“You won’t,” she whispered as she clung to him. And oddly, she felt, as she stood there, that she’d be alright, because she had Peter’s blessing.
CHAPTER 10
Paxton arrived in Savannah on a Friday afternoon, two days after Robert Kennedy had been shot, in time to watch the train cross the country on TV on Saturday, bringing his body home, as people waved from every town, crying for another hope lost, another heartbreak. And this time, no one met Paxton at the airport.
She had called her mother to say she was flying in, but her mother had to go to a tea being given by her bridge club. And Paxton didn’t mind, it gave her a chance to go home alone, and sit in the kitchen and think of Queenie.
Her mother had hired a new girl after she died, and she was black, too, but she was younger and she only worked days, and she was out buying groceries when Paxton arrived, which was a relief in a way. It gave her a chance to be alone in Queenie’s kitchen. It was odd being there without her, and Paxton felt a terrible ache, remembering her last words the last time she’d been home … sometimes if you wait, life don’t give you a chance to do what you want. She’d been right. But Queenie knew that by now. Because if there was a Heaven, surely she was with Peter.
The slam of a door broke into Paxton’s thoughts and she heard rapid footsteps in the front hall. It was the new girl, and she almost screamed when she saw Paxxie.
“I’m sorry. I’m Paxton Andrews. I just got home from California. I didn’t mean to scare you.” The girl looked wild-eyed for a moment and then relaxed. She was about Paxton’s own age, and she had a sweet face, but she was short and heavyset and not very pretty.
“You go to school in California?”
“That’s right.”
“You jus’ graduate?” She said it carefully, like it was something very important.
But Paxton shook her head in answer. “No, I didn’t.” She didn’t tell her that she’d come home to say goodbye to her family before she went to Viet Nam. She had to tell her mother first. She just chatted amiably, and helped the girl carry the groceries into the kitchen. And her mother came home half an hour later.
She looked older to Paxton somehow, and she wasn’t sure why. She looked well, and her hair was freshly done, but her face looked tired and a little more lined than it had the last time Paxton saw her. But she said she was feeling well, and told Paxton she looked thin, and then asked Emmalee to bring them tea and cinnamon toast in the front parlor.
And after the first sip, Beatrice Andrews looked at her pointedly and asked her why she’d come home. She was no fool, and she had sensed that there was a reason for the trip, other than just a friendly visit. She knew that Paxton didn’t like to come home, and if she didn’t have to, she wouldn’t.
“Are you getting married?” she asked, with an odd look. It was a look of disappointment because she knew who the boy would have to be and he wasn’t from the South, and there was also some excitement because her only daughter was about to be a bride, but Paxton only shook her head, sorry to disappoint her.
“No, I’m not. I’m afraid that’s not in the picture.” She sounded calm as she said it, and her mother looked at her strangely, sensing more, but Paxton didn’t want to say it.
“Have you stopped seeing that boy?” Peter had always been “that boy” to her, and the words made Paxton smile now. He had been gone for two months, and the first shock of grief was slowly fading. All that was left was the dull ache of disbelief and the quiet sorrow that she felt as though it would go on forever. But she could function with it, and no one knew how much it hurt, except maybe the Wilsons, and the others who had suffered losses like it. But now that she was going to Viet Nam, for some odd reason, even though the pain was still there, she felt better.
“I … uh …” She groped for the words. “It’s a little hard to explain. It’s not important.” It’s not important, Mom, he’s just dead, that’s all. But she couldn’t imagine her mother sharing her pain, which was why she had never told her. Telling her would just have been too painful.
“Is something wrong?” Beatrice Andrews would not let it lie, and her searching glance was making Paxton squirm, much to her own chagrin. There was no way to avoid her. “What happened?”
“He … uh …” She could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, and she concentrated her gaze on the curtains so she didn’t have to see her mother’s face when she told her. “He … went to Viet Nam … and he was killed in Da Nang in April.” There was an endless silence, and Paxton cursed herself as her eyes filled with tears, and then suddenly, next to her, she felt her mother move. She turned in surprise, and she saw the woman who had been a stranger to her all her life, sitting next to her and crying.
“I’m so sorry … I know how you must feel … how terrible …” She put her arms around Paxton, and all of a sudden, Paxton found herself sobbing, with her arms around her mother, she was crying for Peter again, and for the Kennedys and Queenie and Martin Luther King … and even her Daddy … why had they all died? Why were they gone? Why had he flown his plane into the storm? And why hadn’t she married Peter when she could have? She tried to tell her mother what she felt, but all the words came out in a jumble, and her mother rocked her gently back and forth, as she never had before, and Paxton was oddly reminded of Queenie. “Why didn’t you tell me?” They were words of gentle reproach, but the look in her eyes told Paxton that she cared more than she had ever suspected.
“I don’t know. Maybe telling you would have made it more real. I guess I just couldn’t.”
“How terrible for his family.”
“His sister Gabby just had a baby two days ago, and she named him Peter.” But that made Paxton cry all over again, because now she would never have his babies. They sat like that for hours, crying and drinking tea, and crying all over again. She seemed to be crying for everyone and for everything, and making up for a lifetime. And finally, she put her arms around her mother and thanked her. It was the first time they had ever really made contact.
