Almost Home

by Valerie Fraser Luesse

  Slowly making his way out of the yard and around the loop, he spotted a small, neatly kept cottage. The old woman sitting on the front porch beckoned to him. His bad leg was especially bothersome today, stiff and sore from the long ride.

  “Hello!” the woman called.

  “Hello,” Reed answered, trying to remember her. He could tell from the clouds covering her eyes that she couldn’t see him. “I know you.” He said it out loud, though he didn’t mean to.

  “Yes, I expect you do. Join me while you consider it.”

  Steps were especially hard for him when his leg locked up, but he managed to climb them and sit down next to her. Gradually the fog shrouding his happiest memories began to clear, and he could see his childhood self standing on this very porch.

  “You’re Miss Lillian!”

  “Yes!” She laughed, still staring straight ahead.

  “You used to make me tea cakes.”

  “Then you must be young Reed.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Of all the children on this loop, you loved my tea cakes best of all. I made a big batch every week just for you.”

  “But why? Why’d you do that for me?”

  “Can you not remember yourself?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Have all your memories of that long-ago boy faded away?”

  Reed felt like he had just taken shrapnel to the gut, and he was silent for a moment before he finally answered. “Yes, ma’am. I have a hard time rememberin’ him at all.”

  “Well, we must help you get him back.”

  “You really think you can do that?”

  “I know it to be so. You are wounded. I can hear it in your gait and in your voice. You need not explain the how or the why unless you wish. But you must not give up on healing. There is healing to be had here, young Reed.”

  “I wanna believe that.”

  “Then do! And here is where to begin. Nothing soothes like flowing water. Go into the woods and follow the Tanyard to its shallows. Sit down on the cool earth and listen to the creek splash against the rocks. Go now. Then come back someday soon and tell me what became of it.”

  “You want me to go to the creek right now?”

  “Yes! No time like the present. Be on your way, and fare thee well.”

  Reed was befuddled but, for reasons he couldn’t explain, felt compelled to do as she said.

  “I’ll be back,” he said as he left the porch. “Is there anything you need?”

  “No, young Reed. Just the pleasure of your company now and again.”

  “Bye for now.”

  Lillian waved. “Goodbye.”

  Reed stood on the porch of the skating rink and looked out over the water. It was so clean and clear. He thought about the great lake he had crossed in Tunisia, a place that would’ve been beautiful if war hadn’t sullied it. Si’s lake and roller rink were closed on Sunday, but Reed could imagine what this place must have looked like just yesterday, with all the swimmers and skaters swarming it. He walked to the far end of the porch, stepped onto the trail, and followed it to a creek he had loved as a child but barely remembered now.

  This place was paradise. Deep woods and clear, flowing water, a mossy carpet along the water’s edge, and birdsong—constant birdsong. That was something he hadn’t heard in the desert. But he refused to let his mind go to those dark places right now.

  Limping alongside the creek, he made his way to the shallows and spotted a girl leaning against a tree and holding a book in her lap. In the Army he had learned to move silently, but his limp had robbed him of stealth, and the girl looked up when his bad leg snapped a few twigs underfoot. He could see he had startled her. He seemed to startle a lot of people since he’d gotten back.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” he said, giving her a smile and a wave so she wouldn’t be scared.

  “You must be Reed.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Not many guys your age left around here, so I figure you must be Dolly’s vet.”

  “How’d you know I was comin’?”

  “Me and Anna—she lives with Dolly and Si—we got your room ready. You like it?”

  “I do.”

  “You wanna sit?”

  “I’ll try—pretty stiff today.” Reed limped over to a tree next to the girl and began a familiar process—figuring out how to manage simple movements that he once did effortlessly, automatically even.

  She seemed to guess his dilemma. “Hey, you know what you could do? Hook your cane over that real low limb right there and hold on to it. That way you won’t have to try and bend your bad leg while you lower yourself down. And then you can use it to pull up. I’ll help if you need me to.”

  Reed followed her advice and managed to get comfortable against the tree, facing the girl and stretching out his long legs.

  “You handled that real good,” she said.

  Reed looked at her. She was beautiful. Creamy skin, smoky green eyes, a dimpled smile, and not a drop of makeup—she didn’t need any. Her caramel hair was cut short, which suited her. And on a Sunday, when most girls would have on a dress, she was wearing overalls.

  “You know who I am, but I don’t know you,” he said.

  “I’m Daisy. I board on around the loop with Ella Brown, but me and Anna are friends, so I spend a lotta time at the Chandlers’.”

  “Nice to meet you, Daisy.”

  “Same here.”

  “What you got there?” He pointed to the book, which she turned around so he could see—a drawing of a young woman with flowing blonde hair, wearing a long dress and sitting on a mossy rock in the middle of the creek.

  Reed was impressed. “That’s really good. Who is it?”

  Daisy shrugged. “Just guessin’ at what a girl who lived here a long time ago mighta looked like.”

  “Can I see it up close?” he asked. Daisy handed him her sketchbook. He studied the portrait and then said, “Catherine?”

