The Soldiers of Halla (50 page)

The door opened slowly.

Standing there nervously leaning on the frame was Courtney Chetwynde. The glorious Courtney Chetwynde. The girl with the amazing gray eyes that Bobby had known since he was in kindergarten. She never failed to take his breath away.

“Yo,” Bobby said, trying to sound cool.

He immediately regretted it. Nobody said “Yo” unless they were trying to impersonate Sylvester Stallone, and nobody tried to impersonate Sylvester Stallone anymore. Nobody even remembered who he was.

“Yo?” Courtney snickered. “What does that mean?”

Courtney always kept Bobby on his toes. It was one of the things he liked about her. One of the many things.

“It means whatever you want it to mean. I'm always saying interesting things, you know that.”

“I do, unfortunately.”

Courtney stepped into the room. She looked at the overhead light and squinted. “So bright. What are you doing in here? Growing geraniums?”

She clicked off the overhead, dropping the room into shadows cast by the light from a single table lamp.

“What are
you
doing? Trying to get romantic on me?”

“You wish.”

Bobby chuckled. “What
are
you doing here?”

“I'm not welcome?”

Bobby didn't have to answer.

“I couldn't sleep,” she said.

Courtney was nervous. That wasn't like her. Bobby sensed it instantly.

“What's up?” he asked sincerely.

Courtney had trouble looking Bobby in the eye. She had something to say, that much was obvious. She wanted to choose the right words.

“It's just that,” she began hesitantly, “I want to tell you something. I have the odd feeling that if I don't do it now, I might not get another chance.”

“Oooh, sounds ominous,” Bobby joked.

Courtney frowned.

Bobby backed off. “Sorry. What do you want to tell me?”

Courtney took a deep breath and said, “I just wanted to say…I love you.”

Bobby waited for something more. It didn't come.

“Yeah, and?” he asked.

“What? That's not enough?” she shot back.

“Well, no, it's fine. I just don't understand why you had such trouble getting it out. It's not like you haven't told me once or twice…or a few thousand times.”

Courtney reached out and took Bobby's hands. Bobby looked at them. As always, he was surprised by the sight. He was always surprised when he was reminded of things he had deliberately chosen to ignore. Seeing what his hands had become was always
a shock. They were once strong and large enough to palm a basketball. Now he had trouble steadying a cup of tea…when he was allowed to have tea. Which wasn't often. His hands had grown smaller. Wine-colored spots appeared on the backs of them with growing regularity. His skin seemed gray, though he knew that wasn't possible. He felt as if he needed some sun, but he didn't spend much time out of doors anymore. It wasn't allowed.

In his mind he was still a young, vital guy who strode boldly through life with confidence and good humor. The confidence and humor were still there, but he was no longer a young man. At least not physically. In his dreams he could still run with the joy of youth. He was never quite sure when he was dreaming anymore. Or sleeping, for that matter. The hours blended together. Time was irrelevant. In his mind he was another person. The person he used to be. Of course, that wasn't really the case. He made a point of not looking into mirrors much. Or ever.

“What's the trouble, Courtney?” Bobby asked softly.

Courtney held his hands lovingly. She tried not to cry. She didn't want to have to let go to wipe away a tear.

“I'm sorry,” she sniffed. “I'm being an old fool.”

“Well, there's no fool like an old fool,” Bobby said, trying to be light.

Courtney smiled. Bobby loved it when she smiled. After so many years, her gray eyes were as bright and alive as always. She still kept her hair long, but it was now silver. A beautiful, sparkling silver. Though random streaks of brown remained. He used to tell her that her hair looked like delicious golden amber. Courtney never really knew what that meant, but it sounded good, so she didn't ask. Though her skin had lost the vitality of youth, and she couldn't walk more than a few yards without the help of a cane, to Bobby she was still the most beautiful girl in the world. For him it was the eyes. It was always the eyes.

“I don't know why I'm being this way,” she said, laughing nervously. “I—I just felt as if I needed to see you. Now. Tonight.”

“You just saw me this afternoon,” Bobby replied, trying not to sound too sarcastic.

Courtney nodded. She sat down next to him on the hospital bed. The same hospital bed where he'd been resting for nearly two weeks. “I know.”

“You still have the hots for me, don'tcha?” Bobby winked. “Better be careful, the nurses might start thinking we've got a little something something going on.”

Courtney laughed. Bobby always made her laugh. Even when she was in despair.
Especially
when she was in despair.

Though he wouldn't admit it, Bobby knew what she was feeling.

He felt it too.

He had been in and out of hospitals for the better part of a year with any number of problems. The tests were never ending. The results were never good. The list of troubles was too long to keep track of. Eventually he stopped listening to the doctors. In his mind, nothing they discovered mattered anymore. He knew what his trouble was. He was old. Really old. When his time came, he knew the doctors would write down some specific reason or failure or condition, but that would be a formality. You had to put something on the paper. It was the law. Under the “cause of death” section, no doctor ever wrote “old age.” But that's what Bobby Pendragon was suffering from. Simple as that.

As he looked into Courtney's eyes, he knew what was troubling her.

They weren't going to have much more time together.

Though they were the same age, Courtney was in better health than Bobby. It was a fact she didn't hesitate to point out to him every chance she got. Through the years they never stopped giving each other a hard time. Bobby wouldn't have traded a second of it. He
had no regrets. He'd lived a full life that he could look back on and be proud of. Looking back was something he did often. Especially as he got older.

Bobby had lots of promise when he was young, and he made good on it. When he graduated from high school he went to his father's old college, Villanova University, on full scholarship. There, as in high school, he played basketball. Villanova was a big-time basketball school. As good as he was, Bobby wasn't in that league. At least, not as a starter. But he played. He would come in off the bench when the Wildcats were in need of 3s. Bobby was smaller than the rest of the pro-bound players. He didn't have their skill. But he could always hit the 3s. He even got the chance to play in front of a national audience when 'Nova went to the NCAA tournament his senior year. It was one of the most memorable and rewarding experiences of his life.

