Casualties (7 page)

He turned to the next page in the old photo album. There he was at twelve or thirteen, a lardass with pants sawed off at the shins, Padres cap turned around on his head, eyes puffed up, all spacey. Must've just come back from smoking a fatty in the barn during a rare visit back.

He ripped that one off the page and shredded it.

Here was a good one, himself with a string of brookies, standing in the farmhouse kitchen. What was he, six, seven?

There was a photo of him and his half siblings. He recognized it as the “good-bye” picture. Vonnie had taken it the day before Ruth dragged Robbie off to California. Justin and he looked like brothers, both of them stocky with puffy cheeks and the same mop of unruly brown curls. Luanne looked like Vonnie: bird bones, big eyes, wispy blond hair.

He felt bad now for running off when Justin tried to talk to him. He should have asked him more about the soccer, about high school, about anything. He was eighteen and a senior, but he seemed like a kid. Robbie lifted the photograph and put it next to the others. He remembered how much he'd loved the idea of having a brother, but he never felt like a brother once they moved. There were too many miles between them, and the age gap loomed larger then. He'd found his real brothers in the Marines. Robbie drained the rest of the beer.
A few drops spilled onto his boot camp picture. He tried to brush them off but they left spots on the white hat, the dark blue of his jacket.

He didn't know who or what he was when he enlisted. He just knew what he wasn't. He wasn't a college kid like Ruthie wanted. He wasn't headed for any corner office like she had with a secretary and a bunch of people running around while she cracked the whip. He was no surfer, no skinny golden boy like her boss's kid. It used to scare the shit out of him when he tried to imagine what he wanted or who he was supposed to be and nothing came to him. Nothing that mattered.

The Marines didn't care, though. They were going to make him part of something bigger than whatever the hell he thought he was. No one mattered but the Marine next to him and the Corps: not his mom, not his “fat nasty civilian” friends from high school, not even Uncle Kev or Big Ruth.

It was a relief. An honor. He was a grunt and proud of it. Robbie looked again at the photographs he'd lined up on the table. He looked back at the book, open now to all the empty pages Big Ruth had saved for him. The longer he looked, the more he understood that there was nothing left to fill them with.

Tomorrow, he'd go see his mom. He was as ready as he'd ever be.

Ruth pressed her ear to the guest room door. Nothing. Damn door was too thick to hear anything on the other side. She didn't want to wake Robbie but she wanted to see him, just for a minute, enough time to soak up the proof that he was finally here. The night before was nothing like the homecoming she'd imagined.

Pure Robbie, though. He makes her wait and wait, and then, when he finally arrives, it's like an ambush. The phone rings after eleven as she's dropping off to sleep, and it's him. “I'm at the airport.” No time for anything but pulling on a sweat suit and sneakers, finding the keys to the Jaguar, Neal telling her it wouldn't be big enough, they should use his SUV, telling her to calm down, forget makeup, Robbie wouldn't care if she had on lipstick or not.

When she first saw the lone figure standing in a pool of light outside the baggage claim area, she thought:
Not him. Couldn't be.
The man standing in front of her was too thin, too old, and something else that she couldn't get a fix on. Then Neal guided the car to a stop and she saw her son's familiar chestnut eyes peering at her from under the bill of a camouflage cap.

Just one look. Ruth reached for the doorknob and turned, but it
resisted her. She rested her forehead against the door and imagined him sprawled across the bed the way she used to find him after a long night. It was still early. Robbie had to be exhausted. He probably locked the door because for the first time in four years he had one to lock.

Anyway, they had time now. Lots of time. Ruth turned and began to climb the stairs to the living room. When she ascended the final step, she was surrounded by sky. Only a wall of glass doors and windows separated her from the mist dissipating before her eyes. Slivers of sun raced across the surface of the Pacific. She snatched up a remote control and stepped toward the deck. The windows slid apart. Two steps and she was outside, looking beyond the rail at the waves breaking on the cliffs below her.

She couldn't wait to show Robbie the house. He'd never seen it finished. Ruth leaned out over the rail and looked down at the waves slapping against the cliffs. He'd sit right here, she decided. She would bring him breakfast, lunch, whatever he wanted. She'd already left a message at the office. She was taking the day off. Tomorrow too. Hell, she'd take the week. She never used all her vacation time. Her mind was suddenly crowded with plans; her heart felt unmoored. It bounced against her ribs like a trapped balloon. This was how she'd wanted to feel last night.

“Any signs of life down there?”

