Purple Hearts

by Tess Wakefield

  If I could get through twenty minutes and twenty ankle curls, I could get through twenty-five, and I could go to the corner store a block away and get milk and eggs and bread.

  If I could get through thirty, I could practice stepping in and out of the bathtub.

  After last night’s training session, I’d asked Cassie to drop me off at a church down the street from her house for a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. I’m not sure if she knew why I was there, or what the meeting was for. We didn’t talk about it.

  Today, I was on forty. I hadn’t thought of a task equivalent to forty yet. I had at least worked up the strength to text Johnno that the severance was coming soon. He’d texted back, Cash this time, motherfucker, which was less threatening than usual. I could enjoy the sight of the riverbank for a half hour, I guessed. Dad used to take Jake and me here whenever he had to go to Austin to see his accountant.

  Now Jake was holding my cane while I leaned on a tree, bending my leg at more than a 160-degree angle. I’d called him and asked him if he could spare a Saturday to help me train. He’d said yes, as long as he could yell at me like a drill sergeant.

  To Jake, I’d learned, this mostly meant adding the word “maggot” to the end of what would otherwise be encouraging statements.

  “Nice work, you maggot!” he growled.

  I lifted again, straining to reach the height it would take for an able-bodied person to step over a shoebox. “I’m a regular Rocky Balboa.”

  Jake walked up the path, searching the trees, and walked back.

  “You see something?” I asked, lifting my foot through what felt like swamp mud. There’s no way Johnno would come here, right? I swallowed with a dry mouth.

  “No, nothing,” Jake said, hiding a smile.

  After I finished, we continued up the path. At my slow pace, I noticed the world more. The neon moss on the rocks. The white rock paths winding through the trees like train tracks. The golden retriever bounding down one of the stairways on a retractable leash.

  The dog nuzzled my leg, leaping up and down on its forepaws. It ran a tight circle around me, then licked my hands. “Hey, boy,” I said. “Hey, there.”

  “It’s a girl!” a voice called down the slope.

  Cassie appeared at the top of the stone steps, and jogged down, her hair flying. Behind her was her pale friend with the ponytail, Nora.

  I looked back and forth between Cassie and Jake. They kept giggling, and looking at me expectantly. “What’s up?”

  The dog was in a triangle of delight, grinning up at each of us in turn with her big cinnamon-colored eyes, tongue dangling.

  “Sorry, I meant to call you but I forgot my phone.”

  “You? Forgetting your phone?”

  She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Luke, this is Mittens. She’s yours.”

  “She’s mine?” I put a hand on her silky head. “How can she be mine?”

  “A program,” Jake said. “Dogs for Vets.”

  “You were in on this?” I pushed him on the arm.

  “Jake!” Cassie said. “You were supposed to tell him we found her at the foot of an ancient shrine, ruling over a commune of inferior dogs.”

  “She doesn’t seem like the queenly type,” Jake said, tilting his head. “Mittens is more the jester.”

  Mittens was currently biting a large stick, whipping it like it was a dead animal, but she kept poking herself in the side.

  “Or maybe the village idiot,” Nora said.

  “It was Nora’s idea, actually.”

  Nora gave me a thin-lipped smile. “Figured you could use some loosening up.”

  “Thank you,” I said, catching her eyes. “And you’re okay with this?” I asked Cassie.

  Cassie’s apartment was about to get a lot smaller. And smellier. I had never been much of an animal person. Not that I didn’t like dogs. My dad just never got Jake and me any pets because “we were animals enough.” And the stray dogs in Afghanistan were pretty much everyone’s dogs, not to mention they usually had dead rats hanging out of their mouths. I didn’t love the idea of caring for another being outside of myself, either, since caring for myself seemed hard enough.

  But I guess that was the point.

  Cassie bent down. “Oh, yes, I’m okay wit dis,” she said, rubbing Mittens’s ears. “Admit it—she’s so cute. Look at that cute little face, with the eyes and the nose and the face!”

  I had never seen Cassie so affectionate. With anyone, or anything. Not when she was trying to be “wifely,” not on the phone to Toby, not even on the phone to her mother. I couldn’t help but laugh. Mittens leaped around my knees, as if to agree.

