The Reunion (17 page)

S
omething had changed between them. Something had shifted.

Dave was sure of it.

When he’d dropped Karen off at the airport a half hour ago, she insisted she was fine. They were fine. She had just been taken aback by the suddenness of seeing her father’s picture in the paper after forty years of silence. Then, confronted with the idea of seeing him, she realized she just wasn’t ready.

But Dave could feel her pulling away. Maybe not back to square one, but in those last few hours together she seemed distant. Their conversation no longer flowed. It was more like what you’d expect between two people who barely knew each other. Choosing words carefully, keeping things to themselves. But that’s not how it had been between them since their first dinner at Chili’s. It was like they had been given a pass, allowed to skip all the necessities and formalities most couples wrestle with in those early weeks and months.

He’d asked her to call when she got home safe, so he wouldn’t worry. He looked at the digital clock in his car. He still had several hours before then. Hopefully, when she did call, he’d discover he was making something out of nothing.

Dave drove south on a nearly deserted county road on his way to Bentley’s Trailer Park. He was used to driving through these long stretches of nothingness now, just trees and farmland rolling by mile after mile. The towns in northern Florida were mostly small and spread far apart. The region had a beauty and serenity all its own. A place in the Sunshine State unspoiled by tourism or developers. This was especially evident when you got closer to the historic river areas like Steinhatchee and Suwannee. He got the sense he was seeing pretty much the same scenery the early Timucuan Indians saw hundreds of years ago.

Dave had called the reporter who’d written the story about Aaron Miller about fifteen minutes ago and gotten the phone number and address of the trailer park. He’d just gotten off the phone with Sue Kendall, the park’s manager. He didn’t tell her much, just that he was a journalist who’d read the story about their handyman who’d saved that woman’s life yesterday. Sue said he wasn’t the first reporter who’d called today. She’d taken quite a few phone calls on Aaron’s behalf, including a producer from some cable news channel.

But Aaron had made it pretty clear, he wasn’t looking to be famous and wasn’t interested in doing any more interviews with any more reporters. Dave had assured her that wasn’t his intention. He wasn’t a reporter looking for a story. “Well, you can come on down if you want,” she’d said. “He’s here, but he’s off today. I don’t know if he’ll see you or not.” Dave had thanked her and told her it was definitely worth it to him, that he’d like to give it a try. “Well, come on down then.”

Dave had one more phone call to make before he arrived. A big one. He dialed the private cell number for John Lansing. Dave wasn’t supposed to call this number unless it was something significant. When he did call, John would try to answer it himself.

This was as big as it gets.

“Hello? That you, Dave?”

“It is, John. Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?”

“We surely did. We’re actually about to sit down to some nice-looking leftovers. Most of the family’s here. Can I call you back in about an hour or so?”

“No need. This will just take a second. Thought you’d like to know, I’m driving right now to meet Aaron Miller. I should be pulling into the trailer park where he lives in about twenty minutes.”

“
The
Aaron Miller?”

“The very one.”

“So he’s alive?”

“He is.”

“Thank God! I can’t believe it. How did you find him? I figured it’d take you at least a month or more, if you ever did.”

“It’s an amazing story. I’m thinking you must be praying hard or living right, or something. Because I’d been trying all my tricks and getting nowhere. Then today, it’s like God just dropped him down right in front of me. Turns out he only lives an hour away.”

“You’re kidding. So he’s right there in Florida?”

“Lives and works in a trailer park on the Suwannee River. And you’re not going to believe how I found him.”

“I’ve got to hear the story. Hold on, let me talk to my wife.”

Dave waited maybe thirty seconds. He came to the intersection that led west toward the trailer park, stopped, and turned.

“Dave? My wife said I can have five minutes. Can you talk fast? She’s thrilled, by the way, but the whole family’s here.”

“I understand. I’ll do my best, you cut me off when I run out of time.”

