair and eyeglasses who was seated in a wheelchair at a round table with two other women her age and a woman who was spoon-feeding her. Alex had a seat, introduced himself, and got only eye contact in return. He had bought some carnations at a grocery store on the drive out, and he told her they were for her but kept them held across his lap.
Beyond pleasantries, he did not try to engage her in conversation. He did not want to speak about the incident in front of the caregiver, an African by the sound of her accent. He wanted her to enjoy her meal, as unappealing as it appeared to be. Also, there was much noise in the dining hall. Conversations repeated, orders and
