"I must be insane," she whispered, amused in a horrified way by the weird turn her thoughts had taken. She couldn’t imagine why Tom and Marcie had felt the need to lie about the circumstances surrounding Gary’s death—unless they, too, wanted to fabricate a heroic end for a man who had been so heroic in life. Their deception had been not malicious but merely foolish. As Paul had said, the particulars of Gary’s death didn’t change who he was.
Paul had been so sensitive to her that evening, saying just what she’d needed to hear and holding her when she’d needed to be held. She’d had no trouble accepting what he’d given her. Why couldn’t he accept what she’d given him?
She ordered herself to stop thinking about him. His behavior at the nursery that morning had announced his feelings eloquently: he would never be able to accept her. He couldn’t even accept himself. It had been a marvelous thing to look into his troubled soul, to touch it in some way...but it would never happen again. He would never permit it. They would never be friends.
She directed her gaze to the first page of Kevin’s manuscript. When you know you’re right, you’re half the distance to winning. That had been Gary’s motto, and it made an effective opening line. But the slogan Bonnie used to find dynamic now struck her as sanctimonious. Gary had always been so confident, so unshakably certain that he was right....
Of course he’d been right. How could she think otherwise? The war in Vietnam had been a tragic mistake. Gary had been absolutely correct in protesting it.
She recalled the doubt and fear she’d seen in Paul’s eyes, not just when he’d been caught up in his dream but afterward, when they’d gone to the back porch and talked. There was something so human about Paul, something so very strong about his willingness to expose his weakness.
Why hadn’t Gary ever let Bonnie glimpse his weakness? Why hadn’t he shared his doubts with her? Probably he’d never had any doubts. Gary had been a visionary, a genius.
Paul, on the other hand, was a man.
When you know you’re right ... Why did Gary’s words now sound so insufferably arrogant?
"This is ridiculous," she muttered to herself. If she spent all afternoon mulling over the first sentence she’d never get to the second. Determined to plow ahead in the manuscript, she opened her eyes—and saw Paul.
He was standing no more than fifteen feet away from her on the green, staring at her with a directness he hadn’t dared to indulge in at the nursery earlier that day. His dark hair was blown back from his brow and his eyelids were lowered against the sun’s glare. His feet were planted firmly on the ground and his expression was oddly accusing. Tucked under one arm was the folder of designs for the memorial that Ed Marshall had shown her when she’d run into him in the nursery parking lot a couple of hours ago.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I’m reading," she answered, returning his steady gaze.
He regarded her for another minute, then relented and looked past her. "Sorry to interrupt," he mumbled, then sighed and turned to leave.
"Paul—wait!" She had no idea what to say to him, but she didn’t want him to go, not until they had established a truce. She was going to be bringing Shane to the nursery every Saturday for the next few weeks, She couldn’t avoid Paul. There had to be some way to reduce the friction between them.
He stopped but didn’t turn back to her.
"Which was your favorite design?" she asked, for want of a better idea.
He gave a curt, humorless laugh. "Do you care?"
"As a matter of fact, I do. I’m going to have to look at the damn thing from the school yard every day. I’d rather look at something esthetically pleasing." At his continuing silence, she added, "I live in this town, too, Paul."
She could discern the tension in Paul as his shoulders shifted beneath his shirt, as his muscles flexed in his forearms. She could feel it emanating from him in hot, angry waves. "This is hard for me," he whispered, so softly she had to strain to hear him.
"What’s hard?"
At last he rotated to confront her. "As if it’s not enough, what happened between us, what I did... As if that wasn’t bad enough, now I’m going to cram this memorial down your throat. I almost wish—" He sighed and glanced away. "I wish I didn’t have to build it. I wish I could do that for you. But I can’t."
After what he’d told her on her back porch the other morning, she understood what he meant. She didn’t like the concept of the memorial any more now than she did when he’d proposed it at the town meeting a month ago, but at least she now understand how essential it was to him.