  “You know about Catherine and Andre?”

  “Even got my own pirate sword,” he said as he handed back the sketchbook. “Dolly made it for me out of a broom handle when I was little. And it was under my bed when I got here.”

  “That is just like her to keep a broom-handle pirate sword all these years.”

  “You draw for a livin’?”

  “No, I just enjoy it. And it kinda settles my mind. You got anything to settle your mind?”

  “I’ve been considerin’ hard liquor.”

  Daisy grinned. “That won’t get you nothin’ but a headache.” She was looking at him, not the eye-batting way girls did when they used to flirt with him, but like an object—like that mossy rock in the creek. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, “but you’ve got the strangest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  Daisy was throwing him completely off balance. “I’m not sure what to say to that.”

  She actually laughed out loud. Reed couldn’t remember the last time he had made a girl laugh.

  “Maybe that didn’t come out right,” she said. “I mean they’re strange in a good way. They’re kinda blue and kinda silver all at the same time. I’m not sure I can match that color, but I’d like to try. You mind if I draw ’em while we talk?”

  Reed frowned and blinked at her. “You wanna draw my eyes?”

  “Yeah. If it makes you feel weird, just tell me and I’ll stop.” Daisy settled back against the tree and stared at his eyes. She appeared to be taking dimensions.

  “What should I do while you . . . do that?” he asked, trying to keep his eyes open.

  Daisy was laughing again. “You can blink, silly! You don’t have to be super still or anything. I’m just tryin’ to figure out that color.”

  Reed relaxed against the tree and looked at Daisy. “So what brought you here?”

  She kept looking back and forth from his eyes to her sketchbook. “The war. My husband, Charlie, enlisted, so I moved here from Mississippi and got a job at the plant.
” Just as he felt a dip in his spirits to learn that she was married, Daisy paused for a moment and then asked, “You know any tail gunners over there?”

  Now it was Reed who was searching her eyes. They didn’t have that hopeful look women always gave him when they asked if he had seen their husbands overseas. “Why? You lose one?”

  Daisy nodded. “What you reckon that was like—for Charlie, I mean?”

  Reed picked up a smooth twig from the ground and studied it as he absently twirled it through his fingers, carefully considering what he should tell her. He had seen the shattered remains of fallen tail gunners. The ones who didn’t go down with their planes were usually unrecognizable when they were pulled out of there. Finally, he looked up and gave Daisy his answer. “Quick. It woulda been real quick.”

  Daisy seemed relieved and returned to her drawing. “Sometimes I see Charlie. It’s like he just appears in the strangest places, lookin’ as real as you do, but only for a few seconds.”

  “What’s he doin’ when he appears to you?”

  Daisy studied Reed’s eyes again and made a few strokes with her pencil before looking up at him. “Nothin’ much. Last time, he was at the curb market, just walkin’ through the tomato bins with his hands in his pockets. But then he disappeared into the squash.”

  “Does he ever say anything?”

  “No. And he never looks at me either. You think I’m crazy?”

  “Oh yeah.” Again he made her laugh. Oddly, Daisy’s laugh brought him more satisfaction than anything since he’d gotten home. “You’re not crazy. You just miss him.”

  Daisy shook her head as if she were trying to shake off the ghostly appearances of her dead husband. “Why don’t you tell me your story? It’ll take your mind offa bein’ stared at.”

  “You want me to tell you about the war?”

  “Is that your whole story?” Now she wasn’t looking at him like an artist scrutinizing an object, but like someone who would see straight through any smoke screen he threw out.

  “Feels like it sometimes. Everybody here—they remember me as this little kid. If they knew what I had to do over there, I doubt they’d want me under the same roof with ’em.”

  “Dolly said you were a medic.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Medics save soldiers’ lives—what’s wrong with that?”

  “When you’re a medic, well . . . sometimes I had to kill theirs to keep ’em offa me long enough to save ours, and that kinda killin’ don’t usually happen at a distance.”

  Daisy leaned forward to get a closer look at his eyes. She made a few strokes with three different pencils and then looked up. “There’s a real important word in what you just said. And it’s had. Sometimes you had to. And if you hadn’a done what you had to do, you’d be layin’ in the ground like Charlie. So would a lotta other soldiers.”

  “You believe in bein’ direct, don’t you?”

  “I’m sorry. Was that rude?” Daisy seemed worried.

  “No, it’s great. Everybody around me’s been walkin’ on eggshells since I got back. I don’t know how to put ’em at ease because I’m not at ease myself.”

  “I follow that,” Daisy said, picking up a piece of charcoal and returning to her drawing. “Women usually end up talkin’ about their husbands and kids when they get together, and I ain’t got either one. They get all jittery when they’re complainin’ about their men and remember mine’s gone.”

  “You plannin’ to stick around here?”

  Daisy sighed and looked up. “I don’t know. I think I’m waitin’ on somethin’ to happen, but I got no idea what it is.”

  “I follow that.” Reed grinned as he mimicked her response.

