“Yes. A man always thinks of those things.”
Their unloading was done. They stood shoulder to shoulder, staring at the heaps of ice in the bin, their muscles taunt, their chests heaving. “I don’t mind taking the responsibility. I don’t mind standing for a just cause.”
“You’ll go to Vietnam.”
“I will. And I’ll come home a man. You remember the stories Grandpa used to tell about his days in France.”
“Grandpa’s war stories. Your mother would let him talk until we were bleary-eyed and then she’d smile and distract him with blackberry pie.”
“I don’t mind being a part of what he talked about. I don’t mind being a part of something bigger than myself.”
In the distance, Sam could hear a radio playing “A Hard Day’s Night.” The Beatles were everywhere, Sam noted with annoyance.
“You’ve already enlisted? Is there anything that could still stop you from this?”
“No.”
“I could discuss it with your recruiter. Tell him you did this without my permission.”
“I’m legally responsible for myself, Dad. I didn’t need your permission. What’s done is done.”
McCart’s fists hung like knots at his sides.
“Unless they say I’m not good enough. Unless I don’t make the grade. And with me there isn’t much chance of that.”
“I don’t get what you’re thinking, risking your life.”
Kenneth shrugged.
“If it was college you wanted, I could have sold one of the boats. I would have been able to swing educating my own son.” A new effort. Sam could tell Walt McCart was struggling. “That’s why I bought the Westerly in the first place, so I’d have enough to pass off to you when the time came. So we’d have plenty of vessels to do this together.”
“It’s too late to have this conversation, Dad.”
“You could have seen the world that way.”
“I’ll get the GI Bill when I come home. This is what I want to do.”
McCart ran his hands beneath the water hose. He dried them on an oily rag. “Your mother—”
They were coming close to him. Sam ducked behind a tangle of nets. Kenneth was poised to jump from boat to pier, but he turned back. “What about her?”
“Your mother would say I was wrong for wanting to stop you.”
Kenneth lifted his chin. “I wish she was here, then.”
McCart gripped the iron railing on the boat. “I’ve already lost her, son. I didn’t intend to lose you, too.”
Sam had never thought of Walt McCart as old. Now Sam suddenly saw him that way. When the conversation ended, Kenneth strolled away, walking tall, his heels slapping the wooden planks with purpose. And behind him McCart stared, stoop shouldered, at the tangle of fishing poles and lures and lines as if he had never seen such things before.
Kenneth’s going-away party was a major event, with the fried halibut, the cobs of golden Oregon-grown corn, and sliced beefsteak tomatoes as big around as tea saucers. A bonfire cast shifting shadows on the beach. There was picture-taking and hand-shaking and well-wishing. In hours, just after sunrise, Kenneth would catch the Trailways bus and ride to his pre-induction physical in Portland.
Finally, after Kenneth’s buddies had drifted to sleep against rocks by the bonfire coals, and families wrapped in blankets strolled toward shore to watch the moon-silvered sea, Sam noticed Aubrey and Kenneth leaning against a sand dune, their voices murmuring.
“You going to be okay, kid?” the brother asked.
“Guess so,” the sister answered. “Guess I don’t have any other choice.”
Even Sam could feel the gulf between them before Kenneth put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to miss all those questions you used to ask me, you know that?”
Aubrey was hugging her knees. She lifted her chin from them to talk. “I used to drive you nuts, didn’t I?”
“What do you mean used to? You still do.”
“Shut up, Ken.”
“‘How do salmon find their own stream when they spawn?’ you’d ask. ‘Why doesn’t a boy ever ask me to dance?’ ‘If God made the world, then who made God?’”
Her chin settled against her knees again. “If Mother had been here—”
“I know.” Then, “I wish you had known her, Aub. I don’t remember much but it was all good.”
“I thought so.”
For a long time neither spoke, and there was only the sound of the waves sliding in, the whistle of the night birds swooping through the air. “Dad’ll come around someday, Aub. He’ll see what he’s doing and he’ll stop thinking I’m the only kid he ever had.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me that’s not the reason you’re going away. Tell me you’re not doing this to give me a chance with him.”
“I’m not, sweetie. There’s lots more to it than that.”
“You really want to do this, don’t you?”
“I know you can run those boats. You can take tourists out and do all the things I’ve been doing. He’ll see.”
It was the first time Sam had ever seen Aubrey cry. She swiped her nose with the back of her wrist. “I don’t want you to go.”