"Sit down, Paul." Her tone was quiet but firm. "Please talk to me."
He hesitated for a minute. Then he reluctantly lowered himself to sit next to her, bending his knees and resting his forearms across them. The oak’s shadow softened the harsh features of his face, making his eyes appear more deep-set, his jaw less rugged. "Where’s the memorial supposed to go?" she asked.
"On top of the hill," he explained, angling his head toward the grassy rise behind him.
"Which design did you like best?"
He opened the folder and flipped through the sketches. "I don’t know," he said. "They’re all so...gloomy. Ever since they built the national memorial down in D.C. out of black granite, that’s what everyone associates with Vietnam memorials. Look at this." He handed her a photograph of a huge stone V in a waterside park. The V was constructed of what appeared to be black marble, with names carved into its sides. "This is the memorial they put up in New Haven. One of the designers sent it along with his proposal, for comparison’s sake. Look at it, Bonnie—a V. What the hell is it supposed to stand for, victory?"
She stared at the photograph of the austere sculpture. "Maybe it stands for Vietnam. Or veterans," she suggested. "Then again, where I come from, if you shape your fingers into a V it means peace."
"Yeah." He slid the photograph back into the folder, then showed her a few sketches of tall, pointed, four-sided obelisks that bore an uncanny resemblance to the war monument already standing on the green. "Look at these. It’s like they’re saying, `Vietnam was just a war like any other.’"
Vietnam hadn’t been like any other war—even Bonnie knew that. "What sort of memorial would you like?" she asked him. "If you designed it, what would it look like?"
"I’m not a designer," he said. "I don’t know. But it wouldn’t be so damned...morbid."
"It’s supposed to commemorate those who died," she reminded him. "How can it be anything but morbid? War is about death, isn’t it?"
Paul cursed under his breath. "I don’t want to have this argument with you," he snapped, starting to his feet.
She reached out and clasped his forearm. His skin was warm beneath her palm. Although there was no force in her touch, he sank back down onto the grass. She let her hand linger on him for as long as she dared. When he directed his gaze to where she was touching him she sensed his uneasiness and returned her hand to the safety of her lap. He lifted his gaze to her face and then looked away abruptly, before the distress in his eyes could register fully on her.
"Are you okay?" he asked, addressing the grass more than her.
"Yes."
"I mean..." He drew in a deep breath, then exhaled. "I don’t have the right to ask anything of you, but promise me you’ll let me know if you—if it turns out you’re..." He drifted off.
Bonnie had no trouble finishing the sentence. "I’ll let you know."
"What were you reading?" he asked, gesturing toward the manuscript.
She gave him a curious look. A minute ago he’d seemed desperate to get away from her, and now he was starting up a conversation. "It’s the first section of the book about Gary," she replied carefully, trying to gauge his reaction. "Just a rough draft. Kevin McCoy wants my input."
Paul eyed the manuscript pages stacked neatly in her lap. "Is it good?"
"Yes," Bonnie said automatically, then reconsidered her answer. "I don’t know. I’m not sure what I thin
k of it."
"Isn’t that something," he muttered wryly. "You don’t like your husband’s book, and I don’t like my memorial designs."
"Maybe we’re just hard to please," Bonnie said with a tentative smile. It gratified her to think they had something—no matter how silly—in common.
"Maybe." For a while he sat silently, observing the sporadic flow of traffic on the road bordering the western edge of the green. Bonnie studied him in profile: his high forehead, the clean, sharp slope of his nose, his stubborn chin, the smoldering darkness of his eyes.
She suppressed the impulse to touch him again, to gather him into her arms. If he’d needed her two nights ago, he was apparently trying very hard not to need her anymore. He wasn’t Shane; she couldn’t kiss his bruises and make them better.
"How’s the tree?" he asked.
"What tree?"
He shot her a quick glance, then focused on the street once more. "The birch tree."
