Blood from a Stone

by David M. Salkin

  The other thing that kept coming back to me was my uncertainty about what I would do for a career. I had saved a boatload of money, not having had time to spend it on anything other than wine, so I could take my time and sort things out. It’s a little hard to explain to a civilian, but as a Special Forces soldier, the constant sense of mission and preparation for the next operation kept us all extremely focused. For my entire military life, I had been surrounded by warriors I’d kill and die for and they for me. And now, here I was, without a mission or my men, feeling lost.

  It didn’t feel good.

  I read the papers. I saw how many of my brethren committed suicide every day after they left the service. I was starting to understand it better now. While I wasn’t clinically depressed, I was lonely and out of place. My guys were still out there, and I couldn’t help them. Hell, I didn’t even have any clue where they were or what they were doing. And even if I could have called them, they couldn’t tell me shit anyway. Almost everything we had ever done had been classified. Now, I was just another civilian trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.

  I went back to Amanda’s. She came in from work wearing her khakis and polo shirt with the words ‘Physical Therapy’ and a logo embroidered on it. I was staring at the name on the shirt only because it covered her perfect left boob. Then it dawned on me about how many other guys at her work probably took their time reading the name. Men are such pigs.

  She came in, kissed me hello and commented about how I was almost looking like someone she would be seen in public with.

  “Good,” I replied, “because I think you should be seen with me in public on a great vacation for a couple of weeks.”

  She laughed.

  “I’m serious. Let’s go down to the shore somewhere and rent a beach house for a few weeks. I want to spend whole days with you—several in a row, in fact.”

  She cocked her head. “Are you serious? Just like that? We take off for the beach?”

  “Just like that. You and me—on the beach—bottle of wine, a picnic, a sunrise over the water… What do you say?”

  “I say you’re crazy,” she said, but kissed me anyway. “A beach house might be hard to get so late in the summer. And even if we could, it would be a fortune.”

  “I’m not asking you to help pay for it. I just want you to say yes, drive away with me to the beach and keep going until we find a place to spend some time.”

  “No reservations? Just drive east until we hit water and try to get a place? You are crazy. We’ll end up driving for hours and have to turn around and come home.”

  “Man, I had no idea you were so negative! Call work and tell them you won’t be in for a few weeks. We’ll leave in the morning.”

  She laughed in my face. “Oh yeah—that’ll go over really big! ‘Hi, boss, I’m taking off for the beach for a few weeks. See ya!’ He’ll fire me.”

  “So let him fire you. Come away with me.”

  We went around for a while, and in the end, I just sort of blurted everything out—how wound up I was, how lost I was. She listened and agreed to try to get time off. It turned out her boss was a good egg, knew who I was and the whole story of how I’d almost gotten turned into chopped meat at that bar. He told her he had enough staff to cover for her for two weeks if she could work for two more days before we split.

  I spent those two days online searching for places on the Outer Banks. There was Kitty Hawk…and Nag’s Head. There were so many cool places to choose from. I decided we would head east and just see what happened.

  Chapter Nine

  Road Trip

  We stayed at a few different B&B-type places that were ridiculously overpriced but cozy and right near the ocean. We relaxed in the sun, played in the ocean, went for long walks—all the mushy stuff couples do in the movies.

  I kept thinking I’d say or do something really stupid that would screw everything up. Or maybe I’d discover that she had some horrible secret. I wasn’t used to things going so well for so long. Back in Ass-Crackistan, any time things were going well for more than a day or two, we knew some seriously bad shit was coming. Being happy made me paranoid.

  We ate and drank like pigs, had lots of laughs and made goo-goo eyes at each other. Happiness. That was the only way I could describe it—happiness. I had never felt so good in my life, and with Amanda’s patience and off-beat sense of humor, I was learning how to relax again. There were spans of hours at a time when I was totally calm and at peace. I think my soul was smiling.