Ruth glanced over her shoulder, shook her head. “Not yet.” She reached for the mug Neal held out to her. “Thanks.” She sipped, eyed the man standing next to her wearing a towel and nothing else unless she counted the sand dusted across his shoulder blades and embedded in the silver hair around his ankles. In a few minutes, the grains would dry and drop to the tiles she'd had shipped from Italy.

Screw the sand. Didn't matter. Not today. She smiled. “How were the waves?”

“Nice steady rollers. Perfect for an old guy like me.” Neal took the towel from his waist, let it fall to a chaise longue, and settled on it, head
back to grab the sun burning through the last of the marine layer. He sipped from a chipped blue Chargers mug and sighed contentedly.

Ruth thought of Robbie down in the guest room. He could be up here any minute. She stepped closer, brushed her fingers through Neal's damp hair so that it stuck up in spikes like tiny stalagmites.

“We've got company. Don't you think you better wrap up?”

“He's been living with Marines. You think he'll be upset by a naked guy?”

“Come on, Neal. I mean it.”

Neal put down the mug, knotted the towel around his middle, and smiled at her. “There, how's that?”

Ruth nodded, but she was thinking now about things she hadn't had to think about for the past four years. Maybe Robbie would resent Neal's presence on his first day back. Then again, maybe not. After all, he'd been in and out of their lives since Robbie was ten. Not exactly a stranger. Not exactly family either. She realized Neal was talking.

“What did you say?”

“I was just saying you look a little nervous, there.”

Ruth sat down on the chaise next to him. “I am.” Saying it out loud didn't help.

Neal took a sip from his mug, then looked over the rim at her. “I'm going to clear out for a couple of days, head back to my place. You guys could use some time to catch up.”

Good, she wouldn't have to ask him. Ruth ran her hand through Neal's hair again. “Thank you.” Then she leaned over and kissed him.

“I ought to offer to get out of here more often.” Neal laughed.

Ruth grinned back, but now every nerve was tuned toward the guest room. “He looks good, don't you think?” she said. But he'd looked terrible, and smelled worse. Tobacco, booze, and of all things some kind of wood smoke, as if he'd been camping. She'd almost pulled away from him after their first awkward embrace. Then she hugged him again right away in case he'd noticed.

“Yeah. Sure.” The hesitance in Neal's tone made her look at him.
He wasn't smiling now. “Things could be rough for him. At least in the beginning.” Neal looked down into his mug of coffee, shook it a little. “He can't be the same kid you—”

“Of course he can't. Don't you think I know that?”

Ruth shifted away from him. She knew where Neal was going and she didn't want to listen. Not right now. There would be time enough to talk about Robbie's adjustment. Was it wrong to just wait and see? She just wanted today to be okay. To have one good day.

She thought again of Robbie's silence on the way home. She'd shown him the guest room and was ready to go make him something to eat, but he was through the door in the time it took to mumble good night. When she'd checked again before going to bed, he hadn't responded to her knock even though she'd seen a line of light beneath the door.

“He's tired. That's to be expected,” she said.

Neal didn't seem to hear her. “Just a few months, a couple of years. They change your whole life,” he said, looking past her shoulder in a way she'd come to recognize. He was talking about himself again. Vietnam. The things he'd seen. The end of one marriage, then another. Estrangement of his children. He'd been talking more and more lately, usually late at night after a few vodka martinis. Each telling peeled away more of the man Ruth knew, as though he were stripping in front of her. He wasn't drinking now, though. He was trying, in his way, to help but all he was doing was frightening her.

“You took orders; so did Robbie. You both did what you had to do. You have a good life now, right?”

Neal's voice grew insistent, as though he were a doctor and she were a stubborn patient. “I'm just trying to h—”

“Please, Neal, don't . . . can't we give Robbie some time to—”

“Hey.”

They both stumbled to their feet and turned toward the voice behind them.

Robbie filled the gap in the sliders, shirtless above and shoeless below the fatigues that clung to his hips.

“Whoa, Neal. Towel.” He croaked out a laugh while Neal caught and resecured the towel around his waist. Ruth knew she was blushing, and knowing it made her cheeks even hotter. She looked at Neal and knew she was scowling. Had he heard them talking about him?

“Geez. Kidding. Just kidding. It's your house.” Robbie did not look at her or at Neal when he said it. He drove his hands into his pockets and walked past Ruth to the rail. A dog's bark, the laugh of a couple of surfers floated up from the base of the cliffs.

“Big change from the old place.”

“Your mother's a big wheel, you know,” Neal said. “She's got generals eating out of her hand.”