  “What?” Cassie said, looking up at me, her cheeks pink. “I think she and Dante are going to be friends.”

  “She could eat Dante for breakfast.”

  The five of us continued up the trail, me taking charge of Mittens, Mittens taking charge of her stick.

  “Fingers crossed,” Cassie said.

  Cassie

  Yarvis was back. He’d brought croissants, which I set on the coffee table in front of Luke and me while Yarvis sat across from us. We’d both showered this time. Luke wore his button-down. I wore actual pants instead of cutoffs. The apartment was airy and lemony from cleaning.

  “There’s nothing like fresh-baked croissants,” Yarvis said.

  Luke and I exchanged looks.

  “Luke, you seem more awake. Cassie, how’s the music life?”

  “I’ve got to leave for practice in thirty minutes.” We were doing the song I’d written for Frankie. The Sahara show was in three days.

  “Well, we’ll try to be prompt.”

  “She will leave in the middle of a sentence, FYI,” Luke warned Yarvis.

  “Yeah, so? Why is it so hard to understand that this is my work? No one would be giving me shit if I were leaving for my job at the firm. This is my real work.”

  I tempered myself, realizing I was just talking aloud to an invisible version of Mom. But Toby had started to do it, too, acting offended and hurt because I wouldn’t treat him like my boyfriend at rehearsal, because he distracted me, and he pissed Nora off. He always thought I was mad at him. Then, because he kept asking if I was mad at him, I would actually get mad.

  Luke shrugged. “I was just saying, honey.”

  “Oh.” Interesting. I guess Luke wasn’t passing judgment, just stating a fact. “Thanks, babe.”

  Yarvis checked up on Luke’s PT progress—“Well, well, well,” he said—then told us we had to do some sort of role-playing game before he left. When he excused himself to go to the bathroom, I turned to Luke.

  “What is it with these people and their marital exercises?”

  “I know,” he said. “Whatever happened to the good old days of ‘your daughter for two goats, please’?”

  I elbowed him, feeling an ease I hadn’t since our Skype days. It felt like we were old pros. Old married pros.

  “Okay,” Yarvis said, settling in with another croissant. “The idea is that you pretend you are the other person, and make statements of gratitude. Cassie?”

  Mittens was at Yarvis’s feet, tail wagging, eyes on the croissant.

  “I’m Luke, and I’m grateful for Mittens,” I said in a Mickey Mouse impression. He loved it when I did high voices. And by “loved,” I mean he made a face like he was hearing a metal chair scrape on the ground. If I didn’t know you had such an incredible singing voice . . . he’d said last time.

  “Great. I sound just like that,” Luke said, flat.

  “Maybe leave out the impressions,” Yarvis said. “Okay, Luke?”

  Luke said, fake serious, “I’m Cassie, and I’m grateful my husband hasn’t changed Mittens’s name to Rambo Dog, despite repeated threats.”

  I rolled my eyes. “She wouldn’t even respond to Rambo Dog.”

  “She would if there’s bacon,” Luke asserted.

  “Okay, you two. Cassie?”

  “I’m Luke, and I’m grateful my wife hasn’t left m
y sorry ass,” I joked. I looked at Luke, expecting him to laugh, but he was staring at his phone, brow furrowed. He did that a lot. I knew it had to do with his family, or his money situation, neither of which it was within our boundaries for me to handle. Instead, I nudged him.

  “Luke,” Yarvis scolded. “You’re supposed to listen.”

  “Sorry,” Luke said, tucking his phone away.

  “I’m Luke,” I started again. “And I let my masculinity stunt my emotions.”

  I wasn’t joking on that one—all of his shrugging off help, his refusal to tell me what his nightmares were about—so I was surprised to see Luke smile and put his arm around me.

  “I could say the same for you, honey.”

  We both laughed at that. He was smarter than he thought he was. When he felt comfortable, he was as observant and witty as anyone I’d ever met.

  “See?” Yarvis said, smiling through a bite of croissant. “I told you it’d get easier.”

