by Fran Baker
“ . . . I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes.”
How long had she been sitting there? Cat wondered now. She squinted down at her slim gold watch—a wedding present from Johnny—and was astonished to see that nearly three hours had passed since her world had been turned on its head. Then she reached up woodenly to switch on the table lamp and smoothed out his letter so she could read it again.
The black ink that he’d used seemed to dance before her confused eyes as she scanned the words that he’d scrawled on the thin airmail sheet. It was a short letter, only three paragraphs long. He’d spent the first thanking her for sending those cotton socks to help keep his feet dry and the packages of grape Kool-Aid that made the drinking water more palatable, and the second telling her how his plane’s computer had fouled up and thrown a bomb into the boonies.
“Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President,” Lyndon Johnson said in a startling conclusion to his speech.
But it was the third paragraph, especially the last sentence, which completely baffled Cat. She read it over and over, struggling to make sense of it. Then she stopped, trying to fathom what kind of terrible premonition had prompted such an urgent plea on Johnny’s part.
If anything—underlined twice—happened to him, he’d written, if he was reported as missing in action or presumed dead, she was to contact a man in Saigon by the name of Cain. Whether Cain was the man’s first or last name, he hadn’t said. He’d just scribbled an address on Truong Minh Gian Street, then closed by saying, “And remember, no matter what, you’re the only woman I ever really loved.”
Cat was still staring at the letter, dumbfounded, when she made her decision. If it meant that much to Johnny, she would contact this Cain. But first, she would call her parents.
* * * *
Mike Scanlon elbowed that messy stack of papers aside before setting the plates he’d carried in from the dining room on the kitchen counter. “I don’t know what’s gotten into that boy, but I’m sick and tired of these stupid leaflets littering up every room of the house.”
Anne-Marie Scanlon shrugged and began scraping garbage into the disposal. “Think of him as a modern-day Thomas Paine.”
But her husband refused to be placated. “Thomas Paine, my ass.” Picking up the top sheet, he read the smudgy mimeographed words aloud. “‘Make Love, Not War.’ What kind of crap is this, anyway?”
“Free speech.” Still infused with an immigrant’s straightforward patriotism, she ranked the Constitution right up there with the Bible and Dr. Benjamin Spock on her list of required readings.
“Free, hell.” He balled up the leaflet and sent it sailing across the kitchen. Two points, he congratulated himself when it landed in the wastebasket. “Who paid for the paper and printing?”
“Drew did.”
“With what?”
The plates rinsed, she reached for the silverware. “With the money he collected at the peace rally in Volker Park.”
“And where did all those political Katzenjammer Kids get their money?” he retorted as he began filling the dishwasher that had been installed when they’d remodeled the kitchen. They’d spent a small fortune having walls knocked out to turn three rooms into one and innumerable layers of linoleum pried up to expose the original pine floor. Still, his wife insisted that the family sit down together every Sunday evening at the dining room table that was graced by her grandmother’s candelabra. “From the hardworking parents they take such delight in denigrating as ‘Tools of Capitalism’, that’s where.”
Sensing another futile argument about their son’s anti-war activism in the offing, Anne-Marie turned off the water and dried her hands on a towel. Then she reached up to run her fingers through the sideburns he’d let grow a little at her urging. Despite the silver that was beginning to fleck his hair and the fine lines that already flanked his eyes, he was as handsome as ever.
Mike responded to her caress by pulling her into an embrace. He rested his chin on the crown of her head, while his arms slid around her waist and linked at the small of her back. It never ceased to amaze him, how much strength and comfort he drew from her slender body. Or how easily she could distract him with a gentle touch or her trademark sass.
“It’s a nice suggestion, no?” Her French accent had faded somewhat, but her voice was as soft and smoky as it had been that long-ago August day when he’d first heard it.
“What?”
“‘Make Love, Not War.’”
“Don’t humor me, Anne-Marie.” But knowing she’d outmaneuvered him yet again, Mike tipped her chin up and bent his head to cover her mouth with his own.
