A Chance of a Lifetime (4 page)

“Fort Stewart. Winn Army Community Hospital. Before that I was in school at UCSD. I grew up in Southern California.” She shivered, pulling her jacket tighter. “I joined the Army so I could experience life outside of San Diego County. I never stopped to think that might mean twenty degrees and ice in October.”

He had joined up for the same reason. He'd seen far more than he'd bargained for. “It'll warm up again. We get occasional days in the seventies and eighties to get us through winter.”

“And frequent summer days of a hundred degrees plus all summer long to make you long for it again.”

He swallowed the last bite of eggs, cut the sausage patty in half, and ate one piece. It wasn't as bland as the eggs, with at least a hint of sausage flavor. The orange was good—not much the hospital kitchen could do to a piece of fruit—and the toast was dry. When he finished, he looked at Valentina. “Satisfied?”

Her laughter as she pushed away from the bed was warm and cheery and reminded him of better times. “It takes more than a clean plate to satisfy me. Keep your cereal. Waste not, and all that.”

“Want not,” he finished the saying for her, even as he took the sealed plastic cup from the tray.

“Want the milk?”

“Who puts milk on cereal?” That was teasing, too. Twice in one conversation must be some kind of record for him.

“Yeah, I don't, either.” She carried the tray from the room, calling from the door, “I'll be back…”

He looked out the window and grimly murmured, “I'll be here.”

Picking up the coffee again, he turned to stare outside. The sun reflected off the ice that coated everything, bright enough to blind even though it wasn't far above the horizon yet. He remembered going out to play after a heavy snow or, yeah, even just sleet, bundled in layers, two of everything except shoes and gloves. He would stagger down the steps and into the sun, baseball cap under knit cap, brim pulled low to block the glare. Most times, by the time he'd made it to the street, J'Myel was sliding out to meet him. They'd made snowmen and snow caves, ambushed other neighborhood kids with well-aimed snowballs, and tried to leave no patch of white untouched before frozen feet or hunger drove them back inside.

Good times,
J'Myel had always said when they reminisced about childhood stuff. He'd accompanied the words with an ear-to-ear grin.

Calvin's chest grew tight, his next few breaths hard to pull out. His fingers gripped the coffee mug so tightly that the tips turned pale, and a strangled sound escaped his throat before he clamped down hard on it. He wanted some good times again, God help him, he did. Because he couldn't go on like this forever.

In the twenty years Bennie had lived with Mama Maudene, she could count on one hand the number of times they'd missed church on Sunday morning that weren't weather related: three trips back home to South Carolina to visit family and the two Sundays following J'Myel's death. It averaged out to once every four years, not a bad record. She knew a few pastors who couldn't claim such diligent attendance.

This cold bright morning, she dressed in fleece pants, an OU Sooners sweatshirt, and fuzzy house shoes over woolen socks. The shirt actually belonged to Mama, a gift from one of her numerous nieces, but being an unwavering OSU Cowboys fan, Mama had passed the shirt on to Bennie. Someone should get some use from it, she'd declared, but it wasn't going to be her. Cold-natured Bennie couldn't care less what logo was on the front as long as it kept her warm.

The instant she opened the bedroom door, she smelled coffee and cinnamon rolls. Good for her soul, not so much for her hips. “Morning, Mama,” she greeted when she shuffled into the kitchen. “Isn't it beautiful outside?”

“It would be more beautiful if our yellow grass was showing.” Mama handed her a cup of coffee, fresh from the Keurig.

Bennie blew gently across the top of the mug. “Smells wonderful. What is it today?”

“A Salvadoran medium-roast with notes of almond, honeysuckle, and pipe tobacco.” Mama's smile wreathed her face. “Listen to me. I've become a coffee connoisseur. Oh, and the packaging is ninety-seven percent recyclable. Saving the world one K-cup at a time.”