Aaron cleaned up the remnants of the frozen dinner he’d just eaten, thinking that today had gone a whole lot better than yesterday. He was grateful God used him to help Irene out of that trailer before it exploded but felt like he was being made to pay for it now. He’d had a bad dream last night. He was back in Vietnam dodging mortars. Figured the sound of that gas explosion triggered it. Now all afternoon, his back was aching something awful from the piggyback ride.

“In everything give thanks,” he repeated to himself. So he thanked the Lord Irene hadn’t died. And he thanked the Lord he hadn’t blown up either. And he was thankful it was only the one bad dream, no flashbacks all day like he used to get years ago.

He glanced out the lone window and saw it was almost dark. Wanting to spend some time out on the deck by the river before it got too late, he dried off his hands and headed out the door. Across the way, he noticed Sue talking to a young man, maybe in his forties. Didn’t have a camper behind his car. She looked Aaron’s way and pointed. The man turned, saw him, said something else to Sue.

Not another one of them reporters
, he thought. He’d seen his picture in the paper first thing in the morning and now wished he hadn’t agreed to that interview. He’d asked Sue to please say no to all of the others who started calling. She was happy to oblige. In fact, she had been treating Aaron pretty special ever since the explosion. This morning she’d told him Mr. Bentley called after he’d heard about it, said to give Aaron a dollar-an-hour raise as a reward. Then she mentioned she was sorry that was all he was getting. “You saved his butt and ours too when you saved Irene. If she died in that thing, her family would’ve sued for sure, probably cleaned Mr. Bentley out. Then both of us would be out of a job.”

One more thing to thank the Lord for
, he thought.

He looked in the direction of the river but saw Sue waving her hand at him out of the corner of his eye. She motioned for him to come over. The man was now looking at him, smiling from ear to ear. What in the world? When he got closer, he noticed a strange expression on Sue’s face.

“Somebody here to see you, Aaron. I promise, he’s not a reporter. He’s just told me some amazing things. I think you’re going to want to hear what this young man has to say.”

A
aron, you won the Medal of Honor?” Sue said as Aaron came near. “Well, I’ll be.”

This wasn’t good. How’d this fellow find that out? “It was a long time ago, Sue.”

“How come you never said anything?”

“Don’t like to talk about it much.”

“Guess I understand why you ran in that trailer after Irene, when everyone else was scared to move. You’re a born hero, Aaron. You know that?”

He didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t even know himself why he’d done it. He turned to face the young man, who held out his hand.

“Mr. Miller, I’m honored, sir. I mean that sincerely.”

Aaron shook his hand. “Most folks call me Aaron.”

“If that’s what you prefer . . . Aaron. My name is Dave Russo. I’m writing a book about the heroes of Vietnam, and I—”

“I don’t wanna be in anybody’s book.”

“Well, Sue here tells me you’re kind of a private guy. I can appreciate that. And whether or not you let me interview you for my book isn’t the reason I came. Though, I hope after you hear me out you might reconsider.”

“I don’t follow you,” Aaron said.

“Is there someplace we can talk?”

Aaron looked toward the river. “I was just heading out to the wood deck. Suppose we can talk there.”

“I’ll follow you. I’ll explain a little more as we walk.”

Lord, why are you doing this to me? I was only trying to help Irene out. I don’t want all this fuss
. He silently apologized for complaining as he walked toward the deck.

“See, Mr. Miller—Aaron—I’m not really here about the book. I’m really here representing three friends of yours.”

“Three friends?” He couldn’t imagine.

“Three of your war buddies from Vietnam.”

Aaron didn’t know he had any war buddies. Whatever was this fellow talking about?

“They still get together every few years for a reunion of sorts. They’ve been doing that since the war ended. But they’ve been trying to find you for the longest time. One of the men in particular. He’s given me a good deal of money to do whatever I need to do to find you.”

None of this made a lick of sense to Aaron. He kept walking.

“You remember that battle in ’69, in Song Da Krong Valley?”

“Course I do. It was my last.”

“You remember the three men you saved that day?”

