We're still married, then? What he really wanted to know was, Do you still love me? But that was something he couldn't bring himself to ask.
Bleakly, he drew a breath and forced a smile. "Your momma seems just the same," he said as he crossed the brick-paved patio, using the cane in what he hoped was a dashing sort of way rather than leaning on it like an invalid. He considered the pain in his knee only an annoyance-he'd grown accustomed to much worse-but the doctors had told him to keep his weight off of the knee as much as possible. And since his dreams of ever flying again lay pretty much in their hands, he was willing to do what they told him.
Jess gave a light laugh as she came beside him, fitting her stride to his uneven gait. "Did she cry?"
"I…think she might have, yeah, but you know how she is. She'd about die before she'd let you see her shed a tear."
She did a quick scan for reporters, then moved across the strip of grass that separated the guest house from the path. "Yeah, Momma doesn't change much," she said, lifting her face to the sweet spring breeze.
The breeze lifted the hair from her shoulders gently, like the fanning of a butterfly's wings, and the slanting sunlight shone golden through the fine strands. It seemed to Tristan the loveliest sight he'd ever seen.
"Things around her keep changing, but she stays the same. She's like, I don't know…our family's anchor, or something. Our compass. You know-true north?"
He did know. He wanted to tell her how she and Sammi June had been that for him, all that and more-his anchor, his compass, the beacon light on the shore, his sword, his shield, his armor. But that seemed too big a burden of expectation to lay on one person.
"I guess there've been a lot of changes, though," he said.
She threw him a smile. "Yeah, there have. Mostly good ones. Lots of babies. There's a whole new crop of nieces and nephews for you to meet. Jimmy Joe and Mirabella-you remember Mirabella's little girl, Amy Jo? Jimmy Joe delivered her in the cab of his rig on a snowbound interstate in Texas on Christmas Day? Anyway, they have a little boy, now, too, and by the way, J.J.'s a senior in high school, if you can believe that. Then my brother Troy and his wife Charly, they have two little girls. And…let's see. Oh-oh my God, you'll never guess. You know my little brother, C.J.?"
"You mean, Calvin? The one that dropped out of high school, and everybody'd pretty much given up on?" How good it felt to talk like this, of ordinary, everyday things. Home…family.
"Excepting Momma, of course-Momma never gives up on any of her kids." Laughter bubbled up, and he drank the happiness in that sound like water from a healing fountain. "Yup, that's the one. Well, would you believe he's a lawyer now?"
"A lawyer? Good Lord."
"I know, isn't it wild? He just passed the bar this last March. And guess what else? He's married. No babies yet, but he and his wife-her name's Caitlyn, she's from Iowa, and he met her when she hijacked his rig, and then she got shot and was blind for a while-oh, God, it's a long story-but anyway, they've adopted a little girl. Her name is Emma-she's a doll. And…let's see, who else?"
"What about your other brother-what was his name-Roy?" Tris prompted. "Did he ever get married?"
Jessie sighed. "Not yet. That makes him the last holdout in the marriage department. He's down in Florida, someplace. On the gulf. Captains a charter fishing boat."
"Sounds like a tough life," Tristan said dryly.
"Doesn't it, though. Okay, so who does that leave? Oh, yeah, my oldest sister, Tracy, of course-she's still married to Al, the cop, and they still live in Augusta and still have four kids. And then there's Joy Lynn-"
She broke off while he took her arm and guided her out of the path of a pair of joggers who were overtaking them on the pedestrian side of the pathway. And he thought how easily such a thing came back to him. Sometimes, in fact, it was hard for him to get his mind around how some things, small, everyday things that had been absent from his life for so long, slipped back into it almost as naturally as-well, smiles and laughter, which were two more things he'd been without for a long, long time. If only, he thought, everything could be that easy.
"Joy-how is she? She and her second husband-what was his name?-ever have any kids?"
Jess threw him a look, too quickly. He became conscious once again of the soft fabric of her sweater, warming beneath his fingers, and the tensed muscle of her arm under that. He let go of it and felt her body relax.