The aroma alone was enough to make Bennie happy she'd gotten out of bed. Settling at the table, she tested it with a tiny sip, and when it didn't scald her tongue, she took a larger drink, then mmm-ed her appreciation. Since Mama had discovered Internet shopping, they hadn't had a single cup of regular old supermarket coffee, and Bennie, for one, was grateful.

“I'm trying a new recipe today,” Mama said from the stove. “Hashbrown potatoes, onions, peppers, eggs, cheese, and chorizo. That's Mexican sausage. While it finishes up in the oven, why don't you see if the newspaper boy managed to get through this morning.”

Obediently, Bennie went to the front door, opening it to an ice-covered world. Though it was thirty degrees south of bearable, the air wasn't as frigid as she'd expected. With any luck, most of this mess would be gone tomorrow and she'd never, ever see sleet again. She crossed two fingers on both hands and squeezed her eyes shut, making a wish of the thought, then bent to pick up the paper in its plastic sleeve.

The newspaper boy, a retired rural mail carrier, had indeed made it. He was as reliable as the sun coming up every morning. His secret, he claimed, was his seventies-era Volkswagen Beetle. Where other cars gave up, ol' Bess just kept on chugging, and if she slid into a ditch or a fence post, well, what was another ding?

Bennie was about to close the storm door when she stopped, her gaze traveling across and down the street. The Sweet home was barely visible through the ice-laden tree branches, a tidy place set back from the road. Justice would have already gone to the small cabin on the other side, probably along with Calvin, to help Miss Emmeline make a safe crossing to their house, and they would be sitting down to breakfast about now. Bennie smiled at the thought of the spread Elizabeth would have cooked, all delicious and fattening and filled with love.

Had Calvin's first night home been a good one? Had he felt warm and secure in his old room that had once been an attic? Had he stretched out in bed and thought,
Thank God I'm home
?

Probably. Had he thought about J'Myel? About the way things had ended between them? Had he regretted the way he'd treated Bennie, missing their wedding, not showing up for J'Myel's funeral, never saying a word to her about the worst time in her life?

Her jaw tightened, tension twisting through her gut. Probably not. Her best friend forever hadn't turned out to be such a great friend, and he'd sure never lasted close to forever.

“You're letting the outside in,” Mama called from the kitchen doorway. “Get on in here, let's say the blessing, and see how this new dish tastes.”

Forcing a calming breath, Bennie did as she said, stripping off the plastic sleeve and laying the paper next to Mama's recliner on her way past. After discarding the dripping sleeve in the waste basket, she sat, bowed her head, and while Mama prayed, Bennie mouthed her own prayer that Calvin's visit would be short, that she wouldn't see him, that he would go away again and let her return to her hard-won life without him.

After taking a few bites of the casserole and praising the recipe as a keeper, she remarked casually—she hoped, “It would be nice for his folks if Calvin can stay through Thanksgiving.”

“Christmas would be even nicer, but I doubt the Army can afford to let him be gone that long. You know he's the best, toughest, most gung-ho soldier in the history of armies anywhere. So says Emmeline.” Mama's eyes gleamed. “It's hard to believe. Him and J'Myel were two of the orneriest boys I ever saw. We never knew what the three of you would get into next. Though I gotta say, you never made me really whomp you.”

There had been no shortages of spankings and swattings from Mama, all of them well deserved, but her
whompins
were the stuff of legend. When they visited family, there was usually a cousin or uncle there who'd gotten whomped. All they would say was it scared the crooked straight out of 'em and was the closest a person could come to meeting Jesus while still breathing.

 Mama's smile was happy and sad, present and distant at the same time. “Them boys and you was like pieces of a braid. Take one out, and it all falls apart.”

“We surely did fall apart,” Bennie agreed, grimly wondering if the memories they had were enough to make up for the ones they'd never gotten to make. “I don't suppose Miss Emmeline mentioned how long Calvin
will
be here.”

“Nope. You know Emmeline. All she said was he had arrived and Justice and Elizabeth were on their way to see him.”