Aaron hadn’t thought about them for years. “Tex, Hammer, and Redman.” They were the reason he’d received that medal. “I haven’t seen them since . . .”

“When you were in the field hospital?”

“That was it.” Such a long time ago. They reached the wooden walkway. Aaron stepped up and kept walking.

“I saw the picture of you in the hospital, with them standing around the bed.”

“You did?” He didn’t even remember anyone taking a picture that day.

“Tex showed it to me himself. His real name’s John Lansing. He’s the man who hired me to find you.”

“Tex hired you to find me?”

“Yes, sir. He, Hammer, and Redman want very badly to meet you. Well, to see you again. Of course, they don’t go by those names anymore. The other two men are Allan Summers and Paul Patterson.”

Aaron wouldn’t have known those names from any three names in the phone book. “Can’t understand why they’d want to see me. I don’t recall we were ever what you’d call war buddies.”

“John said something about that, and he feels pretty bad about it. The thing is, all three of these men have done real well since the war. Especially John. He’s actually an oil executive, a millionaire several times over.”

“You don’t say. Well, good for him.”

“Man, this is really beautiful back here.”

Aaron nodded. Though he wasn’t aware of the sights and sounds this evening. This young man had stirred all kinds of feelings and memories inside him, talking about all these matters.

“John asked me to ask you if you’d consider flying out to Texas for a reunion.”

“I don’t know about that. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” They reached the deck. Aaron walked toward the railing, looked out over the water. The sun had set, but you could still see pretty well. The river was dead calm.

“Is that a no?”

“I guess it is.”

“May I ask why? I’m sure John’s going to ask me.”

How could Aaron say this? “Well, for one thing . . . I’m glad they’ve all done well. But things didn’t go so well for me.”

“John knows that. I think the others do too. They don’t care. I mean, they care about the hard times you’ve been through. But it doesn’t matter. I’d say that seeing you again has become extremely important to John. Wouldn’t you—”

“But I don’t have the kind of money folks need to travel. Airplanes and hotel rooms. I’m just a handyman. I can’t even afford to—”

“But it won’t cost you a cent. John’s going to pay for the whole thing. The airfare, the hotel room, your food.”

“That don’t sound right,” Aaron said. “For him to do all that. I don’t even have decent traveling clothes.”

“They want to thank you properly, Aaron, for saving their lives. You should have heard John go on about you. He told me everything that happened that day, what you did for them at the creek. He’s willing to spend whatever it takes to make this thing happen.”

Aaron looked out over the water. This was too much. He wasn’t ready to face something like this. Not after all this time. “I don’t think so, son. You go on back and tell John and the other fellows thanks. Really, I’m grateful they’d even want to do all that for me. But I think we should leave well enough alone.”

Dave and Aaron walked back along the wooden walkway, mostly in silence. Dave had gently challenged Aaron to reconsider. Would he at least take a day or two to think and pray about it? Dave already knew a little of Aaron’s story from talking with Sue. That he’d gotten his life cleaned up sometime in the late eighties. And that faith and church had a lot to do with it. “Aaron, he never misses church,” Sue had said.

As they stepped off the walkway and strolled across the grass, Dave kept trying to think of some angle, some way to get Aaron to open up. He’d talked with a lot of Vietnam vets before, but he realized now that the men he’d spoken to were guys already willing to tell their stories.

Aaron just wanted to be left alone.

It was growing darker now. The park’s streetlights had come on, and the lamps were on in most of the trailers. They stepped off the grass onto the main paved road. “So what got you interested in writing a book about Vietnam?” Aaron said, breaking the silence.

“I wanted to do it for my dad,” Dave said.

“He’s a vet?”

“No, he didn’t get the chance to become one. He was killed in the Battle of Ripcord in 1970. I never got to know him. I was only three.” For some reason, Dave didn’t know why, but saying this out loud in the presence of this man, someone who’d fought hard, had almost given his life in battle, stirred emotions deep inside him.