  Daisy rolled her eyes. “Now you’re makin’ fun o’ me.”

  “No, I’m not—I promise I’m not. I just know exactly what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “How ’bout you? Think you’ll stay a while?”

  “Long as I don’t make any trouble for Si and Dolly. Truth is, I haven’t been where I wanted to be since I was a kid. Kinda nice to take a minute to breathe and maybe figure out what to do next.”

  Daisy made a few final strokes with a piece of charcoal and studied her sketchpad. “Just so you know, I went over to the lib’ry in Childersburg and read up on battle fatigue. Some o’ those soldiers end up killin’ themselves. Or killin’ their own family members ’cause they think their brothers and sisters are Germans or Japanese.” She looked up at Reed. “But you’re not gonna do that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I can see it.” She turned the portrait around and held it up.

  Daisy had drawn his face and dark hair in charcoal but his eyes in vivid color. It was like looking into a mirror and staring at a stranger all at the same time. The man in the drawing looked so . . . kind. Reed didn’t feel kind after everything he had been forced to see and do. It was like the war had dislocated him from himself. The Alabama boy who’d left and the combat medic who’d returned couldn’t seem to figure out how to live peaceably in the same body—or the same mind. He was a real Humpty Dumpty: all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put him back together again.

  Daisy closed the sketchpad and relaxed against her tree. “Can you tell me about your leg? Not how you got hurt—I reckon you don’t wanna think about that—but what the doctors say?”

  Reed rubbed his knee and tried to bend it. “This is pretty much it. They don’t think I’ll ever walk any better than I do now.”

  “You gonna go with that?”

  “They’re the doctors, so I reckon they know. They gave me these exercises that might loosen it up, but I can’t do ’em without help, and I can’t afford to pay a nurse, so I guess that’s that.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You didn’t ask me. I just told you I would.”

  “That’s mighty kind o’ you, but I can’t let you—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Daisy interrupted him. “Men are the most aggravatin’ creatures on earth. I used to keep a house and help run a farm, but now all I do is draw. And help Dolly whenever she needs me. I got a lotta time on my hands, which I don’t much care for. There’s such a thing as too much time to think.”

  Reed considered her offer. Why would a pretty girl like Daisy want to spend her time with a worn-out soldier who walked like a grandpa? But she seemed completely sincere. “You promise you’ll tell me if you get tired of it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Will you let me pay you?”

  “Of course not. We’ll start tomorrow mornin’ after breakfast. And we’ll have to do your exercises on your porch. Dolly doesn’t allow what she calls ‘single unmarrieds’ in any of her bedrooms.”

  Reed smiled. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Hey, you better get goin’. It’s gotta be close to six, and you know what that means over at Dolly’s.”

  Reed reached up and started to pull himself up by the cane hanging overhead but lost his grip and slipped back down. He leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes in disgust.

  “Wait a minute,” Daisy said. She came over and got on her knees beside him. “Use my shoulder as a prop on this side and pull up with your cane on the other.”

  “What if I hurt you?”

  “Then I’ll holler and you’ll stop if you don’t want me to smack you.”

  Reed had to smile, as foolish as he felt for being unable to do something as simple as stand up. Holding on to Daisy’s shoulder gave him just enough leverage to grip the cane and hoist himself off the ground.

  “See?” Daisy said, standing up and dusting off her knees. “Problem solved.”

  “Thanks. You headin’ home too?”

  “Guess so. Lemme grab my sketchbook and I’ll walk with you.”

  As the two of them slowly made their way out of the woods, Daisy of
fered Reed some advice. “By the way, you might wanna steer clear o’ the slough on Saturday afternoons.”

  “How come?”

  “Because Saturday’s about the only time Anna and her husband, Jesse, have to be alone. The slough’s their love nest.”

  “Roger that.”

  Daisy grinned up at him. “It’s bad enough you got a bum leg. Wouldn’t want you to see somethin’ that might make you go blind.”

  CHAPTER

  fifteen

  Reed awoke to the sound of footsteps overhead. He looked at the alarm clock on his nightstand. Five fifteen. Everybody must be getting ready for work. Sitting up, he began the painstaking process of putting on his clothes. His leg was always especially stiff in the morning, which made it difficult to get his pants on, but somehow he managed. By the time he finished shaving in the downstairs bathroom that Dolly had invited him to share, it was almost six.

  Cane in hand, he made his way through the old house, stopping now and again to run his hand over a lamp or a painting he remembered. He had no trouble finding his way to the grand dining room in the center of the house, which was alive with conversation as Dolly’s boarders gathered for breakfast.

  Faced with a roomful of strangers, he had a sudden urge to run for cover. The only thing holding him there was a fascination with the whole scene before him—the idea that, while people like this were gathering around a dining room table and talking about the weather, some soldier was bleeding out on the battlefield, screaming for his mother. Artillery was booming and tanks were rolling and battle-hardened troops were cursing their green lieutenants. Any minute now, some soldier would get blown to bits and leave a shattered young widow to raise his fatherless children.