Defiant Heart (18 page)

“One night, when I was in Baltimore, a buddy invited me to go with him to a local prize fight. It was in a dicey part of town, but they drew a damn good crowd. The top of the card turned out to be a couple of tomato cans who whaled on each other for a half an hour before one of them walked into a wild right hook and went down for the count. When I found out what the purse was for the winner, it got me thinking.

“You see, my dad had taught me how to box starting when I was a lot younger than you are now. He’d learned boxing from his father. I have no idea where my grandfather learned it. But my granddad, he had a reputation as no one to be trifled with.” Ben gave Jon a wry look. “He knew what to do in fight.

“Anyway, there I was in Baltimore watching a couple of rubes I knew I could beat easily, and it turned out they were making more money in a half an hour than I was making in a week. Well, it didn’t take me long, and I had a new gig, as a prizefighter. I knocked out the first couple of guys I fought and started drawing attention. A couple more knockouts, and I was moving up the cards. One thing led to another, and, eventually, I got offered a title bout. I was going to fight Bob Bollman. They called him Bobo. At the time, he held the middleweight title for the whole mid-Atlantic.”

“Wow.”

Ben nodded.

“What happened?”

“It never came off. I walked away from the whole thing. It was just time to move on.” Ben made a dismissive gesture. “Truth is, I knew I’d probably gone as far as I could. I wasn’t exactly a spring chicken by then. America was getting into the war. So, I signed up to fly with the army. Seemed like a good idea at the time. And anyway,” he said, laughing, “Bobo probably would have taken my head off.”

“So you never went back to boxing?”

“Nope. Never boxed again professionally. But,” he indicated the bag, “I held on to this thing. When the boys were old enough, I dragged it out and taught them how to defend themselves.”

Ben unbuckled the straps that held down the cover to the bag, reached in and withdrew a pair of leather gloves that looked to Jon like overstuffed kitchen mitts. He laid them on the workbench.

“And I’m going to do the same thing for you.”

#

Dick Mayfield was seated in his favorite chair, his feet up on the ottoman. It was Sunday afternoon. After the effort that went into preparing for church services, the services themselves, and the inevitable busy aftermath, this was his moment to relax.

He’d pulled down a book from the shelf to read and had lit a fire in the fireplace. The kids, he knew, were playing in the yard, and his wife was in the kitchen, shelling peas. Through the open kitchen door, the soft strains of classical music from the radio drifted in. He’d read a few pages from the book, but his lids were getting heavy, the warmth of the fire and the comfort of the chair luring him into a nap.

He’d set the book on his lap, closed his eyes and was just drifting off.

“Dick!” his wife called out in alarm.

Mayfield’s heart jumped. His first thought was of the children. One of them must have fallen. He was out of his chair and across the room in two seconds. At the door to the kitchen, he saw his wife sitting at the table in front of a mound of unshelled pods and a bowl full of peas. She had a stricken look. She’d lifted one hand to cover her mouth. With the other, she was pointing to the radio on the counter.

He could hear the ending notes of an orchestral piece, followed by polite clapping. An announcer began to introduce the piece. Tchaikovsky, it sounded like. He looked at his wife with a questioning expression.

She lifted her hand away from her mouth. “They said the Japanese…”

Suddenly, the radio went silent. Then a new voice started speaking.

“This is John Daly speaking from the CBS newsroom in New York. Here is the Far East situation as reported to this moment. The Japanese have attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and our defense facilities at Manila, capital of the Philippines. The first disclosure of this news was made by Presidential Secretary Stephen Early by telephone at approximately 2:25 in Washington. I read the text of this historic announcement at a little after 2:30.”

Mayfield sagged against the door frame. The announcer went on to provide what details were known. There were confirmed strikes on American ships, a naval engagement was in progress off the shores of Honolulu, police had been called out in case of revolutionary activity, declarations of war were imminent.

In a shaky voice, Mayfield said, “It’s begun. God help us all.”

