The Heart You Carry Home

by Jennifer Miller

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Honey, those men’re like children. They need things constantly. They’re going to stop here and you’re just going to have to trust me on that.”

  “Can’t you at least wait until they get here before you go?” Two hours back, Kath had announced that once she’d dropped Becca off, she was turning right around.

  “We can’t give those fellas an excuse to send you home. Call me on the pay phone if you run into trouble.” She planted a wet kiss on Becca’s cheek, then squeezed her niece’s shoulder with a grip that seemed to concentrate the strength of her entire body. “Don’t look so somber, kiddo. You’re on an adventure.”

  Reluctantly, Becca climbed out of the truck.

  “Oh, wait!” Kath rolled down the window and held out a blank envelope. “Give this to Reno. Reno, and only Reno.”

  “If the men don’t show up, I’m reading it,” Becca threatened.

  “They’ll be here,” Kath said. Then she waved and pulled onto the highway.

  Large flat clouds had materialized, literally from the blue, and floated by, casting gulfs of shade and sunlight across the Love’s. At least there’d been radio reception in the truck, which had made Becca feel slightly more tethered to civilization. King once told her that across large swaths of America, you couldn’t get anything but static or, if you were lucky, a single station blaring Christian rock. He said he liked to hit the scan button sometimes, simply to remember his place in the world. “It’s like they tell you in AA,” he’d said. “Some things are beyond your control. Accepting that is a kind of freedom.”

  Becca wanted to ask King about those travels, but she’d learned it was best not to come too close—with either hugs or questions. Only now, Kath was instructing her to defy the warning. In the truck, her aunt had sung loudly to “Break on Through to the Other Side.” A not-so-subtle message.

  Becca sat down on the curb with Ben’s duffle and Kath’s old motorcycle helmet, which fit her much better than King’s spare. After about twenty minutes, a minivan pulled into the Love’s, and out of it came a father, a mother, and a spool of children. It was like one of those circus acts where more and more clowns pour from the car. There were six kids in all, a mix of boys and girls, and the mother herded them into the store. In the sudden quiet, the father looked relieved. He leaned against the van and discreetly scratched his butt.

  Becca could hardly imagine growing up in such a family. The very notion of a family vacation was strange. Where were they going? she wondered. What was it like to ride in that van? She was too young to think seriously about having her own children, but she wanted them. So did Ben. They’d spent long hours discussing what theirs might be like, laying the imagined foundations of their future home.

  Soon, the kids funneled out of the Love’s, sucking on various candies, laughing, and complaining. Becca watched the mother shepherd them into the van and then the van pull away. That life was not to be, at least not for her and Ben.

  Shortly thereafter, she spotted the bikes. All black leather and chrome, Reno’s and Bull’s resembled oversize beetles. Beside them, the purple Gold Wing was like a My Little Pony. Becca felt the bubble of a laugh in her throat but was too nervous to let it out.

  Bull saw her first. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and she didn’t like the sauntering kind of look he had in his eyes as he drove slowly toward her, like he was preparing a come-on. “Well, look who showed up,” he said when he’d cut the engine. “You’re just like an angel, aren’t you, touching down from the sky.” Bull waved his gloved fingers, simulating sprinkling fairy dust. Couldn’t he just let her be? But Bull was the least of her problems. She got up and walked to her father, but when King saw her, his eyes widened in an old, familiar way. A way that made her stop walking. He shook his head, slowly at first, then faster. He shook it as if he could will his daughter to disappear. Then, without warning, he kicked a large trashcan, sending it toppling onto the cement. “I said no,” he growled, his belly heaving and his face turning red. “No, Becca.”

  She was at least ten feet away, but she shrank from his outrage.

  “Why did you come?” Spittle flew from King’s mouth. “Why didn’t you tell Kath that you weren’t going to be part of her crazy shit? Goddamn it!” His voice lunged at her. “I helped you the best I could. You could have shown me a little respect.” He kicked the trashcan again, and it barreled into the pump. Becca felt like he’d kicked the wind out of her.

