what happened to you?
He hadn’t been able to tell her. I killed too many
people. Some I didn’t mean to kill.
Mom wouldn’t have understood. She wouldn’t have
had any words to put in Dad’s mouth.
“Your brother or sister?” Fiona asked, as casually as
if the conversation hadn’t become emotionally loaded.
“Or do you have both?”
“Two sisters. They’re puzzled, too.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Mary, much like his mother
in personality, was. Liz, quieter and more thoughtful
like John, had come to him and said, “I’ve been reading
things. I know lots of soldiers have been coming back
traumatized. Whatever happened must have been awful,
to change you like this.”
Words had stuck in his throat, even with his favorite sister.
She’d given him a swift hug. “We love you, John. I’m
so glad you’re safely home.”
He had feared being called up again, knowing he
couldn’t endure it, but in the end his emotional state was
moot; he’d never be physically able to serve again. He
was glad, but felt guilty, too, because he had friends who
would be going back. That was his idea of hell: another
tour in Iraq.
Before Fiona could ask more questions, the swinging
door opened and Hopper came in.
“Hey, that smells really good. When’s dinner?”
“Gosh, it might be quicker if we had help,” his
teacher said with clear mischief. “The garlic bread
needs slicing, doesn’t it, John?”
“No fair! You already said we have to clean the
kitchen!”
She laughed at him. “Just trying to scare you. John,
when will dinner be ready?”
“An hour.”
The boy came over to the stove, dipped a finger in
the sauce and tasted, dancing out of the kitchen just
ahead of the towel Fiona snapped at him.
“Glass of wine?” John asked.
She looked wistful, but said, “I shouldn’t. I’m still
on the job. Sort of. I don’t want the kids going back and
telling anyone I drank when I was in charge.”
He nodded, unsurprised when she said, “Speaking of
which, let me go count noses. Again.”
Telling himself he didn’t mind some time alone, he
went to the freezer and took out bags of the red, highbush huckleberries he’d picked and frozen that summer.
By the time he got back, she’d returned and was getting
a pitcher of cranberry juice from the refrigerator.
“All present and accounted for,” she reported.
“Nobody seems to need me.”
I do.
John was staggered by the fervency of his reaction.
Instinctively he rejected it.
No. If he needed anything at all, it was solitude. He
was attracted to her, enjoying the novelty of having
lighthearted conversation with a pretty woman. Need
was gut level. It was the next breath, the next meal, the
chance to sink into the oblivion of sleep.
If he already hated the idea of watching her drive
away with her vanful of kids, well, that was a good
sign. It meant someday he might want to return to his
former life. To live normally again—whatever that
meant.
He surfaced to realize that Fiona was watching him.
Her voice was soft, her tone tentative. “I could go
back to my book if you’d rather.”
If he were smart, he’d say, Why don’t you do that
while I finish up here? Not being unfriendly, but making
clear that he didn’t need her, either.
“Stay.” He sounded rusty again, as if he didn’t know
how to ask for what he wanted. He tried again. “Talk to
me. Tell me about…” What? Her life? What she
expected the ‘right’ man to be like? No. He’d scare her.
He was scaring himself. “A movie. I haven’t seen one
in a long time. What’s the last one you went to?”
She relaxed, as he’d hoped she would. While he
measured sugar and flour and put together the cobbler,
she told him about a thriller with a huge budget, big
stars and an unlikely plot.
At one point he glanced at the clock and thought in
surprise, They haven’t even been here twenty-four
hours.
How, in such a short time, had he gotten to the point