His Road Home (4 page)

He pointed from her to his mother. “Go, go.” Too much like yesterday—
I
don’t mean leave for good!

“I’ll go with her.” Her grip was tight and reassuring. “Wait here, I’ll be back.”

The guy who wasn’t going to Hawaii today rolled his eyes at the order to wait, but Grace didn’t notice.

He slumped on his pillow, left in solitude so sudden his head rang with the echo of their footsteps. The window offered the limited view of the bed-ridden, sky, clouds and jackshit to take his mind off how sick his mother was and his failures. She’d worked twenty hours a day to keep him and his little sister fed and dressed and with a roof over their heads after his father died. He’d sent her money from his paychecks, but he hadn’t been home much lately. Deployments and screwing around and hitting the beaches with Bama when he was on leave.

He hadn’t visited, hadn’t checked up on her, hadn’t done his half of being a good son.

She was older and more tired than how his heart pictured her, and he hadn’t known. She’d busted her health getting to Bethesda, stayed up with him all night and never said a word about her own needs. If she wasn’t going to complain, he wouldn’t moan about what had been handed to him either. As long as she was all right.

He followed the clock, the slowest broken time-fucker in the universe, for eighty-six minutes before Grace returned.

“They won’t let anything happen to her.” Grace’s quiet voice tried to reassure him, but the soft hand she wrapped around his fist mattered most. She looked faded again too.

“You okay?” There, he’d approximated human speech.

“You’re asking me?” She snorted. “Yeah, I’m okay. Confused, but okay.”

She was closer, and he didn’t know if he was pulling her or she was bending, but he could see the glitter in her eyes. He smelled that hint of rosemary, more fragrant than the apple juice they force-fed him. Even if he never saw her after today, this scent would belong to her forever.

“She’s being rehydrated, and she told the nurse about the diabetes.” Grace looked at where their hands connected. “She napped in a waiting room this morning and doesn’t have a place to stay. I told them she came on the train, so they think the main problem is exhaustion. They signed her into someplace called Fisher House with free rooms here at Walter Reed for families. I came for her suitcase.”

He should have realized that his mother’s luggage hadn’t left the room. Stupid.

“Thank. You.” Why Grace came or why she stayed no longer mattered. Wise men never complained about what a good-looking lady did, and by helping his mother, she offered a hand. He was smart enough to take the assistance.

* * *

Tonight the dream started with Kahananui laughing above him on the canal bank. “Give me a fucking hand.” He reached for his friend and scrambled for a muddy toe hold.

“Ancient Hawaiian proverb. ‘He who jumps in hauls his own wet ass out.’”

Then he was underwater. Red swirled like scarves, but he couldn’t wonder where the colors came from, because he had to get out.

He thought he was standing, but the water was deeper and he’d have to swim, although his body armor was too heavy. He waved his arms, moved the red ropes until they dissipated, but more kept coming. Binding him to the bottom.

Pain hit, and he couldn’t help himself, he screamed like a psycho as the movie in his mind sped until Kahananui and Bama Boy crouched over him.

Kahananui yelled into his radio, and Cruz knew with the portion of his brain that wasn’t consumed with absolute fucking agony that Bama was tightening the bands, like tying a bunch of asparagus. He’d stooped, sliced and tied each spring for extra cash, and now he was goddamned fresh spears himself with the quick tourniquets wrapped on his legs.

“One or two?” He yelled the question at Bama. “One or two?”

“You’re gonna make it, bro.”

“One or two?” Dreaming Cruz knew the answer, but Cruz on the ground wanted to know.

“Hang with me, Cruz, you hear me. Hang on. Dust Off’s coming.”

“
Motherfucker.
Tell me.
” He reached for Bama’s throat, and his hand was there. Bloody, but still a hand, which was a fucking good deal. “
One or two?
”

“Shit, man.” Bama popped a drip in his big vein. He recognized the steps because he’d done them dozens of times. “Don’t go being a dick. It’s both.”

“My—” He choked on the hypothetical he’d never had nerve to ask. Facing life without the full package, would he tighten the tourniquets, or not? “Balls?”

“You’re the new poster for Kevlar diapers. Not skipping mine again.”

Then why did he hurt like someone had twisted his leg a one-eighty and jammed it up his nutsack? It took everything he had not to keep screaming.