  “Not much love out here at the Love’s,” Bull said and followed King into the convenience store.

  “Your aunt really fucked up,” Reno said, though he was clearly accusing her too.

  It was true, she thought. King had helped her. She had no business demanding more. That’s what her brain said. But her heart begged to differ. She deserved her father’s attention! King knew what Ben had done to her. He’d seen the evidence and barely responded. It wasn’t right.

  “So what’s Kath’s brilliant plan?” Reno said. “Surely she’s got one.”

  Becca handed him the letter, and he tore it open. She watched his eyes move back and forth over the page. “Shit,” he said, crumpling the paper in his palm. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  Reno uncrumpled the letter and read it again. “Shit.” He took a couple of deep breaths, then put the letter in his pocket. He pulled a half-smoked cigar from his jacket and lit up.

  “Are you gonna tell me what she said?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Well, can you—”

  “Look.” He opened and closed his cracked lips around the cigar, exhaled a cloud of smoke by her ear. “This is what’s gonna happen. You’re coming with, for now.” Reno broke into a cough, his lungs rattling like they were full of spare screws. He put his hand up to hold her off. When he’d recovered he said, “I’m responsible for you, so don’t give me a hard time, please.”

  “I’m responsible for myself.”

  “Yeah, but thanks to the ever-cunning Katherine Keller, you’re stranded unless somebody is kind enough to give you a ride.”

  “Give me your phone so I can call Kath.”

  “She ain’t gonna tell you different.”

  “Give me the phone.” Becca held out her hand and Reno obliged. Kath picked up right away.

  “So they showed up! O ye of little faith!” her aunt declared.

  Becca presented her case. For a moment, the line was silent. When Kath finally spoke, her voice was cold as chilled milk. “It’s complicated, honey. I’ve instructed Reno to explain. But you’ve got to let him do it on his own time. And don’t worry about your father. He’ll come around.” Kath hung up.

  “You’re not fucking serious!” Becca practically threw the phone back at Reno.

  “I can take you to the nearest Tennessee-bound bus,” Reno offered. “I’ll remind you that you’re the one who wanted to come, or who let Kath talk you into coming, or however it happened. But if you want to stay, you can’t go making a fuss. I got enough on my mind.”

  He looked so haggard, so genuinely stressed, that Becca backed down. “I just don’t understand what’s going on. My dad’s kicking trashcans, and my husband—”

  Reno hung his head and nodded. “I am truly sorry. If I had known, I would have punched him harder.” Reno rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “Listen, as you may or may not already know, we’re headed to Utah to see our old commander. But the rest of it—Kleos and all that. It’s gonna take a while to explain.”

  “What’s Kleos?”

  “It’s where the CO lives.”

  “And?”

  “And we’re hitting the road in about five minutes, so if you want a drink or something, you’d better get it quick. It’s gonna be a hundred and twenty miles before we stop again.”

  That afternoon the landscape flew by in alternating stretches of farmland and prairie. Sometimes there were cows, sometimes horses, sometimes just grass. Once in a while, there were windmills in t
he distance, massive white trees stripped of their limbs. Two rest stops and two hundred and forty miles later, Becca looked at a map and realized they’d hardly gotten anywhere. She felt like they were swimming against a current, like they were spinning their wheels. When they finally stopped at a trailer park in a nothing town called Bluff, they still had three-fourths of Kansas to cover before they would even get within shouting distance of Colorado.

  Becca set up the small tent that Kath had loaned her. When she’d finished, she found Reno crouched over a camping stove making coffee in a French press. “What are you doing?” She gaped.

  “What does it look like? You think I’m not sophisticated enough to use one of these?”

  Becca’s face turned red.

  “You’ve got to be one of the singularly most judgmental people I’ve ever met,” Reno said. “You know that? Nearly as bad as your mother.”