  The vacation turned into days that were something out of a chick-flick. We talked about all kinds of stuff—including emotional subjects that were pretty foreign to me. I’d spent ten-plus years killing bad guys, not watching Oprah, and spilling my guts about ‘how I felt’ was not something I’d ever done before Amanda. I have to say, though, talking to her was just so easy. Not only was she a good listener, but she also had ideas and suggestions. Our conversations seemed to go on effortlessly for hours. I had never known anyone like her. I was totally smitten.

  I’d known Amanda was intelligent the moment I’d met her. She’d rattled off human anatomy and her therapy procedures at a hundred miles an hour. But it hadn’t been just that. When we talked about any subject, she knew something about it. The only things I considered myself expert in were killing and wine. This wonderful woman could talk about anything. And she was thoughtful enough not to dump her problems on me—if she had any. Her interests were varied and exciting, and I loved the way her face brightened when we hit on a subject she found fascinating, like old black-and-white movies or rescued dogs that had saved their families.

  Turns out Amanda had graduated magna cum laude from East Carolina State on an academic scholarship. I had definitely done that wrong. She had basically been paid to attend college while I was being paid to get shot at. While her major was kinesiology, in preparation for training as a physical therapist, she had also taken lots of classes in art and literature. Not a conversation took place where I wasn’t amazed by something she knew. She was the kind of person I could talk to for another fifty years and not get bored. I just hoped I was the kind of person she could talk to for the next fifty years. That fact bounced around my head every day.

  We were lying on a beach blanket enjoying the sun and I just came right out and asked her, “How is it you’re not already married with kids? You’re the smartest, nicest, funniest, sexiest woman I’ve ever met. What defect are you hiding?”

  She rolled up on one elbow and looked down at me with a funny expression. “You haven’t figured it out yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’m a sucker for lost causes.”

  I laughed and grabbed her then tried to kiss her, but she just squealed and bit me. We laughed and enjoyed a long kiss, then I pulled her sunglasses off so I could see those green eyes. “Come on. Cough it up. You’re a psycho, and I haven’t figured it out yet.”

  “I was wondering the same thing about you.”

  “Yeah, well, I did just kill three guys in a bar.” I was making a joke, but it didn’t come off as funny to either of us. We just stared at each other, now both of us obviously feeling a little awkward.

  “That was the single worst and best day of my life,” she said.

  It hit me hard. “Really? I mean…I get the worst day part.”

  “You’re fishing? Okay…” She sat up, escaping my arms, and sat cross-legged and very straight-backed in front of me. She had her serious face on—one I hadn’t seen much these two weeks. “You asked me out like ten times before I said yes.”

  “Yeah, no kidding.”

  “Look… I get hit on a lot, even at work…maybe especially at work. I’d never said yes to anyone before. I’ve had my share of long-term boyfriends, so that was always an easy out, but even when I didn’t, I’d never date a patient.”

  “How did I win the prize?”

  “There was something about you, Cory. Something different.” She shrugged. “When we would
talk during your appointments…”

  “When you tortured me and made me cry…”

  “Yes. When you cried, big baby. Our conversations were just so—I don’t know—easy. It wasn’t like I ever had to make small talk. Almost every session every day is the same. ‘How was your weekend? Do anything fun? Any improvement?’ Yadda yadda. It’s routine, you know? But with you, we just seemed to really connect.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more. But I give you a lot of credit for not letting me know.”

  “Then, a perfect date,” she teased me. “The best dinner date of my life. And that fight in the bar… That was the single most violent, God-awful thing I’d ever witnessed. Part of me wanted to never see you again after that. I mean, you were scary.”

  I started to speak, but she held up her finger for me to shut up, which I did.

  “Then I remembered you’d been trained to defend yourself. You were defending me. And in that moment, instead of feeling horrified I just felt safe.”

  I sat up across from her, not sure what to say.

