Message from Nam (16 page)

P
eter graduated from law school in June 1967, and his parents gave an enormous lunch for him, at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. It was a serious affair attended by every important person in town, including Peter’s new boss at a very impressive law firm. The Wilsons introduced Paxton to everyone as their future daughter-in-law, and she didn’t seem to mind it. And Matt and Gabby were there. She looked beautiful and slim, and she talked constantly about the baby.

“I’m ready for another one,” she confided to Paxton when they went to the ladies’ room. And Paxton noticed that she had never looked prettier or better.

“What about school?”

“I don’t want to go back anyway. I’m not like you. You want to be a journalist, you want a career, you want to prove something. Hell, Pax, I just want to be married and have babies.”

Paxton smiled ruefully at her. “You sound like my mother’s dream. At least Allison will keep the heat off me. She’s having her baby in August. I guess I’ll have to fly back there then to see it.” Although she was planning to work for the
Morning Sun
again over the summer. And she only had one more year of school, and then they were going to give her a permanent job as a reporter. “So when’s the next one due?” Paxton teased. They had named the baby Marjorie Gabrielle, and called her Marjie. “A boy this time, I assume.”

“That’s what Matt wants.” Gabby beamed. She was twenty-one years old, married, and a mother. And Paxton had lived with Peter for two years, and he was an attorney, and all she was was a student. She wanted to get on with it now. To finish school, get a real job, and get married. In that order.

“Is he good to you?” Paxton asked, but she knew she didn’t have to.

“Yes, he is,” Gabby said quietly, with a serious look at her old friend and roommate and future sister. “I was lucky. He could have turned out to be a real shit, but he didn’t. And he’s terrific with the baby.”

“I’m glad,” Paxton said honestly as they left the ladies’ room finally and wandered back to their table.

“What were you two doing in there? I was looking everywhere for you,” Peter complained when he finally found her. “I wanted to introduce you to my boss’s wife. She’s English and I think you’d like her.” But they couldn’t find her again, and it was a long, happy day and they were both exhausted when they finally went home to the little house in Berkeley. They had decided to continue to rent it for another year, so it would be easier for Paxton during her last year at UC Berkeley. And when she graduated, and she went to work for the paper, and they were married … then they would move into the city.

“It was a wonderful day.” She smiled at him. “I’m so proud of you … you did it!” He looked pleased, too, and his parents had been so proud. They were happy with both their children, and they loved Paxton, too, and she really loved them. They chatted about his graduation day all that evening.

The rest of the summer sped past them. He was busy at his job, and Paxton was busy night and day at the paper. And then she flew home just before she went back to school, to see her mother and George’s new baby. He had had a little boy, and he was so pleased with himself he could hardly stand it. They had called the baby James Carlton Andrews, and he was cute and Allison was fine. And even her mother had unbent a little.

Only Queenie seemed to have aged a dozen years, and suddenly seemed barely able to move with crippling arthritis. “Why don’t you do something for her?” Paxton accused, and George brushed her off. He had other things to do than worry about his mother’s ancient servant. “She won’t go to anyone else, George. She trusts you.”

“There’s nothing I can do. She’s old, Pax. Hell, she must be close to eighty.”

“So what? She could live to be a hundred if someone took care of her properly.” But although he didn’t say it, he didn’t think so. She had been failing for the past couple of years, and whether or not Paxton wanted to admit it, she wasn’t going to live forever.

But Paxton reminded him again before she left, and she spent most of her last afternoon with Queenie.

“You finally gonna marry him?” she asked grumpily when Paxton mentioned Peter.

“We’ve been talking about next June, when I graduate, or maybe sometime next summer.” She really wanted to start working first. She still had strong feelings about remaining independent.

“What you waitin’ for, girl? Gray hair or a full moon? You been lovin’ him for three years now.”

“I know. But I want to finish what I’m doing.”

“You can be married and go to school too. You smart enough to do both. So what’s the problem?”

“I’m silly, I guess. I keep thinking I have to do one thing and then the other.”

“Don’t wait too long.” She looked pointedly at the girl she’d raised, and thought to herself that Paxton was prettier than ever. She looked older and more mature, and her features seemed more sharply etched, her body slightly fuller in the right places.

“What do you mean?” Paxton looked suddenly worried.

“Maybe he’ll find someone else who don’t wanna wait, or maybe some girl chase him and catch him … or I dunno … life is funny sometimes, sometimes it makes you sorry when you wait for somethin’ too long, like you shouldda done it while you could, but you cain’t no more … baby, I think you should get married.” But Paxton thought maybe the old woman just wanted to see her married while she was still well enough to enjoy it. And she knew Peter would wait. He wasn’t the type to go running off with someone else. She was sure of that. And they had waited this long. They could wait one more year until next summer.

And on the day Paxton flew home to him, President Thieu was elected in South Viet Nam. And by a month later, thirteen thousand Americans had died in Viet Nam and seven hundred and fifty-six were missing.

And Gabby told her she was pregnant again then. The baby was due the following June. It seemed a long time away to Paxton, almost as long as their wedding.

Her fourth year at UC seemed almost anticlimactic to her. Paxton felt as though the days were flying by, and she and Peter kept talking about their plans after graduation.

They all spent Christmas together at the Wilsons that year, and after Christmas, as they had before, Peter and Paxton went up to Squaw Valley to go skiing. They had a terrific time, and laughed about how Gabby had met Matthew there two years before and how so much had happened to them in the three and a half years they’d been together. It didn’t seem long to wait anymore. June and Paxton’s graduation seemed just around the corner. And then she was going to decide about a serious job, and get married by the end of the summer. It was less than a year now.