“I know how you feel,” her mother said, much to Paxton’s amazement. “I remember how I felt when your father died … I was confused for a long time … and angry and sad. It’ll take you a long time, Paxton. It may even hurt forever. Not every day, every minute, but when you think of him, there will always be a sad place in your heart for what happened.” She patted her daughter’s hand then. “One day there will be someone else, you’ll have a husband and children, but you’ll still remember him, and you’ll always love him.” Paxton didn’t tell her that she couldn’t imagine another man in her life, or children who were not his, but she knew that her mother was right that she would always love him. And then her mother asked her the question Paxton wished could have come later. “Will you be coming home now in September, dear? There’s not much point now to your staying in California.” They had won after all. She was coming home. Her love affair with “that boy” was over. But Paxton slowly shook her head, and waited, searching for the right words to tell her. Suddenly, she didn’t want to hurt her. Her mother had finally given her something she’d needed for a long time, and she wanted to thank her, not give her grief. But there was no choice now.
“I left school yesterday.” … and the house where I was so happy with Peter.… I left everything … because Robert Kennedy was killed and I can’t stand the insanity of this country a moment longer. So she was going to a place that was even more insane, but at least there, the insanity was out in the open.
“You left school for good?” Her mother looked shocked, because she knew that giving up was so much unlike Paxton.
“I just couldn’t do it anymore. I could stay for the next ten years and I can’t write another paper, take another test. It doesn’t make sense to me anymore. I can’t even remember why I wanted to do it in the first place.”
“But this is your last term.” She looked confused, and she suddenly wondered if Paxton had gone a little crazy. “You could graduate i
n the fall if you finish now. Paxton, you don’t want to waste everything you’ve done. You’re only inches from the finish.”
Paxton nodded miserably. It was true. Her mother was right. But she just couldn’t do it. “I know. But ever since Peter went away, I haven’t been able to think straight. Ever since he left for basic training in January, I haven’t been able to do a single paper.”
“That’s understandable, of course. Maybe you could finish here. And get a job on the paper. You know how badly they want you.” She was trying to offer encouragement, and Paxton felt sorry for her. She had no idea what was coming.
“Mama …” She reached out and touched her hand, still grateful for her solace over Peter. “I took a job yesterday.” Paxton spoke very softly.
Beatrice Andrews’s face fell. “In San Francisco?”
There was a long pause, as Paxton thought about how to phrase it. “With the Morning Sun. But not in San Francisco.”
“Where then?” She couldn’t begin to imagine.
“I’m going to be a correspondent in Saigon.” There was an endless silence in the room, and then suddenly her mother dropped her face into her hands and began to sob, and this time it was Paxton who held her. And then she turned to look at the child she barely knew, as though she were the total stranger she always had been.
“How can you do such a thing? Are you trying to get killed? To commit suicide? I felt that way after your father died too,” she said, blowing her nose daintily in a lace hankie, “but I had you and George to think about. And your future. I know things look bleak to you now, but they won’t in a while, Paxton, you have to be patient.”
“I know, Mama … I know how it looks. But it’s something I have to do now. I can’t just sit here, or there, and wait for life to take its course. I want to be in Viet Nam. I want to understand what happened. I want to stop it from happening. I want to help stop it sooner. I want to make people care. Every night, we sit around watching people get killed while we eat our dinner, and no one cares, no one even flinches. Even if what I do takes ten minutes off the war, then maybe that’s enough. Maybe in those ten minutes five people would have been killed … maybe something I can do will save them.”
“And if you’re killed, Paxton, instead? What if it’s you and not someone else? Have you thought of that?… and what it will do to me? You’re a woman. Good God, you don’t have to go to war. You’re still crazy after that boy died. You have to stay home and heal your wounds. Stay here, don’t go back.” She was begging her, and it was breaking Paxton’s heart, but she knew she had to go. It was her fate now.
“I have to go, Mama. But I promise you, I’ll be careful. I’m not looking to get killed.” She knew that Ed Wilson had thought the same thing, which made her wonder. And there were times when she was tempted to join Peter, times when she drove across the bridge, and thought of stopping the car and jumping. But she hadn’t. And now she knew that there was something she had to do that was a lot more important than escaping.
“Please don’t go … Paxton, I beg you …”
“Mama, don’t.” And for the second time in what seemed like a lifetime, the two women embraced. The ice had been broken, the bond had been formed, but it was too late for Paxton to turn back. She had come home to say good-bye, and by the next day, her mother knew it.
They spent the next two weeks talking quietly, about her father, and how her mother felt when he died, and finally she even talked about the other woman. She had been a woman he worked with, and Beatrice had known about the affair. She had known how lonely he was, but she just couldn’t give him what he wanted. And she even admitted she’d been relieved when someone else could. It only hurt when he died, and everyone found out that there had been another woman in his life. It seemed an odd way to think of things to Paxton, but even now, with their newfound exchange, she recognized that she and her mother were very different. The one so cool, so distant, so aloof, so afraid of letting go, of being out of control, of too much feeling, the other so warm, so open, so passionate, so deeply involved and committed, even in her grief after Peter’s death. And in so many ways, Paxton was so much like her father.