“You be careful with boys. I won’t be around for awhile to protect you.”
“I will.”
“There’s not a one of them in this town I think is good enough for you.”
A sad little laugh. “I’m glad you’ll be gone then.”
“Hush up, Aubrey. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“You’re my sister.”
“Yeah.”
“I may be leaving now but I’ll be back. If anybody’s done anything to you that I don’t like, I’ll whale into them when I come stateside again. You can tell them that.”
“Okay.”
As Sam watched, he saw Kenneth draw his Swiss Army knife from his shirt pocket, rubbing its red surface to a gleam with his thumb. “Here. You take this.”
“Why? So I can protect myself against all these boys you’re worrying about?”
“Every girl needs a pocket knife. I’d like for you to have mine.”
“That’s the one Grandpa gave you for Christmas.”
“Yep. Sure is.”
When he dropped the tiny red knife in her hand, she stared at it in wonder.
“You don’t have to give me this.”
“Don’t have to.” He stood up and stretched. “But I want to.”
Her fingers closed around it. Sam had never seen Aubrey hold anything so tight.
“Now, I’ve got to get back to the house for a few minutes, throw a few more things in my bag.”
“I love you, Kenneth.”
“Meet you at the bus stop in a little while, okay?”
To Sam, it seemed like almost no time at all before the crowd at the bus stop grew to include almost the entire town. All to say good-bye to Kenneth. “You go, boy,” Arlie said when the red-and-silver Continental Trailways arrived just past sunup, its brakes hissing and its accordion door folding open. “You go show the rest of the world what a Tillamook County kid is made of. You go off and make us proud, you hear?”
“Here here,” someone shouted as Kenneth hefted his monstrous duffel. “You keep a hat on during basic,” someone else bellowed. “Your head’s sure going to get cold without that hair.” A roar went up; everyone was calling for him to take care and to write and to tell folks to come try their hand at fishing here. Sam wondered if he was the only one to see it, how Kenneth propped his foot on the first step of the bus, and ignoring what everyone was saying, looked around to find his father.
Walt McCart wasn’t there.
“Hey, girl.” Kenneth’s voice went rough when he finally noticed his sister. Aubrey launched herself at him and he flung his arms around her. He buried his face in her hair and squeezed so hard that her feet came up off the ground. “You remember everything I told you.”
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She nodded.
“You take care of everybody here, okay?”
“I will.”
“I’ll be home before Christmas.”
“I’ll make him—” And for a moment Sam thought she was going to say I’ll make him accept this. But she said instead, “I’ll make him shoot us a duck for Christmas dinner.”
“Maybe I’ll be the one to do the shooting by then.”
“I don’t want to think about that.”
“Hey, boy,” the driver growled. “You going to get on this bus any time today? I got two dozen people in here with nothing to do but wait for you.”
Kenneth swung himself up and the door folded shut behind him. As the early morning light rippled off the steel and the glass of the bus, all Sam and Aubrey could see was a reflection of each other on the panels of the bus. Then it choked, roared to life, began rolling, disappeared along the highway.
CHAPTER FIVE
February 1968
Dear Sam,
You should read the stories my brother writes to us. I miss him! He’s sleeping in Vietnam, he said sometimes better than he slept here, which is a surprise to me. He said they killed pigs in a village and found a house with women and small children but no one else. Then at night there are shadows everywhere and bullets that zing through the air at their feet. He met up with Bailey Phelps and they talked about sophomore English at RBHS, isn’t that weird, all the way around the world? Then, that next day, Bailey stepped on a booby trap and got shrapnel in both legs. “This is to confirm that your son was admitted to the Station Hospital in Danang,” the telegram said when his parents got it. “Your anxiety is realized and you are reassured that he is receiving the best of care.” They are saying that Bailey will get to come home. His mother is happy he got hurt so then he can be okay. Isn’t that the oddest thing, when you think about it? Wanting something to get hurt so it can be brought back to you in the end?
Love, your friend, Aubrey
May 1968
Dear Sam,
I can understand how everybody where you are is talking about Vietnam. Did they really say that about our soldiers decimating villages where innocent people live? I think about the women and children being the only ones not to hide, the things that Kenneth is writing me, how they wonder if the broad smiles on the women’s faces mean one thing or if they mean another. How everything gets spooky at night when the shadows come out and the grass rustles around them and there isn’t any way to tell which person is your friend and which is your enemy. You know how Kenneth is. He wouldn’t hurt someone out of anger or frustration. But he might make a mistake. It is the people who lose it everyone talks about. The strong ones remain without changing and no one tells stories about them at all.