Bennie dished another small serving of casserole onto her plate, then pondered that. So Calvin wasn't staying with his mom and dad. And the reason for that would be… he'd brought someone home with him. Maybe a woman. Maybe a wife. The marriage would have been a last-minute thing, or the whole neighborhood surely would have heard about it, and the trip could be their honeymoon, and they would require privacy for, oh, you know,
this and that
.

How would Bennie feel about running into a brand-new Mrs. Calvin Sweet?

It didn't seem possible that there could be a Mrs. Sweet without her knowing all about it. But if there was, well, it wouldn't be the Mrs. who needed to keep a distance. It was Mr. Sweet—
Captain
Sweet—who poked at the sore spot in Bennie, who wanted to grab him by one ear and ask him just one question:
Where the hell were you? What happened between you and J'Myel? Why didn't I hear from you when your best friend in the entire universe died?

 Okay, more than one question.

She sighed heavily. Did it matter now? J'Myel was dead. So was her friendship with Calvin, and her life was going on. She was as happy as a woman could be when she'd been widowed before thirty. She had her health, a home, a good family, and good friends—all the things that mattered in life. She was
satisfied
, and had put the past in the past.
Or thought I had.

“You want any more casserole or coffee?”

Blinking, she focused on Mama, standing next to her, hand extended toward her plate. “No to the food, but I'll take another cup of that excellent coffee. I'll make it, though.”

Mama snorted. “Set yourself back down. I'll take care of it for you. I do it better than you anyway.”

Bennie resettled in her chair. When she'd come to live with Mama, her grandmother hadn't hesitated to assign chores to her. She'd taught Bennie to cook, clean, do laundry and housework, to make her bed first thing in the morning and to leave the kitchen spotless after one meal and ready to cook the next one. When they'd both worked full-time, they'd done an equal share of the chores, but when Mama had retired six years ago—finally old enough, she'd decided, at seventy-five—she'd taken command again. Bennie had tried to wrest back her fair share of the work, but when she was at the hospital for eight-hour shifts five days a week, it was hard to stop a headstrong woman from doing what she pleased.

And what pleased Mama was keeping her house shining, taking care of her granddaughter, shopping on the Internet, and making the best cup of coffee in the house.

“Too bad you can't take advantage of our morning off to visit with your friends,” Mama remarked as she set a steaming cup of coffee on the table, then carried away the rest of the casserole.

“Isn't that always the way. You get a bad-weather day, and the weather keeps you from enjoying it. When are they going to give us a day off because it's unusually sunny and warm?”

Mama's laugh warmed her even more than the coffee. Rising from her chair, Bennie gave her a fervent hug. “I'm so lucky to have you for a grandmother.”

“Not lucky,” Mama reminded her, and together they said, “Blessed.” Then Mama added, “And you've been twice the blessing to me. Now if you'd just give me some great-grandbabies while I'm still young enough to play with them…”

“Let me get right on that. You can help me put an ad on the Internet. ‘Single black female looking for good provider and father material. Only marriage-minded men should apply.' Think that will get me a few takers?”

One of Mama's rare somber expressions crossed her face. “You know, as much as we wish otherwise, J'Myel isn't coming back.”

Bennie's throat tightened, her chest squeezing. She barely found the air to force out a pained reply. “I know.”

“You're too young to live the rest of your life alone, with nobody but me for company. You know, I'm not going to be around a whole lot longer. I probably don't have more than ten, maybe twenty years left in me.”

“Oh, only ten or twenty, huh?” As Mama's trademark grin broke free, Bennie pretended to swat her. “Let's get this kitchen cleaned up so you can read your paper and I can get a head start on my studying.” She took classes two nights a week, working toward an associate's degree in nursing. She'd always had an interest in pediatrics—and, she added with a sidelong look at Mama—geriatrics.

“If you need any research done, you just let me know.” Mama winked. “My laptop and I are ready.”

