by Chris Fabry
He bent to kiss her, and she cupped her gnarled hand around his cheek and held him there, as if drinking in the past. She looked at June Bug, who stood mouth agape. “And who do we have here?”
“Mrs. Linderman, I want you to meet June Bug.” He glanced at the girl. “Mrs. Linderman is the mother of a friend of mine. A real special person.”
June Bug held out her hand as the withered one enveloped it. The old woman’s eyes twinkled. “You’re just as pretty as a picture, aren’t you? John, where in the world did you find such a beauty?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” he said.
“It’s nice to meet you,” June Bug said. “I wish I could say I’ve heard all about you, but I haven’t.”
Mrs. Linderman threw back her head and laughed. “I suppose this fellow here is a little quiet about his past.”
As June Bug nodded, John put a hand on the girl’s head. “We’re working on talking more. Telling each other the truth.”
June Bug looked up at him. “We are?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I think that’s a great idea,” Mrs. Linderman said. “Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it. That’s what I’ve always heard.” The woman sighed, took John’s hand, and gazed at new leaves swaying in the breeze. “I like to come out here each evening and watch the sunset. God puts on a show for me.” Though the heat was still oppressive, she rubbed her arms like it was the middle of winter. “Would you mind pushing me to my room, sweetheart?”
June Bug got behind her, and the woman bent down and released the brake on one wheel. “Through the doors and straight on till morning,” she cackled.
John walked beside her, holding her hand, slowing June Bug. “This is a bit different than your other house down in the valley.”
“I suppose. Of course, it’s nothing compared to the townhome I was living in. But I had a fall and needed somebody to watch me.” She waved at one of the workers and smiled like they were best friends.
“Break anything?” John said.
“Chipped a hip,” she said. “It was downhill from there. So I sold that for a nice profit before the real estate market fell and moved up here to my Versailles, as I call it. They spend as much time on the flowers as they do the medical treatment.” She craned her neck to look at him. “You don’t think it’s too highfalutin, do you?”
“I’d say you deserve everything here and more. But how can you afford it?”
She cocked her head at him with a knowing glance, almost surprised at the question. “You don’t know?”
“What? You hit the lottery? They find oil under that townhome?”
“No, and I didn’t go to Vegas.”
June Bug stayed quiet, listening and pushing slowly, taking it all in. There was tile in a fancy array that led to carpet in even fancier arrays, and it seemed she was having a hard time concentrating.
“Up here on the right, June Bug,” the old woman said. “This is my home away from home. My final resting place.”
The room was large, with a sitting area and kitchenette and an open bedroom next to a window that stretched the entire wall. Mrs. Linderman had the shades open, and there was a pond nearby with ducks and geese swimming and waddling on a path near some cattails. The valley below was green and inviting and seemed to fall away in the distance.
“Nice view,” John said.
“I’m a very fortunate old lady. June Bug, wheel me over to the chair if you would.”
June Bug did and the old lady positioned herself next to it, hit a button that raised the chair, and then she managed to perfectly seat herself and let it down. She took a deep breath and motioned for them to sit on the couch. There were two pictures on the end table facing her—an older man, smiling, and a younger man in a uniform. The men looked identical except for the years between them.
“So, what brings you to my humble abode?” she said.
“The question isn’t what brings us here; it’s what brought you here. Tell me. How can you afford this?”
She shook her head. “You have the same fortune in that box I gave you.”
John sat forward uneasily. “What do you mean?”
“Yeah, what do you mean?” June Bug said.
Mrs. Linderman looked at the girl. “A long time ago your father did something kind and considerate for my son. Now, your daddy didn’t think it was kind at the time, and he came to see me after my son died. He was filled with lots of bad thoughts. He blamed himself for what happened.”
“I still do,” John said.
“What happened?” June Bug said.
“We can talk about that later,” John said.
Mrs. Linderman paused. “I gave him a box. It had some money and other things in it.”
“I took it from you and the cop brought me back.”
“I gave it to you. I explained all that to him.”
“Wait,” June Bug said. “The police brought you back where?”
John stood and walked to the window, ignoring the question. “I used the money to buy the RV. That’s the money we’ve been living on the past few years, June Bug.”
“But there was more in the box,” Mrs. Linderman said. “Those certificates I endorsed.”
John turned. “The stuff in the envelope?”
Mrs. Linderman nodded. “You didn’t open it?”
“I want to hear about the police,” June Bug said.
Mrs. Linderman held up a hand. “It was a misunderstanding at the worst. A friend of my son who was looking out for me.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” John said.
“Now we finally agree about something. I didn’t have to, but I did for a simple reason. I knew you were a good man, John. I knew you were going to do something terrible. So I had to do something drastic. And that’s why I put the box out there. In a sense, it was payment to bring you back to your senses.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” June Bug said, shaking her head as she tried to take all the information in. “What happened with you and the box and . . . the police?”
John knelt before the girl. “I’ll explain later.”
“No,” June Bug said. “I want to hear it now. I want to hear her tell it.”
