One Was a Soldier

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  She clenched his hands, shaking, all wetness and straining muscles. Her mouth was open, her throat working, but his ferocious battering left her breathless, wordless, mindless. She spiraled up, tighter, sharper, closer, until he groaned, “Oh, God, Clare, I’m going to—” and that was it, that was enough. Her head snapped back and it was the dark tunnel reversed, all white hot light and an explosion of joy that turned her inside out and left her trembling. Russ’s voice broke and he shuddered, once, twice, three times, then collapsed heavily on top of her, his face once more hidden in the crook of her shoulder.

  She stroked his back while he worked for air, his rib cage rising and falling beneath her touch. He made a feeble attempt to push off of her. “No.” She tightened her grip. He relaxed then, sagging against her. She ran her fingers through his hair, watching the strands of brown and blond and gray catch around her knuckles, feeling the shape of his skull beneath her hand.

  “Don’t leave me,” he whispered.

  “I won’t.”

  “When I say don’t leave—”

  “I know.” She pressed a kiss into the top of his head. “You mean don’t die.”

  At some point, he fell asleep. She kept on stroking and smoothing his hair, watching her hand rise and fall, rise and fall, until she could admit to this exhausted, sleeping, damaged man what she couldn’t admit to herself. “I don’t think I’m fine,” she whispered. “I don’t think I’m fine at all.”

  THAT IT MAY PLEASE THEE TO GRANT THAT, IN THE FELLOWSHIP OF ALL THE SAINTS, WE MAY ATTAIN TO THY HEAVENLY KINGDOM.

  —The Great Litany, The Book of Common Prayer

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26

  Sarah was late to her own group session. She scurried down the hallway, her footsteps slapping the linoleum flooring and echoing off the walls in a syncopated beat to the shouts of young men and the thud of the basketball. She opened the door too hard, slamming it against the wall accidentally. They were all there; McCrea and Stillman bookending the group, Fergusson hunched over her cup of coffee, McNabb stuffing an iPod into her too-tight jeans, Will Ellis smiling at nothing. Sarah felt like pitching her notebook and pen and shrieking at them all to go home. She wasn’t reaching these people. She wasn’t helping them. She’d never been any closer to a war zone than downtown Newark. What in the name of little green apples did she think she could accomplish here?

  Fergusson looked up at her, her face pale with fatigue. Studied her for a moment that must have been shorter than it felt. Then she rose from her rickety metal chair, smiling. “Sarah. Thank goodness. We were getting worried.” She crossed the floor and touched Sarah on the arm, once, giving her a squeeze that seemed to say, I know, and it’s all right. “Let me get you something. Coffee? Somebody’s made hot cider in the Crockpot. Probably fresh from Greuling’s Orchards.” She looked at Sarah again, more closely, and for a second, Sarah wanted to lean against the priest, to feel someone taking care of her for a change, and then she snapped herself like a sheet and thought, Oh, no, you don’t. I’ve got your number now. Fergusson was a caretaker. That explained the way she only really became engaged when she was bucking up Will or settling down McCrea.

  “Thank you, Clare, that would be nice.” She let Fergusson fetch her the hot cider while she sat down, surreptitiously rolling her shoulders to get the last of the tension out, smiling at the others. When Fergusson handed her the paper cup, she let her eyes open just a bit wider than usual, showing her vulnerability and her gratitude. A little manipulative, maybe, but if she could use the moment to crack open Fergusson’s closed book, it would be worth it.

  “We’ve talked about homecoming,” Sarah said. “We’ve talked about work, and about personal relationships.” She took a sip of the cider. Heavenly. “But all that is background. Reconnoitering the terrain. Tonight, we’re going to begin to dig deeper. The real issues, and the real work, are inside each of you. Tonight, we’re going to talk about why you decided to attend this group, and what you hope to get out of counseling.”

  Tally McNabb glanced at McCrea, who bent over to rub a nonexistent speck from his hiking boots. Trip Stillman shifted in his seat. Clare Fergusson pinched her ring between two fingers and stared at it. Will Ellis looked up toward the sound-tiled ceiling.