T
reating Calvin like any other patient when he was discharged on Tuesday morning, Valentina pushed him to the front entrance of the hospital, where water puddled from the vehicles driving beneath the portico to pick up patients. He'd insisted back on the floor that he could walk, but she'd said no. He hadn't even suggested that she didn't have to wait for him. Someone was coming over from the Warrior Transition Unit to pick him up and deliver him to his new command. One of these days, he supposed, he should think about replacing the car that had been stolen in Tacoma. In an Army town, it was always easy to get around, but in the last year he hadn't been very good at asking favors from others.

“I have to say, Captain, I wish all my patients were as compliant as you,” Valentina said. “You're very good at taking orders.”

“I'm a soldier, ma'am. They kind of teach that,” he said dryly.

She wheeled the chair to the nearest empty seat and sat down to face him. “You'll do good at the WTU. They've got a relatively new facility, and the staff over there is great. There's a class of third-graders from the post school who visits every week, and Sarge… aw, man.” She grinned like an adolescent girl who'd just found out the football captain was her lab partner. “I'd take Sarge home with me if I could. Everybody loves Sarge.”

“Doesn't sound like any sergeant I've ever known. Not even me when I was one.”

“Trust me.” She grinned, then her gaze slid past him to a sedan stopping under the portico. “There's your chauffeur. I'll introduce you.” She pushed the wheelchair through the double sets of doors. At the car, she opened the front passenger door, then ducked down so she could see the driver. “They haven't pried you out from behind the wheel yet, huh?”

“Nope, and they're not going to. If they try, I'm just gonna drive away.”

“Captain Sweet, meet Corporal Stephens. Take him on the scenic route, will you, Justin, and put it on my tab.”

“Will do, Val.”

The nurse stepped back, locked the wheels on the chair, and folded up the footrests. As Calvin settled in the front seat of the car, she flashed that brilliant smile again. “Take care of yourself, Captain. If you get a craving for cinnamon coffee, you know where to find me.” She squeezed his hand briefly before closing the car door.

Calvin flexed the fingers she'd gripped. Of course her skin was softer than his, and it smelled of antiseptic foam and lotion. Hospital odors aside, though, everything about her was soft, sweet, tantalizing. He'd missed those things, damn, so long. They'd come along in short spurts: the girl he'd dated senior year for three months; the girl he'd met at basic training; the new neighbor when he'd returned from his first tour of Iraq; the red-haired doctor, brand new to Afghanistan and in need of comfort when the bombs hit too close. Little bits of happiness that dotted years grown darker and harder.

“You need to make any stops?” the corporal asked as he pulled away. “We're not far from the PX and the commissary.”

“No,” Calvin replied, then belatedly added, “Thanks, though.”

“Val's great, isn't she? She was one of my nurses last time I was in the hospital. Smart and funny, and she ain't hard to look at, either.”

Calvin took a covert look at him. He appeared healthy and whole, and his morale was certainly upbeat. He hadn't stopped grinning yet, though Valentina was probably the reason for that.

Then Calvin noticed the crutches stowed between the driver's and passenger's seats, and the hand controls on the steering column. Corporal Stephens was healthy and upbeat but apparently not whole. Guilt seeped into Calvin's brain, kicking his own mood down a notch. What did he have to complain about? He was alive. He'd come home with both arms, both legs, all body parts intact and exactly the way they'd been when he'd left. So he needed medication to counteract the depression. So he had trouble sleeping, thinking, trusting, relaxing. So he couldn't always avoid the dark, cluttered places in his brain.

He was alive.

He was physically whole.

He had so damn much to be grateful for, and he wanted to be grateful for it, if he could just figure out how.

“Cool car, huh?” Stephens said. “I just got it a couple weeks ago. Donated, on account of my legs. I thought I was never gonna drive again, and man, that sucked. I've already put a thousand miles on it, and I don't plan to stop until it hits at least five hundred thousand.”

What had happened to his legs? Had he been shot? Mangled or burned thanks to the damage an improvised explosive device could do to metal and steel and, of course, the fragile human body? Had he survived a blast with bloody stumps, shredded skin, disintegrated bone?

