One Was a Soldier

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.

  Parked outside Margy Van Alstyne’s driveway at midnight, Clare could still hear Russ’s voice. His words had dogged her as she said good-bye to the Stillmans, surrounded by investigators in their own home. They throbbed with her pulse as her arm was tied off and her blood syringed into glass tubes. They kept time with her footsteps as she visited shut-ins, ran errands, cleaned house, walked down the still, silent nave of St. Alban’s.

  Tell me.

  She kept promising herself later. After the communications committee meeting. After she took Morning Prayer. After her family arrived. After dinner at Margy’s house. After the rehearsal. Then Russ was kissing her, smiling as their lips parted, murmuring, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” laughing as Lyle hauled him away to some hunters’ bar.

  She had run out of later. In her bedroom, she smoothed a hand over the white dress hanging from her closet door. From its velvet box, she took the ring she was supposed to give Russ tomorrow. She let it rest in her palm. Such a small thing to bind up so many promises. With all that I have, and with all that I am, I honor you, she would say. She closed her hand into a shaky fist. Some honor.

  Her heart pounded. Her mouth was dry. She tried to slow her breathing down, name exactly what it was that scared her so.

  If I tell him, he’ll be furious with me.

  No. He’d be upset, and worried, and overprotective, but he wouldn’t be angry.

  If I tell him, it will get out, and everybody will know what a failure I am as a priest.

  That was closer to the bone. The thought of being exposed made her nauseous. She already had enough problems trying to live up to her position. Who wanted an addict for a priest?

  Addict. She had never used that term before. She thought of all the ways she would describe herself. Priest. Pilot. Christian. Woman. Soldier. She wet her lips. “Hi, my name is Clare Fergusson and I’m a drug addict,” she whispered. The words tasted like bottle dregs and the hard plastic coating on pills.

  If I tell him, I’ll have to stop.

  That was the bottom of it. If she told him, she’d have to stop, and that scared her more than anything. Facing every day, every night without her chemical crutches—she didn’t know if she could do it.

  Tomorrow, Julie McPartlin would say, I require and charge you both, here in the presence of God, that if either of you know any reason why you may not be united in marriage lawfully, and in accordance with God’s Word, you do now confess it.

  So here she was, huddled in a dark, cold Jeep while her parents thought she was out on a pastoral emergency. She’d been waiting over an hour, expecting him back at his mother’s well before now, praying that none of the neighbors called in a suspicious vehicle to the cops. Both her fear-fueled adrenaline and her amphetamines had given out long ago, so it took a beat, then two, before she realized the headlights coming down Old Route 100 were slowing down. The turn signal winked on, and Russ’s truck bumped into his mother’s wide dirt drive.

  Clare tumbled out of the Jeep, shaking herself to get the cramps out of her legs. He was crossing to the kitchen door. “Russ.” She kept her voice low, but he spun around like a gunslinger.

  “What the—Clare?” He walked toward her, jamming his hands into his jacket pockets against the chill. “What are you doing here, you crazy woman?” He peered past her toward her car, tucked in beneath the dark hemlocks at the edge of his mother’s property. He shook his head. “Waiting outside in the cold.” He kissed her lightly. “It’s Saturday, you know. I’m not supposed to see you.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  His face shifted. “Okay.” He glanced toward the house. An outdoor light cast a glow over the granite steps and green door. A single lamp lit one of the living room windows, but otherwise the place was dark. “Come inside. We can talk in the kitchen.”

  She shook her head. “Not here.”

  He looked at her closely. “My truck.” He opened the door for her and then walked around to his side. When he got in, the pickup leaned beneath his weight for a moment. His door shut with a solid thunk. He turned on the engine and adjusted the heaters so they would blow on her. The air was still warm from his ride home. He reversed out of the driveway and headed west into the mountains. They rumbled over the stony Hudson River. “Okay. What is it?”

  Face-to-face, in the moment, she panicked. Her throat closed. “I don’t,” she started. She pressed her fist against the ache in her chest. “I don’t know—”

  He held out one hand. “Hold on tight and tell me.”