"Fred." She bit off the word. "She divorced him-with good reason, by the way. And she swears she's never getting married again. Given her lousy taste in men, it's probably just as well. Anyway, she lives in New York, now. She's working on a novel, but she has a job at a magazine publisher's to pay the bills." She gave Tristan another side-long look. "I was up there visiting her when I got the call. That's why I wasn't home-"
"I know," he said softly. "Your mom told me." After a long moment he added, "She said you're a nurse now."
"Yeah," she said, watching her feet, "I got my degree four years ago. I work in the NICU-the Neonatal Intensive Care-"
"I remember. You always wanted to do that, after Sammi June. That's great."
They walked on in silence, moving slowly, overcome all at once by the enormity of what had happened to their lives, the catastrophic changes of the past few days. The sun went down, and the air turned cooler. Tristan, who had sometimes doubted he'd ever be completely warm again, couldn't repress a shiver.
Jessie glanced at him but didn't ask if he wanted to turn back. Probably trying not to smother him, he thought, hating how weak he felt. He wondered if he'd ever have any stamina again.
After a while she said, "Granny Calhoun passed away."
He nodded his acceptance of that inevitability; the old lady, his mother-in-law's mother, had been at least ninety and frail as a twig last time he'd seen her, though still sharp as a tack mentally.
They paced another dozen quiet steps, and he was thinking he was going to have to turn around pretty soon, unless he wanted to humiliate himself by having to call somebody to come and get him and carry him back. Then he looked over and saw that she was crying. Soundlessly, with tears making glistening trails down her cheeks. Only when she felt his gaze did she lift her hand and try to stanch their flow with the sleeve of her sweater.
"Jess," he said, his voice raspy with emotions long and deeply buried.
When she didn't reply he uncertainly touched her elbow. That was all it took to bring her to him, sobbing.
He stood and held her as close as he dared, staring over her head with eyes dry and face aching, hard little muscles clenching and unclenching in his jaws. Joggers and bicyclists hurried past, uncurious, their whirring wheels and labored pants making breathing rhythms in the dusk. A plump woman in a bright-blue coat, hurrying in the wake of an overweight poodle straining at its leash, gave them a glance, then politely averted her eyes.
Chapter 3
Why am I crying? Jessie wondered. Why now, of all times?
Not for Granny Calhoun, although there hadn't been a day in the years since her grandmother had passed on that Jessie didn't miss her. Granny had gone the way most everybody would like to, suddenly and peacefully at an advanced age, in her own home surrounded by her loved ones. Thinking about her brought Jessie only a warm and gentle sadness.
But this…Oh Lord, this grief had come up in her like a geyser, hot, violent, wrenching. This pain was searing…shocking, the pain of a loss so unjust, so unspeakable, it felt as though her entire body was turning itself inside out trying to reject it. These tears were unstoppable; like the grief and the pain, they'd been held back too long, buried beneath the serene, accepting surface of her everyday existence. They were Tristan's tears, she realized. The ones she'd never shed for him, not then, when she'd lost him, nor in all the years since.
Why hadn't she cried for him? Because she'd had to be strong, she'd told herself. For Sammi June, for Momma and the rest of her family and friends who were so worried about her. For Tristan's family and especially hi
s military friends and colleagues, who'd expected her to keep a stiff upper lip, be brave. And for herself. Especially for herself.
"There was a memorial service," she said, pulling back from him to mop at her streaming nose with her sleeve. She didn't mean Granny Calhoun, but she was sure, somehow, he'd know that. "They gave me a flag…" She closed her eyes, once more helpless to stop the tears flooding down her cheeks.
She felt her husband's arms fold around her. She felt his bony, rock-hard chest deflate with a sigh. "I'm sorry," he whispered, as if he didn't know what else to say. He kept saying it, standing there in the growing chill of evening. "I'm sorry…I'm sorry."
* * *
"I'm glad I got that out of my system, aren't you?" Jessie said. But her laugh sounded phony, even to her own ears.