Bobby had no inclination to play pro basketball. When he graduated, he didn't have much inclination at all. Life was full of opportunities; he just wasn't sure which one appealed to him. He floundered for a while, working odd jobs just to make money. His parents wanted him to go to law school. They thought he could change the world. He didn't want to let them down, but his heart wasn't in it. He knew that he had a calling; the trick was to discover it.

Besides playing basketball, there was one thing that Bobby enjoyed more than anything else. He liked to tell stories. He had a knack for taking complicated concepts and writing them in accessible ways. He thought that nothing could be better than to make a career out of doing something he loved. Writing. But it didn't come easy. At first he couldn't catch a break or make a sale. Of anything. He wrote every kind of story, from epic adventures to online serials. He even stopped going by Bobby and used his full name, Robert Pendragon, just to appear more professional. Nothing seemed to be working. After suffering through one too many rejections, Bobby was ready
to give up and, as his father put it, “get a
real
job.” Of course, that's when he got his first break. He sold a short story to a magazine about Allied POWs being used as slave labor for private Japanese companies during World War II. His story was fiction, but based on fact. It not only gave him his first sale as a professional writer, but launched a successful, decades-long career as an author.

Bobby may not have become a lawyer as his parents had hoped, but in his own small way, he did change the world. He specialized in writing dramatic fiction based on true incidents. He brought history to life and made it accessible to people who wouldn't ordinarily be interested. Among his many topics he wrote stories of child labor in third-world nations, handling illness without health insurance, and the challenge of combating illiteracy. He always picked topics that had social relevance. He wanted to take his readers beyond the story of his characters and illustrate the larger challenge in compelling ways. He won praise for his thought-provoking portrayals that shed light on so many pressing issues. Many of the books written by Robert Pendragon became required reading in classrooms. He never got rich from his work. At least, he never earned a ton of money. But he had the satisfaction of knowing that his work helped make a difference.

He didn't see much of Courtney right after high school. She went to New York University, where she majored in communications while playing both varsity volleyball and softball. She moved to Los Angeles and went into a career producing television news specials. She and Bobby always kept in touch, but didn't see each other face-to-face until Bobby was asked to appear at a fund-raiser for California teachers. Bobby jumped at the chance, not only because he believed in the cause, but also because he knew that Courtney would be there to cover it. When they met, it was like no time had passed.

They were never apart again. Two years later they were married.

The two traveled the world. Whether it was for Bobby's research
or Courtney's job, they saw places that most people only dreamed of. Together. When they wrote e-mails back to their friends, they always signed them: “The Travelers.”

If there was one regret for either of them, it was that they never had kids. They wanted children, but it was not meant to be. Though they had no kids of their own, that didn't stop them from playing a big part in the lives of three very special youngsters. Their names were Allie, Claire, and Teddy. They were the children of Mark Dimond.

Mark was the one who followed the path that everyone expected. After high school he attended MIT. Where else? While there he was credited with designing technology that allowed 3-D images to be digitally broadcast and reproduced. The revolutionary technology was used not only for entertainment but for biological research, medical imaging, and communications. It made him a very rich guy. Not that anybody could tell. He still bought his clothes at discount stores and didn't get his hair cut often enough.

He married a girl from Boston named Marie, and settled there. Not a month would go by that they didn't see either Bobby or Courtney or both. They were like an extended family. Bobby and Courtney bought a house on an island off of Maine, where Mark and Marie's kids would often visit. Bobby would take them on adventures from the time they were barely old enough to walk. Bobby and Courtney took them backpacking in the Sierras and rafting down the Colorado River. Bobby taught them to scuba dive. And drive a boat. And rock climb. And fish. And drive. And and and…Bobby became the kind of uncle that everybody wished they had. He always said it was a no-brainer because he'd been taught by the best. He promised Mark that he would always be there for the kids, as Uncle Press had always been there for him. Bobby kept that promise. Bobby always kept his promises.

Bobby wasn't much for publicity, though he had one prized possession. It was a clipping from his hometown newspaper, the
Stony Brook Times
. It was an article about two successful alumni of Stony Brook High, who had each gone on to do great things in widely divergent fields while still remaining best friends. Bobby had the article framed and he put it over his desk. Prominent in it was a picture of the two of them. Bobby and Mark. The framed article became even more precious when Bobby got a phone call that changed everything.

It was from Marie. She gave Bobby the sad and shocking news that Mark had suddenly taken ill, and died. It came with no warning. A heart attack before his fortieth birthday. Bobby didn't even get the chance to say good-bye. It was a harsh lesson that life is full of surprises and not all of them are good.

At Mark's funeral Courtney and Bobby both gave the eulogy. Courtney spoke of the importance of friendship and of inspiring people to follow their dreams. Bobby said that he was proud of Mark, not for the incredible accomplishments he made in his short lifespan, but for the fact that he lived his life doing something he loved. “That,” he said, “is a lesson we can all take from Mark that is far more valuable than any of his inventions.”

Bobby kept his promise. Both he and Courtney did all they could to help and support Marie and the kids. The Dimonds didn't need money. They needed friendship and stability. Bobby and Courtney were there for them. Always. The extended family stayed strong in spite of the tragedy. Or maybe because of it.

“Marie and the kids came by yesterday,” Bobby said.

“All of them?” Courtney asked. She helped Bobby sit up in bed, moving the pillows and propping him up.

“Yeah. You know those kids aren't kids anymore. They've got their own little ones, for cryin' out loud, but they still call me Uncle Bibs.”

“And they always will,” Courtney replied.