Purple Hearts

by Tess Wakefield

  Yarvis agreed again, naming some programs and schools I should check out. Dad kept his gaze forward, but I could tell he was listening.

  “Okay!” Jake said, jogging back from his car in a suit, holding his camera.

  Yarvis cleared his throat, and brought a small square box out of his pocket.

  “The Purple Heart is given to soldiers wounded or killed in the line of duty. It is a symbol of courage and sacrifice. Today, we award Private First Class Luke Morrow, active—soon to be inactive—member of the United States Army Thirty-fourth Red Horse Infantry Division.”

  Yarvis took the medal out of the box and handed the box to Hailey, who teared up. “Though off the battlefield, Luke, let’s be honest, you can be kind of a dumdum.”

  Jake snorted, covering his mouth.

  “It doesn’t take away the courage you showed in combat. I’m proud to present this medal to you today.”

  He pinned it to my uniform. Jake and Hailey clapped and I couldn’t help but smile as I looked down at it. A gold heart hung from a purple ribbon, etched with Washington’s silhouette. It signified sacrifice, pride. Hard work. Even as my life exploded around me, this proved that there had been good, at least for a little while. And that maybe, one day, there could be good again.

  “Yay!” JJ shouted. “Let’s eat more brownies!”

  “Okay, okay, gotta get a photo. Yarvis, do you mind?”

  Jake handed him the camera. We moved closer together—me on one side, then Hailey, Jake, and my dad, facing the sunset behind the house.

  “I want to stand by Grampy,” JJ said.

  “Okay,” my dad said. “Right in front of Grampy.” JJ moved. “And Luke?”

  I turned my head. His medal was pinned next to his sewn name, Morrow, just like mine. It glinted in the sun. Dad stepped to the right, making a space between him and Jake.

  “Why don’t you come stand over here, next to me?”

  Cassie

  I’d found it. Frankie had sent the wedding footage from city hall so long ago, and I’d downloaded it, thinking that someday when it was all over I’d remix a sample of the hilarious orange-shirted officiant for a song. That part when he said, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Pagan, I got ’em all.

  I sat on my bed. After Fleetwood Friday, everything had felt like a dream: signing a contract, loading Toby’s drums into a U-Haul trailer that we’d pull with my car until we could afford a tour van, calling the lead singer of Dr. Dog to introduce ourselves.

  I had thought about calling Luke upward of twenty million times after we had met up yesterday. But I didn’t know what I wanted to say. Part of me was still mad that with the hearing and the feelings I was wrestling with, I had forgotten to be more angry at him. There’d been no guarantee that my mom was okay except his word, and the fact that so far, no one had messed with her. I guess I had to trust him.

  And part of me was still sitting across from him, seeing how he tried not to be disappointed that I couldn’t make the Purple Heart ceremony. And it wasn’t just guilt. I wanted to be there. But when he had said it would be just a small thing, with family, I probably wasn’t included in that anymore. His sweet nephew, his funny brother and tough-as-nails sister-in-law, his father, whose wall was thick, but once you were in, you were in. I liked them. I wanted to see them, to say sorry for the trouble. To tell his father, especially, that his son was a good man. A brave man.

  But of course I couldn’t call Luke and tell him this.

  People in the social media age don’t just call people and tell them their feelings. Instead, they look at photos and videos of them, and convince themselves of how they should feel, right? Sure. I didn’t have any photos of Luke, but I had the video of our city hall wedding.

  I pressed Play.

  Frankie had forgotten to press Record at first, I remembered that now. He didn’t catch the part with the prayers. We’d had to start again.

  The officiant looking pointedly at the camera, opening the Bible, pretending he was doing this for the first time.

  As you embark on this marriage, God grant you both the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

  Can’t disagree with that, I had said.

  A shot of our hands, Luke squeezing. Me trying not to laugh.

  Every shot of the ceremony was weaved with my memories of what would come after it.

  Do you, Cassie, take Luke to be your partner for life? Do you promise to walk by his side forever, and to love, help, and encourage him in all he does?

  Goddamn, that was good! Luke had exclaimed when I played it for him over Skype, one of the first displays of enthusiasm I’d ever seen out of him. She will leave in the middle of a sentence, FYI, he’d told Yarvis, and I thought he was making fun of me. But no: I was just saying, honey. He was accepting me. Accepting that my work came first. Never trying to swallow me.

  Me opening my mouth to say I do, but being interrupted. Luke glancing sideways.