When Tristan didn't answer right away, she gathered her courage and looked up at him. But his face was a shadow against the pale sky, and his profile seemed stark and closed.
They were walking back toward the residence, more slowly now than when they'd left it, close together but not touching. It seemed to her that Tristan was leaning more heavily on his cane, and even without touching him she was aware of the tremors that seized him from time to time. She felt a squeezing sensation around her heart.
"I don't know where that came from," she said, rushed and breathless with guilt, "I really don't. I didn't mean-"
"Don't-" His voice sounded almost angry. Softening it took an effort even she could see. "God-don't apologize. For anything. Ever." He drew a breath, then said stiffly, "I know this must be difficult for you."
The understatement left her at a loss for a reply. She looked up at him, lips parted but speechless. He looked back at her, and after a long moment she saw his face relax with his smile. The new, wry smile that was half irony, half apology. "Sorry, that was-"
She touched two fingers to his lips, stopping him there. "Don't apologize," she said, mimicking him in a voice that quavered. "About anything. Ever." And he laughed and lightly touched her fingertips to his lips before wrapping them in his hand. "I didn't…know how I was going to handle this," she went on, haltingly. "I haven't known what to do. What to say."
"There's too much to say," he agreed, nodding as they walked on. "Makes it hard to know how to start. It's like what the doctors have been telling me, I guess. Be patient. Take it slow. One step at a time."
"Well," Jessie said with a breathy laugh, "we've made it through the first step. That's the hard part, right? From here on it should get easier."
He gave her hand a squeeze before he released it to open the guest house door for her. She waited for him to say what they both knew to be true, which was that the hardest parts were almost certainly still to come. He didn't say it, but even in the warm and welcoming lobby, she felt him shiver.
* * *
"You don't have to eat if you don't want to," Jess said.
Tristan looked up at her with a guilty start. It occurred to him that he'd been staring down at his plate for a good bit longer than was polite. Not that there was anything wrong with the food. She'd made a point of ordering some of his favorites-fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy and fresh green beans, peach cobbler with thick cream for dessert-and the house staff had gone out of their way to oblige, even serving them dinner privately in their room. It was just that it still came as a shock to him to see so much food in one place, all at one time. More food than he could possibly eat, even after several days of such bounty.
"It looks…fantastic," he said, meaning it. It seemed as if he was always hungry; sometimes he even dreamed about food. Right now he felt light-headed from hunger; he just wished his stomach didn't always feel so queasy.
He picked up a piece of chicken-the drumstick; she'd even remembered he liked them best-and bit into it. The juice exploded in his mouth, and the rich, greasy flavors nearly made him lose the tenuous hold he'd been keeping on his self-control.
"Tris? Are you okay?"
He heard alarm in her voice and managed to smile for her as he nodded, swallowed, then said softly, "Culture shock. Things hit me every once in a while."
He wiped his mouth with the napkin he'd been given without realizing at first what he was doing. Then he caught himself and looked down at it, almost in wonder. "This, for example. You have no idea how strange this feels…" His voice trailed off while he watched his fingertips rubbing and stroking the crisp, clean white linen.
After a moment he laughed, quietly and painfully. "When I got to the carrier, they gave me some things…a little bag of toiletries-you know, a toothbrush and tooth-paste…a razor…some other stuff. It felt…sort of, I don't know, overwhelming, to have so much stuff. I didn't want to let go of it. I carried that damn bag around with me for three days." He stopped and stared hard at his plateful of food. Those admissions, like the tears he'd shed in prison, embarrassed him.
"So," she said, when he'd been silent too long, "what's going to happen next?"
He looked up and saw that she was wearing her bright, brave smile, not the one he loved, the one that made her nose wrinkle and her eyes dance and a little fan of lines spray out from their corners. Right now her eyes, that amazing amber brown with thick sable lashes that made so striking a contrast with her blond hair, were wide-open and luminous. They looked fragile as blown glass, as if they'd shatter if she blinked.