“Men like your dad,” Aaron said, “they were the real heroes. Not men like me.”

Unintended tears rolled down Dave’s cheeks. He quickly wiped them away, tried to blink them back, but Aaron saw it. They stopped walking.

“It’s okay, son. Nothing to be ashamed of. A lot of good men didn’t come back. I don’t know why God let me survive.” Aaron looked down at the ground. “’Cause I wasn’t a good man.”

“That’s not true, Aaron. I know what men like you went through when you got home. All tore up. Not just your bodies but on the inside. My mom told me about it, and I’ve talked with a lot of vets already. You didn’t get any help, nothing like our guys get now. People hated the war, so they treated guys like you terribly.”

Aaron released a deep sigh, started walking again. Dave followed.

“But none of that explains what I did to my family,” he said. “Betty and the kids didn’t deserve what I did to them. I let ’em down something awful. It’s like I was a different man then. Dead inside. My soul was black as night.”

Dave suddenly remembered who he was talking to . . . this man was Karen’s father. From what Karen had said, Aaron probably had no idea where she was, what had happened in her life. But she and Steve were “the kids” Aaron had just mentioned. Did Aaron even know he had grandchildren, a grandson stationed in Afghanistan in harm’s way? He had to find a way to bring this up. When they reached the parking area in front of the main house, Dave said, “Aaron, do you still have the medal?”

Aaron nodded. “Keep it in a metal box in my room.”

“Could I see it? I’ve never seen one, just in pictures.”

“I suppose. It’s this way.” He walked across the parking area toward a storage shed.

Is this where Aaron lives?
Dave thought. A single lightbulb dangled from a rusted metal fixture illuminating the doorway. As Dave stood there watching Aaron bent over, unlocking the door, it dawned on him that he was standing next to a national treasure. A living, breathing national treasure. A man who had won the highest medal for bravery and valor this country bestows in a time of war. And yet, there was nothing about Aaron that would ever draw attention to this fact.

He was a handyman in a trailer park, living in a shed.

The door creaked open. Aaron flicked a switch; a lamp came on. Except for a small cot, an aging armchair, a tiny refrigerator, and a microwave sitting at the end of a crowded workbench, Dave was looking at a storage room that doubled as a workshop. It didn’t seem possible someone lived here. A memory flashed into his mind. The intimidation he’d felt, standing in the foyer of John Lansing’s mansion in Houston.

It would break John’s heart to see this.

“It’s right over here on the shelf,” Aaron said. “I don’t think I’ve opened this box in ten years.”

Dave watched as he moved something aside on the workbench and reached up for a plain metal box parked on a wooden shelf. The lamplight faded this far away, but Dave saw a picture frame sitting on top of the box. Aaron lifted it carefully, looked at it, set it on the workbench, then reached for the box.

Curious, Dave stepped up behind him to look at the picture.
Oh my
, he thought.
It had to be.
“Is that Karen and Steve?” he asked.

Aaron set the unopened metal box down. “Why . . . yes. It is. It’s the only picture I have of them. My wife sent it to me just before Christmas, the last year I was in Vietnam.” He stopped talking, and a puzzled look came across his face. “But how do
you
know about them?”

Dave froze. This wasn’t how he intended to bring up the subject. “Uh . . . I’ve met them.”

“You’ve . . . met them? Karen and Steve?” Aaron suddenly seemed so frail and weak.

“Yes, well, Karen. I’ve only talked on the phone with Steve. But Karen and I, we’ve actually become . . . good friends.”

“Karen?” he said. Tears instantly filled his eyes. “You . . . know Karen?”

“Yes, I do,” Dave said. He wanted to mention she had been with him just a few hours ago, but how could he? “She’s a wonderful woman . . . Karen.” He looked down at the fading picture of a baby smiling at the camera, squinting in the sun. He wanted to say, “And I’m in love with her.”

Aaron seemed to wilt right before his eyes. He backed away from the workbench and sat on the armchair. His head all but fell into his hands as he began to sob.