#

Marvella Wilson buttoned her coat slowly. The cold exacerbated the arthritis in her fingers, so it was not an easy task. On the dresser next to her sat her favorite hat. It was the one she had purchased the previous Christmas as a gift to herself. Not a person given to fashion whims or frivolous expenditures, Marvella had acquired the chic item in a moment that was completely out of character. But, she’d reasoned, it had been Christmas, and that was a special time. And, in any event, she was looking forward to wearing it tonight.

For Marvella, the midnight Christmas service was the essence of the holiday season. Nothing meant Christmas more than the celebration for which she was getting ready. Every year of her life had included this special event.

As she walked down the short hallway, she noticed her grandson’s door was open and the room was empty. Odd, she thought, given the late hour. When she entered the parlor, she found him sitting on the divan. He was wearing a nice pair of slacks and a clean white shirt she’d never seen on him before. His coat was in his lap. He stood as she walked into the room.

“Oh,” she said, uncertainly. “What’s this about?”

He looked a little self-conscious and hesitated before responding. “I was wondering if it would be ok if I went with you to the midnight service.”

She thought she’d stopped being surprised by the boy, but this took her aback. She considered what to say next, but couldn’t quite find the right way to put it. The two of them stood there awkwardly for a long moment.

Finally, he volunteered, “I know what you’re thinking. But every year since I can remember, we always went to the midnight service. My dad said it was something my mom insisted on from the time they were married. It was always a special thing, and it wouldn’t be Christmas without it. And I was just hoping,” his voice trailed off.

Marvella blinked a few times. Then she nodded and said, formally, “Yes, we’ll go together.”

The boy’s face brightened. He moved quickly to the door, slipping on his coat as he did. He opened the door and held it for her. As she stepped past him, she said, “Thank you.”

They descended the steps and, side by side, walked up the darkened avenue.

The church had been done up in splendid fashion. Boughs of evergreen had been tied with red ribbon and mounted at the end of each row of pews. The theme had been carried up into the sanctuary, where hundreds of candles had been placed among the branches, the flickering of their flames causing the panes of the stained glass window to shimmer in a constantly changing and seemingly infinite variety of patterns. The church organ was softly playing “Away in a Manger.”

Marvella found a spot near the front, and she and Jon took their seats, each picking up one of the mimeographed sets of Christmas hymns that had been laid at regular intervals along the bench. Precisely at 11:45, the music came to an end, and Reverend Mayfield ascended the short steps to the altar. He gave a brief blessing, then invited everyone to join in the first hymn.

After a short opening flourish, the organist settled into the familiar strains of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” and the congregation took up the song. Someone with a fine, clear voice was singing near her, and it took Marvella a moment to realize that the voice belonged to her grandson. Without turning, she studied him from the corner of her eye. He had a joyous expression on his face and was unabashedly belting out the tune. She shook her head slightly and smiled.

Over the next hour, the Reverend Mayfield interspersed the story of the Nativity with familiar Christmas hymns, and the service concluded with a rousing rendition of “Joy to the World.”

As they were filing out of the church, a voice called out to her. She turned to see Everett Crane working his way through the crowd. She and Jon stepped to the side and waited for him.

Crane and his wife, Cynthia, had been long-time acquaintances of Ernest and Marvella. The two men had been close friends, and, before Ernest’s death, the four of them had socialized on a regular basis. Cynthia had been a member of Marvella’s bridge group until she had passed away two years earlier.

When he caught up to them, Crane said, “Merry Christmas, Marvella. You’re looking quite fashionable this evening.”

Despite herself, she flushed. “Thank you, Everett, and a very merry Christmas to you. How have you been?”

“No complaints,” he replied, and then he said with a smile, “at least none that are going to do me any good.”

“Have you heard from your son?” Crane’s son, Charles was an officer in the navy, and he was stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, there had been a few anxious days before word got back that he was fine.

“I have,” Everett replied, his smile broadening. “He’s gone back out to sea, but, before he left, he was able to put a phone call through from Hawaii.”

“Really?”

Crane nodded. “It wasn’t a very good connection, and he couldn’t talk long, but it was wonderful to hear his voice.”