Nearly twenty-three years of marriage hadn’t cooled their passions. Au contraire. As their family and friends liked to tease, they still had the “hots” for each other. They also had three healthy children, a comfortable old Craftsman-style home just south of Loose Park, and careers that both challenged and fulfilled them.
Now if their son would only quit threatening to flee to Canada after he graduated from high school in June in order to avoid the draft . . .
Despite his success as a lawyer, Mike was beginning to think that he was a complete failure as a father. At least where Drew was concerned, anyway. There were times, like this evening, when he wished the boy would go ahead and make good on his threat. Lord knew, he wouldn’t miss those dinner-table diatribes that invariably left him reaching for the Alka-Seltzer! Then there were other times, like late last night when he’d peered into Drew’s room and watched him sleeping the innocent sleep of a child, when the thought of losing his son damn near reduced him to tears.
For her part, Anne-Marie was more worried about the conflict at home than the one half a world away. She understood why her husband was upset. He’d answered his country’s call without question, and was justifiably proud of the part he’d played in defeating the Nazis. She also knew where her son was coming from. He was a good student and he wasn’t into drugs like so many of his peers, thank God, but one of the very first words out of his baby’s mouth had been “Why?” Caught in the middle, she did what all mothers do. She hoped for the best and prayed that she would never have to choose between them.
When the phone rang, Mike broke off their kiss and raised his head with a groan. He waited to see if one of the kids would answer. As usual, he waited in vain.
“I’ll get it.” He released Anne-Marie on the second ring.
“If it’s David, tell him I’ll call him right back.” Sixteen-year-old Mary—named for Anne-Marie’s long-lost friend Miriam Blum—stuffed the tablecloth down the laundry chute and then headed for the stairs. David was her boyfriend, a junior to her sophomore, and a member of the Young Republicans. Every night she spent at least an hour closed in the bedroom she now had to herself talking to him about everything from the presidential election this coming fall to their own plans for attending the same law school someday.
“If it’s Sammye, tell her I’m on my way over with the leaflets.” Eighteen-year-old Drew—named for Mike’s father, Andrew Scanlon—passed his sister on her way out of the kitchen. Sammye, who was lank of hair, long of body and big on Bobby Kennedy, was a true flower child. “Can I borrow your car, Mom?” Before she could ask “Have you finished your homework yet?” or remind him to tune the radio back to the classical music station she liked to listen to, he dug the keys to her ’61 Corvair out of her purse. While he was at it, he grabbed a dollar for gas and stuffed it in the pocket of his bell-bottom jeans.
“Why doesn’t anyone think that it might be a client calling me?” Mike grumbled as he stalked toward the wall phone.
“Because prisoners are locked down at night.” Drew’s gibe about his father’s criminal law practice earned him a glare. As did the shoulder-length hair he’d tied with a shoelace at the neck of his fringed vest.
“I could work pro bono,” Mike shot back as he picked up t
he receiver on the third ring. “But I’d hate like hell to see you starve.”
Anne-Marie expelled a sigh and turned back to the sink.
“Hi, honey.” Mike’s mood brightened considerably when he heard his oldest daughter’s voice on the other end. Here, at least, was a child he could talk to without getting a lot of grief in return. Cupping his hand over the mouthpiece, he informed his wife, “It’s Cat. She’s back from her seminar.”
“Tell her that some of my ROTC students are going to write letters to Johnny tomorrow.”
Anne-Marie taught World History at Southwest High School. She’d started college when her youngest child had started first grade, and she didn’t regret a single one of the nights she’d burned the midnight oil while the rest of her family slept. Having witnessed the atrocities of war firsthand, she believed that people who lost memories of their ancestors’ holocausts were people doomed to seeing the horrors repeated.
Mary came dashing back into the kitchen. “Ask her if she’ll go shopping with me next week for a new dress for the Spring Fling.”