  “But it’s not just that you were brave. You’re also gentle…and thoughtful…and funny. I love your sarcastic sense of humor. And you can talk to me about anything. The other guys I dated… I don’t know. Don’t take this the wrong way, like I’m stuck up or something, but they just weren’t interesting. And under that sarcastic wise-ass exterior, you’re a sensitive, caring person.”

  “Funny,” I said, “that’s exactly what I thought about you.”

  I moved in for a kiss, which got me a little peck.

  She leaned back. “So…are you…okay?”

  I knew what she was asking. It was my turn to be serious. “Amanda, I’ve seen and done some crazy stuff. I’ve killed a lot of people and seen a lot of killing—and not like the three guys in the bar. Nothing at all like that. You think that was horrible? That was nothing. The aftermath of combat is the bloodiest, messiest, most gruesome thing imaginable. In fact, it’s not imaginable. Until you see someone you’ve served with for years blown to pieces, you can’t imagine it. That’s probably a good thing. And the enemy? It’s our job to kill them. It changes everyone who’s ever been a part of it. But I’m out. I’m done. I’ve tried really hard for the past couple of months to turn off the auto-pilot. It’s not as easy as people think.”

  “I know it’s not easy, Cory. Do you have PTSD? Nightmares?”

  I was a little surprised by the question. It was more than personal. It was a glimpse inside my head, but it was a fair one to ask. I always pictured civilians looking at vets with PTSD as though we are some kind of crazy people about to snap at any moment. Amanda was different, though. I knew she cared and wasn’t judging me.

  “I don’t know if I’d say it was full-blown PTSD. I mean, I think every combat vet has some. But it’s more like just trying to unwind. You’re in your car looking down the street in town, and you see traffic. I look at the same street and I see a three-dimensional battle space. Is there an IED in that trash can? Is the trunk of that car sagging too low? Did someone move in that window? Is that a booby trap or a piece of garbage? Where’s my best field of fire? It’s tough to turn off the stuff that kept me alive all those years but I’m trying. And the nightmares are coming less and less.”

  She was nodding as she listened and I knew she understood.

  “More than that,” I continued, “I miss my team. The bonds forged in combat are more than just friendships. These guys are my brothers. I miss them. But I’m out and they’re in, and once you’re out, you’re out. We won’t have much to talk about until they’re out, too, then we can pick up where we left off. But for now, they’re in the shit and I’m back in the world. Prior to meeting you, I was just kind of lost.”

  “I’m glad you asked me out,” she said.

  “Me, too.”

  We sat in silence, listening to the waves lapping the shore.

  Finally, Amanda announced she had a hidden agenda—a bucket list item. “I’ve always wanted to go see this place called Harkers Island. It’s like going back in time. It’s funny because you’d think it has an apostrophe, but it doesn’t. I think it might be around here somewhere.”

  “Then let’s go find it.”

  Neither of us knew at the time how that bucket list item would change our lives.

  Chapter Ten

  Welcome to Harkers Island

  We drove south, following the Outer Banks as it became more and more remote—smaller town after smaller town. Amanda explained the history of Harkers Island to me as we drove, and, in typical fashion, impressed me with her total recall of otherwise useless information.

  “The whole island is only two and half square miles, with a total population of less than two thousand. Most of the islanders are fisherman or local merchants—people who rely on tourists who are also there to fish or hunt birds. The decoy carving industry is a local specialty. There is supposedly even a little museum dedicated to wooden ducks. For the tourists, of course,” she added, laughing. “Most of the waterfront has docks for fishing boats or trawlers. The rest is grass-covered dunes that are protected by law.”

  Much of the island’s beauty, she said, was in its simplicity—unspoiled and unchanged for the last few thousand years. “Nothing ever happens there.”

  “That’s about what I need right now.”

  She told me the island didn’t get phone service until 1948, nine years after it got electricity. Separated from the mainland, the islanders still had a dialect reminiscent of Elizabethan English. “It’s called ‘High Tider’ and I’m dying to hear it. It hasn’t been spoken anywhere else in two hundred and fifty years. Can you imagine? And I guarantee you that there’s no way we’ll be able to understand a word!”

