He patted me on the cheek. We ate our milk and cornbread. I was feeling pretty low, and nowhere near worthy to be his daughter. He looked at me then, like he had finally figured out what was different.
“What did you do to your hair? It looks real good.”
“Lucille cut it all off.”
“Well, you should have done it a long time ago. Now you can see your pretty face. Keep it like that.”
“I might.”
I wanted to ask him a lot of things, like if he thought there were ghosts that could come back and talk to you, and what it was like to fight in a war, and how he felt when he saw all those starved Jews, and if he ever had any other girlfriends or slept with anybody besides Mama, and if he thought you could be in love with one boy and do what I just did with another one. I wanted to tell him about G. Dub, but I had promised to wait. I wanted to tell him about Tripp and everything that had happened, but I knew if I did, he would be shocked and disappointed in me. I was shocked and disappointed in myself. But all I said was: “When you were my age, were you always sure what was right, Daddy, like you seem to be now? Sometimes I don’t think I know what’s right and what’s wrong anymore.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. A whole lot of things. How do you always know what is the right thing to do?”
“I don’t always know, Cheryl Ann. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, like anybody else. I learned a long time ago that there is not a lot we can do to help ourselves sometimes, and things just get away from us. That’s why we have to trust in the good Lord. He will show us what’s right at the time we need to know, and guide us to make the right decisions. You can tell by a feeling in your heart when a decision is the right one.”
“What if He doesn’t tell me?”
“He’ll tell you. You just have to know how to listen.” I spooned in some more milk and bread, not saying anything else. I should have known he would put it all back in the Lord’s lap. I guess he was just as uncomfortable about telling me anything bad he had done as I was telling him, and going back to the Lord was the only thing he could do. Safe. Neutral ground. It was just the way he was, and I loved him no matter what he had done, and he probably did me, too, so it didn’t really matter. But I did wonder what, if anything, had made him feel like things had gotten away from him. They sure had gotten away from me.
“I’ll tell you something you don’t know,” he said in a lighter voice, trying to change the mood. “There’s going to be a wedding at the church next month. Guess who’s getting married.”
“I don’t know. Who?”
“Brother Dane and Frannie Moore.”
“You’re kidding me. I didn’t even know they were going out.”
“I don’t think a whole lot of other people knew they were, either, but Brother Wilkins is marrying them. Frannie told your mama she had to go to court and get a paper saying her husband had abandoned her and she hadn’t heard from him in seven years. She’ll get it in a few weeks, and they’re getting married. Brother Dane’s going to adopt little Kevin. Seems like he took a real shine to the boy.”
“Oh, that is so great.” I was really happy to hear that. Frannie needed somebody right now to help her raise the boy. She was still young enough to have kids herself. Maybe they would have one together. That would be funny if they did—Kevin’s uncle or aunt would be younger than him. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Brother Dane would settle down now and take a church instead of traveling all the time as an evangelist? I’d love to fire Brother Wilkins and get him to be our preacher.
I’d call Baby in the morning and tell her about the wedding. We could take Frannie out a gift of some kind, and Baby could ask about the letters. That would be a natural way to do it. Since finding out about the Faye business, I took the letters more seriously.
Somehow, the news about Brother Dane and Frannie made me feel better. At least there was somebody in the world having some happiness. All of a sudden, I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
“I’m going up to bed, Daddy. I have to go to class early in the morning. I love you.”
“I love you too, punkin.”
I leaned down and kissed him, and hugged him close for a really long time. I wished every man could be like my daddy, even with all his hang-ups, but it seemed like he was the only one like him that I knew of.
Then I went upstairs and fell right asleep.
50.Carlene
Kevin—or Superman, as he was known in his secret life—ran as fast as he could around the yard of the trailer, his red hair standing straight up like a lit match in the wind. A blue-andwhite-striped towel, safety-pinned to the shoulders of his shirt, flew out behind him like a cape. Brother Dane chased after him with an exaggerated swagger, much like a gorilla, holding a lump of coal in his outstretched hand.
“I’ve got you at last, Superman! I have a big old chunk of kryptonite in my hands, and it will make you weak if it touches you!”
“No you won’t, Lex Luthor! I am just as strong as a train, and I can leap tall buildings with a single bounce!” He jumped up on an upside-down tin washtub and held out his hand, palm up, like a traffic cop. “Halt! In the name of the law! My X-ray vision will burn you!”
Brother Dane fell onto the ground and the lump of coal rolled from his hand.
“You got me, Superman! Turn off your X rays! You got me.” He closed his eyes, then doubled up with an oof!as Superman giggled and dived onto his stomach.
“You boys come on in! I just took some cookies out of the oven, and I need somebody to eat them while they’re hot!” Frannie called out across the yard. Brother Dane picked Kevin up, put him on his shoulders, and they went inside.
“I swan, the two of you run me ragged, scrubbing all the grass stains out of your clothes. Can’t you play something that don’t include rolling around on the ground?”
“Aw, Grandma, Superman can’t keep his clothes clean. He has to chase crooks!”
Brother Dane sat with Kevin in his lap as they ate the hot chocolate chip cookies and drank big glasses of milk. He hadn’t known it was possible to be this happy.