  Do you promise to take time to talk with him, to listen to him, and to care for him?

  The image of his back as he entered Mom’s house, cane lifted, ready to protect us. Holding the glucose pack to my lips, letting my head fall on his shoulder. His slumped form as I washed his back in the bath, surrendering. He’d always remembered to thank me. Every time.

  Will you share his laughter, and his tears, as his partner, lover, and best friend?

  The feeling of his tears falling onto my head as we sat on the couch, into my hair, before we kissed. The feeling of safety. The feeling of making him laugh, even when we were sitting stiff on my futon, discussing the possibility of being convicted of a crime. Our crime.

  I do, I had said.

  I do, Luke had said.

  By the power vested in me by the state of Texas, I now pronounce you husband and wife.

  The thick second of staring at each other in the eyes.

  Go on and kiss her, son!

  I’d kissed him. I thought it was just his lips that I’d liked.

  Ow! I yelled. Fuck!

  I laughed out loud on the hotel bed, watching my enraged face try to yank my hair out of his buttons.

  What happened?

  Luke laying a hand on my head.

  We’d come so far since then. So much had happened. And we had come out with scars, with strength.

  I rewound the footage to the beginning.

  . . . the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

  The courage to change the things I could. We still had a couple of hours before we needed to hit the road to Galveston.

  I found my keys.

  Luke

  Strange to find myself back on Dad’s lawn, feeling differently than even just weeks ago, when I was here with Cassie. I felt as if I had been chewed up and spit out, but tougher for it. Less static. Less of the elephant-on-the-chest feeling. Less doubt, even when I thought of Cassie, and came up with only questions. That was how this worked, I was realizing. Big questions had only small answers, barely answers at all, more like fractions of answers, and you just had to hope that one day those fractions would come together to form something passable.

  Dad and Jake were approaching from the cooler, fresh beers in their hands.

  “And then Luke starts chanting,” Jake was telling Dad. “And the whole crowd is like”—he made the airy, loud whisper that people make when they’re imitating crowds—“Jacob, Jacob, Jacob.”

  “I mean, it’s a year’s worth of Gino’s,” I said, letting out a laugh. “Big moment. Lot on the line.”

  “Except Gino’s pizza tastes like cardboard soaked in grease,” my dad said.

  Jake shook his head. “You just like undercooked dough, is your problem.”

  Dad made a pff sound, and sent a sunflower seed rocketing a little too close to Jake to seem accidental. Jake put up a forearm to block it, laughing.

&
nbsp; We were quiet again, watching JJ make a nonsense-sound-filled circle around Hailey, who was sitting in the grass, sipping a beer.

  Jake pulled his phone out of his pocket, stared at it, and began texting furiously.

  I looked back at JJ. Though I was hopeful about the charges being dropped, I was planning for the worst, where Cassie was concerned. I was resigned that no matter how I ended up, wanting Cassie from a distance and knowing she’d never want me was the most manageable way to think. My method: I could think of things that I liked about her, and then replace them with some very concrete, tangible elements in the present moment.

  Thing: I missed the way her car smelled. Replacement: The fresh-cut grass. Remnants of Dad’s meatball burgers on the grill.

  Thing: I missed the way she shuffled around her wood floors in her socks, not bothering to pick up her feet because, as she said, “It’s fun, it feels like ice skating.” Replacement: The sound of Jake snorting to himself as he looked at his phone. A casual moment. A kind of moment that I had taken for granted.

  Thing: her singing voice. Replacement: I didn’t have one yet.

  Jake cleared his throat. “Hey, uh. Luke.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “You’re gonna wanna check around the house.”

  I shot him a puzzled look, but he just shrugged. I made my way across the yard, and squinted beyond the back door. A car was pulling into the driveway. A beat-up white Subaru, to be exact.

  Cassie

  I texted Jake when I got close to Buda. That way I couldn’t back out.

  I sped, making the twenty-minute journey in fifteen, and each time I thought about turning around, I pressed the gas more.

  What was I going to do, run into his dad’s backyard and give him a Hollywood kiss?

  Here’s looking at you, kid.

  God, they were going to think I was crazy. I was going to solidify every stereotype about emotional women that ever existed. Crazed, illogical, blind to the rules of society. Rules like speed limits and whether a relatively random woman could just waltz into someone’s private property and declare love.

  I was just a woman with something to say.

  I just wanted him to know. That’s all. He could do whatever he wanted with it. I fucking helped him take a bath, for God’s sake. The least he could do was hear me out.

