She paused in her reading, scanning that last paragraph again, then staring into the mist that had become a steady rain that rattled on the tin porch roof. She was almost afraid to continue reading for fear she would learn something she didn’t want to know. Like he’d married, settled down, become dull and boring. Like she’d never see him again. And now, sitting there holding his letter, she wanted to see him more than she had ever thought she could.
Adjusting her glasses, she bent to the letter once more.
Today, writing this page, I’m in D.C., staring at this incredible black wall covered with names of the dead. It’s taken me a long time to make it this far, to face this, my final encounter with the past. And my God, what a trip. I imagine my own name chiseled here but for a quirk of fate. God knows I tried hard enough to get it there. All those names. Dear God, Liz, it hits you right between the eyes, seeing them like reflections in an infinite mirror. What a price to pay for nothing but a goddamned lesson we may not remember or profit by.
Lots of guys are leaving their medals here at the wall, and I’m finally sure that is a far better place than what I had in mind. You remember that I wanted to stick them up Nixon’s ass? Well, whatever you decide to do with them is fine with me.
She thought of those precious battle decorations attesting to his bravery, packed away in a small wooden box in her cedar chest with other of her life’s treasures.
Then she read on.
As I sit here in the grass writing, a fella sitting under a tree is playing “Blowing In The Wind” on a guitar that looks like it’s been to hell and back. So does he and so do I, for that matter, but then I guess we have. The point is, we are back, and it’s just about time we quit glancing over our shoulder for a sign of the demons. Time we put away the sad songs. Hell, they don’t write them anymore anyway, unless you count country western, and that’s way different, isn’t it?
I’d like to go talk to him, that guitar player, ask him if he knows “Puff The Magic Dragon,” but I probably won’t.
How very odd I feel, sitting here where nearly twenty years ago we marched and chanted our idealisms, some of us shedding our first blood, me included. That they chose this place for a memorial to the men who died in the very war we protested is probably pure chance, yet it fills me with an awe at the way things work out.
Lefty would have said God flipped us a birdie, and he might have been right. I wonder if you ever hear from him... or Shadow. It’s as if they slipped from my life and disappeared in some dark void. My connection to you remains, though, and I carry you in my heart. But I digress. I have things to say about war, and no one to say them to anymore...but you.
Battle should be to end war, not just a violent struggle to survive. Those who die should have perished for something, not just died, leaving the rest of us with a bitter taste of guilt. Funny how that applies to life as well.
When they write books about war, they always tell about a soldier holding his dying buddy in his arms. God knows I saw plenty die, but mine lived in my arms and always blamed me for it. Held me accountable in some strange way. When I finally came out of the wilderness, I went from a spiritual search for my own survival to taking lumps for causing Lefty to be alive. I keep coming back to Lefty, don’t I? I suppose we both wanted something neither could give, and when we finally realized that, it sure as hell pissed us off. Sent us on a rampage that might have ended badly had it not been for a pretty, sunburned schoolteacher and her naive courage.
Jesus, Liz, I loved you that summer. Didn’t know there was such a thing. Reckon I still do. Now don’t go getting all flush-faced and embarrassed. I hope you found some happiness.
But something I really need to tell you—I went to see Jenny. Once I got started, I couldn’t seem to stop till I wiped the slate clean. I wanted to have the one great thing that happened to me—you, sweet Liz—free of any shadows. She’s fine, Jenny is. Just where I expected her to be. In Coleman, Colorado, where her old man can see to her. She married a local fella who sells insurance. After the two kids came along, her old man decided to help her out, so they’re pretty well fixed.
She answered the door, peering through the screen, not knowing who I was at first. I look a bit more respectable than I did when we were married. When she figured it out, she came unglued. Had me to supper, played her part to the hilt, showing me with near cruelty what I’d missed out on by treating her so badly. Not keeping her when I had the chance. Oh, she’s still beautiful, all right, but underneath all that whipped cream, try as I might, I couldn’t uncover her true flavor, no taste of her soul, if you know what I mean.
“Oh, Steven,” Liz murmured. “Dear Steven.” She was forced to wipe tears from her eyes before she continued reading.
In the end, I wished them all well, even shared a game of eight ball with her old man. I couldn’t wait to get the hell away from there. Away from the plastic-covered couch and white carpeting no one was allowed to walk on, away from the mirrored walls they both seem to spend an inordinate amount of time preening before. Even their children have caught on to that game.