“Sergeant, you’re safe.” The voice was a woman, not Bama. “This will help you rest.”

Warmth and darkness slipped through him, but he didn’t believe he’d died. Bama said he wasn’t dead, said it nightly, and dead guys didn’t dream about their balls.

* * *

This was the third day in a row Grace had arrived at his bath time, the sixth and final day of her visit and the first time he internalized that she’d be leaving.

His mother said, “This is one nice girl. I am proud of you.” Grace and Mamá couldn’t converse beyond a mixture of hand gestures, nods and Spanish worse than a presidential candidate’s, but somehow she conveyed to Grace that she’d go to the lounge while Grace said goodbye. Another person fooled with this web neither of them could unravel.

“My flight’s in a few hours. No time for Scrabble.”

Oddly, he could build words with letter tiles, but not write. He raised three fingers. “Lose.”

“I wouldn’t lose again! But I have to return to work.”

Each morning that she bathed him, she pushed the sheet an inch or two farther, washed a rib-span lower, and the cloth in her hand made longer, slower strokes. He noticed but doubted she did. No man alive, even one who could speak, would point it out.

“Good.”
Of you to come
,
of you to help my mother
,
your hands feel good on my skin
,
goodbye
, but he realized she probably heard
good that you’re leaving
because the corners of her mouth drooped. “Not good. No.” His voice rose, but he didn’t know how to share his feelings.

There was one way to explain what he meant, a
loco
way, but he used to be a
loco hombre
. She barely had time to squeak before his hands gripped her shoulders and he yanked. She was slighter than he’d expected. Under those sweaters she must be tiny, but he didn’t stop to consider her size or shape, because he had one hand buried in her hair and her mouth on top of his.

Her lips were soft and partially open, and miraculously she didn’t shut them. She tasted like mint, one of those women who could make brushing teeth erotic. Thankfulness and desperation, loneliness, connection and gratitude, a pack of feelings too complex for even an articulate man to explain fought in his chest, but he had to keep this light. He trailed kisses from her lips to her jaw and back, nothing to scare her into flight or spoil their last minutes.

Neither of them spoke once their mouths connected. Neither could misunderstand. This was the basic grammar of man and woman. Her tongue followed and stroked his like a secret dance, and he thought he’d never tasted such a reward. Then in one superfine flash he felt the part he’d despaired was dead finally twitch. The surge of
hot damn
lifted his shoulder blades from the mattress and thrust another squeak out of her chest, until he flopped to the pillow and laughed at the ceiling. That kiss—
muy perfecto
.

“Oh.” She pulled up and blinked at him, something a woman might do with any man, injured or not, while she caught her breath. Like dozens of women had done with him before his injury. “Oh.”

“Ohhhh.” He stretched her word, deepened it, and knew she’d grasped his change of meaning when she swatted his shoulder.

“You are unbelievable.”

He wished he could feel more of her but settled for tucking her hair behind her ear as she stared into his eyes.

“I was specifically informed when I arrived that I should feel free to do that.” The contrast between her kiss-thickened voice and her prim language sent another surge of life through his body.

“Kiss?” Wait, did that mean he’d wasted an entire week?

With one finger she lifted his chin and closed his mouth. “We could treat it like physical therapy. Exercise for your mouth.” She leaned over the bed rail until her hair fell on either side of his head, fragrant and dark and so beautiful that he wanted to crush her flat on his chest and absorb her. “What do you think?”

“Holy shit.”

“Three syllables. Working already.” Then she kissed him.

* * *

Her plane should have landed two hours ago. He could calculate time differences in his head, nothing wrong with whatever lobe performed simple math, and there was a number on a slip of paper by the room phone. She’d left it for his mother, saying, “
Mi telefono numero
,
er
,
numero telefono
,” as if she’d remembered that adjectives went after nouns in Spanish. His mother had nodded, understanding even before Grace spoke because she’d made a universal hand gesture of fingers connecting ears and chin. Leaving her number had been a courtesy for the nice hometown lady, but his mother would never call someone who didn’t speak Spanish.

He could call. Had Grace thought of that? Maybe. He reviewed the situation. He could dial, no problem. But what to say?

Nothing if he didn’t try.