“That was a nice Christmas present.”

“Yes,” he agreed. Turning to look at Jon, Crane asked, “And who is this young man?”

After only a brief hesitation, Marvella said, “This young man is my grandson.” Then she added, “Jonathon.”

Crane put out his hand and said, “Merry Christmas, Jonathon.”

Jon took his hand and replied, “Merry Christmas to you, sir.”

After exchanging a few more pleasantries, they parted, and she and Jon began the walk home. It was a cold, clear night, and the sky was resplendent with stars. The quiet was broken only by the soft crunch of their feet on the day-old snow lining the side of the road. Notwithstanding all the talk of war, Marvella felt an odd sense of peace.

8

“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. LoBianco is not in the office at the moment.”

Jim Dahlgren couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like the voice of the woman who’d answered the phone the last few times he’d called. “Can you tell me when you expect him back?” he asked.

There was a pause, then the woman said, “I really don’t know.”

He gave the woman his number, for what had to be the fifth or sixth time, and hung up. He sat back in his chair, raised his fingers to his temples, and rubbed gently. What the hell is going on, he asked himself, not for the first time today, and certainly not for the first time in the past two weeks.

On December 11, a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the declarations of war against Japan and Germany, the America First Committee had issued a statement announcing it was disbanding, declaring, “Our principles were right. Had they been followed, war could have been avoided. No good purpose can now be served by considering what might have been, had our objectives been attained.”

It was a potential body blow to Dahlgren’s candidacy. At a minimum, it meant an already organized constituency had just vanished into thin air. That was bad. What was worse, however, was the possibility that the funding on which Dahlgren had been counting was no longer available.

“Damn it,” he said to himself, not for the first time that day, and not for the first time in the past two weeks.

There was a knock on his door. He composed himself, and called out, “Come in.”

The door opened, and Mary entered. “I’m ready to get going,” she said. “Do you have the final list?”

Dahlgren looked at his daughter. For the past two or three months, he had noticed a change in her disposition. Mary had always been one of the most vibrant, alive persons he had ever known. She took after her mother in that respect. But the Mary standing before him now was very different. She was quiet, reserved. Behind her uncharacteristically veiled eyes, there lurked something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. She seemed, for lack of a better term, sad. He’d made a couple of attempts to talk to her about it, but she’d deflected him, and, to tell the truth, he’d been so busy organizing his campaign, he hadn’t really pursued it.

“Mary, will you please tell me what’s wrong?”

She gave him a wan look. “Nothing, other than the fact that I need to get going so I can make it back before the storm hits.”

Mary, who was out of school for the Christmas holiday, would be driving to Parkersville to pick up some checks from donors. There had been reports that a major winter storm would be rolling into the area in the late afternoon or early evening. It was projected to bring a great deal of snow and would likely close most of the roads in the area.

“There’s time. You and I both know that something’s wrong. Let’s have it.”

Mary didn’t reply right away. She looked at him, then looked away. She seemed to be debating with herself. Telling himself he needed to be patient, he waited.

Finally, she gave him a direct look, and asked, “Why are you doing this?”

He spread his palms. “Doing what?”

“Well, for starters, running for Congress.”

He sat back, a little surprised. “Why would you even have to ask? It’s an incredibly important and prestigious thing to be a United States Congressman.”

Mary thought about that. “Prestigious? Maybe. But how important is it really? Is it worth what you’re doing? Is it worth what you’ve,” she stopped, her eyes dancing around the room, before settling again on him, “become?”

Puzzled, he repeated, “What I’ve become.”

She suddenly seemed uncertain, but she nodded.

“What,” he asked, “have I become?”

“Dad, it’s like you’re a different person. I’m not sure you even see it yourself. You’ve been doing things I’d never have expected you to do. And the way you treat people,” she paused, apparently searching for the right words, “it’s as if everything has to be weighed in terms of how it’ll affect your chances of being elected. And, if it means you have to step on someone’s toes, or worse, these days you just do it.”