Stupid to even comment on such a shallow thing, now that I think about it. And, oh, yeah, she told me she forgave me for what I did to her.
Now we come to the point of this letter. I’m going home. I bought a few acres of our old place down on the Red River. You remember Rossville, Oklahoma, and the Kiamichi Mountains? Not where the house was, but on a bluff above the river where Papa and I used to fish, and not far from where Mama used to sit in the porch swing and take the cool evening breeze off the water.
That’s where I went when I first left you. At the time I didn’t know anything but that I had to have a small piece of comfort, rest in the arms of something familiar and soothing. Visit with Mama’s and Papa’s spirits a while, start searching for answers and forgiveness instead of hiding away somewhere.
Inside me is contentment and a resolution to place myself firmly on that soil where at last I will endure. Not solely because of any one thing, like the ghosts of the past, but for all the things. One day I want to build a house. Of an evening I can sit on the porch and catch the breeze off the river. Cottonwoods grow there. Fragile trees, sort of like a lot of things in life. They don’t live long in this country. The wind off the Texas side of the river shatters their limbs in the dark stormy nights. But while they live their leaves ripple in the wind like rain tiptoeing on a tin roof. And in the fall they turn as bright as buttered sunshine. A sight that once you see it you’ll never forget.
I’m going to build a cabin in sight of them but up away from that treacherous old river. I know I’ll see you in each room, and on the porch. I’ll keep a fishing rod up against the wall, just for you, in case you ever decide to drop by.
There are many things I want to do. I don’t kid myself that my life might mean something in the huge scheme of things, but I look forward to bright and shiny days. Like we used to say in ’Nam, I want to take a walk in the sun. I may go back to school. My folks’ money is mostly still there in the one bank left in that struggling old town. Do you believe that? Mama and Papa, they wanted so much for me, and made sure I could have it. What a long time their hopes have had to wait. What a disappointment I must have been to them, to myself, to you. How very sad a thing it is to be worth nothing in this world, to take with such a mean spirit and never give. But I’ve told them goodbye, let them go, Liz, because I can do nothing less. I have to be their legacy, and that’s a real burden, but I’m up to it at last.
My darling Liz, I can see you now, green eyes glimmering, smiling because you were right all along and it’s time I figured it out. There are things I want to do, like maybe teach kids, those tough high school monsters, you know. There’s still a lot of the rebel in me, and the bike—I’ve still got it. But I promise I’ll never again steal space from this life. It’s payback time.
Oh, and there’s one more thing I want to tell you. The most important thing of all. That day we made love in the rain, all the times yo
u laughed at my silliness, and we cried over the music and held each other all night to keep away the nightmares, memories of all that kept me alive long enough to come this far.
I’ll always love you and hold tight to memories of the time we had together. I wish we could be together. I pray you’ll forever be happy.
She lowered the letter and gazed off into space, tears glimmering in her eyes just as Steven might have imagined they would. She wanted suddenly to be with him, to tell him about the death of his friend Lefty and hold him while he wept. To place the precious medals in his hands, go with him to put them at the wall where they belonged. To feel his arms around her. Strong, warm, comforting. She thought of all the tears she’d wasted in her life over such inconsequential things, allowing them to replace accomplishments. Letting sorrow overpower her inner strengths, her wild and wonderful hidden self that Steven had uncovered.
After reading the letter again, stopping to pore over an occasional turn of phrase that made her lips curve in fond remembrance, she folded the pages carefully, took her glasses from their perch on her nose, and went inside.
****
On a warm fall day, arms hugging both knees, Liz sat in the coppery sand on the bank of the Red River. In the swirls of muddy water, a fish surfaced and performed a silver pirouette. Along the far bank, cottonwood leaves chuckled in a brisk wind that caressed her sunburned cheeks.
She imagined Steven as a boy, racing barefoot along this riverbank. That golden-haired child held no concept of what he must face in life, what strengths he must discover to survive. She tried to think of how he would look now. What he would do when he saw her. What they would say to each other.
Turning her face westward for the warm kiss of October sun, she caught sight of him running toward her through the shimmering golden heat. Heart dancing with joy, she rose and brushed the sand from the seat of her jeans. Then she raised her hand in a wave and ran to meet him.
A word about the author...
Velda is known for her historical romance and nonfiction, but she also writes novels with more profound themes. Her romances and women's fiction feature strong women who face adversity and find love.
Once There Were Sad Songs Page 24