“Hello.” Sounded fine in the empty room. “Hello, Grace.” Even better. His tongue refused to push out the initial sound of
safe
, or maybe it did push, but surreptitiously, so he replaced
safe trip
with
good trip
and green-lighted his mission before he choked.

Punching the squares on the old beige phone was like jumping out of a plane. Don’t think. Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door.

“Hello?” Her voice was a husky reminder of a kiss that he wasn’t in danger of forgetting.

“Hello, Grace.” Target acquired.

“Rey?” She sounded surprised. “Is that you?”

“Hello, Grace.”
Don’t push repeat
,
darn it.

“I’ll take that as yes, it is you.” Her voice sparkled and she sounded...flattered. Couldn’t be right.

“Trip?” Damn, he’d lost a word.

“It was fine. I was on time and had an empty seat next to me out of Chicago.”

He’d finished his material.

She soldiered on. “It’s nine o’clock here. It must be late there?”

“Twelve.” He reached for the word with fewer syllables than midnight. “Wait. You.” Warning sirens claxoned that he was in grave danger of sounding needy, like he was waiting for her to call, when he meant he was waiting for the right time to call her.

“I was thinking.”

After studying her for a week he could picture the tilt of her head, dark hair falling to her shoulder on one side, caressing her cheek and chin on the other where her jaw angled.

“What about email or texts? Typing might be like Scrabble. Do you think—”

“Yes!” It burst from him, what he hadn’t known he’d wanted but now needed more than anything in the world.

“I have a pretty good data plan because I travel for work and I thought I could order something for you to use and add you maybe if it wouldn’t be a problem until you have time to choose your own plan.”

She’d spoken without pausing, and it took him a moment, but then he realized she was offering to get him a phone. He squeezed the hospital handset and pumped his free hand into a fist, because she wasn’t only giving him a link to the world. She was also providing a connection
to herself
.

“Would that be okay?”

He hadn’t answered. Dolt. “Yes. Yes.”

“Okay, then,” she said. In the lull, presumably they both racked their brains. “Can I send anything else? A care package?”

“Yes.” He hit himself in the forehead. Even a Magic 8-Ball had more to say than he did. His mother could pick personal stuff like T-shirts and gym shorts, but he needed something to read. Mamá couldn’t choose that. “Book.”

“I love buying books.” Her voice rose. “Do you want paper or a digital reader?”

“Share.” He’d noticed a swap table in the corridor. “Paper.”

“What genre do you like?”

“Any.” He read non-fiction, but like hell he’d be able to say that, and he could deduce more about her from what she sent. “You. Same.”

“Does that mean you want me to send something and read the same book?”

“Yes.” Surprising how she understood his intent when he spoke, like old people who finished each other’s sentences.

“I read... “ now she sounded like him, “...stuffaboutfish.”

Chapter Four

How
was
your
day?
Grace’s routine questions on his phone display were the highlight of Cruz’s evening, every evening. She’d guessed correctly that he could still type and manipulate letters, even though he struggled to write by hand.
The
Marquis
have
any
surprises?
She remembered his therapist’s nickname, his buddies, his exercises.

Graduated
from
shorties.
He looked at his wall calendar, the purple
felicidades
his mother had scrawled across June 26 emphasizing her pride.

WHAT??
Isn’t
that
super
-
fast?

Easier
for
me
b
/
c
I
have
one
knee.
Wish
I
had
a
picture.
He had a dozen on this phone, but no way would he send her a photo of himself on the six-inch-tall legs double amps started learning on. They put his head between belly-buttons and breast level. Maybe some chicks digged that, but he doubted Grace had that fetish.
Nurses
gave
me
my
first
boot
ceremony.

What’s
that?

They
hide
an
open
beer
in
an
old
boot.
If
I
make
it
around
the
exercise
track
and
retrieve
it
(
harder
to
bend
&
straighten
w
/
out
spilling
than
U
think!
)
and
carry
it
out
then
it’s
mine.
Tomorrow
I
move
to
10
-
inchers.
Cue jokes among the guys.

Seriously
cool.
Did
you
celebrate?

Took
my
mamá
to
dinner.
Most restaurants near the Medical Center were amp-friendly, and his mother appreciated the break from the family suite’s kitchen.
Prepping
for
your
cruise?

Eleven
days
and
counting.