“She’s got spunk,” Mrs. Linderman said. “Just like you.”
John took a breath. “She’s not my daughter.”
“What?” June Bug said, almost jumping out of the chair.
“Settle down. I’ll tell you.”
“She’s not yours?” Mrs. Linderman said.
“No. I mean, I’ve been her father since she was little. And I’ve been the best one I know how to be, which isn’t saying much.”
“You find her hiding under a cabbage leaf?”
John moved to the floor in front of both of them and crossed his legs. “Why don’t we take one story at a time?”
“How could you not be my father?” June Bug said.
“I’d rather take the box first,” John said.
June Bug crossed her arms. “Fine, as long as you get to both of them.”
John looked at the floor and began. “I was in a bad place. I hadn’t been out of the service for—”
“What’s service?” June Bug said.
“The military. Her son and I were in Afghanistan together.”
“What did you do there?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess you could say we killed people and broke things. Bad people. Men who wanted to kill us. People who hate freedom.”
“And something happened to your son?” June Bug said to Mrs. Linderman.
The old woman nodded to John, as if to say, Let him tell it.
“We were in a firefight—a bad battle with lots of guns going off and mortar shells. We’d been sent to take care of some enemies, and we thought there were only a few. But there turned out to be a lot more. So we were caught. Pinned down. And a couple of our guys were hurt. Her son was a medic, took care of people’s wounds, so he started off for them. I tried to talk him
out of it. I tried to tell him they were gone, but he wouldn’t listen. He had a job to do.” John kept rubbing his hands and the more he told, the harder he rubbed.
June Bug sat rapt, studying his face.
“I tried to cover him, but there were too many. And I was getting low on ammo. Then the air strike came, but Calvin made it to the injured. There was smoke and fire everywhere, lots of explosions, but there he was, putting bandages on them and trying to stop their bleeding.”
A tear trickled down Mrs. Linderman’s face. She put her chin in her hand and leaned forward. “You were there for him.”
Overcome with emotion, John shook his head. “No, I wasn’t. I didn’t help.”
“That’s not what the report said.”
“I don’t care what the report said. I know what happened. I didn’t do everything I could.”
“You were a hero.”
“I was a coward. I let him crawl out there alone. If I had listened to him earlier . . .” John put his hands to his head, trying to put a finger in the dike of memories. He looked at June Bug. “You asked me once why I sweat at night. Why I sometimes wake up yelling. This is why. Her son. And the other guys who were with me. It was my fault.”
“You didn’t pick the mission, John. You followed orders. You were being a good soldier.”
“A good leader anticipates. A good leader doesn’t get in a situation like that. In a place where they had no chance.”
“You survived,” June Bug said.
John nodded and pressed his lips together. “That’s part of my problem.”
“A good leader lays down his life for his friends,” the old woman said. “That’s what you did.”
“No. Your son did that. And his sacrifice haunts me. I should have listened to him.”
Silence in the room. Just an old clock ticking on the mantel. The sun was gone now with just a silhouette of the hills in the gloaming. The three sat like statues waiting for someone to bring them to life.
Finally June Bug slipped from the couch onto the floor beside him. “I don’t think it was your fault. I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”
“She’s got that right,” Mrs. Linderman said. “You did everything you could. There’s not one ounce of you that wanted to see your friends hurt. And if they could be here right now, not one of them would ever hold it against you.”
John looked up at her, his eyes stinging.
She continued. “Now you have to do one more thing. Maybe the hardest thing. Let it go so it can let go of you. You know Calvin wouldn’t want you to feel this way. He’d want you to go on living. He’d want you to use your life for good.”
“I’ve tried. The only thing that’s kept me going this whole time . . .” He glanced at June Bug. “She’s the best this world has to offer.”
“Well, I don’t doubt that,” Mrs. Linderman said. She looked at the girl, who sat with a blank expression. “How did you two meet?”
John held up a hand. “Not yet.”
“I thought he was my dad,” June Bug said. “I always have.”
“Well, if he took good care of you, he was. Has he been a good father to you?”
June Bug nodded slowly. “We’ve been lots of places together. He’s taught me a lot about history and what side of a tree moss grows on and stuff like that.”
John stood and ran a hand through his hair, unable to cross into uncharted waters before leaving these. “How did you know it would work?” he said to the old woman. “How did you know giving me the money would keep me from . . . hurting myself?”
Mrs. Linderman sat back. “To be honest, I didn’t. I knew you didn’t want to live. That what happened weighed on you. But I prayed God would love you through it. That he would break through the darkness. And that you’d come to your senses.” She paused, the wrinkles of her face lessening as she looked at him. “Actually, if you want to know the truth, my prayer wasn’t about you at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“We need men like you. As much as our country doesn’t want to admit it, we need men who aren’t afraid to stand up to evil. We need men who will answer their country’s call without flinching. Every time something comes up in the world that everybody else is afraid to handle or simply can’t, American men do. We need good men, and that’s what you are. So when I thought about what the pain was doing to you, I just flipped things around. I asked God to bring someone into your life who would need you. Someone who would teach you what real love is all about. I figured it would be some old stray dog or cat or maybe a woman. But he did something more wonderful, didn’t he?” She looked at June Bug. “Where’s your mama, honey?”