Ever since Carlene’s funeral, it seemed like he couldn’t get the boy off his mind. He stopped by every day or two to see how Kevin and Frannie were doing, and before long he was taking them out to eat and for long drives up the mountain.
Women were his weakness, and he had been with a lot of them in his life—the thorn in his side, as St. Paul said—but somehow he never found one he wanted to settle down with. He liked the life of an evangelist, traveling around the countryside and preaching at a different church every week; liked the admiration of women and the freedom to take off and go where he wanted to go without having to feel guilty about neglecting a wife and family. But he was thirty-nine now, and traveling had lost a lot of its appeal. He got lonesome. It might not be so bad to have a family.
The first time he looked hard at Kevin’s diamond-blue eyes, watched him walk with his little hand on his hip in a strangely familiar way, saw him stick out his chin and cock his head to the side when he listened, Brother Dane knew that the boy was his child. Carlene had told him the father was Jerry Golden, but he didn’t believe her for a minute. When she said it, she wouldn’t look him in the eye.
That crazy afternoon out here at the trailer—it was as if he had felt life leave his body and go all the way in; felt it take hold somewhere else. And once he saw that Carlene was pregnant, he knew the baby couldn’t be anybody else’s, no matter what she said. He would have married her right then and there, but she wouldn’t do it. She was in love with that Church of Christ preacher’s son, and there was no way he could force her. When Jerry went off into the army, Dane tried to talk to her. She was polite, but she clearly didn’t want to have anything else to do with him. Not that he could blame her. He had grown calluses on his knees from asking God for forgiveness, but short of confessing in front of the congregation—which wouldn’t have accomplished anything but wreck both their lives and give the
gossips something else to wag about—he didn’t know what else to do. He had to let it go.
Then when Carlene was murdered, he just about lost his mind. Two people had paid with their lives for his one moment of weakness, and several other lives had been ruined. God was taking out on that poor girl something that hewas responsible for. If he ever wrestled the Devil in the hog pen, he wrestled God then. He still wasn’t sure who had won.
He felt an overpowering need to go out to her house, to comfort her mother; to see if in her comfort he could find some relief for himself. The night after the funeral, he and Frannie sat for the better part of the night and talked. As the night wore on, Frannie finally broke down and poured out her heart to him about Carl, and about what Walter and Carlene had done. It took everything he had, but he listened, never letting on that he had heard it all before.
In the small hours of the morning, as they sat near each other on the couch, when he could feel the pain and fatigue and the regret and the love seep out of her as she relaxed through the telling, when her soul touched his and burned him like a hot poker, he was tempted to confess to her everything, himself, about what had happened between her daughter and the black-hearted preacher she was talking to right that minute.
But something held him back. He knew then, with a clarity that hit like a lightning bolt, if it was the last thing he ever did, he would marry this woman and raise his boy—and if there had to be a lie between them to accomplish it, then so be it. Worse lies were kept between husbands and wives.
He set out with a passion to win Frannie, and when he concentrated all his power, there were few women alive who could stand up under the on-slaught. The night he went swimming in the lake with her in the full of the moon, she knew he was the man for her, and as they lay on a bed of leaves deep in the woods, he promised her that if she married him, he would always love and take care of her and the boy, and nothing would ever hurt them again. And he meant it with all his heart.
—
“I sure do hate to box all of Carlene’s things up, Dane, but I guess it has to be done. I’ll keep some of her nice clothes, and give the rest to the church for the rummage sale.”
They were in Carlene’s old bedroom, emptying out the drawers and closets. The trailer was piled high with boxes, ready to move to the new house that Dane had bought in town. It would be nearly a month until they could actually get married, but the house was ready now. Frannie and Kevin would stay in it alone until after the wedding, when Dane could move in.
They were excited to live in a real house, built on the ground, not on wheels. It was redbrick, with dark green trim and a wide border of marigolds running down both sides of the front walk. There was a big oak tree in the backyard that was made to order for a tree house and a swing. It seemed like a palace to them.
Frannie pulled a tin box from under the bed, opened it, and set it down on the dresser.
“Oh, look at this, Dane. Here’s Carlene’s movie-star pictures, and I guess these are her letters from Jerry.”
She picked up two or three letters and looked at the handwriting. She started to take one out of the envelope, but changed her mind. She put them back in the box.
“Did you know they were in here? Have you read any of them?” Dane tried to sound casual and not let on that his heart had leaped into his throat.
“Oh, I knew, but I wouldn’t do that. They’re too personal, I guess. They’re from Kevin’s daddy. Maybe we should keep them and give them to him when he grows up.”
It was all Dane could do to keep from laying hands on those letters. If there were this many, Carlene and Jerry would have gotten close again; they must have talked about how Kevin was conceived. There was no telling what Carlene had told Jerry. The one thing Dane knew was that Frannie must never read them.
“Jerry wrote those letters to Carlene, Frannie. Like you said, they were personal. I’m not so sure he would have wanted the boy to read them. Maybe we should send them back to her.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think we should just burn them up, don’t you? They were hers. It wouldn’t be right for us to keep them.” He tried to keep his voice even, like he was just making conversation.
