by R. D. Power
“They’re alive. If I meant to kill them, they’d be dead,” Robert said.
“But you did mean to kill Dominic,” Bill asserted.
“He deserves to die as much as anyone I killed in Iraq. I can’t stand the thought that he’ll just get away with what he did to me.”
“I want him charged with attempted murder!” squeaked Dominic. Robert went for him again, handcuffed and all, ready to kick him to death, but Kristen stood in his way. He backed down.
Kristen addressed herself to Dominic. “If you have him charged, he’ll come back to get you when he gets out, and I won’t stop him,” she pointed out. “You’ll spend every waking minute looking over your shoulder.”
Bill told Dominic to see to his unconscious entourage and led Robert to his car. Kristen followed.
“Hold it,” Dominic said. “If I don’t press charges, will you agree to leave me alone?”
Kristen looked at Robert imploringly. “Yes,” he replied caustically.
“Then I won’t press charges,” Dominic said.
As Bill put Robert in the car, he said, “I can still charge you with attempted murder and assault, you know.”
“No, Dad, please,” Kristen begged. “He stopped. He let him go.” Bill started the car and drove off.
“Do I have your word this feud with Dominic is over?”
“Yes,” Robert promised.
Bill drove for a few minutes without saying anything. Finally, he said, “I’m releasing you, but only because of what you did for your country.”
“Thank you, Dad,” Kristen said. “Come home with us please, Bobby.”
“No, Kristen. We’ve been through this. Let me out here, Mr. Taylor. I need to be alone.” He stopped the car, helped Robert out and took off the handcuffs. “Goodbye, Mr. Taylor. Goodbye, Kristen.” It sounded final.
The Taylors drove away, Bill worried about what the embittered, dangerous man might do next, and Kristen looking at him receding as the distance between them grew, fearing it would be the last she would ever see of him. Her sole hope lay with fate.
•
Upon returning to the United States, Robert had called the Twins to ask about signing with the team. They suggested he follow his plan to go to university so they could assess his prospects. He wrote letters to the three universities that had granted him baseball scholarships, asking for another chance. He didn’t mention his injured hand. All three said yes, though baseball scholarships depended on his performance, and he chose Berkeley.
Unbeknownst to Kristen, he stayed with Kim and his son over the summer. He walked up to her door and stood there a few moments to muster his courage. He rang the bell. Kim answered and immediately rushed out to hug him. After a moment, she said, “Thank God you’re okay … You are okay?”
He nodded, but she saw the truth in his eyes, dark semicircles below underscoring the sorrow within. She touched his face gently and kissed his cheek. “Come in. It’s been the better part of two years. I tried to reach you, but never could. Why didn’t you call or write?”
“I’m sorry. It’s complicated. I wanted to. I’m not sure I know myself.”
“Kristen told me you were the other soldier who got the UN arms inspectors out. Is it true?”
“Yes, but I have to keep it quiet. I just want to forget the whole thing.”
Kim hugged him again. “I’m so proud of you. Can we at least tell our son?”
“When he gets older, and we can trust him to keep a secret.”
“Brian,” she called. “There’s someone very special here to see you.” The cute little toddler scurried up to his mother and stood behind her legs, head jutting out looking up at the tall stranger. Robert stood next to Kim, as afraid of his son as his son was of him. Seeing how Brian had grown and knowing he’d missed most of his son’s life thus far, Robert felt empty inside. “Brian, this man is your father. He’s your daddy. Can you give him hugs and kisses?” He clung to his mother’s leg. “Don’t worry,” she told Robert. “He’ll come around. Just give him some time.”
After almost a week at Kim’s, the three went out to the backyard as the weather at last turned clement. Kim was showing Robert her new Stewartia tree when they heard a splash. He ran over and saw Brian in the pool, so he jumped in fully clothed to rescue his son. Standing in the pool holding the boy in his arms, he was shaking. He embraced Brian, kissed his head and began to cry.