But when they came home, there was a letter waiting for him in the mailbox from his draft board. They had called him. Paxton could almost feel her heart stop as she read the letter.

“Christ, what’ll we do?” Paxton asked with a look of terror.

“We pray,” he said, and later that evening he called his father. His father admitted that he had no pull as far as the draft board was concerned, but he asked him point-blank if Paxton was willing to get married. “I’m sure she would,” he said quietly, and she guessed instantly what his father had asked him, “but we really want to wait till next summer.” He knew how important it was to Paxton to wait and do things in the proper order.

“I don’t think you should wait. If that’ll get you out of this, do it.” And they all knew it might, but nothing was certain anymore. It was up to the individual draft board whether or not they’d accept marriage as a deferral. And lately, eleventh-hour marriages weren’t being respected for deferrals. It was probably too late. And Peter really didn’t want to push Paxton to get married before graduation.

“We’ll see, Dad. Maybe they’ll change their minds when I go to the physical. I’ll be twenty-six in six weeks. It’s hardly worth it. They want the young ones.” But when he hung up, there were tears in Paxton’s eyes. She was terrified that they’d take him.

“Don’t be silly, babe.” He pulled her close to him. “I’m too old. They’re not going to take me.”

“And if they do?”

“They won’t.”

“Let’s get married.” It was what she wanted now, but he really didn’t think it would help now.

“That’s not the way to do it. We haven’t waited three and a half years in order to rush out in a panic and have a shotgun wedding.”

“Why not? Peter, I don’t want to wait.” She suddenly remembered Queenie’s words … sometimes life makes you sorry when you wait too long.… “I want to get married.”

“Stop panicking.” He tried to sound calm. It was the first time he had ever seen her so frightened. “I’ll talk to my boss tomorrow.” But he shared Peter’s view. They weren’t going to draft someone a month from the cutoff age, it just didn’t make sense. And if they wanted to, he could probably stall them. It was only six weeks, after all.

But when he went to the Oakland Induction Center for the physical, they took him. It was done. He was in. And neither of them could believe it. Paxton felt like the world had come to an end. She wanted to hide him but he wouldn’t hide. He didn’t believe in the war. He had even burned his draft card, she reminded him. But he was a responsible adult now, he said, the son of the publisher of the
Morning Sun.
And he had to go now, or at least that was how he saw it, even if he didn’t like it.

And if he got married now, it was too late. He was in, and there was no discussion.

It was like a bad dream. And in Viet Nam, two words that gave Paxton nightmares now, twenty thousand Communist troops moved south for surprise attacks during the Tet, Vietnamese New Year celebrations. And on January twenty-third, the North Koreans had seized the USS
Pueblo.
It was the same day Peter had to report to Fort Ord for basic training. Paxton wasn’t going to see him again for eight weeks, and after that, God only knew where they would ship him. The only thing that encouraged him was that as an attorney, he would probably be given a desk job somewhere, and at least he would never see combat. But even though he reassured Paxton and his parents, he was still scared. This wasn’t what he had planned to do with his life seven months after he finished law school.

“Peter, please … let’s go to Canada … I’ll do anything,” she begged him before he left, but he didn’t want to hear it.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I want you to finish school.” He knew how much it meant to her, and how well she was doing there, and he didn’t want to run away now. He might as well face it and make the best of it. It would certainly put a crimp in his career plans but two years wasn’t the end of the world, he told himself. He could have trained as an officer but that would have extended his time. He preferred to do two years as a “grunt” and come home quicker.

There was nothing he could do to stop it now. But Paxton begged him not to go right up until he left. She even drove him to Fort Ord and cried copiously when she left him. “I’ll see you in a few weeks, sweetheart. Now stop it.” And he had insisted that she go back to San Francisco and stay with his parents. But after a few days she went back to the house in Berkeley. She had been so happy with him there that she wanted to be in the house they’d shared. And she waited every night for him to call her. When he finally could, she felt as though she had died, waiting to hear from him. It had been eight weeks since she heard his voice, and she hadn’t studied anything. She couldn’t think of anything but Peter. But as soon as he called, he told her he was coming home that weekend. He was, but not with great news. He was coming home to tell them that he was leaving for Saigon five days later.

C
HAPTER
9

P
eter’s last days in town were an agony for everyone, and most especially Paxton. They all wanted to be with him, to talk to him, to let him know how much they loved him. His father even tried to pull some strings, to no avail. His only friend on the local draft board said he couldn’t help him. Everyone was in the same situation these days, there were too many families desperate to save their sons, but there was nothing anyone could do. He had to go if he’d been called, and all he had to do after that was stay alive once he got there. He had been assigned to Viet Nam for a standard tour of thirteen months. Three hundred and ninety-five days, he had told Paxxie. And after that he’d be assigned somewhere in the States and it would be all over. It meant a slight delay in their plans, but nothing more than that, he claimed. Although they both knew different. It meant that for the next thirteen months they would both be holding their breath and praying, that nothing would happen to him, that he would stay alive, that he would make it home again. And more than anything Paxton felt guilty now for not having married Peter sooner.

“Let’s go to Canada,” she whispered to him late one night, as they lay in the guest bed at his parents’. The Wilsons wanted him to stay at home for his last few days, and they had invited Paxton to join them. They still expected them to sleep separately, but Peter crept silently into her room at night, and back to his own in the early hours of the morning. They couldn’t sleep anyway. Paxton was too upset, and he was tense. He was so busy reassuring everyone, and at night he had his own fears to contend with.