  Luke

  “Can you catch it, Mittens?” I held a neon-pink Buda Municipal Fire Department Frisbee to Mittens’s nose.

  “Try to make him catch it!” JJ screamed with delight.

  “That’s what Uncle Luke’s doing, honey,” Hailey said.

  “Mittens is a girly dog, JJ,” Jake said, squatting next to his son. “Not a ‘him.’ ”

  “Burgers will be ready in ten,” my dad called from the grill.

  “Salad will be ready . . . like, right now,” Cassie echoed, examining the bowl of romaine into which she had just poured Caesar dressing.

  We had gathered in my dad’s backyard for a barbecue. Jake and Hailey said it was my dad’s idea, though I had a feeling it had been Jake and Hailey’s idea.

  It was sunny out, the sky was ice blue, and Mittens seemed excited about the Frisbee, wagging her tail so hard it sent her backside back and forth. I whipped the disk toward the edge of the fence until it looked like it was going to sail clean over, before Mittens leaped and snatched it out of the air.

  Everyone erupted in cheers.

  Pain snaked from my shin to my hip, but now that I’d started to build muscle, I just winced instead of collapsing. “Good girl!” I rubbed her velvety ears.

  I hadn’t seen this yard sober for three years. Mittens was trotting near the bushes where I used to hide from Jake after I drew dicks in his comic books, waiting to pelt him with pebbles when he came out the back door. I’d pee in those bushes when I came home from a party cross-faded, hoping to avoid using the toilet so I could make as little noise as possible. There were probably still cigarette butts in the soil from when I would sneak over from Johnno’s place to steal pieces of white bread or bologna or whatever else I could grab.

  The last time I was here, Dad had walked in while I was microwaving a frozen burrito. He had told me to repay what Johnno and I had stolen from the garage, or he’d call the cops. It was only one or two hundred bucks. Cloud head had laughed. Dad had reached for the cordless and dialed. I’d dropped the burrito and started to run.

  That’s right, he’d said. Get out. You coward.

  Johnno had already started down the block. When Dad saw that I was running to get in the Bronco, he ran after me, cordless phone in hand. Luke!

  You’ve failed me. You’ve failed your mother. You’ve failed Jake.

  Dad had thrown the phone, hard, breaking the skin at the back of my head. I still have a scar.

  That was about a year before Jake and Hailey’s wedding. It was the last time I’d heard him say my name.

  Today, Cassie had rung the bell, as if I hadn’t spent the majority of my life opening that navy-painted door with a karate kick, slipping off my muddy shoes, flopping on the nearest piece of furniture.

  I hadn’t realized my hands were shaking until Cassie, noticing, put her hand over the one that held my cane. I looked around for my brother, for someone watching us. No one was. She squeezed.

  The door opened. My dad had aged, softened in a way. I hadn’t noticed when I’d seen him that day at the hospital. God, when had he become an old man?

  I’d held out my free hand.

  “Son,” he’d said, and took it.

  I was trying not to make it a big deal. But I guess you could say the natural state of my face was grin.

  While Cassie and Dad served up plates, Jake and Hailey and I watched JJ chase Mittens around the yard, launching his tiny body onto her back, trying to ride her.

  “Careful, don’t hurt the doggy!” Hailey called.

  “Saw you and Dad talking about where you served,” Jake said.

  I smiled at him. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” he replied, slapping me on the back.

  Hailey glanced over at us. She held up her hands, sarcastic. “Whoa, hey, you two. Don’t make a scene.”

  Over burgers, we talked about the dismal Rangers season, business at the garage, Cassie’s upcoming show. Mittens begged everyone for food.

  “See?” Dad said after Jake and I had teased him about how his burgers were more like little balls of meat. “Mittens doesn’t care what shape it’s in. She knows it tastes good.”

  After JJ sang us the alphabet song, Cassie told an abridged version of our city hall wedding. She did an imitation of the guy who married us, counting on her fingers in the exaggerated accent. “It was like he was listing cuts of meat, or something! We got a juicy Psalm 23, a fresh Corinthians, a fatty cut of Ephesians . . .”