Ironic that Grace also deployed weeks at a time, multiple times a year, researching for NOAA Marine Fisheries Service.
Which
shift
did
you
draw?

Midnight
to
noon.
I’ll
sleep
1
to
9
pm
or
so.

Night
ops
crummy
coffee.
Knowing that she was awake too, even if she was busy, might lighten the dark at 3:00 a.m.

True!
What’s
Kade
doing
on
his
first
legal
Friday
night?
Despite the dubious legality of shipping beer into Maryland, on Tuesday she’d sent the other guy in his double suite a twenty-first birthday case of Seattle microbrews. Damn, this girl was nice.

Jay
Bongo’s
downtown.
They were leaving together in thirty minutes, with Kade’s wife driving. He felt like ballast, but the sports bar promised a dose of real life and his roommate wanted support for his first trip without an official group.

An hour after he and Grace texted goodbye, he had more action than his whacked brain could process. The bottle in his hand was cold, the air was hot and two blondes were grinding each other on the dance floor ten feet in front of his chair.

It sort of sucked. The bass thump matched a thump in his forehead, and he realized he’d pushed himself too hard today. At least the noise meant no one expected him to talk.

“Hey, hero.” A curvy mega-blonde leaned close to be heard. Brittney, version 2.

“Hey.”

She clinked a nearly empty bottle against his nearly full one. “Stella.”

Name or drink?
he wondered. “Rey.” He understood the next move and lifted his arm for a server. While they waited for her refill, she gyrated to the music and thrust her short dress and bare thighs into the airspace above his wheels.

“You must have quite a shtory.” She stuck the end of her beer bottle in the circle of her red lips and locked eyes as she twirled it, as if that would attract him. Instead it made him uncomfortably aware of two things. First, he might once have been interested, and second, tonight he remained one hundred percent unmoved.

“Come on, Rey.” Her real-estate display wasn’t even subtle, and with her grip on his chair he wasn’t sure how to move away.

“En-joy.” He indicated the bottle the approaching server held, stuck a ten on the tray and used Stella’s distraction to turn his chair in the direction he’d last seen Kade.

* * *

Grace had no idea where Jenni acquired her flair for karaoke. She must have discovered it at college, because there wasn’t a karaoke place within fifty miles of Pateros. Fourth of July weekend had brought her little sister crashing on Grace’s couch and issuing invitations to join her college friends, friends of theirs and random friends made that day. Empty plastic pitchers crowded alongside half-eaten plates of walnut prawns, spicy wings and nachos at the latest song-fest.

It was eight fifty-eight. She and Rey had settled on a 9:00 p.m. routine that she wasn’t going to alter for karaoke, so she debated whether to sneak outside with the smokers or respond to Rey’s messages with her hands under the table. One or two exchanges would slide under Jenni’s radar, but a twenty-minute text session, not so much, unless she maneuvered her sister out of the way.

“Why don’t you sing the next medley?” Grace asked.

“I’ve sung three times. Join me?” Filled with rhythm and beer, Jenni wiggled on the booth’s padded bench.

“No thanks.” The phone felt hot and slippery in her palm. Singing in public was not for her, not even after a beer, and especially not at nine o’clock.

The phone vibrated. She looked at Rey’s regular hi, and the noise lost several decibels.

Hi back. Hard 2 txt @ karaoke w/Jenni.

Later?

No!
Wait, he could misunderstand that. She slid to her right.
Now’s okay.
Going out—

“Whatcha doing?”

“Nothing.” Her cheeks felt warm, but maybe Jenni would assume the red was the cursed Asian beer-blush.

“You’re texting.” Her sister moved closer to be heard. Unexpectedly, she snatched the phone.

“Hey!” She reached, but Jenni held her prize on the far side of her body. “That’s mine.”

“You’ve been holding out.”

She didn’t like her sister’s smirk, but to retrieve the phone, she’d have to stretch across her. In her condition, Jenni might enjoy kindergarten antics, but Grace was too old for public wrestling.

Still
there?
She could read Rey’s message on the screen in Jenni’s hand.

This
is—
each tap of Jenni’s fingers on the keys tightened her nerves until she thought she might snap, —
her
sister.

Hi
Jenni!
This
is
Rey.

“Him? You text?”