Her brother George tried to talk her out of going to Viet Nam, too, but like his mother, within days he realized that there was no point, Paxton was determined. He administered her shots, and in the end, when Ed Wilson called and told her to come back to be briefed, George and Allison and her mother took her to the airport, and this time even Paxton cried when she left them. She felt as though she were leaving home for good. Even if she came back, it would never be the same, and she knew it. She had left as a child, and she would return different, battle-scarred, wiser, or perhaps more bitter. But she would never be a child again. The child that been Paxton Andrews was gone, with the others.
CHAPTER 11
The good-byes in San Francisco were no easier than the ones in Savannah. In fact, despite her mother’s reaching out to her over Peter’s death, the good-byes said in San Francisco were much harder. Gabby cried nonstop, and Peter’s mother was still heartbroken that her husband had agreed to the job in Saigon. And she told him point-blank that he was as crazy as Paxxie.
And the night she left, they all took her to the airport. She had been given a seat on a military transport out of Travis Air Force Base, and she had her vaccination certificates, and her passport, and her visas, and her papers from the Morning Sun, and all her instructions about who she was to report to and where, and where she was to stay. They had booked her into the Hotel Caravelle on the Tu Do, and the Sun had even given her a Vietnamese phrase book. But this was still the hard part. Saying good-bye to them was awful. Being at Travis reminded them all of when they had said goodbye to Peter. And even Peter’s father cried when he held Paxton in his arms, and kissed her firmly on the cheek and reminded her for the ten thousandth time to be careful.
“And for God’s sake, if you get there and change your mind, don’t be a fool, you turn right around and come home. I think you’re making one hell of a mistake going over there, don’t be too proud to admit it and come back quickly.”
“I won’t,” she promised him with tears in her own eyes, “I love you.” She had learned to say it all while she could. You never knew what was going to happen. “You all take care.” She kissed them all again, as her flight was being called. “I’ve got to go. Promise you’ll write.”
“Take care of yourself,” Marjorie exhorted her, trying not to think of her son. “Be careful what you eat!” They all laughed, and Gabby and Paxton embraced. It had all started with them. The two girls who loved each other like sisters, and had for four years now.
“I love you, you crazy girl. Be careful, Paxxie, please … if anything happens to you, I’ll die.…” Paxton only shook her head, and ruffled the bright red curly hair.
“Just don’t get knocked up again before I come home.” The baby was only three weeks old and Gabby laughed through her tears.
“Take care of yourself, Pax. We’re going to miss you.” Matthew hugged her gently, and then she stood back and looked at all of them.
“I’ll be home in time to trim the tree.” That was the deal she had made with Ed Wilson. Six months in Saigon. And home by Christmas.
They all waved as she slung a large tote bag over her shoulder and picked up her one small suitcase. She was wearing stout boots that looked like combat boots, and jeans and a T-shirt, and she had a new Nikon slung over her shoulder. She turned at the gate and gave a last wave, trying hard to fight back tears as she thought of Peter, and then she turned and ran toward the plane, and as she ran up the steps to the C-141, she collided with what looked like someone’s kid brother. He had wheat-colored hair like her own, and a round baby face and he looked about fifteen as he ran up the steps behind her, carrying his duffel. And then she knew what he was. Just another green kid, going to fight the war in Viet Nam, and as she took her seat on the plane, he hurried to the back to join a hundred others like him … eighteen … nineteen … twe
nty … she felt like an old lady next to them … and as they took off, and headed across the Pacific, she looked down and prayed that the boys flying to Saigon with her would still be alive by Christmas.
They had given her six months. Six months to find herself, to see the war, to come to terms with what had happened in Da Nang, and to see it all for herself … six months to tear her heart out and give it to them, to atone for her sins, and tell the world what was really happening over there. Six months in Nam. Maybe she was crazy, she knew, but she felt she owed it to Peter. And as she closed her eyes, and laid her head back against the seat, the lights of California dwindled swiftly behind them.
Viet Nam:
June 1968–April 1975
CHAPTER 12
Paxton was wide-awake from Travis Air Force Base to Hawaii, even though when they arrived it was almost midnight for her, and she was still awake most of the way to Guam, and found herself talking to some of the men, as they all took turns waiting for the bathrooms. Most of the boys looked like the one she’d collided with boarding the plane. They looked barely eighteen years old, and they were young and scared, and when they relaxed a little, they were full of mischief. Several of them asked her for dates, some showed her photographs of girlfriends and mothers and wives, and for the most part they were the rawest of new recruits. The epitome of the word they were about to hear thrown at them night and day once they arrived: Greenseeds.
A few of the older ones traveling with them had been to Nam before, and through their own choice, they were returning for another tour of duty. These were the ones Paxton was interested in, and two of them shared the whiskey in their flasks with her as they passed the night on their way to Guam, roughly halfway by then between San Francisco and Saigon.
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