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by Bart Hopkins

  Rose admitted to herself that Fredericksburg seemed to have good restaurants for a small city. That was saying a lot. After all, she lived in Austin, Texas, the birthplace of great food and music.

  The magical combination of onions, peppers, steak, sour cream, and tomatoes wrapped in homemade flour tortillas cast a spell on Rose. Only true love’s first kiss could rescue her from the evil grasp of those fajitas.

  Okay. Finishing the fajitas would probably work, too.

  She dabbed the napkin across her face and considered the situation. Her impatience gave her impetus to take action. But what sort of action? Who knew—Rose sure didn’t, though she was hoping for divine inspiration.

  Making contact was what it boiled down to, she supposed; why waste time watching and waiting for another week? What was the point in wasting time? The only value would be knowledge of her daily activities. She didn’t think there would be many advantages from waiting. Which meant not waiting…

  So she would make contact soon. Which begged the question: how?

  She could leave a note. A note would give Mary Beth time to digest the information. The negative side of that … was that it would give Mary Beth time to digest the information. She could brace herself, and come to terms. Or, maybe she would freak out, tell Tom, and they’d barricade their lives and prevent her from gaining access.

  Still, there was something romantic about the idea of leaving a note. It would work for the actors in a movie or play. But would it work for Rose?

  She could make a phone call, but she feared she would freeze up, be unable to speak. Or Mary Beth might just hang up on her, ending the opportunity prematurely. She didn’t think that a phone call seemed promising. Too much opportunity for disaster, for the wrong things to be said, or for her daughter to abandon the situation.

  She could knock on the door. Just go right up to that pretty white door, surrounded by red brick, and give it a few taps with the old knuckles. It’s so crazy, it just might work, she thought. That, or it ends in colossal failure, door slammed in my face.

  As technologically deficient as she was, she even thought about friend-requesting her daughter on Facebook. She laughed at that, though. It seemed too … superficial. Almost insulting. Maybe that was her age talking, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t going to send a friend request to the daughter she hadn’t seen in years.

  She pushed her hand through her graying, light brown hair. The note option appealed to her the most. It was personal without being in your face. She couldn’t identify all of the reasons it appealed to her. Mostly it was the feeling in her guts, her instincts, which whispered this is right to her heart.

  Deep, friendly laughter peeled through the restaurant towards her, and she realized she’d made her decision. She would leave a note for Mary Beth, let her know where she was staying, and ask if they could meet. That would be fair to her daughter—give her the opportunity to back out of it if she wasn’t comfortable seeing her. Rose wouldn’t fault her for doing that. She might even agree with her—she deserved it.

  Maybe.

  The laughter behind her evolved into conversation as what she guessed was a regular customer joked with the proprietor of the place. The talk was animated and lively, and she thought to herself that this was probably what small town life was like. People knew each other, cared for each other, and every day was a reunion.

  She sipped her iced tea and plotted out letter logistics. She was deep in thought and didn’t notice when the nearby restaurant conversation stopped abruptly.

  “Excuse me…” the deep voice penetrated her planning a moment later, and Rose looked up.

  “Rose?”

  How did he know her name?

  “Oh … God,” she moaned. She wasn’t sure what to say. A hand went to her mouth. Lost her voice. An instantaneous development of strep throat. Her blood froze mid-pump. She thought about crying, but she was too tough for that. Or maybe not.

  “Tom,” she whispered, her eyes watering up.

  “Hi Rose.” He leaned over and put a hand on her shoulder. Smiled. “I’m glad you finally came.”

  She raised her eyebrows, surprise all over her face.

  “Really?” she asked.

  His friendly eyes grabbed hers.

  “Really,” he confirmed.

  Tom pulled out a chair, sat down, and they started talking.

  Chapter 19

  Susan, Jason, and Danny

  “I think that does it,” Jack Jr. told Susan. They’d carried in the last boxes from the moving truck and were sipping Cokes. A maze of cardboard boxes filled the house.

  “You and your father are the best,” she replied. “I can’t thank you enough for all the help.”

  “Hey, any friend of Dad’s is a friend of mine. Besides, it was good exercise.”

  They both laughed. “It may be good exercise, but anything is more enjoyable,” she said.

  “Susan!” Dr. Reynolds called out as he came through the front door.

  “Doc … I was just telling your son how awesome you both are…”

  “Hey,” he cut her off. “We’ll hear no more of it. And I insist you take Monday and Tuesday off. Work on your new home. Get some sleep every night. Work will be waiting when you get back. I’ll save you some of it … you can reheat it like leftovers.”

  “Ha ha ha. Are you sure, doc? I’m going to feel bad leaving you and Jackie in a lurch like that.”

  “Absotively and posolutely sure. We can manage without adult supervision for a couple of days.”

  She gave him a big hug and shook his son’s hand. She’d only met Jack Jr. twice before, when he popped into the doctor’s office on random occasions to visit with his dad. Despite their being nearly strangers, he’d helped the Donahue family move a household full of stuff.

