All for One

by Melody Carlson

  “Do you know my son?” Bitsy asked.

  Once again Janie told her no, she hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting Bitsy’s son. Then she moved to the other side of the float. They had about an hour to put on the finishing touches of red, white, and blue crepe paper, balloons, and flags. Then about a dozen old veterans in uniform would take their places. Janie knew her contribution was a very small gesture, a feeble attempt to honor all the men who’d fought for their country, but when she’d called the local VFW hall a few days ago, this was the only volunteer opportunity they offered. As she wound crepe paper around a pole, she imagined she was part of past generations of women who had wrapped strips of cotton into bandage rolls for wounded soldiers on the field.

  “My mother insisted I come over to speak to you,” a deep voice said.

  Janie was bent over, securing a piece of red crepe paper with masking tape. She looked up. “Yes?”

  “Are you Janie?”

  She stood up straight. “I am.” She looked at this tall, sturdy-looking man with curiosity. With bushy gray hair peeking out of a Dodgers ball cap, his weathered face suggested he was at least in his fifties, perhaps even sixty.

  “I’m Steve Fuller. For some reason my mother is convinced that I should know you. She told me to come back here and find out if we’ve ever met.”

  Janie smiled. “Let me guess, your mother is Bitsy?”

  He nodded self-consciously. “You probably noticed she’s got a little memory problem. That came with a stroke last year. Also, she has a little OCD and can get stuck on things. This morning she seems to be stuck on you, but at least she remembered your name. Has she been pestering you too much?”

  “No, not at all.” Janie glanced around the float to see if there was anything left to cover with crepe paper, but it seemed to be complete. “She just keeps getting confused, thinking it was my husband who was killed in the war. But it was actually my dad who served, although he passed away later.” Janie wanted to add that in some ways it seemed like he had died overseas, but she stopped herself. “He was in World War II. I volunteered to help today in his honor of his memory.”

  “That’s thoughtful of you.”

  “I never really understood until recently what a sacrifice my dad made,” she continued, “or what a toll it took on his life.”

  Steve nodded as if he understood this. “Yes, war can definitely change a man.”

  “Your mother mentioned that you were in Vietnam.” She waited, studying Steve’s expression.

  He pressed his lips together and nodded.

  Janie set down the masking tape and stuck out her hand. “Well, I’d just like to say thank you.”

  He looked surprised, but he took her hand and shook it. “You’re welcome. Thanks for saying that.”

  “I wasn’t supportive of the Vietnam War back then,” she admitted.

  “Most weren’t.”

  “But lately I’ve realized how tough it must’ve been for you guys, when you came home to angry war protests and antagonism. I know it happened a long time ago, but I feel really badly about it now.” She looked down at her feet. “I was actually one of the war protestors in college. I don’t think I understood the difference between hating the war and hating the ones who were forced to fight over there.” She looked up. “I’m truly sorry.”

  “Yeah, it was hard being treated like a criminal back then, especially after you thought you were risking your life for your country. Then you come home to discover your country couldn’t care less about that war … or you. First thing I did once I got stateside was to get out of uniform and grow my hair long.” He shook his head. “Then I got hooked on drugs.”

  Janie tried not to look shocked. After all, she knew that many Vietnam veterans had used drugs or alcohol to escape the horrible memories of war. Really, who could blame them? “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

  Steve smiled. “Thanks. I really do appreciate that. Fortunately, and thanks to God, I got unhooked about twenty years ago.”

  She sighed. “Good for you.”

  “Yeah. Otherwise I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be standing here today.”

  Janie thought of her dad now. Instead of drugs he had built an emotional wall of protection around himself, holding everyone out and keeping all the pain in. “Hopefully today’s soldiers get more help when they come home.”

  “You would hope so.” But Steve’s expression said he was doubtful.

  Now Janie noticed that Steve, unlike the other vets, was not in uniform. “You’re not planning on riding on the float today?”

  He chuckled. “No thanks. I’m not ready for that yet.”

  She looked at her fingers, stained blue and red from the crepe paper. “I guess my work here is done then.”

  “Staying for the parade?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “Did you get a place to sit?”

  “Sit?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, some of us old timers get tired of standing. But I parked my pickup over there.” He jerked his thumb toward a white pickup surrounded by camp chairs and several older people, including Bitsy, already sitting down. “The chairs appear to be taken, but you’re welcome to a piece of the tailgate if you like. I have a thermos of coffee, too.”

  She grinned. “Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse.”

  “Time for us to head over to the staging area,” a veteran named Marv called out loudly. In charge of the decorations, he was also the driver of the float. “All aboard who’s coming aboard.”

  Janie deposited the leftover crepe paper and masking tape into the supply box, then thanked Marv for letting her help today.

  “Thank you,” he said warmly. “You’re welcome to help out any time you like, little lady.” He handed her one of the small American flags. “We need you young people keeping patriotism alive and well.”