Rey
who?
Jenni giggled as she typed.

The cruelty of her sister’s reply left Grace speechless. She’d shared Rey’s explanation about the warlord and the fake engagement with Jenni, and sworn her to secrecy so Rey wasn’t embarrassed, but she hadn’t told her that she and Rey kept in daily contact. Neither had she publicly denied the engagement. When her mother brought up wedding plans, she supplied a generic answer and changed the subject. Pateros was far from Seattle, and she had managed to avoid direct confrontations with her family. Now she realized that her silence could be interpreted as shame or embarrassment, and the evening soured in her mouth.

“O-ho, The Golden One has a boyfriend.”

She hated that childhood nickname, but tonight the anger propelled her to grab her phone. Close enough to her sister’s face that there could be no mistake and no need to repeat, she said, “You’re drunk, so I won’t put you on the street in the middle of the night. But get your stuff out of my condo before I’m home from work tomorrow.”

While a pop refrain stretched endlessly, Jenni’s wide eyes stared at Grace.

Satisfied that her sister understood, she tucked her purse and phone safely next to her body and headed for the door. Outside, July drizzle misted her cheeks.

* * *

Hi.
After three months, Cruz wanted to write more than that simple word to Grace, but there was always the chance this would be the time she mentioned a boyfriend. His rational mind grasped that she was on a research cruise in the Gulf of Alaska, hauling nets and counting fish, not bar-hopping or jogging with well-educated software programmers. But lonely men worried, anyone awake at 0100 worried a bucket and a lonely man awake at 0100 could worry himself into superstitiously beginning his chat with the same word at the same time.

Hi
back.
The rush of comfort from those two words filled him better than
frijoles negros.

He loved his sister and joked with Doc on Saturdays when she and Wulf visited from New York, but he’d never thought about a woman the way he thought about Grace. When he ate breakfast, he wanted to share what he read in the newspaper, but Alaska was four time zones away. When he made progress in speech therapy, he imagined talking to her face-to-face. And when he tackled a new exercise or beat his previous record at chin-ups, he crafted how to tell Grace. She’d become part of his day.

Day
6
at
sea.

More
whales?
Her descriptions of the ship’s passage and what she observed had prodded him to buy a marine chart for his wall to mark her locations.

New
pod
of
Orcinus
orca
followed
us
today.
Residents
,
not
transients.

You
can
tell
them
apart?

Even
w
/
out
radio
tags.
Look
at
this.

He zoomed on the photo she sent. The fin protruding from the killer whale’s black back had a white check mark at its base and two notches on the side.
What
takes
a
nick
out
of
something
that
big?

Bullets.

Her answer flushed his system with images of men with scopes, ships running without lights and Grace on night duty. He saw a red dot on her fleece, and his hands shook. The adrenalin dump was so unexpected that he hadn’t prepared to regulate his breathing or find his zone, and he mistyped. His heart beat increased and his quad muscles stiffened with the need to sprint or jump, but he was in bed, not in the gym where he could work this out.

Still
there?
Is
this
boring?

No.
Told
you
,
like
new
info.
He hated this info. He hadn’t known that she and her scientist buddies with their computers and sonar were targets.
U
have
guards
on
board?

RU freaking @ the bullet holes? Don’t worry!

Became gun control fan @ 9:06 pm.

Those scars 20/25 yrs old. Now fishermen cooperate w/us in self-interest. Tourist $.

Nothing but holding her would be enough to make him feel secure, but with 4,000 miles between them, he had to trust her judgment. And he had to change the subject.
Shared
your
sunset
photo
w
/
speech
therapist
yesterday.

Sets @ 11 pm here and rises @ 4:45. Get to see both on my shift—makes time fly.

Imagined sitting to watch w/beers. Cold out?
In his fantasy, they’d warm each other under a blanket while watching the sun slip beneath the horizon. In the glow he’d kiss her. This time would be vastly better than their first kiss, when he’d been tethered to tubes and unable to hold her fully.

It’s
bearable
with
layers.
Her literal response made him wonder for the hundredth time if texts didn’t convey flirting, or if his attempts were worthless and weak, or if she deliberately ignored them.
We call @ Kodiak tomorrow. Want a snail mail postcard?

I
want you
, he thought, but typed,
Sure.