  Hailey and Jake were losing it. Dad started laughing, too, and I noted that as number six. The sixth time I’d seen my dad laugh, it was Cassie. Before I thought about what I was doing, I leaned my head over and kissed her on the cheek.

  She kept laughing, giving me a look without missing a beat.

  As the sun set, I asked my dad if it would be all right if I took Cassie up to the attic. He nodded from where he had settled in his chair, watching football. Between Cassie and the cane, the stairs took only five minutes.

  “Cut my time in half,” I noted.

  “Don’t get cocky,” Cassie joked.

  My father’s old tin trunk sat between a box of Christmas lights and a stack of photo albums. It had been in the back of my mind for weeks now, and when Jake invited us over, I knew I had to come up here and find it. I bent gingerly to brush off dust from the top.

  “What is that?” Cassie asked.

  I unhooked the latches. I remembered Batman pajamas, Jake gurgling in my mother’s arms, both of us fresh from the bath. The feel of the rough canvas of Dad’s uniform, Morrow inscribed on the breast pocket. And underneath, the wooden box. Dad’s Purple Heart.

  I laughed to myself, holding it up for Cassie to see. She squinted from where she sat next to me on the floor, cross-legged.

  “Oh, is that— Holy shit! I didn’t know your dad had a Purple Heart.”

  Now I would have one, too. God, I couldn’t believe that. I had thought it made my dad the most important man in the world.

  “What’d he get it for?”

  “Shot twice in the side on the Mekong Delta.”

  I couldn’t keep the memories at bay now. “I remember he lifted up his shirt to show me the scars, and I remember touching those little pink bumps and just, like, thinking he was a superhero. Not even that. Better than a superhero because he was my dad. He was like the invincible human.”

  Cassie laughed.

  “To survive bullets, you know? And here I was, a little baby boy, crying about a bruise, and my dad was like the cowboys on TV, getting hit and not blinking an eye. Just going about his business. I wanted to be like that.”

  “You are like that,” Cassie said, touching my leg lightly.

  “Of course, it’s not the same,” I said. I didn’t feel invincible. Most of the time I felt like my skin was turned inside out. Today was one of the first days in a while when I didn’t mind that it was.

  “Of course not,” she agreed, smiling. “It’s always different when your parents do it.”

  “When my mom died, that’s what we did.
We pretended we were invincible,” I said, and hesitated.

  I had never talked about my mom with Cassie, but I wanted her to know. I wanted her to know everything. “We just went about our business. Didn’t mourn, didn’t talk about it, and it wasn’t really fair.”

  “To you?”

  “No, to her. Just letting her disappear like she wasn’t also the most important person in the world.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Five. It was ovarian cancer. I barely remember her. A lady at the church had to tell me how she died. When I asked my dad, he said something like, ‘Don’t worry about it. Let her be in peace.’ ”

  “Damn.” Cassie fiddled with the collar on my uniform, then looked at me. “What is it with you and your dad, anyway?”

  I sighed. “It’s a long story. He did the best he could.”

  “He’s doing,” she corrected. “Doing the best he can.”

  “You’re right.” I regarded her, realizing that even though I’d known her for only a few months, even though our relationship had been predicated on a lie, she’d seen me at my worst and she was still here. “Thank you,” I said, quickly—it felt urgent, up here among all these stories, before we had to go back downstairs to the real world. “For everything, in the past few months.”

  She smiled, calm, unafraid. “You’re welcome. You know, if you talked this much all the time, our lives might be a little easier. I might understand you a little better.”

  “Ha. Don’t get used to it.”

  “I’d like to,” she said, then stood, fast, embarrassed.

  I busied myself putting things back into the trunk. We didn’t have long before I was discharged. I knew that and she knew that, but we’d been playing married all day and there was permanence in the air. Little comments, like when she was playing with JJ, Hailey had asked if there would be a little Cassie or Luke in the future.

  The ease of her taking my hand before I saw my dad, the ease of kissing her on the cheek when I was proud of her, my funny, creative, fake wife.

  I knew it was all an illusion, a life we’d dreamed up out of desperation, but in that moment it felt real.