  She waved the flag and laughed at being called “young people,” then followed Steve to his truck. Before long he had a stadium blanket folded and spread across the tailgate and was handing her a cup of coffee.

  “That’s her right there,” Bitsy pointed proudly at Janie now. “The one who lost her husband in Vietnam.”

  The other old people sitting with Bitsy nodded knowingly, expressing their regrets. Janie decided to just let it go. Really, what did it matter?

  “So if your husband didn’t die in the war like my mom keeps telling everyone”—Steve glanced over his shoulder—”is he around here somewhere?”

  Janie smiled sadly. “He actually died in the war against cancer a couple of years ago.”

  “I’m sorry. I know how that goes.”

  Janie wanted to tell Steve about Victor just then, and yet she couldn’t find the right words. For some reason it seemed presumptuous to mention him. What would she say? Casually mention that she had a boyfriend—or what used to be a boyfriend—but that his ex-wife was in town to take him back? So she said nothing, realizing that Steve had said something to suggest he understood her loss.

  “What do you mean?” she asked him. “About knowing how that goes?”

  “I mean losing someone to cancer.” He looked across the street as if he were looking across time. “I lost my wife about nine years ago.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.”

  As they waited for the parade to come down the street, Steve asked Janie about her past, where she’d lived, what she’d done, how she’d ended up in Clifden. She filled in the blanks and then asked him the same.

  “I’m relatively new in these parts,” he admitted. “My folks relocated here from Santa Barbara about five years ago. With my kids grown and gone, I just sort of followed my parents on up.” The sound of a very loud fire-engine horn nearly blasted Janie out of her shoes. Steve laughed. “The parade has officially begun,” he tol
d her.

  With marching bands, floats, old cars, clowns, and lots of candy, the parade took Janie straight back to childhood. She waved and called out to Marley when she spotted her friend marching in time, camera in hand, and keeping pace with the slightly out-of-step Mini-Majorettes. When the Clifden marching band played “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” she felt her eyes getting damp. She wondered if her parents had ever come to one of these parades after she’d grown up. Despite her participating in the marching band, they had never attended any while she was at home. Perhaps it was too much for her dad, seeing men in uniforms, the National Guard with their tanks and jeeps. Who knew? It might’ve been her father’s undoing.

  During a quiet lapse about halfway through the parade—the antique car club was getting lined up while waiting for the Coast Guard float to move on—Janie told Steve about discovering her father’s Medal of Honor buried in the bottom of a desk drawer. Steve’s eyes widened. “Wow, a Congressional Medal of Honor? That’s quite an award.”

  “Yes. You’d think he might’ve been proud of it, kept it out for all to see….”

  Steve got a knowing look. “Or it might’ve been filled with bad memories for him.”

  She wondered at this, but now the antique cars were putt-putting along, their drivers beeping horns and handing out candy to squealing children. This was followed by more parade entries, and finally the police cars came, raising and lowering their sirens to signify that the parade was over. Janie hopped down off the tailgate and thanked Steve for his hospitality.

  “It was a pleasure to have you join us,” he said as he began to gather up the camp chairs that the elderly folks had been sitting in, stacking them in the back of his pickup.

  Janie said good-bye to the older people, including Bitsy, then decided to help Steve in gathering the chairs. “I was curious about what you said earlier,” she said as she folded a chair and leaned it against the pickup.

  “What I said earlier?”

  “About my dad’s medals, and how they might’ve had bad memories for him.” She handed a chair to Steve. “How could a medal have bad memories?”

  Steve frowned and scratched his head. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No, it’s okay.” She waited. “I’m curious to hear your thoughts. I’m sure your perspective on something like this is much broader than mine.”

  He put the last chair in the pickup and closed the tailgate. “Tell you what, you join me for a burger, and I’ll tell you what I know and let you pick my brain.”

  She thought about Victor again. Eating lunch with Steve wasn’t a date. It was simply two people sharing a meal and discussing a subject that interested both of them. Besides, Victor was probably with Donna and Ben right now, enjoying their impromptu family reunion. “Sure.” She nodded.

  “How about Barney’s Diner?”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  Steve’s blue eyes brightened as he smiled broadly. “Cool.”

  Janie felt a little uneasy as she navigated through the parade traffic, slowly making her way to the diner. She knew that what she was doing was perfectly fine and respectable, but for some unexplainable reason she felt a tinge of guilt, as if she were cheating on Victor, which was completely ridiculous but irksome all the same. As she parked her car, she suppressed the urge to call Victor in an effort to explain everything to him, as well as to ease her conscience. A phone call wasn’t merely juvenile, but unnecessary. They were both grown-ups, and Victor had other things to worry about at the moment. If needed, she could justify this unexpected luncheon with Steve Fuller at a later date.

  To her surprise he was already there. She spotted him inside, waving at her from one of the old fifties-style booths by the windows. She’d only been to the diner a couple of times since moving back to town, but in junior high she had often come here with friends before her social life faded into oblivion.

  “You certainly made good time,” she said as she joined him.

  “Took a short cut.” He grinned. “Missed the traffic.”

