Captured(22)

I’ve mostly stopped reciting the letter, but it still comes out sometimes. The words are burned into my soul, and I just can’t help it. But she can’t know that. I feel this odd, penetrating shame about it. Like I stole something sacred of hers, of Tom’s, like I appropriated something private.

I move away, stepping through the tall grass at the fence line. I walk as fast as I can, my fists clenched. I concentrate on slowing my breathing. I focus on each step, each breath, on the blades of grass, the grain of the wood, the boards sliding past like train tracks. There’s the driveway. Finally. Duck through the lower and middle rungs, jog toward the road. Flee.

Run. Lungs burn, heart pounds. Legs hurt.

God, I’m so f*cked up.

The blue Ford rumbles up behind me, past me, brakes squeal. Reagan kicks open the door, leaves it open, crunches through the gravel toward me. “Why—Derek, why’d you run like that?”

So many questions, none of which I can or will answer. “I don’t know. I’m messed up, Reagan. Obviously, I’m not—I’m not good to be around. You have a kid. I don’t belong here. I did what I came to do. That’s it.”

She drags a hand through her hair, a light, hot breeze ruffling the honeyed waves. She’s agitated. At a loss for words. “You have nowhere to go.”

It seems like a non sequitur to me. “So? Not your problem.”

“Tom would’ve made sure you were taken care of. That you had somewhere to go. I can’t just let you wander away alone like this.”

“Tom’s dead.” It comes out flat, harsh.

She flinches. “I know that.”

I scrub my scalp, inch-long buzz tickling. “Sorry. Shit, I’m so sorry. That came out wrong.”

She shakes her head, turns away. The sun is heating up. Dandelions at the side of the driveway sway in the breeze, send white seeds tumbling. “Look, how about this: I need help. On the farm. The fence you fixed? I’ve been meaning to fix it for months, but I just can’t get ahead enough to do it. There’s so much to do and I—I just can’t do it all. And you have nowhere to go. You were like a brother to Tom, and that means—it means you have a place here.”

I don’t know how to answer. She’s not family, but I don’t think I can go back to my own in Iowa. My parents wouldn’t be able to handle me like I am now. They visited me at the Army hospital in San Antonio. But I was so obviously f*cked up that they didn’t stay long. They said I’d always have a place with them, but…I knew better. It’d be uncomfortable at best. My nightmares would keep them up. They’d want to help, and there is no help. They never really understood why I signed up for another term, and I couldn’t adequately explain it. I just knew Barrett and McConnell and the rest were all going to Afghanistan, and I wasn’t about to let them go without me. So I re-upped and went back into combat.

And now look at me.

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll stay for a couple of days. Help you get some shit done.”

“I won’t ask you any more questions. I promise.”

I feel my left hand trembling. I squeeze to stop it. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Reagan.”





*





REAGAN





He won’t sleep in the workshop. Won’t say why, just says he feels more comfortable in the stall. Hank had an old Army surplus cot stowed away, so I set that up in the stall with a pillow and a couple of blankets, a camping lantern. It’s odd, knowing he’s out there, in the barn, when I’m trying to sleep. I feel guilty, wishing I had better accommodations to offer him than a barn. But I don’t. There are only three bedrooms in the farmhouse: the master, Tommy’s room, and the third bedroom. But that third one…it’s Tom’s, from when he was a kid. When he joined the Corps out of high school, his parents left it the way it was, so he’d have something familiar to come home to, I guess.

Tom and I got married a month before he was scheduled to deploy to Iraq for the first time. He’d finished his infantry MOS training and was rotated home before shipping out. We’d kept in touch while he was in California, via letter and phone call. When he got his leave papers, he hopped the first train to my hometown of Tulsa, showed up at my front door unannounced. Dressed in his finest blues, he took my hand in his, dropped to one knee, and proposed with a white gold and cubic zirconium ring worth maybe a hundred dollars. My parents were standing behind me, furious. I said yes, pulling Tom to his feet and leaping into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist and kissing the ever-loving shit out of him, right there in front of Mom and Dad. Since clearly my parents weren’t going to be a part of a wedding, Tom waited on the front sidewalk while I packed two suitcases and called us a cab. We took a Greyhound bus to Houston and had a courthouse wedding. We spent three nights in a hotel in Houston, f*cking like jackrabbits. Finally, we made our way to Tom’s family’s farm outside a tiny place called Hempstead. His dad stood on the front porch, waiting for us, a huge man in dusty jeans, a dirty white T-shirt, and Caterpillar boots. He was broad, thick, carrying a beer belly and wearing a bushy blond beard, staring at us with dark eyes. Tom dragged me up the porch steps and stopped in front of his father.

“Dad,” Tom had said, “this is my wife. Reagan.”