“He’s okay, Bob,” reassured Kim. “He can swim. Let him go. Really, he’ll be fine.”
It took about a minute, but Robert finally let go, and off Brian went to the deep end, swimming like a pro. Robert stayed within an arm’s length the whole time.
“You know you’re not to jump in when Mommy or Daddy isn’t there. Never do that again, all right?” said Kim. He nodded and swam off. Robert got out, sloshed to the deck, and removed sneakers, socks, shorts, and shirt, and went in to change.
He came out again a few minutes later and sat next to Kim, watching Brian swim. He was embarrassed about the incident. “It never occurred to me such a small boy could swim. I must have looked pretty foolish.”
“You were trying to protect your child. That’s what fathers do.”
Feeling he needed to excuse himself for crying, he admitted, “I thought—now that I’m here, he’s going to drown for sure.”
“Oh, Bob, how can you think that?” She held his hand. “Brian won’t die because you love him. You must know there can’t be a cause and effect relationship between your love and anyone’s death. It’s not your fault your family died, Bob. It was their time or just bad luck. They didn’t die because you loved them.”
Brian got out of the pool and for the first time climbed onto his father’s lap, seeking warmth and protection. Robert put his arms around his son and leaned his head over to provide both. It was the beginning of love for father and son. This little being, a lost part of himself restored to him, was helping to reawaken in him hope for the future, and a willingness to entertain the possibility of love without fear of loss. Looking at his delightful, innocent, vivacious child, how could he, how could anyone, doubt that life was worthwhile, and that love was indispensable to it? Robert no longer doubted this, but still couldn’t help asking himself, What if he dies?
Kim was, of course, curious about his experience in Iraq and asked about it, but he was chary of details. He had nightmares every night, sometimes waking up screaming. For that reason, and because of the possibility he had HIV, he declined her invitation to sleep with her. Kim did her best to comfort him. Sometimes she’d hear him weeping in the bathroom, where he’d go to hide his tears from Kim and Brian. She would leave him to grieve, but condole with him when he came out and invite him to talk about it. He never said much.
Brian asked his mother one August morning, “Why Daddy cwying? Is he huwt?” This would have been difficult to explain to an adult, never mind a toddler, though it helped that he gave every indication of taking after his father in intelligence.
“Yes, Brian,” she began as she picked him up and sat him on her lap, “he is hurt. You see, he went away to do something very important for you and me and a lot of other people. Some very bad men were going to do something awful that would have hurt millions of people. That’s more people than you’ve ever seen! We had to send some brave men to stop them, and your daddy was one of them.”
“Did the bad men huwt Daddy?”
“Yes they did.”
“Wherwe?”
“He’s hurt in a lot of places: his hands, his face, his chest; but mostly he’s hurt inside.”
“He has a tummy ache?”
“No, it’s more like he’s sad.”
“Why?”
“Well, sometimes a good man like Daddy has to do bad things to stop bad men. Whenever a good man does bad things, it makes him sad.”
“Is dat why Daddy scweams?”
“Partly. And Daddy saw a lot of scary things that the bad men did, so he’s having nightmares. Now, I don’t want yo
u to worry about the bad guys coming here, okay? Your daddy got them all.”
He nodded and went to the bathroom door, knocked and said, “Daddy, let me in.”
“Not right now, little fella,” answered the weeping man. His next HIV test was looming, and the stress was overwhelming.
“I want to kiss you bettew.”
Robert opened the door and saw Brian holding out his arms to be picked up. Robert did his son’s bidding. Brian kissed him on his hands, cheek and chest, and on his stomach for his inside. He hugged his child and cried some more.