  Along with Dr. Reynolds and Jack Jr., two of Jason’s fellow Marines had shown up to help load and unload the truck. It was a complete (and awesome) surprise … she had no idea they’d be there. Despite Jason being in Afghanistan, he had raised the flag for help through the “bro network” and gotten two of the rear detachment guys to lend a hand.

  She walked over and glanced out of one of the windows facing the back yard, and saw the two Marines, Rick and Alan, playing catch with Danny. Her son was excited, running around, laughing. She figured they reminded Danny of his dad.

  After all, the general resemblance was uncanny—the haircuts, mannerisms, and musculature. The clipped, to-the-point way they spoke to each other, and repeated use of acronyms, was enough to make anyone say, “huh?” Marines were their own unique group of people.

  Sometimes they were serious—rigid—because they had to be. Like the marble columns that supported the Parthenon, they withstood, well … everything. The un-budging wills of warriors.

  But, just like boiler systems, Marines came equipped with a valve to relieve the buildup of pressure that comes from high stress work: they tended to be rowdy and boisterous when they weren’t being austere and severe. Overly playful or crazy.

  They routinely traversed the behavioral spectrum, from one end to the other.

  They were also proud and strong—a wolf pack. They might get rough with each other, but that privilege didn’t extend to outsiders, or you’d have all of them breathing down your neck. You didn’t want to be the one that crossed them—they might fix your wagon for you.

  But, if you were one of them, it was the proverbial difference between night and day. Fiercely loyal, they took care of their own, no matter what the situation. It seemed to her that they preferred the big challenges.

  While she watched, Danny caught the ball and one of the guys—Rick, she thought—picked up the Danny-and-ball combination and ran them to the end of the yard. Rick put Danny down and they did a touchdown dance, and then Danny saw her and waved. She waved back, then turned to the Reynolds men.

  “Again, I can’t thank you enough. Lifesavers, both of you.”

  “No problemo,” Jack Jr. said.

  �
��A pleasure. See you on Wednesday, Susan,” Dr. Reynolds told her. “Unless you find you need more time, then please just…”

  “No, doc, that’s too much! I’ll see you Wednesday. Be there with bells on.”

  “Okay, see you then.”

  <<>>

  Susan turned on the juice on Sunday. She rapidly emptied box after box, only taking brief breaks to prepare meals and upload a few pictures of the house to Facebook. It wasn’t labor, not in her mind—it was the fulfillment of promises and dreams. Their first real home in a decade—the place where they would settle down and (maybe) have another child.

  For his part, Danny was a champion among nine-year-old boys. He cleaned, un-packed, cleaned some more, and arranged his room exactly how he wanted it … then he helped her, too! Every now and then she’d look at him and feel pride in her chest at what a great son they had.

  By late Monday morning, the house was mostly in order. Danny tackled the electronics in the living room, connecting wires between their television and the surround-sound-system-in-a-box stereo. She washed dishes and laundry and organized closets and cabinets. She considered their progress a minor miracle, the Ninth Wonder of the World or something.

  The cable guy showed up around noon and she chuckled to herself because he (sort of) resembled Jim Carrey’s character from the movie The Cable Guy. It was one of Jason’s favorites; she’d been forced to see it numerous times.

  “Anybody ever tell you that you look a little bit like Jim Carrey?” she’d asked him.

  His response was a slow, painful sigh. Yes—he’d heard it before.

  The installer even had the same speech impediment. The coincidence was almost too much for her to handle. Strangely, after he had gone, her heart ached at Jason’s absence. He would have appreciated the cable dude. She just wanted to appreciate her husband in person, not through the damned computer monitor.

  She sighed. Easier said than done, and her husband was going to be doing this for years to come. Learning to deal with it was the only option.

  “Hey, buddy … why don’t we catch a movie tonight? Whadda ya say … I think they are running the new Godzilla movie again over at Barton Creek Square.”

  “That’d be cool. My friends got to see it, like, months ago.”

  “Um, I think it was just last month,” she told him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Pretty much forever ago.”

  She laughed. Ah, youth, she thought.

  “Right, then we should definitely go see it. Grab some pizza for dinner.”

  “Cool, Mom.”

  “Yeah. Cool,” she agreed. “I’m going to check email and stuff before I shower, but you can go clean up in your new awesome, human-sized bathroom and tub while I do that, then we’ll hit it. Okay?”

  “’Kay, Mom.” He sprinted from the room, a boy on a mission.

  Susan plopped down in their rolling office chair and turned on the computer. While it booted up, she admired the built-in shelves in their new I-can’t-believe-we-finally-have-an-office office. She had the shelves halfway filled with their favorite fiction books, military farewell memorabilia from Jason’s previous units, and some of her nursing textbooks.

  She logged into Yahoo and checked her email first. She’d had the account for nearly twenty years and there was a time when all of the messages were from friends and family. Those days were long gone. Now, the preponderance of her messages were spam, crap that promised a variety of ridiculous things, and for which she couldn’t imagine anybody responding…

  Reduced cost pharmaceuticals.

  Meet single people in your area.

  Claim your prize now.

  And, of course, her favorites…

  F#%kbook.

  Gain inches now.

  Pleasure her today!