After they've taken their cut
, Ruth thought, amused by Neal's attempt to impress Robbie with her accomplishments. Neal used his ex-military network to make money as a consultant. He brought Ruth lots of business and he got a piece of the pie. She caught Robbie's eye and smiled.

“Way to go, Mom,” Robbie said.

For a few seconds, no one spoke.

“You want some coffee, Rob, or is Coke still the drink of choice?” Neal cinched the towel tighter and grabbed his mug.

“Coke'd be good.”

“Done.”

Ruth joined Robbie at the rail, her shoulder nearly touching his. His head, still glistening with water from his shower, was razored nearly bald on each side; a small patch of black bristles did its best to cover the top. His jawline was still a surprise to her after four years, clean bones rising from what had once been a double chin. He was too thin, though. The circles under his eyes worried her.

“You look exhausted, honey.”

“Just jet lag. Mind if I smoke up here?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

“As long as you don't do it in the house.” Ruth wanted the words back as soon as she said them. Still she was glad when he shoved the cigarettes back in his pocket.

He leaned forward on the railing. A tattoo appeared on his rib cage, just under his armpit. His name, followed by the letters
APOS
, a string of numbers,
USMC
,
No Religion
.

“What's this?”

“Like dog tags, only permanent.”

“But why?”

“Lot of guys were getting 'em. You get . . . sometimes dog tags disappear. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

At first Ruth still didn't understand. Then she did. She grabbed his arm and pulled it to her the way she used to do when he was little and darting ahead of her near a busy street. More ink crawled up the underside of his forearm. A shield with the words
Semper Fidelis
. There were names: Hanny, Garcia, a couple of more she couldn't make out before Robbie pulled his arm back. Overhead, a flock of parrots shrieked. They swooped past in a blur of green.

“Damn, those guys are loud, huh?” Robbie watched the birds, descendants of escaped pets, now louder and more aggressive than the biggest crows. He rubbed the tattooed names, but now Ruth was looking at his hand. There was a tremor she hadn't noticed before.

She pretended to watch the parrots but wanted to pull Robbie to her and hold him until the tremor stopped. She settled for resting her palm against his shoulder, white where his T-shirt sleeve had shielded it from the sun. His shoulder stiffened under her palm. He breathed in through his teeth, the inward whistle he used to make when he was nervous. Ruth patted his shoulder and then let her hand drop. He glanced at her sideways.

“You look good, Mom. Still working out?”

She looked down at the sweat stains spread across the front of her tank top. “Every day. Did five miles on the treadmill this morning.”

Her waist, still damp, itched under her spandex shorts. She'd woken at four thirty, unable to go back to sleep. She'd seen the light under his door and had to restrain herself from trying to look in on him right then and there. “I put in a little gym downstairs. There's a lap pool out
back too. Feel free to use it. Not that you need to lose any weight. You're a rail.” Her words petered out. He might think she was criticizing; he used to hate when she said anything at all about his weight. She started talking again before he could respond. “Start thinking about what you'd like to eat. I'm going shopping as soon as I get dressed.”

“No work?” He looked at her and for the first time she felt she'd said the right thing.

“Are you kidding? I left a message last night. I'm taking time off beginning now. We're celebrating.”

“Here's your Coke, Rob.” Neal joined them at the railing. He'd changed into a pair of shorts and a faded blue polo shirt.

“In a glass and everything,” Robbie said. “Thanks.”

Ruth watched him swallow, his Adam's apple ascending and falling in one beautiful pumplike motion. Now she was thinking like him, a mechanic right from the start. At nine, fresh on the heels of a visit to his uncle's auto shop, he'd given her a lecture on hydraulics, rife with inaccuracies but packed with enthusiasm. The nine-year-old's voice sounded in her ears while she watched the twenty-three-year-old down his drink. She'd thought—hoped—he'd follow his father into engineering. Maybe now he'd do it. Robbie caught her staring at him.

“I know, I know. Coke's ‘not a civilized drink for breakfast.'” His hand still shook.

“What? No. No. Just glad you're here,” Ruth said. “Drink up.”

Neal cleared his throat. “Look, you both'll need some time . . .”

Ruth's BlackBerry toned. All three of them looked at the phone clasped to her hip.

“This'll just be a minute. I've already told them I'm taking the day off.” Ruth smiled at Robbie. “Start making that list, honey. Anything you want.”

She heard Terri speaking before she'd even put the phone to her ear. “I'm sorry to have to do this when Robbie's just gotten home, but Don's calling an emergency meeting. You need to be here in an hour.”