Send Down the Rain(43)
“Sure.”
“Anything in particular?”
“Grand Funk Railroad had a pretty good song back then.”
“Good night, Joseph.”
“Night, Suzy.”
“And, Jo-Jo?”
“Yeah?”
“Until next time.”
I hung up and smiled as she closed the show with “We’re an American Band.”
AT MIDNIGHT I FOUND myself leaning against the couch, staring at Allie. For some reason she stirred and her eyes opened. My feet were stretched out toward the fire. She put her arm around me and hooked her heel over my shin. I’d seen vines do the same thing. After a moment she whispered, “I had a dream.”
“Yeah? What about?”
“You.”
I chuckled. “You sure it wasn’t a nightmare?”
She smiled. “You were young. You’d been hurt.” She looked up at me. “Wounded.” She paused. “Were you?”
I nodded.
She slipped her hand inside my shirt, her palm flat across my chest. “Were you shot?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know really. We were all shot.”
“Give me a number.”
“A lot.”
“That’s not a number.”
“I lost count.”
“Do you have scars?”
I nodded.
“Will you show me?”
“Not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Show me.”
I lifted my shirt. Left shoulder. “Bullet.” Right rib cage. Longer scar. “Bayonet.” Back. “Shrapnel.” Scar along the left side of my neck. “Knife.” Right hip. “Smaller bullet.” I pulled my shirt back on. “There are others, but my pants are covering them up.”
“Did you receive a Purple Heart?”
“Yes.”
She touched the places on my body that I’d just shown her. “For all of these?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Don’t really remember.”
“How many?”
“For those of us who spent a lot of time over there, the whole medal thing became somebody else’s concern. We just wanted to get home.”
“So you got shot more times than awarded medals?”
“Sure. But so did everybody else in my unit. Medals are what people sitting at desks do back home. Trying not to die was what we did up front.”
“Where’re your medals now?”
“No idea.”
“Really?”
“I don’t think about them.”
“Do you wish you had them?”
“What for?”
“To remember.”
“I’d like to forget most of the moments they represent.” I was quiet several minutes. “Maybe it’s tough to understand, but all that happened over there, it’s not like what you see in the movies. It’s not like anything you’ve ever seen. It leaves its mark on a man.”
She sank her shoulder beneath mine. Somehow, over the course of the afternoon and evening, any boundaries of personal space had been thrown out the window. If Jake had ever had a tether to Allie’s heart, he didn’t any longer. She liked being close to me, and I liked her being close. Which caused me some concern regarding tomorrow. I chewed a few antacids and admitted that wasn’t my only concern.
“Why do you eat those?” she asked.
“Habit, I suppose.”
“When did you start the habit?”
“Back when I was drinking.”
“Why?”
“Stomach started bleeding.”
“You had an ulcer?”
“Don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Never really had it checked out.”
She sat up and frowned.
I continued. “I quit drinking and started taking these. Bleeding quit. Problem solved.”
She shook her head, leaned against me, and laid her hand flat across my chest again. “Life dealt you a bad hand.”
I laughed. “Somebody did.”
She reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out the index card I’d laid on the bedside table the night I found her on the beach. I didn’t know she’d kept it. Spilled coffee stained one corner. Water droplets another. The paper was wrinkled and some of the pencil had smeared. She held it between two hands. “You’ve improved.”
“Practice does that.”
I’d sketched her sleeping. Hair tucked behind her ear. Sheet and blanket draped across her legs and hips. One foot half covered. She pointed toward the drawing. “When I sleep, does my forehead scrunch like that?”
I nodded.
“No wonder I have so many wrinkles.”
We slept in front of the fire. Warm. Close. Rosco sprawled out around us. The wind gently nudged the limbs, which brushed the sides of the cabin.
It was the best sleep I’d ever had.
25
I woke before daylight and made coffee. Allie was wrapped up like a cocoon with one arm around Rosco. I poured myself a cup, stepped outside, and breathed in. A minute later, she slid her arms around my waist and pressed her chest to my back and held me. “Morning.”