  Sarah let the silence lengthen. “Anyone?” More shifting, more looking at the floor or knees or coffee cups. “Somebody has to be first.”

  “I came here because I want to know how to leave what happened in-country behind.”

  They all stared at Tally McNabb. Her chin was tucked down, and she wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes, but she went on. “I did some things I shouldn’t have. Stuff I thought would stay there.” She pressed her mouth into a hard line. Sarah waited, one beat, two, for her to go on.

  Finally, Fergusson leaned way forward so she could look up into Tally’s face. “But it didn’t.”

  Tally shook her head, sending her straight, blunt hair jerking left, right, left. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.” She lifted her eyes and looked around the circle. “Everything seemed so clear-cut over there. Now I’m home, and I can’t get a fix on anything anymore. My relationship with my husband’s totally screwed up. My job is—” She dropped her head again. “My boss told me today he wants to send me back. As part of the construction team.”

  “What?” McCrea stared.

  “You’re kidding!” Stillman rocked back in his chair.

  “Oh, no,” Fergusson said.

  “It’s not like being on frontline duty. I’d be financial administrator for the ongoing projects. Probably get to spend ninety percent of my time behind a desk in the Green Zone.”

  There was an awful silence. Everyone, including Sarah, knew there was no such thing as “behind the lines” in Iraq.

  “How do you feel about this?” Sarah asked.

  Through the thick cotton of her hooded sweatshirt, Tally rubbed the spot where her arm was tattooed. “How do I feel?” She looked at Sarah. “Like I’ve been locked in a box.”

  “Do you feel like you’d like to discuss your options with the group?” Sarah kept her voice low and level.

  “No. I don’t have any options.”

  “You can always find something positive about any situation,” Will Ellis said.

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Why don’t you just grow up and drop the damn pep talks already?” Tally shoved her face toward Will. “At least I can admit my life’s in the toilet.”

  “What?” Will glared at her. “What do you want me to say? That I lost my goddamn legs? That I’m never going to walk again, I’ve got no goddamn prospects, and I’m going to wind up spending the rest of my life with my parents taking care of me? That make you happy?”

  Trip Stillman shook his head. “There’s no reason you can’t—”

  “And what’s your problem?” Will turned on the older man. “I haven’t heard anything out of you other than it’s been a pain cycling in and out of country for three-month rotations.”

  Stillman sat up straight and angled his body so that he somehow seemed to be wearing an invisible white coat. “I, um, believe I’m showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

  “From what?” Eric McCrea said. “You didn’t get the DVDs you wanted in your air-conditioned lounge? You guys live like four-stars in those combat support hospitals. What the hell kind of stress could you have?”

  “I wasn’t in a CSH. I was at a Forward Response Station, and the only AC we had was in the operating rooms.”

  “Oh, cry me a fucking river. You wanna know what stress is? Try guarding a bunch of insurgents who’d just as soon kill you as look at you. Trying to get intel out of these fuckers, knowing they’ve got information that will kill Americans locked up in their heads, but for God’s sake, you gotta respect their rights and their religion and their culture. Then a bunch of fucking pictures that never should have been taken get out into the damn media—from another fucking prison entirely!—and suddenly everybody looks at you like you’ve been putting electr
odes on Achmed’s balls.”

  “Were you?” Fergusson asked.

  “What?”

  “Were you torturing prisoners?”

  “No! Jesus! Whaddaya think I am?”

  “I think you’re a good cop. I’m also thinking maybe a good cop who gets coerced or convinced to do bad things is going to wind up feeling pretty awful about it, later on.”

  Sarah cut in before Fergusson could take over as therapist. “Hold it.” She made a time-out gesture. “Just hold it. Group therapy means we’re working together to find out what we need to know. We offer observations in positive ways. We don’t gang up and attack each other.” She looked around the circle, taking her time, making eye contact with each one of them. “I repeat. We’re going to talk about why you decided to get into the group.” She zeroed in on Fergusson. “Clare, we’re starting with you.”