  Just looking at it made her shake her head. And that was what made it through to her inbox! In the spam folder was a gold mine of additional garbage. There was a time when she would go into the spam folder to look for the false positive spams, the accidental errant email which was actually from a trusted source that got blocked by the filtering system.

  But she’d given up on that two years earlier. If she missed a real email—so be it. Filtering through the mountains of idiocy just wasn’t worth it.

  Not to mention, how could they ever let Danny get an email account if it meant exposure to this sort of trash? If she had her way, it wouldn’t happen until he was eighteen. Of course, that probably wouldn’t work out … they were already using the computer so much at school.

  She sighed and looked at her account.

  The first, small disappointment happened when she saw there wasn’t anything new from Jason. He’d said he thought they might be back by Sunday, and he always wrote her as soon as they finished a mission.

  She did have two legitimate emails from friends. They were of the ‘checking in’ variety. Hey, how are you? And, We need to get together for lunch … those types of things. She fired off two quick replies and logged out.

  Facebook beckoned her next.

  There were some notifications and messages, and she clicked on the little message bubble first. She saw right away that there was nothing from Jason.

  Darn it, she thought.

  She scanned down the list. First was a message from her friend, Danielle Johnson. She could see the first little bit of the message … Hey girl, just wanted to let you know that we were…

  She scanned down to the next message, but didn’t fully recognize the name: Steve Butler. It was vaguely familiar, but she had a lot of friends on Facebook, some from work, and high school, guys that were spouses of her friends, and … guys Jason worked with.

  Guys Jason worked with…

  She scrunched her eyebrows and read the small chunk of the message that was visible … Susan, I don’t want to scare you, but I really thought you should know…

  Susan’s body vibrated, like from an electric shock. Or an earthquake. Her hand was shaky when she clicked on the message to open it fully.

  Susan, I don’t want to scare you, but I really thought you should know what happened. Jason and I were off camp, in a small village, on a routine security patrol. We started taking heavy fire, but we were okay. We detoured through a side street to avoid contact and call in air support. Except those motherfuckers had planted a bomb in the road. Jason is alive, but he’s hurt. I carried him out of there. He’s not conscious. I don’t know if he is going to be okay, or I don’t think I would be sending you a message at all. It’s against our standard operating procedures to notify people about anything before the Corps does, but I just started thinking that I would want my wife to know…

  Susan sat back in her chair and let the shock consume her like a slow-moving wildfire.

  Chapter 20

  Greg

  “What time are you going to leave?”

  Claire was getting dressed, sliding on the school’s volleyball uniform. Her socks were midway up her legs, ending in seventies style bold stripes. Greg smiled to himself about the socks as she laced up her white athletic shoes. He admired her for being such a devoted teacher and coach—she always did the right thing. The downside to that devotion was that, every now and then, she missed something.

  “Probably around noon,” Greg told her. “I was going to eat lunch with Nancy first. Maybe take her to that deli near the campus. I love that place.”

  “Me too, lucky dogs.”

  “I can get you something,” he offered.

  “No, I’m fine. I’m dieting again.” She walked around the island in her closet to the built-in jewelry drawers on the other side, pulled out the top drawer, and chose a conservative, pink rubber bracelet. The girls weren’t permitted to wear hard jewelry on the court—it could be unsafe in fast-moving situations. Earrings could get pulled out. A ring might cut someone if there was contact. Things got pretty wild when they were really moving.

  She held herself to the same standard, hence the bracelet.

  “You look great alre
ady,” he said, and gave her rear end a playful slap. “A little cushion for the pushin’.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She turned around and hugged him.

  “Yep.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t come with you,” she said. “I just couldn’t bring myself to do that to the girls, you know? They worked so hard this year, taking second place at state finals last fall. I’ve never had a feistier group than this one. But I’m sure you’ll have a great time. The big shot realtor from Austin returns, sells everyone a house, then drinks are passed around and everyone is happy.”

  “Har-dee-har-har,” he said and laughed. Then he added, “But, hey, if someone wants to buy a house in Austin…”

  “Sell them one.”

  “Exactly,” he told her with a wink.

  <<>>

  Greg was on the road by 11:45 a.m. It didn’t take him or Nancy long to devour lunch. They went to one of the several delis that the Thomas family frequented. If there was one thing that Greg gave more and more attention to through the years, it was food. He often found himself considering dinner just after lunch, already plotting what might be needed from the grocery store.

  Greg stayed engrossed in the deli’s food and watched while Nancy’s cell phone diverted her attention again and again. He tried to penetrate the gadget myopia, but his daughter was absolutely ensconced in her phone, tapping and smiling. He thought he saw the familiar, bold blue Facebook stripe, but it could have been Snapchat. Hard to tell anymore.

  The drive was uneventful, peaceful even, except for the fifteen or twenty minutes around Houston. It took four hours to reach Galveston, because he stopped in Columbus, Texas—the Columbus nobody has ever heard of—to look at his grandparents’ old home. His father’s parents had passed away before he hit double digits, and he hadn’t been a guest at the house since, but he could still remember sitting up there in the giant oak tree beside their house.

  He stopped by every year or so and just … remembered.