“Well, maybe you’re right. But we can at least keep these pictures. Kevin might like to look at them one day.” She took out the photos of Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee, along with a stack of others. Underneath was a manila envelope marked FOR CALIFORNIA.
“What is this? Oh my Lord, Dane! It’s a pile of money! There must be well over a thousand dollars here!”
The money was all in hundred-dollar bills, bound by a rubber band.
“I knew she was saving up to go and try her luck in the movies, but I didn’t know she had this much. I guess her tips were a lot bigger than I thought over at that restaurant. Well, this, at least, we can save for Kevin.”
They put the money away and took the box of letters out to the backyard, to the old oil barrel they used for burning trash. Dane lit a fire, and one by one, Frannie put the white onionskin letters with their red-and-blue borders into the flames. They curled into ash as the smoke drifted up, pearl gray, into the blue October sky, where it spread out thin and faded away.
Dane watched it disappear and said a little prayer of thanks to God. He would always carry guilt about Carlene, but now he knew that God did, indeed, work in mysterious ways.
51.Vietnam
Dear Carlene,
I hope you got my last letter. There is a big investigation going on right now. They came around and questioned some of us, but everyone lied and said they thought there might have been a few civilians killed in the battle at My Lai, but they didn’t know much about it. I wasn’t here when the investigators came around, and for some reason, Captain Medina thinks I might be likely to spill the beans. He told me in no uncertain terms that I better keep my mouth shut. Maybe somebody told him I didn’t kill anyone, or maybe I just don’t fit in with the guys anymore and he knows it. If they really pin me down, I’m not going to lie and protect him or Calley or anybody else—including myself. I won’t run to tell everything I know, but I won’t lie.
Everyone is scared now. We could be facing twenty years to life in the pen if this thing is found out.
—
I didn’t finish this letter before, and now it looks like things have been turned around. They’re going to do a cover-up. Colonel Henderson isn’t about to have the murder of five hundred civilians at his doorstep the day after he takes command if he can help it, and none of the other top brass wants it on their records, either. In fact, the whole My Lai thing is being turned into a victory against the Communists. There was a big story in Stars and Stripesabout it, and General Westmoreland himself sent a letter of congratulation to Col. Henderson and Captain Medina. Colonel Barker got the Silver Star, and believe it or not, Hugh Thompson got the Distinguished Flying Cross for rescuing Vietnamese civilians. They didn’t specify who he saved themfrom,though. He took it, but I heard he threw it away later.
They sent in a body count of 128, which anybody who saw the place will agree was ridiculously low, but everyone just wants to make it go away, I think. They will probably give us all a lot of medals for it. They give out medals for just about anything over here. A commander whose company has a lot of medals is seen as an effective commander and has more of a chance for advancement. If you get your leg blown off, you get a Purple Heart. If you get a case of jungle rot or an infected pimple on your butt, you get a Purple Heart. Since the whole purpose of this benighted war is to kill people, everyone gets Bronze and Silver Stars for killing people; shiny medals to make heroes out of boys for inflicting pain and suffering on their fellow man. How else can you get boys to kill one another day after day but by giving them rewards and throwing around glory words like hero, duty, honor,and valor? The real secret of war is that evil is the gasoline that runs a war.
Anyhow, we all can relax for the moment. If you can call it relaxing.
—
&nb
sp; We’re still humping the boonies with our a**hole lieutenant, Calley. He is even worse than he was before, as far as throwing his weight around. He took us up a hill against orders, and one of our men got his foot blown off. The guy was moaning and saying it was God’s punishment. I’m waiting for God to give me mine. Morale is the lowest it has ever been with us. Nobody gives a s*** about anything anymore. We’re all just marking time.
I’m sorry I have nothing good to say in these letters, Carlene. There just isn’t anything good happening in my life, or the life of anybody over here. I don’t know what we are doing in this country at all. I hope you are having a good life. I hope I see you again, but if I do, it won’t be for another eight or nine months. It seems like a long time off.
If something does happen to me, don’t feel too bad. I’m ready to go. The people we killed haunt me day and night. I still see that little boy without any nose every time I close my eyes. Maybe if I die, too, I can do something to make it up to them in the next life. I’ve asked God to forgive me, and don’t know if He has or not. But there’s nothing I can do to change what happened, and I am ready to take whatever comes my way. I love you.
Jerry
52. Carlene
After they had the big memorial service at the high school for Jerry, people went back to their lives, got up and had breakfast in the morning just like they always did, and said less about him all the time. Once in a while, somebody might remember something he had done or the touchdown pass he had made that won some game or be talking about the war and speak about how sad and awful it was he was killed, but outside of his parents, who totally ignored her at the service, no one grieved like Carlene did.
Jerry was never coming home. She would never be his wife. That dream was gone forever. Now she had to make herself think of Kevin and what was going to happen to him. Somehow, she had to get together enough money to move them out to California. The narrow-minded, sanctimonious hypocrites in this town would always think of Kevin as a bastard, and that was one thing she would not stand for—anybody saying mean things to her boy or thinking less of him for the way he was born.
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