June Bug hesitated. “I’m not sure.”
The old woman looked back at John.
“It’s complicated,” John said.
She nodded. “Life generally is. I don’t want to overstep my bounds, but I think my prayer was answered. And the important thing is, you came back. Just you sitting here in my room is an answer to my prayers and shows God is still on his throne. And every day since then, I’ve been asking God to give you a peace and a rest. You deserve that, son.”
“Wait,” June Bug said. “What about the police and the box? I don’t understand.”
John sat with his back against the stone fireplace. “I had a little money left after I was discharged. I used it to come out here and keep a promise. My plan was to bring her the things Calvin had given me. Then I was just going to go off and . . . not be here anymore.”
“And she gave you a box?”
“No, she told me I needed to stay with her. She lived in that little house by the farm. She gave me Calvin’s room and sometime between dinner and bedtime she got out this gray box and while I was watching, she put money and an envelope in there. Later that night I took it.”
“You stole it?” June Bug said, wide-eyed.
He nodded. “I took off after she went to sleep. I was in a bar, with that box on the table, taking money out and buying drinks, when an officer noticed me. He came over, asked if he could look inside. He takes some paper out and says, ‘I know Mrs. Linderman.’ That’s when he gets out his gun and puts the cuffs on me.”
“What happened then?” June Bug said.
“The officer drove me over there and knocked on the door. It took her a while to get there.”
“I was just playacting,” Mrs. Linderman said. “I knew as soon as I saw the cruiser in the driveway what was up.”
“She opened the door, saw me in the cuffs, and just about chewed that officer down to a sapling.”
Mrs. Linderman laughed. “I threw into him like nobody’s business.”
“The officer thought she was going to thank him for catching a crook, and she nearly slapped him. ‘Get those cuffs off him. Do you realize this is a war hero? You don’t even deserve to be standing beside this man.’ That kind of stuff.”
June Bug laughed at John’s imitation of Mrs. Linderman.
“Then she says, ‘John, I’m glad you came back. I forgot to endorse those certificates. There’s no way you can liquidate them without my signature.’ You could have knocked me down just by breathing on me. I thought for sure she was . . .” The emotion overcame him and he put his head down.
Mrs. Linderman picked up the story. “The officer couldn’t believe it either. You should have seem him fumbling with the keys to those cuffs. Just as if I’d planned the whole thing, I took the box and got that envelope with the papers out and started signing. And when I looked up and saw the officer, I yelled at him to get out of there unless he wanted a lawsuit for unlawful arrest.”
June Bug laughed again.
John shook his head. “I’ll never forget what you did next.”
“Wasn’t anything special.”
“It saved my life.”
“What happened?” June Bug said. “What did you do?”
John stood and walked to the window, waiting for her answer. When it didn’t come, he turned and crossed his arms. “Aft
er the officer was gone, she closed the box and gave it to me. I said I couldn’t take it and she said, ‘You’re not taking this. It’s a gift.’ She said there was enough to make a new start.”
The old woman chuckled. “I had no idea how right I was.”
“She said she was buying something valuable with that box. My soul.”
June Bug scrunched her face. “How do you buy somebody’s soul?”
“What I meant was,” Mrs. Linderman said, “that he was a valuable creation of God. And that he shouldn’t throw away that gift. I told him he needed to take that gift and go make a difference.”
“What did you say?” June Bug said.
“I didn’t say anything, as I remember it. I just took it and left. Wandered back up the road and sat in a field and thought about my life.
“The next morning I went into town. I’d counted the money in there and figured I could buy a nice car, but then I saw an RV and it made sense. I could live there and head back home.”
“She gave you enough money to buy our RV?”
“And more,” John said. “But that still doesn’t explain how you can afford to live here.”
“You didn’t cash those stock certificates, did you?”
“What’s a stock certificate?” June Bug said.
“It’s something a company gives you that makes you part of that company. If you own a share, you have a say in what that company does and a part of their profits or loss.”
John searched his memory. “Walmart,” he said. “You worked at Walmart, didn’t you?”
Mrs. Linderman smiled. “Worked at Sam’s first store. And over the years I received stock in the company.”
“Who’s Sam?”
“Sam Walton, the man who started Walmart. I still remember him driving around in that old truck. I moved around a few times to different stores, but I worked there for nearly thirty years. At about the time I was to retire, my husband passed and I got worried whether his life insurance and my Social Security would be enough.
“I had some family members over for a barbecue—and one of my nephews is a financial whiz. I cornered him and asked him what I should do. He asked if I had any investments. I told him about the stocks I’d kept and he went through them. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he came outside. He said, ‘You don’t have a money worry in the world.’ Turned out those stocks were worth a few million dollars. I nearly dropped my dentures. I don’t care what anybody says; old Sam knew how to take care of his workers.”