There were all sorts of ways to lose the use of a perfectly functional pair of legs, and Calvin figured he'd seen them all.

What did it say about him that the carnage of the last blast he'd seen had sickened him as much as the first?

He wondered about the corporal's injuries, but he wouldn't ask. He wouldn't probe someone else's open wounds—emotionally if not physically—just to satisfy his own curiosity. Besides, if he asked, he would be expected to share his own injury. There was something so much more acceptable in being able to say
broken arm, bad leg, amputated foot
, than in Calvin's response:
I went crazy over there.

But Justin didn't wait for him to ask. “My humvee got taken out by an IED. Broke both legs in more places than the docs wanted to count. Now I've got more screws than Home Depot.”

Sorry
was the most useless word in the world, but it was the only thing Calvin could think of.

Stephens shrugged it off. “I'm doing good. No brain damage, no more combat, and I learned to dance all over again. My girlfriend dumped me, but that just means she wasn't worth keeping in the first place. I can drive again, I can still please the ladies”—his grin stretched across his face—“and hey, everyone's gotta face a little pain, right?”

Calvin's face grew hot as the guilt flared again. He'd found it too easy to forget that other people suffered, that other people had
real
pain.

“You have family near here?”

He cleared his throat. “Parents and grandmother in Tallgrass. About a hundred and one relatives spread between Oklahoma City and Tulsa.”

“Lucky. My dad's an only child, and my mom's family was halfway across the country when I was a kid. I grew up in California, but my grandma and grandpa live in Enid. They've both got some health issues, so Mom and Dad moved back here to take care of them. My mom thought she was going to take care of me, too. Hell, man, I love her, but I'm twenty-two years old. I don't need a nurse…although I'd sure give Val a shot if she was interested. Here we are.”

The announcement came so abruptly that Calvin needed a moment to refocus. The brick building in front of them reminded him of a hundred other buildings on a dozen other posts, newer than most, maybe a little more aesthetic than most, but still obviously a government facility.

“The WTU barracks are over there.” Stephens gestured to the building next door as he opened his door. He carefully swung his legs out, picked up his crutches, and maneuvered to his feet. “Most of us gimps are on the first floor. The guys with TBIs and PTSD get the second-floor apartments, though there's an elevator if they have to put one of us up there.”

At least Calvin could be grateful he didn't have a traumatic brain injury. That was a lifelong sentence without a cure.

Though there was no cure for PTSD, either. It was a lifetime of trying to stay in control, of never letting his guard down, of never letting the darkness defeat him. Decades of fighting, when the last decade had just about done him in. Where was he supposed to find the strength?

Slinging the strap of his bag over his shoulder, Calvin matched his pace to Corporal Stephens's from the parking lot to the door. A figure waited on the opposite side of the glass, posture erect, eyes sharp, imposing and silent.

When Stephens limped through the door Calvin held for him, the figure moved, a low whine in his throat, and nudged his head against Stephens's knee. “Hey, Sarge, did you miss me?”

A man in PT clothes stepped out of a door down the hall, wiping his face with a towel clenched in a prosthetic hand. “Don't flatter yourself, Justin. He's waiting for the schoolkids to come.”

“That's okay,” Stephens replied. “He can be as friendly as he wants, but he still goes home with me.”

The collie barked once in agreement.

Using the crutches as if they were a natural extension of himself, Stephens moved down the broad hall. “Captain Sweet, this is Kyle Danner, and that's the gym. We spend an ungodly amount of our time in there. Staying in shape is big around here. Sound mind and healthy body, and all that crap.”

Calvin exchanged nods with Danner and took a quick look around the gym. Physical and occupational therapists worked with a handful of patients; a few more worked out on their own. Everyone—all the patients, at least—was dressed in PT clothes: shorts and T-shirt or sweats, with scars, dressings, and prosthetic limbs on display. It stood to reason, then, the people lacking the scars, dressings, and prostheses were the PTSD guys and some of the TBIs. No hiding his failures here.