"Oh." She had nearly forgotten that the birch tree was what had brought him to her house Thursday night—and, indirectly, what had brought her to his nursery today. "It’s fine," she told him. "By yesterday evening the front yard was pretty well dried out, and the stakes are holding."
"Good."
"It’s a beautiful tree."
Paul’s gaze seemed to drift to some faraway place. "You’ve got to treat it with respect," he murmured, half to himself.
"What? The tree?"
"All trees. I tried to teach that to Shane today."
Bonnie contemplated him, surprised that he should say such a thing—and then, as she thought about it, not so terribly surprised at all. He was a nurseryman, a farmer. It was only natural that he would respect trees.
Silence stretched between them for a few seconds. "How long should I keep the stakes propping it up?" she asked.
He gave her a sidelong glance. "As long as the tree needs them. Once it’s strong enough, you can pull them out."
"How will I know when the tree is strong enough?"
"By the way it looks and the way it feels. You check it, you get a sense of how secure it is. When it’s strong enough you’ll know it."
"What if I don’t?" she challenged him. "I’m not an expert, Paul. I couldn’t save that sickly dogwood tree."
"This tree’s different," Paul contended. "Your son gave it to you. You aren’t going to let it die."
His confidence in her seemed totally misplaced. "Maybe... maybe you could come and check on the tree every now and then?"
His eyes met hers. "No, Bonnie. I can’t do that."
"But if it starts wobbling or something, if there’s another storm—"
"No."
"Then you’d be the one to let it die," she accused, her frustration bubbling over. No matter how bad Paul felt about Bonnie, he owed her birch tree something. He was the one who’d just declared that trees needed respect. "It’s me, isn’t it. You’d rather let my birch tree die than have to deal with me, right?"
"Bonnie—"
"Am I right, Paul, or aren’t I?" She was running the risk of pushing him too far, but at that moment she didn’t care. "What’s more important, Paul—keeping a tree alive or running away from me?"
She detected the fury burning inside him, the rage and resentment. All he said, though, was "I’ve got to go." He started to his feet again.
Bonnie gripped his wrist and yanked him back down, refusing to let him shut her out. "Why are you punishing me?" she demanded. "What the hell did I ever do to you?"
He slid his wrist from her grasp and stared at her, his gaze impenetrable. "I’m not punishing you," he said in a low, hoarse tone. "I’m trying to protect you, damn it."
"What if I don’t want to be protected?"
He shook his head and stood. "I’d protect you anyway," he said, smoothing out the papers inside his folder. "That’s the way it is with us ’Nam veterans, Bonnie—we fight wars no one wants us to fight, and we protect people who don’t want protection. Only this time..." He favored her with a wistful look. "This time, maybe I’m doing the right thing." His gaze grew cool and he turned from her.
She watched as he moved in long, measured strides across the green in the direction of the town hall building, as he opened the door and vanished inside. She watched, feeling a chill overtake her, sensing that something vital had slipped away forever.
Chapter Eleven
* * *
"LET’S RUN THROUGH IT one more time," the captain said. "I’m still not clear on how you became separated from the others."
Paul glanced toward the window. Morning was creeping up on the camp, but no sunlight penetrated the dense, slate-colored clouds that hovered low overhead. He was tired but unable to sleep, hungry but unable to eat, half mad with grief and fear but unable to cry.
"I didn’t become separated, sir," he explained, turning back to the captain. He lowered his eyes, and they came to rest on his hands. A trace of Swann’s blood was still on his wrist. For a brief, insane moment, Paul imagined that it would be there forever, a permanent mark. "It was more a deliberate thing, sir," he elaborated. "We...kind of made a decision to split up."
"Nobody ever splits up night patrols," the captain said. He didn’t sound critical; rather, he seemed curious that, this time, a patrol happened not to follow standard procedure and as a result wound up not getting completely wiped out. "What made Macon decide to do that?"
Paul almost blurted out that Macon hadn’t decided to do anything, other than threaten Paul with a court-martial. He wanted to come clean, to tell what had actually happened. But what would honesty get him? A clean conscience, perhaps, but a dishonorable discharge. A purged soul and two years in the slammer. What had happened on a dirt road in the woods last night had been pointless. Opening himself to disciplinary action would be even more pointless.