  She grasped his hand and squeezed her eyes shut. “I have a problem. I haven’t told you. I’ve been taking pills. Lots of pills. I’m addicted to amphetamines.”

  He breathed out. “Hang on.” She heard the tick-tick-tick of the turn signal and then the pickup was turning, bumping along an unpaved road. Finally he stopped. The truck jerked as he hauled on the parking brake. “Love? Look at me.”

  She cracked open her eyelids. They were surrounded by hemlock and pine. Russ’s face was outlined in the green-amber light of the dashboard. “Tell me,” he said.

  “I started taking sleeping pills and stimulants in Iraq. I came back with a, with a problem.” Admitting it a second time wasn’t much easier. “I also had antibiotics that I used to treat myself with. And Percocet. For a while I was taking a lot of Percocet.”

  Russ pressed his lips together and nodded.

  “I was close to running out a couple weeks ago. I talked Trip into giving me a prescription for Ambien and Dexedrine. He told me I couldn’t drink while I was on the pills, and he said he was going to spring a surprise blood test on me to make sure I wasn’t mixing.”

  Russ closed his eyes. “The blood test you were supposed to get the day we found out about Ellen Bain.”

  “I told him I just needed to get through the wedding—” Russ made a noise, a kind of despairing discovery, and she grabbed his arms, digging her fingers into his jacket. “No. Not like that. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, it never had anything to do with you.”

  “I pushed you.” He winced, as if he were pulling a splinter out of his hand. “I should have taken it slow and given you time, but I was so goddamn fixed on getting us married—”

  “No. Listen. I told Trip I needed the pills to keep my head on through the craziness of the past couple of weeks, but I was lying.” She hadn’t known that until she said it. “I was lying. I would’ve come up with some other excuse to keep the prescriptions going after the wedding, and if he wouldn’t give them to me I’d find some other way. Oh, God.” She could feel her eyes begin to fill. “I’ve been lying to everybody.” Her voice broke. “I’ve been lying every time someone asked me how I’m doing. I said I was fine, and I’m not fine. I feel like there’s something ugly inside me all the time, and I just want it to go away.” Her tears spilled hot over her cheeks, and she covered her mouth, trying to keep the misery and shame inside where they belonged.

  Russ tugged her toward him. “C’mere.”

  She leaned across the console and buried her face in his shoulder, awkward and ridiculous. She hiccupped and coughed, and a big blob of mucus splattered over his jacket. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” She pawed at her pockets, feeling for a tissue, but of course she came up empty. She started to cry again. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. Let’s just call the wedding off. It’s not too late.”

  “Whoa.” He pulled a half-acre-sized handkerchief out of his jeans and mopped her face with it. “Because you got a little snot on my shirt?”

  “Weren’t you listening to me? I’m a wreck. I’m a wreck and an addict and a failure. I’ve killed people, Russ. I flew the ship and gave the orders and people died right in front of me and I don’t know where to put that so I just keep drugging myself up until I don’t feel anything anymore.” She pushed her damp hair off her overheated face. “I’m not Linda. I’m not anything like her, and I never will be.”

  His mouth opened. He let out a huf
f that was almost a laugh. “Where did that come from?”

  “You loved her. You never would have left her, and you loved her, and she died, and I can’t replace her. I just keep coming up short.”

  “I don’t want you to replace Linda.”

  “But you loved her.”

  “Yes. And now I love you.” Russ framed her face in his hands, wiping her tears away with his thumbs. “You know, I could have resisted you if you had reminded me of Linda. I fell for you because you remind me of me. I was a wreck and an addict and a failure, Clare. I went to war, and I killed people, with these hands, and watched them die right in front of me. You and I, we’re the same, love. We’re the same.”

  “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

  “We’ll get you help.” He took one of her hands and interlaced his fingers through hers. “This is the thing I’m absolutely sure of: If we keep holding on to each other, if we don’t let go, we can get through anything.”

