Purple Hearts(74)

It was sunny out, the sky was ice blue, and Mittens seemed excited about the Frisbee, wagging her tail so hard it sent her backside back and forth. I whipped the disk toward the edge of the fence until it looked like it was going to sail clean over, before Mittens leaped and snatched it out of the air.

Everyone erupted in cheers.

Pain snaked from my shin to my hip, but now that I’d started to build muscle, I just winced instead of collapsing. “Good girl!” I rubbed her velvety ears.

I hadn’t seen this yard sober for three years. Mittens was trotting near the bushes where I used to hide from Jake after I drew dicks in his comic books, waiting to pelt him with pebbles when he came out the back door. I’d pee in those bushes when I came home from a party cross-faded, hoping to avoid using the toilet so I could make as little noise as possible. There were probably still cigarette butts in the soil from when I would sneak over from Johnno’s place to steal pieces of white bread or bologna or whatever else I could grab.

The last time I was here, Dad had walked in while I was microwaving a frozen burrito. He had told me to repay what Johnno and I had stolen from the garage, or he’d call the cops. It was only one or two hundred bucks. Cloud head had laughed. Dad had reached for the cordless and dialed. I’d dropped the burrito and started to run.

That’s right, he’d said. Get out. You coward.

Johnno had already started down the block. When Dad saw that I was running to get in the Bronco, he ran after me, cordless phone in hand. Luke!

You’ve failed me. You’ve failed your mother. You’ve failed Jake.

Dad had thrown the phone, hard, breaking the skin at the back of my head. I still have a scar.

That was about a year before Jake and Hailey’s wedding. It was the last time I’d heard him say my name.

Today, Cassie had rung the bell, as if I hadn’t spent the majority of my life opening that navy-painted door with a karate kick, slipping off my muddy shoes, flopping on the nearest piece of furniture.

I hadn’t realized my hands were shaking until Cassie, noticing, put her hand over the one that held my cane. I looked around for my brother, for someone watching us. No one was. She squeezed.

The door opened. My dad had aged, softened in a way. I hadn’t noticed when I’d seen him that day at the hospital. God, when had he become an old man?

I’d held out my free hand.

“Son,” he’d said, and took it.

I was trying not to make it a big deal. But I guess you could say the natural state of my face was grin.

While Cassie and Dad served up plates, Jake and Hailey and I watched JJ chase Mittens around the yard, launching his tiny body onto her back, trying to ride her.

“Careful, don’t hurt the doggy!” Hailey called.

“Saw you and Dad talking about where you served,” Jake said.

I smiled at him. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he replied, slapping me on the back.

Hailey glanced over at us. She held up her hands, sarcastic. “Whoa, hey, you two. Don’t make a scene.”

Over burgers, we talked about the dismal Rangers season, business at the garage, Cassie’s upcoming show. Mittens begged everyone for food.

“See?” Dad said after Jake and I had teased him about how his burgers were more like little balls of meat. “Mittens doesn’t care what shape it’s in. She knows it tastes good.”

After JJ sang us the alphabet song, Cassie told an abridged version of our city hall wedding. She did an imitation of the guy who married us, counting on her fingers in the exaggerated accent. “It was like he was listing cuts of meat, or something! We got a juicy Psalm 23, a fresh Corinthians, a fatty cut of Ephesians . . .”

Hailey and Jake were losing it. Dad started laughing, too, and I noted that as number six. The sixth time I’d seen my dad laugh, it was Cassie. Before I thought about what I was doing, I leaned my head over and kissed her on the cheek.

She kept laughing, giving me a look without missing a beat.

As the sun set, I asked my dad if it would be all right if I took Cassie up to the attic. He nodded from where he had settled in his chair, watching football. Between Cassie and the cane, the stairs took only five minutes.

“Cut my time in half,” I noted.

“Don’t get cocky,” Cassie joked.

My father’s old tin trunk sat between a box of Christmas lights and a stack of photo albums. It had been in the back of my mind for weeks now, and when Jake invited us over, I knew I had to come up here and find it. I bent gingerly to brush off dust from the top.

“What is that?” Cassie asked.

I unhooked the latches. I remembered Batman pajamas, Jake gurgling in my mother’s arms, both of us fresh from the bath. The feel of the rough canvas of Dad’s uniform, Morrow inscribed on the breast pocket. And underneath, the wooden box. Dad’s Purple Heart.

I laughed to myself, holding it up for Cassie to see. She squinted from where she sat next to me on the floor, cross-legged.

“Oh, is that— Holy shit! I didn’t know your dad had a Purple Heart.”

Now I would have one, too. God, I couldn’t believe that. I had thought it made my dad the most important man in the world.

“What’d he get it for?”

“Shot twice in the side on the Mekong Delta.”

I couldn’t keep the memories at bay now. “I remember he lifted up his shirt to show me the scars, and I remember touching those little pink bumps and just, like, thinking he was a superhero. Not even that. Better than a superhero because he was my dad. He was like the invincible human.”