“God,” he said, watching her.
“Now, don’t get diverted. Keep talking.”
He did, but with a spoon in motion. “So…I didn’t see I had any choice but to volunteer for the military—because that’s what I’d taught them. That you couldn’t just talk. You had to show up. That even weak-kneed, gun-hating, sissy teacher types…such as myself…had the power to change things—”
“Fox. You haven’t got a sissy bone in your body.”
“Maybe not. But it still tends to be the stereotype for male teachers, that we’re lightweight fighters, so to speak. And it bugged me, what the kids were hearing at home. Anyway, I’m just trying to explain. I felt Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I’d lost the right to talk to them about heroes and leaders, if I wasn’t willing to stand up myself.”
Phoebe put her spoon down. She was the worst sucker for sweets ever born, especially for this kind of sundae, but she suddenly knew something bad was coming. Sheknew. And she didn’t prompt him when he hesitated this time because right there, right there, she changed her mind about whether he should tell her this. She wasn’t a psychologist. What was shethinking, to be so arrogant to believe she could help?
“So…I got over there,” he continued slowly. “And they put me to work, pretty much on the kinds of projects you’d expect them to assign someone like me—rebuilding schools, trying to organize the old teachers, spending time as a sort of liaison with the townspeople. I carried a gun, but I never had a reason to aim it. There were incidents. Plenty. But I wasn’t really personally affected. I just did my thing, what I was getting the stripes for, what I really went there to do.…”
“Here,” she said firmly. “You need cherries on that sundae. And more marshmallow—”
But when she tried to grab his bowl, he hooked her wrist instead. They weren’t exactly done eating.
They weren’t done with dishes, either. But for some unknown reason they went outside, sat on her back steps and sipped in the crisp spring night. The dogs were chasing around the bushes, happy to be out and free. Clouds whispered a promise of rain. He dropped his jacket on her shoulders and picked up his story, his tone still as even as a tailor’s hem.
“The local kids started coming around. Nothing odd about that. Kids always know when an adult honestly likes them, you know? And the kids wanted their schools back. So they started hanging with me. And I could speak some of the language, so I’d get them going. I’d teach them some English, they’d teach me some of their language. We talked about rock and roll, and games, and ideas, whatever they wanted.”
His jacket was cuddled around her shoulders, when all he had to warm him was a shirt, yet she was the one whose fingertips were chilled.
“So…there was a certain morning. It was hot. Over a hundred. Sun blazing, just like every other day.
I’d started work early, gotten up before anyone else—God knows why, probably because I was nuts.
Anyway, I’d turned around this corner, was picking up a box of supplies, when a kid came in the alley. A boy. Not even half-grown. Big, dark eyes. Beautiful eyes. I see the way he looks, and think he must have been sleeping in that alley, so my mind’s running ahead. I figure he’s orphaned, and then that he might be hurt, because he’s got that kind of deep, old hurt in his eyes.”
Mop and Duster came flying back to flop on his feet. His feet, not hers. Damn it, they knew.
“So I start talking to him, like I always do with kids, same tone, same smile. Bring an energy bar out of my pocket, offer it to him. I’m thinking what I’m going to do if he’s in as bad shape as I think he is, because I’m sure as hell not leaving him alone in that alley. I’m thinking, this is exactly what it’s all about.
Not the guns. Not the bull. But this. Finding a way, a real way, to give a wounded kid a life.”
“Fox.” There was gravel in her throat now. Gravel in her heart. It came from looking at his face, the naked sadness in his eyes.
“He had the dirty bomb under his clothes. Did something to detonate it.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
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“I can’t explain the rest. Why I came home so messed up, so angry. I mean, obviously it was tragic and horrible. But it’s not as if I could have stopped it. I never actually saw him die, so it’s not like that specific memory could be part of the nightmares. I didn’t. I didn’t see much of anything—I have a real vague memory of being blown against the far wall and knocked out, but that’s it. I didn’t know anything else for hours. But when I did wake up…I woke up angry. Beside-myself angry. Mad enough to punch walls and cuss out anyone who tried to help me—”
“Fox.”
Finally he looked at her. “I haven’t told my family most of that. Didn’t want to. Hell, I don’t honestly know where all the rage came from. But that story better be a good enough explanation for you, red, because that’s all I’ve got. That’s what happened. There’s nothing else—oomph!”
Maybe he’d intended to say more, but she swooped on that man with the fury of an avenging angel. She knew he still had half-healed wounds and a half-dozen seriously sore spots. She knew it was stone chilly on the back porch steps. Most of all she knew that she’d never again intended for Fox to see her sensual side…but the damn man.
What was she supposed to do? Listen to that terrible hurt of his and do nothing? Listen to how badly he’d hurt for that child, so badly he couldn’t stop hurting himself, and pretend it was just a story she was hearing that didn’t affect her?
She