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 26

  Clare eyed the glass of Macallan’s balanced on her porcelain sink. Why had she brought it in here, when she was brushing her teeth? Was she going to gargle with it? She spat, rinsed, wiped her mouth dry. She considered lipstick. She didn’t usually wear makeup, but this was a special occasion. She thought it was a special occasion. She thought she might be getting engaged. She closed her hand around the heavy square glass and downed half the Scotch in one gulp.

  The bell rang. She put down the glass and hustled down the stairs to her almost-never-used front door. “Why so formal?” she was asking as she opened the door, but the sight of Russ in a suit and tie made her lose whatever else she was going to say.

  “What?” He peered down at his tie. “Do I have a spot?”

  “I’ve never seen you dressed up before.” She splayed her hand against her chest. “I’m speechless.”

  “That’ll be the day.” He stepped in, and she backed away to circle around him.

  She whistled. “You clean up real nice, Chief Van Alstyne.”

  “You like it? You should see my dress uniform. Makes me look like an extra in Naughty Marietta.”

  “Does it have a Sam Browne belt?”

  “No, thank God. That’s a little too disciplinarian for my tastes.” He caught her hand. “Nice dress. You wore it at that dance in the park.”

  “Mm-hmm.” She twirled, letting yards of poppy red silk wind around her legs. “I remembered you liked it.”

  He smiled slowly at her. “Maybe we should just order a pizza and stay here.”

  “Tempting.” She considered it for a moment. True to his word, Russ hadn’t been to her bed since the night she had found him waiting for her after the Ellises’ dinner. On the other hand, she had been promised a date. One date in four years. That didn’t seem like asking too much. “Maybe later. I want my chance to go to the ball.”

  “Okay, Cinderella. Grab your wrap and let’s go.”

  Outside, he opened his truck’s door and handed her in. “Where are we going?”

  “You like miniature golf?”

  She stared at him. “You’re joking.” He got behind the wheel and backed out of her driveway. “You are joking, right?”

  He grinned at her. The windows were open, of course—he didn’t believe in air-conditioning unless the truck was going sixty—so she braced her elbow on the edge and showily propped her chin on her hand, staring outside as if the end-of-the-day shoppers and dog walkers were the most interesting things she’d seen that week. Russ looped around to Barkley Avenue, and she spotted the director of the Millers Kill Historical Society unlocking her car. Clare waved. “Hi, Roxanne!”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just making sure we maintain our status as a hot topic of conversation.”

  “Great. Now I know what’ll be first on the agenda at their next board meeting.”

  “What? The two of us in your truck on a Friday evening? That’s positively wholesome. It’s not like anybody’s been able to see you sneaking into the rectory at all hours.”

  “Jesus, it’s been less than a week. I had no idea you were such a sex fiend.”

  Clare crossed her arms. “There’s such a thing as carrying discretion too far.”

  “Not when you’re a minister in a small town, there isn’t.”

  She sighed. “I know—but I don’t have to like it.”

  He laughed. “How you made it through seminary and into the priesthood remains a mystery to me.”

  “To you and the bishop both.” They had left the town behind, headed northeast. “Are we going to Lake George?” Russ didn’t say anything. “We are. We’re going to Lake George. Okay, what do you have to get dressed up for in Lake George?”

  “Maybe I’m being all whimsical and we’re going for Italian sausage on the Boardwalk.”

  She gave him a look. “Whimsical?”

  “Hey, I can be as whimsical as the next guy.”

  “That’s because to you, the next guy is a humorless law enforcement agent.”

  He laughed and took her hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. She had a hunch about where they were going, but she kept her mouth shut over her smile. She didn’t want to take away a second of his pleasure at surprising her. She leaned back and watched the road slice between the lake and the mountains.

  Sure enough, he slowed and pulled into a long drive marked by an understated white and green sign.

  “The Sagamore!” She clapped in approval. “I’ve never been here, but I’ve heard Mrs. Marshall and Sterling Sumner talk about it.” Two of her vestry had summer homes on the lake. “Oh, it’s lovely.”