An itch started along the back of his neck, like the time he'd gotten poison ivy, spreading down his spine, his arms, and his legs. His parents hadn't told anyone what he'd done, just Gran, and they'd promised him it was his secret to share. This wasn't like going to any post in any town for treatment, where he hardly knew anyone and no one who would be surprised.

He knew people in Tallgrass, had gone to church and to school with them, had been friends with some and not with others. He had worked summer jobs for some fathers and dated some daughters and planned in another eight or ten or twelve years to come back here to live.

Well, he'd come back, though not quite the way he'd planned. Now it was up to him to learn how to live.

“Bennie, why did we ever decide that we wanted to be nurses?”

Shifting her backpack to her other hand, Bennie wrapped her free arm around Trinity Adams. They'd been friends since seventh grade, when Trinity's father transferred to Fort Murphy, then decided to retire there; they'd finished school together, they worked together as aides at St. Anthony's, and they'd decided to become RNs together. “As I recall, we were tired of making beds, wiping butts, and running ourselves ragged.”

“We're still gonna run ourselves ragged.”

“Yeah, but we'll get paid a lot more for it.”

“Keep reminding me of that, 'cause I think this class is going to kill me.”

“Aw, you can't give Dr. Perkins that satisfaction.” They reached their cars, parked side by side in the community college parking lot, and Bennie beeped hers. The lights flashed, a welcome glow in the dark night.

“You're right. The old bat probably keeps track of her kills on her office wall.” Trinity beeped her own car and tossed her bags inside. “Enjoy a margarita for me, will you? I'm heading home to study. The story of my life.”

With a wave, Bennie slid into the driver's seat of her car, closed, and automatically locked the doors. Work, school, and study were mostly the story of her life, too, she thought as she drove out of the parking lot, but not tonight. Dr. Perkins had let them out early enough that she could catch the last part of the Tuesday Night Margarita Club meeting.

Though
meeting
was an awfully formal word for the weekly dinner, drinks, conversation, and much-needed laughs. Fellowship, Mama called it. She got the same, minus the drinks, from the Ladies' Bible Study and Prayer Group that met at the church twice a week. Though mostly elderly, that bunch was lively enough. They didn't need liquor added into
their
equation.

The margarita girls were pretty lively, too, and no matter what was going on, they always made Bennie feel better. In a town the size of Tallgrass—about sixty thousand, including the fort personnel—it was entirely possible that they could have never crossed paths. But they had two things in common: Each of them had loved a soldier, and each of them had lost him. That bonded them in ways nothing else could.

It was seven forty-five when she swept into The Three Amigos, the best Mexican restaurant in town. In warm weather, the margarita club claimed the patio on the east side of the brightly painted building, but the rest of the year, they occupied anywhere from four to eight tables pushed together in the back of the restaurant. She spotted them as soon as she passed the bar, and affection and pure, unadulterated pleasure welled inside her.

“Bennie!”

A half-dozen voices called her name, and there was affection and pleasure there, too. They scooted chairs, making room for her. After shucking her coat, she circled the table, giving and receiving hugs. When she got to Ilena Gomez, she
ooh
ed over baby John, nestled in his mama's arms. His black hair stuck up at angles, and his coffee-dark eyes grew bright when he grinned at her.

“I swear, Ilena, he's the handsomest baby boy in the whole world.”

“Yeah, he gets that from me,” fair-haired, pale-skinned Ilena replied, her voice as small and thin as she was.

Bennie snorted. “Not that you aren't beautiful, but that boy's the spitting image of his daddy. I've seen pictures.” Juan Gomez had died months before his son was born, but Ilena was determined to keep him alive in John's heart.

Pain twinged in the region of Bennie's heart. She had wanted babies with J'Myel. He'd suggested on their honeymoon that she get pregnant right away, but she'd kept taking those birth control pills. A husband and wife needed time to get to know each other before bringing a child into their lives, she'd insisted.
You've known me since we were nine,
he'd retorted.
How much more do you think there is to learn about me?