His own eyes felt hot, and he looked quickly down at his plate again and concentrated on the task of picking up his fork and loading it with mashed potatoes and gravy. Looking at her was like trying to look at a bright light after being in darkness. It had been like that the first time he'd ever laid eyes on her, he remembered, that day on the beach in Florida. With her golden hair and tawny eyes, she'd seemed to him like a broken-off piece of the sun.
"What happens next?" His hand went reflexively to the little album of photographs lying on the table beside his plate; like that bag of toiletries, he couldn't bring himself to let it out of his reach.
It had occurred to him that Jess would probably like to go through it with him, sitting beside him and telling him the story behind each picture. He'd barely glanced at it, but that had been enough to tell him he wouldn't be able to handle doing that-not now, not yet. He was going to have to do this by slow degrees and in a very private place. It was going to take time to absorb this new reality into who he was now. Time and some emotions he'd rather not have anyone see and wasn't strong enough, yet, to control. He shifted the album slightly, nudging it furtively back under his forearm as he took another bite of mashed potatoes.
"For the next few days I expect there's going to be some more tests. I know the head doctors aren't done with me yet, and then they'd like to get these intestinal bugs under control before they turn me loose." He glanced up and tried to smile. "Sorry-I know that's not a nice topic of conversation for the dinner table."
"What'd I tell you about apologizing?" She smiled back at him, a gentle smile that made him ache to hold her. Touch her.
If I touch her now, he thought, it would be like that napkin. Strange. Alien. If I hold her, it'll be like holding on to that bag of toiletries they gave me. Like a crazy person, holding on because I'm too screwed up, too afraid to let go. I can't do that to her. I can't.
He grinned and said, "Sorry," and saw her relax a little as she accepted his pitiful attempt at humor for the gift it was meant to be. He ate more chicken while she played with hers and the silence thickened. Helplessly he thought, We're like strangers. And then: We are strangers.
Casting for something with which to break that silence, he cleared his throat and said, "I talked to my dad-" at precisely the same moment she got fed up with it, too, and decided to ask, "Did you call your…dad?"
He laughed and said, "Great minds…"
And she laughed and said, "Yeah."
He began again, nodding as he chewed. "He was my second phone call. We had a good talk." He looked up and flashed her his out-of-practice smile. "Well-actually, he did most of the talk
ing. I guess I was pretty much in a state of shock." His gaze fell, and he was staring at nothing, his mind a bleak landscape of shifting shadows. "Still am, if you want to know the truth. I don't think it's sunk in yet. Nothing seems real. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up at some point and I'll be back in that prison-"
"I imagine that's normal," her voice interrupted, hurrying, trying to hold steady. It scattered the shadows, at least for the moment. They'd be back, he knew. They always came back. "It'll get better, Tris. You just have to give it time. You need to get well, get your strength back. Once we get home and things settle down…" Her voice trailed off.
He looked up and saw her eyes on him, pleading silently in her pale face, and suddenly felt defeated, overwhelmed. She wanted too much from him. Wanted so much for him to be okay. To be the man she remembered. The Tristan he'd been before.
"You're wondering why I asked to stay over here, aren't you?" he said abruptly. "When they probably would have shipped me home as soon as they had me cleaned up and deloused and knew I was fit to travel." He pushed back his plate. He wanted to reach for her hand, but found the album instead, and curled his fingers around it. "It's not what you're thinking-"
"You don't know what I'm thinking," she said with unexpected heat. It was a flash fire, only a glimpse of the Jess he remembered, but it caught him by surprise and made a nice spreading warmth inside him-like taking a slug of what looked like iced tea and finding out it was whiskey. He smiled, and for the first time since he could remember, felt like the smile came from someplace deeper than his tonsils.
"Anyway, I got to thinking, after I'd talked to Dad. He mentioned that where we are now isn't that far from where he grew up, and I thought-"
"I know you always wanted to see Germany." He heard a definite break in her voice. "We talked about it, remember? We always said we'd go, someday, when Sammi June was grown up and gone…" Her eyes had that suspicious glow again, and there were splashes of color in her cheeks. He felt the warm place in his chest grow larger.
The Top Gun's Return Page 4