  Her eyes burned. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “This priest once told me we don’t get what we deserve, thank God. We get what we’re given.”

  She choked out a wet laugh. “A second chance.”

  “And a third, and a fourth.” He smiled a little. “She convinced me, and I don’t even believe in God.”

  She wiped her nose with her jacket sleeve. “I love you. It doesn’t seem like enough, just to say it, but I do.”

  He kissed her. He got out of the truck and walked around the hood and popped her door open. “C’mon out here.”

  She took his hand, and let him lead her through the forest darkness to the back of the pickup. He hoisted her over the tailgate into the bed of the truck, then vaulted over the side and joined her. He unflapped a heavy cardboard box.

  “Don’t tell me you’re still dragging those quilts around,” she said.

  “These are good quilts.” He spread out first one, then another. “My grandmother Campbell made ’em.” He patted the patchwork. “C’mere.”

  She sat on the thick fabric and tugged her sneakers off before leaning against the rear window of the cab. Russ shook out two more and sat down next to her. He untied his boots and set them against the side of the bed, then snugged the quilts around their shoulders. They were heavy and warm.

  He took her in his arms. “Listen. As far as I’m concerned, we’re already married.” He pressed her hand against his chest. She could feel the steady beat of his heart. “In here, I’m your husband. You’re my wife. Nothing we do or don’t do in that circus your mother has planned will change that. So if you need more time, if you want to delay it or even call it off, we’ll do it.”

  She kissed him. “That’s my fourth premarital session.”

  “What is?”

  She felt herself beginning to tear up again. “Marriage is a sacrament. An outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace. The only thing the church can do is recognize what we’ve already created between us.”

  He kissed her neck. “I know the religious part of it’s important to you—”

  “Do you want me as your wife?” she said.

  Russ smiled against her skin. “I do.”

  “And I want you for my husband. Will you stay with me, sharing whatever life throws at us, good or bad?”

  He laughed quietly. “I will. How about you?”

  “I will.” She kissed him again, slowly, and began unbuttoning his shirt. “And I promise before God to be true and faithful to you, to love you with my body and my heart and my mind.” She pushed his shirt and jacket off. “Until we are parted by death.”

  “Yes.” He pulled her sweater over her head. “I promise to be true and faithful to you, to love you with my body and my heart and my mind.” His breath hitched as she wiggled out of her khakis. “Until we are parted by death.”

  He kicked his jeans away and pulled her against him, warm and solid, skin to skin. “I pronounce that we are husband and wife, in the name of the Father”—she kissed him—“and of the Son”—she kissed him again—“and of the Holy Spirit.”

  He framed her face in his hands. “We’re married.” His face was serious.

  “Yes. All the rest of it’s just tradition and show and law codes.”

  His fingers slid along her body. He cupped her breast and stroked her nipple with his thumb. She moaned. “A man and his wife become one flesh,” he said, his voice low.

  “Yes,” she gasped.

  “Yes.” He rolled, pulling her atop him, and they sealed their vows beneath the stars and the pines and the thick old quilts his grandmother made.

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22

  Hadley was almost late to the wedding. Geneva insisted on putting on last year’s Christmas outfit, which was too small, and then after Hadley had talked her into the new silk-and-chiffon dress—$1.99 from Goodwill—they had another go-round over what shoes to wear. When Hadley got downstairs, still struggling with her zipper and carrying her heels, she discovered Hudson had dribbled juice on his best pants while watching TV. Hadley tore apart his room for a replacement, finally settling on a clean pair of khakis she had set aside in the donation pile. When Hudson complained they were too short around the ankles, she gave him her best death-ray glare and herded them into the car.

  St. Alban’s was packed when they arrived. It looked like half the town and all the congregation had come. At the front of the church, Betsy Young was playing the organ and the full choir sat waiting. Walking up the aisle holding Genny’s hand, she heard southern voices and saw lots of clerical collars. Rich Virginians and priests. It didn’t bode well for a fun reception.