  “Bet?”

  “Bet!”

  We followed Route 12 until we ran out of road. There are only two ways onto the island—the bridge or the ferry—unless a person is rich and has their own boat. Or should I say yacht? We chose the ferry. The bridge would have required a four-hour detour through farm country.

  The ferry ride was a first for both of us. Neither of us had done a lot of the things we were doing on this trip, but that was what happened when one gets silly in love. After a short trip across the sound, the ferry docked, we drove off and began a slow tour of the island.

  We drove by some fancy estate homes and a few summer beach houses of the rich and famous, but, for the most part, Harkers remained below the radar, known only to duck hunters and avid anglers who didn’t mind a long trip. The island was for islanders, same as it had been for a few hundred years—and that was seemingly just how they wanted it to stay.

  We ended up stopping at a little restaurant overlooking the dunes for the world’s best soft-shell crab sandwiches, then went for a walk down a quiet beach road, narrow without sidewalks, and into a postcard neighborhood. Turning a corner, we found ourselves staring at a Victorian house, perched slightly on a mounded yard that could only be described as perfect, with a big ole’ ‘For Sale’ sign out front.

  Lots of the homes we had walked past had patchy front lawns because of the sandy soil, with very limited landscaping. This place was out of a magazine. As beautiful as the house was, what was most impressive were the grounds. There were perfectly manicured beds, outlined by tiny hedges, contained magnificent flowers of every color, and butterflies seemed to dance in celebration over them.

  The large lot was surrounded by pine trees and shrubs, like a frame around a painting. The wooded border offered privacy and a feeling that we were the only people on the island. It left me speechless.

  The Victorian architecture was stately and grand in its own way, with a raised wrap-around porch and fluted columns in front of the house. The attention to detail in the woodworking made every square inch of the exterior worthy of inspection. The coffered panels and geometric paneled friezes were painted in different colors to highlight the details, with various blues and grays making the exterior warm and soft. White fish-scale s
hingles seemed to belong on the island, and although they were slightly weather-beaten from the hot Carolina sun and the salt air, the wood was in perfect shape. There was one rounded corner tower which presumably held the master bedroom upstairs, and it had windows all around it, which would afford a magnificent view of the sound.

  We just stood there for what seemed like a long time, admiring the house and its landscaping. Then, as if in a trance, we both started walking up the curving driveway to explore.

  I know how totally insane it sounds that Amanda and I could be ‘house hunting’ after only knowing each other for a few months and only dating for a few weeks. And we weren’t—but we were feeling nosy, or curious, or both, so there we were, walking down a slate path, through a rose garden and into the backyard of this beautiful, old home. An immense but graceful statue of two angels caught my immediate attention just as I realized two women were standing there. We felt like we had just been ‘busted’ sneaking around on someone’s property.

  The younger woman smiled, which took the pressure off, and she walked over to greet us.

  “Well, hello, y’all!” She extended her hand like she had been expecting us. She had a thick Southern accent, even compared to Amanda. She told us her name was Belle and explained we were still in time for the Open House.

  “Excellent!” I looked at Amanda, winked, and said, “I’m Cory Walker and this is my friend, Amanda Jensen.”

  Belle said, “And this is our de-ah Agatha, who lives right next door.” Agatha smiled sweetly, sizing us up. Belle offered to show us inside, and Agatha stepped through an opening in a hedge and disappeared into her own backyard.

  As Belle led us toward the back porch, I asked, “Who lives here?”

  “At the moment, no one.” She stopped, cocking her head. “You are fah-miliar with the history of this house, Mr. Wal-kah?”

  I told her we were not.

  “Well, I do have to tell you that this house does have a history—and not all of it is happy, I’m afraid. It had a famous owner. You do know who Congressman Stone is, I presume?”