That night, Robert went through his trunk. He took out his baseball mitt and put it on his hand. As he opened and closed it and punched the pocket, he reflected on what might have been, what would have been if not for his awful luck. With tears in his eyes, he put the glove back and sorted through the disarrayed remnants of his dead family. Oh, the irretrievable loss! Still bedeviling him a dozen years later. What might have been, what would have been were it not for his awful luck. He slammed the lid down and kicked the trunk. He was tired of the sinking feeling he got every time he opened it. The last thing he needed was to dwell on his family’s tragedy with the horrendous memories from Iraq weighing him down.
He looked at the trunk with hatred and made a decision. After dashing upstairs to get a garbage bag, he returned to his trunk and opened it. He began by stuffing his old clothes into the garbage bag: no loss there. Next he put in the glove. That was harder, but it was a price he was willing to pay to put his past behind him. The first keepsake he lifted out of the trunk was his mother’s Olympic medal. With tears in his eyes, he dropped it into the garbage bag, but then a wave of anguish overcame him, and he said, “What am I doing?” He recovered the medal and held it close to his heart. He wanted to stop grieving over his family, but throwing away all he had of them was not the answer.
Back upstairs he went to join Brian and Kim, who were watching TV. As he sat staring at his son, the answer hit him: his keepsakes weren’t all that was left of his family. Kristen had said it years earlier: look what they left for the world. Himself. And now his son. He asked Kim for a lock of his son’s hair for a keepsake. She smiled and immediately complied. He ran down to the cellar to put it in his trunk. Now he could regard the trunk with equanimity, for henceforth it held not only treasured memories of his old life, but the promise of new life and hope for the future. He would leave the trunk at Kim’s for now, but would come back for it.
The HIV test later that week came back negative, so it was all but certain he didn’t have HIV. (The Iraqi guard had returned with a sedative instead of the HIV solution the interrogator had ordered.) Hopping back up on the fence of agnosticism, Robert privately whispered a prayer of thanks, just in case. That evening he told Kim of the needle—she was horrified and wept for him—and the good news on the test and asked if her invitation to sleep with her was still open. Saying nothing, she took off his clothes and hers, and the two went to bed.
By the time he left for Berkeley in late August, he’d become so attached to his son it was hard to say goodbye. And Kim: How comforting it had been to wake up beside her for those difficult weeks of recuperating from his experience in Iraq. How understanding she had been of his nightmares. How naturally she made him feel good about himself again. How wonderful she was in bed. What an amazing woman she is, he thought. If only she were ten years younger.
How safe and secure she felt waking up next to this fine man for those summer weeks. How special it was to see her son playing with his father. How thrilling it was to be so intimate with a real hero. She asked if he “might consider staying, you know, for Brian,” but to him that was tantamount to giving up his lifelong dream. He said no. Kim intended to visit him at regular intervals for Brian to see his dad, and for her to see what might develop with him.
Robert struggled with his vendetta against Dominic throughout the summer. Notwithstanding his promise to the Taylors, his knowledge of the consequences and the self-loathing he came to feel while he was strangling Dominic, his thirst for vengeance repeatedly demanded slaking. He borrowed Kim’s car a few times in July and early August and parked near Dominic’s place, hoping for an opportunity to attack. Fortunately, Dominic, afraid of his arch-rival, had removed himself from the country for an extended holiday on the Riviera. Bill had phoned to suggest he leave for the time being.
As time passed, Robert’s wrath diminished, and logic began to assert ascendancy over his emotions. Kristen was correct, he eventually concluded. Dominic’s ruin would mean his own; the price was far too high. He continued to hate Dominic, but learned to control it.
Just before he left the Arnold house, without Kim’s knowledge, he sat his son on his knee and showed him his Distinguished Service Cross. Two-year-old Brian was fascinated by the object and took it in his hands to examine it. He was far too young to know its significance, but Robert wanted his son to have it. Robert left it in his top dresser drawer, thinking Kim would get a nice surprise when she saw it.
After Robert left, Brian pushed over a chair and climbed on it to get the new prize Daddy left for him. He accidentally dropped it down a heating vent he’d opened to explore. Brian wanted it back, but it was gone, so he sat and cried.
