“People hurt in lots of ways and for lots of reasons, Earl. Sometimes the wounds don’t show.”
Earl looked at him without fully comprehending. “I’m going home today.” He was talking about returning to the group home in St. Paul.
“You like it there?” Bo asked.
“Oh yeah. My friends are there.”
“Good, Earl. I’m happy for you.”
“Bye,” Earl said.
“Bye,” Bo echoed.
In parting, Earl squeezed Bo’s hand like he was crushing a rock.
Nearly an hour after she’d arrived at ICU, the First Lady stood in Bo’s doorway. She was dressed for the summer heat, in a light cotton skirt, a sleeveless yellow blouse, sandals. Her gold hair was pulled back casually, held by some clasp he couldn’t see. At the sight of her, Bo felt a little stumble of his heart.
“How’s your father this morning?” he asked.
“Good. He slept well. He tells me you drop by now and again to say hello. He appreciates that, Bo. So do I.”
“He’s good company. I get bored easily around here.”
“Maybe I can help with that.” She offered him a gift that was wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with a blue bow. “I wasn’t sure in what direction your tastes might run. I hope I guessed correctly.”
He undid the tissue and found a book.
“I considered getting you crossword puzzles,” she said.
“I’d rather read.”
The book wasThe Witness of Combinesby an author named Kent Meyers.
“It’s about a young man on a farm who’s forced to grow up too soon. Have you read it?” she asked.
“No.”
“I thought about you and that farm you spent some time on when you were younger. I thought maybe you’d appreciate the story.”
“Thank you.” He put the book on the stand beside the bed. “I still spend time at the farm occasionally. Whenever I need to get away from everything for a while and just think. It’s not that far.”
“Blue Earth, right?”
“Right.”
“And the Thorsens, are they still there?”
“Nell, yes. Harold passed away two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes seemed suddenly grayer and her mood as well, as if talking about the dead had saddened her. She walked away from Bo and moved nearer the window. The sun hit her at a slant. Half her body glowed, while the other half lay in shadow. “They tell me David Moses is dead.”
“They seem pretty certain.”
“I suppose I should be relieved. But all I feel is sad.”
“With something like this, it’s best to put it behind you.”
“I’m not sure I can.” She turned back to Bo. Her right hand came up, as if she meant to offer him something. “I feel so sorry for him.”
“Forgive me if I don’t grieve for the man,” Bo said.
He realized he’d spoken harshly and that he’d shattered a fragile moment between them. He wished immediately he could do something, say something that would bring back the feeling he’d had before either of them spoke about death.
“I should let you rest.” She moved toward the door.
“I’m fine.”
She smiled, but it was cordial, forced. “My daughter’s arriving from D.C. this afternoon. I want to get a few things ready for her.”
“Sure.”
“Good-bye.” She took his hand, then gave him a soft kiss on the cheek as well.
After she’d gone, he opened the book she’d given him, and he found the inscription she’d written by hand.
To Bo, my guardian angel.
I will never say a prayer of thanksgiving without your name upon my lips.
Kate
It was very nice, Bo thought. Full of gratitude. Then he chided himself for wishing it were full of something more.
chapter
twenty-eight
Late that evening, the president sat in a stuffed chair in his residence, sipping a cup of decaf mocha and trying to concentrate on revising the address he was to deliver at the Pan-American summit. The speech was weak. But his mind kept drifting to another subject, one far more threatening to him than the idea of delivering a less than perfect address.
His father.
Dixon put down his papers and thought about the only man who could anger him without speaking a word. What had shaped William Dixon, in what hellish forge his character had been hammered, Clay Dixon could only guess.
His father had been another man once, or so Clay Dixon’s mother claimed. When he was seventeen, he’d been a lean, long-boned young man with stiff, dusty hair and a cocky smile. He wore dirty jeans and scuffed boots and old western shirts. He’d been one of the hired hands on the Purgatoire River Ranch. And he’d been in love with the rancher’s daughter. He didn’t have a chance of marrying her in those days. The rancher was a tough, wealthy man, and he had no intention of giving his daughter’s hand to a cowboy who had nothing to offer her but an appealing face and more self-assurance than his circumstances merited.
Pearl Harbor changed everything. Billy Dixon, along with thousands of other young men, enlisted in the marines. He trained at San Diego and was among the last of the armed forces to reach the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines before the Japanese cut off the islands. He distinguished himself in the fighting that ensued over the next three months. When Bataan fell, he and seventy-five thousand other American and Filipino soldiers, most ill with malaria and weak from hunger and thirst, were marched along a sixty-five-mile stretch of jungle road on what would eventually be known as the Bataan Death March. He spent several months in the Cabanatuan prison camp before escaping with nine other men. They stole a small launch from a coastal town and, making their way by night, eventually reached Borneo and the Aussie forces there. But the war wasn’t over for Billy Dixon. He saw action at Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, earning himself two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star in the process. When he was discharged in the late summer of 1945, he came home to Las Animas County, Colorado, a bona fide hero.
Whenever she spoke of the war, Clay Dixon’s mother spoke of it sadly. Billy Dixon had gone away a cocky boy whom she couldn’t help loving. But the man who returned to a hero’s welcome and who was given her hand in marriage had become a stranger in many ways. Hard inside and distant. Although his mother never said as much, Clay Dixon believed that she’d married hoping she might somehow be able to resurrect the boy the war had killed. It never happened.
The ranch didn’t interest William Dixon. It wasn’t long before he ran for Congress and easily won. A few years later, he moved into a Senate seat.
Growing up, Clay Dixon seldom saw his father. He went to boarding school in Denver, St. Regis. Summers he spent on the Purgatoire River Ranch with his mother, who’d gone from being the quiet daughter of an overbearing father to the silent wife of an unattentive, powerful politician. She smiled little, drank much, and cried often, but