  I slowed down as I approached, and parked in the driveway. I took a deep breath, and got out. As I came around the house, my hands were shaking.

  “Hey,” I called when the backyard came into view, shielding my eyes from the sun.

  Luke’s mouth was hanging open. He was wearing his dress blues, looking handsome and distinguished and unapologetically happy. Jake was covering his face, trying not to laugh. Luke’s dad was looking at me like I was a crazy woman.

  Fuck ’em.

  I approached Luke. He was still smiling. That was a good sign. I could hear Jake and his wife muttering to each other.

  “Hi,” I said, stuffing my hands firmly in my pockets.

  “Hi,” he said.

  Well, this was it, the fuck it moment. I motioned to a corner of the yard. Luke met me near a patch of bushes.

  “I’m sorry I missed the ceremony,” I started. “I just needed to come anyway. Because after we talked, I thought a lot.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” he said.

  My heart lifted. “Really?”

  “Really.” He swallowed. “But go ahead.”

  I pressed tighter into my pockets. Holding myself together. I stared at the grass below my feet. “I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to, you know, be involved after everything that’s happened. But I need you to know that—” It felt wrong to say this to the ground. I looked up at him. “I love you.”

  His eyebrows raised, those long lashes blinking in surprise over the blue-gray eyes. He wasn’t responding. That’s okay. At least I said it. And yet.

  “And I don’t mean it in a shallow way, you know, like, in love, like what someone would say in a Disney movie, or what teenagers say to each other so they can have sex.”

  He laughed.

  “I mean it without a doubt, like the old people who hold hands on the street. I care for you, I will always care for you, I love you, and I will wait for you, if that’s what we need to do.”

  “Cassie, I—” he began, taking a deep breath, and looking past me.

  Just say something. I looked back down at the lawn. My old friend, the lawn.

  “I love you, too.”

  My eyes snapped upward.

  He reached out his hands, hesitant, and put them on my shoulders. “I love you.”

  “Really?” My heart expanded, flooded with light.

  “Really.”

  We moved together at the same time. I wrapped my arms around his neck, meeting his open mouth with mine, pushing into his lips with a sure kiss, a relieved kiss, a kiss with his still hands on my ribs, his fingertips sliding around to my back, mine brushing his chest, exploring in a way we had never gotten a chance to before.

  “So no matter how the hearing goes, we’re going to do this?” he asked when we let go.

  “No matter how it goes,” I said. “And we’re going to win. Well, we’re going to fight it hard, anyway.”

  “Damn right, we are,” he said, wrapping an arm around me, pressing, holding.

  I looked over at his family, and gave a feeble wave. Jake and Jacob senior turned away, pretending to fiddle with the grill. Hailey hid a smile behind a cough, and JJ stared unabashedly, a toy car dangling from his hand, forgotten.

  I turned back to Luke, and looked at the time. It was five. We were going on at nine. “Shit.” I smiled at him. “I gotta go play a show.”

  “Okay.”

  We headed side by side toward the driveway, skipping every other step, making good time. He took my hand as we walked. My eyes pricked hot, wet.

  “Cassie,” Luke said suddenly.

  “Yeah?” I said through my tears.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do, or how this will work, but I love you,” he said. I let go of his hand, and got into the car. He added through the window, “And then we’ll go from there.”

  I nodded at him, unable to speak. As I backed out of the driveway, Luke waved. I waved back.

  Luke was right; we didn’t know what we’d do. We knew we were no longer the worst things everyone once thought of us. We weren’t criminals or addicts or liars or cheats, but what came after, we didn’t know. But maybe we didn’t have to know. We’d love each other, first and foremost, and then we’d go from there.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Lanie Davis, Annie Stone, and the entire team at Alloy Entertainment. Thank you to Emma Colón for her time and her sharp eyes on the outline. Thank you to Aimee, Ondrea Stachel, and Kim Ross for sharing their experience with diabetes. And finally, big thanks to Kyle Jarrow for the inspiration, and to Emily Bestler for putting Purple Hearts out into the world.

  About the Author

  TESS WAKEFIELD works in Golden Valley, Minnesota, as a copywriter, an amateur comedian, and a caretaker for several thriving plants. Purple Hearts is her first novel for adults.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  First Emily Bestler Books/Atria Paperback edition April 2017

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-1-5011-3649-8

  ISBN 978-1-5011-3650-4 (ebook)