"We thought we might pick up a little more action if we spread out, sir," he said, taking no comfort in the realization that what he’d said was essentially the truth. They’d spread out and caught action, all right.
"And you personally didn’t return fire?"
"I couldn’t, sir. I would have had to fire blind or else walk into the ambush. Macon and Rigucci returned fire from where they were. Swann had been hit almost immediately."
"How many enemy troops were there, Tremaine?"
"I don’t know, sir."
"And even though you didn’t know, you went in in an attempt to rescue Private Swann?"
Paul closed his eyes. His wet fatigues seemed to have shrunk against his skin. His feet were numb and his head pounded with echoes of the firefight. The muscles in his abdomen clenched, making him nauseous. "Yes, sir," he said, his voice betraying nothing of his emotional state. "Not that it did any good, sir."
"I’d say that took a lot of guts, soldier," the captain praised him.
Oh, God, Paul thought. If he’d had guts he would be telling the captain what had really gone down last night. If he’d had guts, he would have been with Swann when he’d died. They would have died together.
"Go get yourself cleaned up," the captain commanded. "I’ll send Markey and his men to recover Macon and Rigucci. The map you drew will get them there—they won’t require your escort. You look like you could use a shower and some rest."
"Yes, sir."
"It was a tough one, Tremaine. You did good. If you feel the need to talk about it, I’m sure the chaplain—"
"Thank you, sir. I don’t think I’ll feel that need, sir." He stood, saluted, and left the room. Outside, his knees began to buckle and he sank onto the wooden steps. He couldn’t throw up, not here, not on the front steps of HQ. He had to get himself to the latrine. Once he washed off Swann’s blood he’d feel better.
A low moan wrenched free from the deepest part of his soul. He feared that no amount of washing would ever remove Swann’s blood from him.
***
HE DIDN’T HEAR the knocking right away. He’d put a vintage Rolling Stones album on the stereo at high volume, and he
had just opened his second bottle of beer. The dishes were done and a Stephen King novel awaited him on the coffee table in the living room. He enjoyed reading horror novels. To him, psychotic cars, telekinetic teenagers, animal graveyards and the like were a laugh compared to some of things he’d been through.
It was six-thirty; he wasn’t expecting any visitors. As it was, he had deliberately opted to spend the evening alone. John Slinger had phoned him at the nursery a couple of hours ago and asked if he wanted to shoot some pool down at Max’s that evening, but he’d begged off. He didn’t feel particularly sociable these days.
Ever since he’d walked away from Bonnie on the town green five days ago, his emotions had been in a tailspin. He’d managed to conduct business with his usual equanimity, to swap jokes with his customers and offer the necessary words of praise to his employees. Just that morning, he’d spent several productive hours at a housing subdivision in Stow, collaborating with the project’s landscape architect to put together an extremely lucrative order for the nursery. He’d been able to review the memorial designs with Ed Marshall calmly and objectively over lunch a couple of days back, explaining that while none of the proposals was abominable, none of them thrilled him, either.
But at around five-thirty each afternoon, when his work was done and his daily ration of charm depleted, he’d headed straight for home, choosing to spare the world his wretched mood. He’d turned down a dinner invitation from a woman in Lowell whom he’d dated a few times, and he’d passed on an evening of poker at his uncle’s house last night and pool with John Slinger tonight. He felt as if he had to learn all over again how to live with himself, how to accept who he was and what he’d done and what it had cost his psyche, before he inflicted himself on others.
Part of him—the decent, nice part—knew that he’d been right to cut himself off from Bonnie, and another part—his heart and soul—knew that in spite of everything, she desired him as much as he desired her. The way she’d touched him, the way her fingers had grazed his arm and then molded to it, the way her eyes had searched his face...
Wounded Heroes Boxed Set Page 16