  The drive crossed a wooden bridge and wound past clay tennis courts and crisp white bungalows before terminating at the entrance of the grand old resort. The parking valet opened her door before she had a chance to do it herself. “Checking in, sir?” the young man asked.

  “Just dinner.” Russ handed him the keys.

  “Darn,” Clare said, under her breath.

  “Be good.” Russ ushered her up the porticoed steps. “We may be out of town, but this place gets a lot of local business. I figure we still have a twenty-five percent chance of running into someone we know.”

  “So, no footsie during dinner?”

  He gave her a sideways look. “Let’s see how long the tablecloth is.”

  It was very long, and very white, in a dining room with the understated elegance that came with years of service to old money. Clare could see other diners, silver gleaming, glasses raised, but the heavy carpets and the plush chairs seemed to absorb the sound of clinking and conversation before it could reach them.

  She blanched when she saw the prices on the menu, then thought of her grandmother’s dictum, A lady never notices the cost of her dinner, and kept her eyes left. In deference to Russ’s budget and his nondrinking status, she skipped the wine list and had the waiter bring her a whisky neat before the meal, and a single glass of merlot to accompany her beef Wellington. Oh, and all right, a nice little aperitif after, but she didn’t order dessert, and only took two bites of Russ’s key lime pie.

  They talked nonstop through dinner, about the volunteer fair at the church and firearms training at the department; about gun surrender programs and going green at work. She admitted she was still trying to find a way to talk Will Ellis into therapy, and he told her he was worried about Eric McCrea’s two unexplained absences the last two weeks.

  The coffees came and went, and she started to think she must have been wrong, that he wasn’t going to pop the question that night, when the waiter returned with the bill tucked inside a leather folder and Russ asked, “What’s going on outside? I keep hearing music.”

  “Private party. The two weekends around Labor Day are our busiest of the year.”

  Russ looked up from where he was signing the charge slip. “Oh. Can we still get down to the landing?”

  This is it, she thought. Is this it?

  “You certainly can, sir. The terrace isn’t closed to the public.”

  Russ looked at Clare. “Feel like a little walk? There’s a great view of t
he lake from the boat landing.”

  “Absolutely.” She pushed her chair back, and the waiter nipped in to pull it out of her way. Russ stood at the same time, snagging her wrap and draping it over her shoulders. She hid a smile, thinking how much her grandmother would have loved his manners. Her highest praise for a man had been “His mother raised him right.”

  The back of the resort—or front, she supposed, if one arrived by boat—consisted of wide wings with deep porches leading down to a terrace thronged with people drinking, dancing, and talking too loudly. A white tent had been set up on the side lawn, sheltering tables, and a four-piece band tucked between the porch steps and the flower beds played Motown classics. Russ took her hand, and they walked down to the flagstones, skirting the party.

  “What’s going on?” Clare craned her neck, looking for a bride and groom. Someone shrieked, there was a flurry of movement, and a heavyset young man stumbled into their path. Russ caught him by his coat sleeves before he could fall on his face.

  “Easy there, buddy.” Russ righted the man, who swayed for a moment like a potted plant teetering back to level.

  “Whoa. Thanks. Guess I’m a li’l juiced.”

  “Is this a wedding?” Clare asked, amused.

  The young man shook his head, which set him to swaying again. “’Sa company party. BWI Opperman.” He smiled proudly. “Great year, with alla construction.”

  She wasn’t looking at Russ, but she could feel him stiffen. Talk about spoiling the mood. She wasn’t any fan of the owner of the Algonquin Waters Resort, but Russ held a personal grudge against the man he felt had driven a wedge between himself and Linda. She hooked her arm in his. “Have a great time,” she told the genial drunk, steering Russ toward the lawn.

  She dragged him the first few steps, and then he gave himself a shake. “God. Opperman.”

  “Forget about him. He’s here, he’s a part of the landscape, there’s nothing you or I can do about it.” She looked up into his frowning face. “Weren’t you going to show me the boat landing?”