  Becca looked at her father for support, but King wouldn’t meet her eye. Miserable, she made herself a peanut butter sandwich and sat down by the stove to eat. Kleos—the name felt lodged in her brain like a splinter. She tried to pry it loose, but it wouldn’t budge.

  After dinner, she climbed into her tent and curled up on her side, but the bruises ached. She turned over, but it made no difference. She took some ibuprofen and folded her hands in a ball against her chest. She was more than lonely; she was downright homesick, a foreigner in a strange land.

  12

  HELLO, BEN,” SAID Kath. She opened the door but made no move to hug him. She was exhausted from the long drive out to Kansas and back. And now her blood boiled up against her tiredness; to think her lovely girl had endured pain at the hands of this man! There were many reasons to have sent Becca off with her father, among them the possibility that her presence might actually divert King from his dangerous project in Utah. But most of all, Kath had wanted to keep her niece away from Ben.

  “She’s not here,” Kath said, inspecting the bruise on his face. She smiled to herself. Reno always pulled his weight. Still, in this moment, Ben did not look enraged or capable of violence. He looked worn out and sad.

  “When will she be back?” he asked.

  “She’s not coming back.”

  “What?” He looked horrified. “Where’d she go?”

  Kath just shook her head. “You think I’d tell you that? Jesus.” Ben looked down at the ground. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, come in.” She led him into the kitchen and motioned for him to sit. “I want some answers,” she said. “Then I’m going to kick you out.”

  Ben looked more fearful than guilty. But she launched into an interrogation.

  “Were you just really drunk? Were you so enraged that you couldn’t control yourself? No—” She didn’t stop to let Ben answer. “I just cannot believe it.”

  Ben hung his head. “That fiddle was the only thing I had from my father, Kath. I didn’t mean to destroy it. I swear.”

  “Who gives a shit about a fiddle?” Kath pounded her fist on the table. “Ben, I’m talking about what you did to your wife!”

  “What?” It was the tremble in Ben’s voice that made Kath halt in her fury. She sat down across from him and studied his face. Was he playing her? He seemed legitimately confused. “Ben,” she said quietly. “Why did Becca run?”

  He pushed his hand through his short hair and looked past her out the window. He bounced his leg rapidly. “Sleeping is tough. Staying awake is tough. Not freaking out about every little thing is tough. I busted up my car last week; she probably told you.”

  “Ben,” Kath said. “The night she left.”

  Ben nodded. “We had a fight about something earlier that day. It had to do with the fiddle and why I refused to play anymore. It was dumb. But I got mad and I left. I went to a bar. She was asleep when I came back. So I went to bed too.”

  He stopped talking. He seemed conflicted about whether to continue. “And then?” she prodded.

  “The next thing I knew, I was standing in her old bedroom. I guess I sleepwalked? But I was seeing and hearing things—don’t ask me to describe them.” His leg vibrated so quickly it shook the table. “The fiddle was causing it. The only way to make it all stop was to smash up the fiddle. Obviously, I wasn’t thinking straight. But I did it. I broke it to bits. And then Becca came in. She was crying, Kath, screaming at me. I’d never seen her like that. And then I saw what I’d done to the fiddle, and I realized that if I stayed in that house another minute, I might hurt her too. So I bolted. Got out as fast as I could. I’d wrecked my car so I had to take hers.”

  For a moment, they were both silent. Kath wanted to put her hand on Ben’s knee, but she didn’t think touching him was a good idea.

  “When I came back she was gone. I was angry. I admit it. I shouldn’t have shown up at King’s drunk like that. I know that now. I want to fix myself, Kath. I don’t want to be like this anymore.” Ben hit the table, but there was no force in his hand. It was the gesture of a man who’d given up. “Please don’t keep me from her, Kath.” Ben’s voice broke. “Please.”

  “That’s exactly what happened?”

  He nodded.

  Kath stood up. He truly seemed not to know. But how was that possible? Had he snapped? Been in some kind of fugue state? Had he done it in his sleep?

  “Kath! Please. What’s going on? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “She’s all beat up, Benjamin. A ring of bruises around her middle, front to back.”