“Better ask the old man if he can afford to pay for it first,” Drew muttered under his breath. Leaflets and keys in one hand, he flashed his family the peace sign with the other as he started toward the back door.
“What?” Speaking into the phone again, Mike felt his knees go weak and his mouth go dry. His shoulders slumped as he fell back against the wall. “Oh, Cat, no!”
Reading his shattered expression, Anne-Marie put down the casserole dish she’d just picked up and rushed to his side. “What happened?” she demanded fearfully. “Is she hurt? Where is she?”
Drew stopped at the door and turned back. There was no counting the number of times that Cat and he had gone at it about the war. She supported sending troops to help South Vietnam remain independent as strongly as he opposed paying the price for their freedom in American blood. They never attacked each other personally or mocked the other’s motives, but their arguments invariably ended with him feeling frustrated by her faith in the military-industrial complex and her seeming both saddened and bemused by his efforts to turn duty into dishonor.
But now his love and concern for his older sister’s safety was plainly etched on his young face. “Was she in a car accident?”
Mary simply stood in the middle of the kitchen, her eyes growing watery and her hands clasped prayerfully under her chin.
“We’re on the way, honey.” Mike’s face looked haggard as he hung up the phone and told his anxiously waiting family, “It’s Johnny.”
“Mon Dieu!” Anne-Marie whispered in horror.
“Is he . . . dead?” Mary asked hesitantly.
Drew jingled his mother’s car keys in a nervous motion.
“His plane disappeared and he’s been reported as missing—” Emotion clogged Mike’s voice; he couldn’t continue.
Tears streamed down Anne-Marie’s cheeks as she put her arms around his waist. She shared his pain because Johnny was more than just his godchild or their daughter’s husband. In their hearts, he was their second son.
His mother, Kitty Brown, never remarried after her husband John was killed in combat in World War II. She couldn’t forget her first and lasting love, and had tried to drown her sorrow in alcohol. Eventually she developed stomach cancer, which the people closest to her believed was partly the result of too many years of pain at the core of her being. When she’d passed away at the age of thirty-five to spend eternity with her “Flyboy,” Mike and Anne-Marie had brought her fifteen-year-old son home from the funeral to live with them.
Drew, who’d learned how to play “Capture the Flag” and to build model airplanes from Johnny, said in a choked voice, “I’ll drive.”
* * * *
“The telegram says they’re making every effort to locate him.” But Anne-Marie’s soothing words fell on deaf ears.
“I-it . . . also says . . . he could be held by h-hostile . . . forces.” And it was that possibility, more horrific than certain death, that had Cat sobbing against her mother’s shoulder.
The telegram from the Defense Department, which had arrived shortly after her family, was a more detailed confirmation of what the Air Force chaplain had told her in person several hours earlier.
Perched on the end of the sofa where his wife and daughter were huddled, Mike reread the dryly-worded particulars of Johnny’s disappearance. He’d been on a combat mission and it was believed that he’d been maneuvering his plane to avoid hostile fire when radio contact was lost. Another pilot had observed an explosion, but it had yet to be officially determined whether that was hostile fire or Johnny’s plane.
“It’s kind of ironic, huh?” Drew asked.
Mike folded the telegram carefully and replaced it in its envelope before looking down at his son. Except for mumbling “I’m sorry” and patting his sister awkwardly on the back, Drew had been unusually quiet. Now he was sitting cross-legged on the avocado-green shag carpet beside a large cardboard box that he’d dragged out of Cat’s spare bedroom. Inside the box were some old pictures and medals and citations—all that Johnny had ever had of his father—along with a smaller metal box containing the letters that his parents had exchanged during their short-lived marriage.
There was another telegram, too . . . one that had been read so many times over the years that its edges were frayed and its creases were worn thin.
“Ironic?” Mike repeated.