Chapter Five
Big Leagues
Four revolutions of the sun did the Earth traverse with little of note transpiring, except that 493 million people entered, and 205 million people exited, seven million at the hands of their fellow man. Robert, hard at his studies, took no notice of the world at large beyond baseball. At Berkeley, he was an excellent student, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in computer science, and he was a star pitcher for the Golden Bears baseball team, drafted by the Minnesota Twins in his senior year. He kept mostly to himself, the experiences in Iraq having made him more disinclined than ever to form relationships.
Soon after arriving in Berkeley, Robert began to think about Kristen and came to regret the way he had treated her. As time passed and the horror of what had befallen him steadily receded, it started to sink in what she and her father had done for him. She wasn’t blameless; she should have stood behind him when he needed her most. But it was him, he recognized, who started the avalanche when he cheated on her. He’d had no right to treat her the way he did. It wasn’t her fault any more than it was his. She had worked to exonerate him and almost died doing it, then stopped him from making the worst mistake of his life.
I didn’t even thank her, he reflected with shame. It was a grievous error to reject her, he eventually concluded, but: What can I do about it now? It was just too awkward to call her, and as time passed, it became more so. He tried not to think about her.
All the while Kristen was in close proximity—across San Francisco Bay at Stanford University. She had decided that she would like to be a doctor specializing in childhood cancer. But the two never crossed paths, even though his team visited Stanford every year. One time, the two were within fifty paces of each other in a crowded concourse, but neither knew it.
•
At Stanford, Kristen did her pre-clinical work in two academic years, then her clinical work in sixteen months. She was a sensation there, impressing even the most exacting and stern of professors. Men were bewitched by the lovely maiden. Women either admired her or resented her depending on their disposition. She turned down dozens of requests for dates. The few times she accepted, she broke it off quickly, saying another possessed her heart.
“Who is this lucky guy, and why does he forsake this treasure?” everyone wondered. Her constancy toward him was remarkable. He had made an indelible impression on her as the best of his sex. Whether he deserved her veneration wasn’t the point, for the heart knows love, not logic. She loved him profoundly, and nothing—not time, not another man, not his rejecting her—would ever change that.
By the time Robert finished at Berkeley, Kristen was nearing the end of her first year as a pediatrics resident at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.
During her first year in California, Kristen had called to ask Kim if she knew of his whereabouts, but she maintained she didn’t. Kristen found this hard to believe, since his son was there, and wondered whether Kim was hoping for a future together with him. Kim, as planned, had visited Robert a dozen times over the four years, but he showed no interest in her beyond the sexual, to her disappointment.
•
Jennifer was across the continent, still in New York City. After finishing high school, she had gone to work at her father’s advertising firm, starting as a secretary. Her father’s male colleagues, who couldn’t stop staring at her, suggested to him and her that she should do television commercials for the firm, a prospect that thrilled the young lady. With her father’s blessing, she began a successful career in commercials.
Her relationship with Kristen had improved after she left Canada. The two had begun talking on the phone and soon got into the routine of conversing for a half-hour or so every Sunday. Kristen had kept her apprised of how things were progressing with Robert until their denouement. Jennifer had shared her cousin’s tribulations through the trial, the thrill of his heroics in Iraq, and the heartbreak of his dismissal of Kristen. Not that Jennifer was displeased—she wasn’t over Robert herself—but she felt genuinely bad for her cousin. The two spent Kristen’s first spring break together in New York and enjoyed it so much they repeated the visit for the next four years.
Jennifer had begun to think about a career in acting and had gone to several auditions for plays, but was unsuccessful every time. Beauty wasn’t enough, she’d learned. One needed real acting talent to make it on the stage in New York. She’d decided to learn the craft, enrolling in expensive acting lessons offered by a private school run by former Broadway actors. Still, her success was limited to a few appearances on a soap opera.