  She slid into the vinyl seat across from him. “Even though I grew up here, I’m still figuring some of these things out.”

  “What was it like growing up in a small town like this?”

  She ran a finger over the plastic-coated menu and smiled. “Good and bad.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, everything was pretty good until I became a teenager. Then things got bad for a while.”

  He chuckled. “That sounds fairly typical.”

  “I suppose.” She told him about the Lindas. “We were inseparable during grade school. But things changed in junior high.”

  He looked as if he was waiting for her to continue.

  She glanced around to see if a waitress was coming, but the place was getting pretty busy. “Well, a couple of the Lindas suddenly got pretty and curvy and popular.” She smiled uncomfortably, wondering why she was telling all this to someone who was practically a stranger.

  “And some of them didn’t?”

  She nodded. “In particular, me. I got braces, my skin started breaking out, I grew too tall, and I had no curves.”

  He looked sympathetic. “The old ugly-duckling story.”

  “The upside was that I really honed in on academics. I became a nerd.” She laughed. “Seeing the Clifden High marching band this morning brought back some memories.”

  “You were in the marching band.”

  She grimaced. “Yes. Some people called me Nerd Girl.”

  “But Nerd Girl turned out pretty nicely.” He set his menu aside.

  She laughed nervously. “Well, at least she went to law school and married well.”

  Then the waitress came, and, thankful for the distraction, Janie focused on the menu, finally deciding on a BLT and iced tea. Then as the waitress was leaving, Janie decided to redirect the conversation. After all, she was here on a mission. “So, you said something that got my attention,” she reminded him. “Why would my father’s distinguished Medal of Honor bring about bad memories? According to my research those medals were given for acts of true courage, usually for risking one’s life during battle in order to save the lives of others. Is that correct?”

  His brows arched. “You really do sound like an attorney.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Actually you’re right. Your dad’s Medal of Honor implies that he did something very heroic in the midst of a battle.”

  “It seems that would make him proud.”

  Steve shook his head. “You might think that, but the medal is only a very small part of the story.”

  “That’s true.” She thought about what she’d discovered through the letters. “My dad’s plane went down and he ended up in prison camp. While that must’ve been terrible, he did survive. You’d think he would have some sense of pride and accomplishment in that, and yet he never spoke of it during his life. For all I knew, he’d been a cook during the war. But then I find out he’d received these distinguished honors!”

  “You’re still only seeing a tiny piece of the puzzle, Janie.”

  “Tell me what you think the other pieces are.” She leaned forward eagerly. “I’d appreciate your perspective.”

  “Keep in mind this is speculation. But it’s speculation based on real life. By the time your dad’s plane went down, you can be sure he was among friends. Because you can’t help but become friends when you’re in the military. You have to understand that those guys become closer than brothers. You’re watching their backs, and they’re watching yours. It’s hard to describe what it’s like exactly. Most guys aren’t good about talking about feelings. That might be one reason so many of us had difficulties when we returned home.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “So imagine your dad over there: His plane goes down, probabl
y in enemy territory, and suddenly he’s in the midst of a battle where there’s a lot of, well, bloodshed. Your dad is doing his best to stay alive and to keep his buddies alive. I’m guessing he’s putting his life on the line to save some of them. But let’s be realistic. The battle isn’t going well. He’s probably seeing his friends being killed. That’s usually how it goes in a really bad battle. It’s not easy to watch a buddy die.” He looked away, and Janie wished she’d never asked him to explain all this. Of course her dad had experienced some atrocities. So had Steve. Why hadn’t she realized all this before?

  The waitress set down their drinks. Janie took a cool sip of iced tea and waited.

  “What I’m saying, Janie”—he looked earnestly at her—”is that even though your dad survived, and even though he must’ve saved the lives of some of his buddies, it’s very likely that many others died right before his eyes. So for some veterans, some so-called war heroes, when they look at their war medals, all they can see is the unfortunate guys, the ones who came home in a pine box.”

  Janie felt a lump in her throat as she nodded. “I understand.”

  “Sorry to be so blunt.”

  “No.” She shook her head, trying to hold back tears. “Thank you. It helps me to process this.” She explained to him how hard it had been growing up in her home, how cold and removed her father seemed. “I had no idea what was really going on with him. In fact I believed I was the source of his unhappiness. I thought I would’ve made him happy if only I’d been a better daughter.”

  Steve reached across the table and put his hand on hers. “I’m sure your father loved you deeply, Janie. He just didn’t know how to show it.” Steve began to tell her how it was with his own kids after he came home from Vietnam. He fell into a depression and wasn’t emotionally available to them. He pushed them and anyone who loved him away, and he got hooked on pain medications. “Thanks to God and a good woman, I finally came to my senses,” he said as their food arrived. Then Steve bowed his head. “Father, please bless this food,” he said quietly. “Bless all the veterans, those here on earth and those safe with you in heaven. And help them and their families to make sense of what often seems so senseless. Amen.”