  Ben shook his head. Kath nodded. Ben shook his head more vehemently.

  “Do you have nightmares, Ben?”

  Ben looked at the table.

  “What happens in them?”

  Ben didn’t answer. “I’m sorry,” he said, jumping up. “I can’t.”

  A moment later, Kath heard the screen door slam. She sat back down and pushed the hair out of her face. Was his ignorance real? Did that even matter? She was willing to take intentions into account. But what had Ben really done to avoid this situation? On the ride to Kansas, Becca explained that he had been evaluated upon his return, according to standard protocol, and was prescribed a variety of medications. But were they necessary? Were they working? Were the dosages correct? Becca didn’t know. She said that after the wedding, he’d stopped taking them altogether. He’d also filled out a questionnaire about his mental state, but based on how evasive he’d been, she doubted that he’d reported honestly. “Or maybe he did,” she told Kath. “And then things changed later. Or maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to write down how he really felt. You know what it’s like with those guys.”

  Kath did know. Thirty-plus years after Vietnam, the same old codes and expectations persisted. As did the excuse that civilians just didn’t understand. And the possibility that the army just didn’t care what happened to those boys after they came home. Growing up in Fayetteville, Arkansas, she’d been one of those civilians. Just thirteen when her twenty-two-year-old brother came back from the war. Before, he’d been her protector. Afterward, he was sullen and short. His clothes hung off him like oversize pillow cases, like hospital gowns. He couldn’t hold a job. And he fought with their parents, who eventually told King to pack his bags.

  At the time, Kath blamed them for giving up on him. Only after they’d died did Kath question her childhood assumptions: first, that King’s coming around was inevitable, and second, that he deserved infinite leeway. Brother and sister had mended their relationship, but King was slipping again. “It doesn’t matter that I’m sober,” he’d told her the previous night. “Time piles up, but that just means I have farther to fall. And I always fall. It’s like my dreams are full of trapdoors releasing me into the old cesspool. It’s harder and harder to climb out.”

  “Your sobriety matters,” Kath had argued, terrified that King was giving up. But King said he did care about staying alive, which was why he was returning to his old CO’s compound in Utah. “I tried to live out here, Kath,” he said. “It didn’t take.”

  Ben eventually returned t
o the house and asked again for Becca’s whereabouts. “Even if I did tell you where she was,” Kath explained, “I don’t know how to get there.”

  “Then why can’t you give me the destination?”

  “Because you’re enterprising. Somehow, you’d figure it out.”

  Ben nodded as though he understood. As though in her position, he’d do the same thing. This broke her heart. “Follow me,” she said, wanting to do something. In her bedroom, she handed him The Iliad of Homer. King had brought it from Tennessee—he carried it everywhere—and Kath had filched it before the men left. She knew this book had tremendous symbolic meaning for King, as it did for the CO and his whole Utah operation. She’d stolen it, hoping that King might come back to get it and thereby give her another chance to wear him down: Do not go to Utah! However much The Iliad had helped King in his darkest hours, he’d taken its help much too far. Ben, however, was not under the CO’s command, neither physically nor mentally. For him, the book might be just an empathetic voice.

  Ben was surprised to be holding The Iliad in his hands. It looked like it had been carved up into chunks and then glued back together again. It had obviously belonged to a succession of readers. The first name, written on the inside flap in faded black pen, was Wilfred Owen McKenzie. The second name was CO Proudfoot. The third name was King Francis Keller. This was followed by half a dozen other names, some of which were repeated. The last name on the list was King’s again. Ben couldn’t imagine Becca’s father reading epic poetry.

  “King and his friends seem to find something useful in here. I thought you might like to give it a look,” Kath said. Ben waited, but she did not elaborate. “You’re welcome to stay here tonight,” she added.

  “And Becca?” Kath had done him this kindness—given him a gift. She was softening toward him, and he felt a weak ray of hope warm his neck. But Kath shook her head.