  She spotted Kevin Flynn’s red hair near the front of the church. At the same moment, he turned around and looked at her. He stood in his pew and beckoned to her.

  “We saved you seats.” He stepped into the aisle to let her and the children pass, and Hadley could see Harlene and her husband holding down the other end.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t think we’d ever get out of the house.” She looked him up and down. “Nice suit.” She’d never seen him dressed up before. Kind of a shame, because he had the perfect build for it, long legs, wide shoulders, slim hips.

  “Well, Genny Knox, aren’t you just the prettiest girl here?” Harlene patted the pew next to her. “You slide on over and sit with me.” Hadley followed her daughter, directing Hudson to the seat between herself and Flynn. She had discovered it was better to bracket them with adults during church services. Two to one was a good ratio.

  “Did we miss anything?” Hadley asked, but before anyone could answer, the door by the sacristy opened and the priest came out, followed by the chief and Lyle MacAuley. The organ music stopped. A hush settled over the congregation.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the dep looking nervous before,” Hadley whispered.

  “Hmph.” The dispatcher spoke over Genny’s head. “Probably waitin’ to disappear into a puff of smoke and brimstone, being inside a church.”

  Flynn grinned.

  The organ sang out, something loud and complicated, with lots of notes running up and down the scale. People started to stand up. At the back of the church, two men pulled the doors open. Flynn checked his watch. “I think this is it.”

  “I can’t see! Mommy, I can’t see!” Genny hopped up and down in frustration.

  “Come here, Genny, stand in front of me.” Flynn stepped back and let Geneva squeeze past him. She hung off the pew ends, leaning as far into the aisle as she could. Hudson twisted back and forth around Flynn, clearly wanting a better view, clearly unwilling to admit it. Flynn took him by the shoulders and maneuvered him into the space next to his sister.

  Flynn turned to grin at Hadley, and she smiled ruefully back at him, and there was a moment—it must have been the soaring music or the dizzying smell of the flowers—when her smile ghosted away and she felt like she had a lump in her throat.

  Then Reverend Clare’s matron of honor walked past and Genny squealed and Hadley snapped her
attention back to the aisle. “Oh, Mommy.” Genny sounded close to swooning. “Reverend Clare looks like a princess.” In truth, Reverend Clare’s Christmas and Easter vestments were a lot more elaborate than her unadorned wedding dress. Her wreath of tiny cream and gold flowers was a little crownlike, though, and she did have a train, which upped the princess quotient. As she and her father walked past, Clare grinned and winked at Geneva. The little girl quivered with ecstasy. “And so it starts,” Hadley said under her breath. She could foresee a lot of dress-up games involving tablecloth trains and half-slip veils in her future.

  “Dearly beloved,” Reverend Julie McPartlin began, “we have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony.”

  Hadley thought of her own wedding. Las Vegas, during an industry convention. What a cliché. When Dylan asked her, his eyes dark and soulful and a heartbreaker smile on his lips, it had seemed reckless and romantic.

  “… therefore, marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately…”

  She hadn’t even been sober. They had smoked two joints beforehand and giggled through the whole thing. What did it say about your approach to marriage when you treated the start of it as an ironic joke?

  “Into this holy union Russell Howard Van Alstyne and Clare Peyton Fergusson now come to be joined.”

  Beside her, Harlene honked into a tissue. Hadley watched as she reached out and grabbed her husband’s hand. Mr. Lendrum was sixty-something and built as if he’d been stitched out of lumpy cotton batting, but Harlene looked at him, for a moment, in exactly the same way Clare Fergusson was looking at Russ Van Alstyne.

  Was there some sort of secret everybody but Hadley knew? Or was it that some women had a clear-eyed view of the good guys, while all she had ever been able to see was users and bastards?

  Then came the readings and the homily and the prayers and communion and finally it was almost over, thank heavens, because the kids were getting twitchy. The priest delivered a final prayer over the kneeling couple. “Is the chief going to become Episcopalian?” Hadley whispered to Flynn.