“First Johnny’s father, and now—”
“Tragic is more like it,” Mary said, her voice quavering as she knelt down next to Drew, reached into the box and lifted out the framed citation that had accompanied John Brown, Sr.’s Medal of Honor, awarded posthumously.
Mike nodded and tried to stay focused on the situation at hand, but he couldn’t shake the image of a toddler sitting on a blanket playing toy soldiers. Or of a scared little boy on his first bicycle. Then there was the seven-year-old in Indian headdress holding the bow and arrow that “Santa” had brought him.
The pictures kept coming, running through his mind like those reels of family movies the kids used to watch by the hour. He saw a teenager in his too-big black suit turning tearfully away from his mother’s grave. A highschool graduate kneeling somberly beside the simple white cross in the American Cemetery at Anzio, Italy, that had been erected in memory of the father he’d never known. The most recent and most poignant, perhaps, was a newly commissioned lieutenant waiting at the altar for his beautiful bride-to-be.
Swallowing against the tightness that was building in his throat, Mike rubbed his leg where that old shrapnel scar still nagged him sometimes. When he’d come home from Europe, he’d done everything he could to keep an eye on John’s widow and son. That Anne-Marie, a war bride with a newborn daughter named for the mother she’d lost in the German blitzkrieg, had always encouraged him to make good on his promise had only deepened his love for her.
“Dad?”
He shook off the images and saw Cat looking back at him over her mother’s shoulder. Her long red hair framed her pale face like parentheses and her changeable hazel eyes were luminous with tears. But it was the way she was biting her lower lip, just like she used to do when she was a little girl and something had hurt or upset her, that really got to him.
His little girl, he thought, and his own eyes stung at his inability to spare her this terrible heartache. “What is it, honey?”
“Is there anyone you can call? Someone in your old reserve unit, maybe, who can find out more about . . .?” Her voice broke apart.
Mike all but leapt to his feet, grateful for something to do. Like many returning servicemen, he’d remained in the Organized Reserve Corps. It had been as much of a financial decision as a patriotic one. The weekly meetings and yearly training camps had been a hassle, and sweating out Korea until he’d learned that his unit wouldn’t be mobilized had been pure hell. But the checks, added to his monthly living allowance under the GI Bill and a part-time job clerking for the police departmen
t, had helped to feed his growing family while he’d finished college and law school.
“I’ll use the kitchen phone.” He wondered if he should call Charlie or Daisy Miller while he was at it, then decided against it. Their son, born while Charlie was a prisoner of war, had been busted for selling hard drugs to an undercover agent and had died of a heroin overdose while he was out on bail awaiting trial. Mike hadn’t seen either one of them since the funeral, but he’d heard that Charlie, who’d lost one foot to frostbite after his terrible ordeal, now had the other one in an alcoholic’s early grave. And that an embittered Daisy, who’d since divorced him, was working herself to the bone trying to keep her family’s appliance store going in order to support herself and their surviving daughter. No, he thought as he left the living room, the Millers had enough on their plate without his adding yet another helping of tragedy.
Cat tossed her sodden tissue atop the growing pile on the coffee table. As she reached for another one, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head, then yanked her body straight and glared at her brother.
“Don’t open that,” she hissed at him.
Drew glanced up guiltily from the small metal box he’d taken out of the larger one. “I was just going to look—”
“Those letters belong to Johnny.”
“We used to read ’em together.”
She surged to her feet. “Well, you don’t share a room with him anymore. Or anything else, for that matter.”
“That’s enough,” Anne-Marie warned. “Drew loves Johnny, too.”
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot.” Cat realized that she was blowing this all out of proportion but she couldn’t stop herself. It was as though her control, stretched to the breaking point by grief over Johnny’s uncertain status and her own guilt about the way they’d parted, had suddenly snapped. She skirted the coffee table, then grabbed the small box out of her brother’s hand and put it back in the larger one. “It’s the war he hates, not the warrior.”
“Johnny hates the war, too.” Drew blinked back tears, obviously hurt by her unprovoked attack.