Your friend forever, Aubrey
October 1968
Dear Sam,
It was so good seeing you. I miss you so much! You complained that I only write about Kenneth and that I never write about myself. So I’ll fix that. You asked what I was thinking about going off to college like you. Well, you ought to know the answer to that one! My father was willing to sell a boat to keep Kenneth out of Vietnam, but that wouldn’t happen for me! I’ve got a part-time job this summer waiting tables at the Sea Basket and I’ve been able to save a little that way. Maybe I’ll go to Portland in a year or so. Someday I’d like to be a teacher, did I ever tell you that? First graders or kindergarten, I think, because I want to be a person who teaches children to read. When I got my MIA bracelet, you won’t believe this, it’s for a boy from close to you! What do you think that means? His name is Private Louis R. Markell from Des Moines. He disappeared when a helicopter went down over Quang Tri.
Love, Aubrey
April 1969
Dear Sam,
Kenneth says that you are definitely right about the mosquitoes. He says the only way he keeps track of weeks going by is that, on Sundays, they give everybody malaria pills. By the way, thank you for saying you are praying for him. I told Dad that, too, and Dad crossed his arms and said “Hummph,” and walked away. Kenneth writes that his commander yelled at him for jumping off a blown-up bridge into a river somewhere close to Phu Bon. The steel girders were blown apart and twisted underwater, his commander yelled at him, and he could have impaled himself. But it was worth it all, he wrote, because underwater he found the mark of a clam bed. He snuck to the river later and dug freshwater clams for his buddies. The clams were different from the ones here, no larger than a nickel, but he boiled water in a canteen cup and steamed them and they opened up like the ones here. It’s just like Kenneth, don’t you think? He could have gotten speared. He could have died. But he managed to find something that made him think of home instead.
Love, Aubrey
October 1969
Dear Sam,
We piece together what we know of the war from Kenneth’s letters and what we hear on TV. Sometimes he writes long stories. Other times he writes a few sentences and that is all. Those are the letters that scare me the most, the ones where it sounds like my brother’s writing fast or he’s afraid to tell us what he has to say. There are more stories on the news about protestors here than there are about the soldiers who are fighting. I watch footage on TV and think maybe I’ll see Kenneth sometimes, but you know my father. Whenever the news comes on, he leaves the room.
I think about the times we had such a good time together. Do you remember the night we met and I dug up all those clams and gave them to Brenda? You never told anybody that was me, did you?
Arlie got dragged down to the Oregon State Fair by some lady named Hester who wanted him to ride a roller coaster with her and he threw up. He talks about all the years he rode out the sea, but he couldn’t make it on the Wildcat Coaster. He says he’s glad anyway. He doesn’t want to worry about women. He doesn’t think Hester will call him again.
oxoxoxoxox, Aubrey
May 1970
Dear Sam,
I keep thinking about what you said about wishing our country could go back to the way it used to be before the war started. You’re right, every day that this moves forward, something happens that makes us not be able to move back again. I think about this a lot. Life changes, that’s what makes it dear.
In regard to helping other countries be free, I do know this much. Everybody wants the same thing. It’s just that nobody can figure for sure how we ought to get there. So, do you really think Nixon did the wrong thing by invading Cambodia? I know he said that, when he got elected, he’d bring the war to an honorable end. I know we’re all waiting for that. When you’ve got somebody over there that you love every hour is another hour too long. Every hour is a time when something could go wrong.
Another thing about time, I can’t believe it’s almost summer. See you SOON, I hope!!!!
Aubrey
For all her letters that Sam had practically memorized, he did not remember the specific words she chose to tell him her brother had died. He remembered only the impact of Aubrey’s words, the shocking news scribbled on her thin blue stationery. He remembered only his throat closing, his eyes scurrying over the words a second time, incredulous that she chose to relay the details of Kenneth’s demise in this spare, dry way.
Her father hadn’t received a telegram like the Phelpses. Instead, at ten in the morning, she wrote, the day after New Year’s Day, a solitary officer came striding up their walk, dressed in Army green from his head to his ankles. Walt McCart wouldn’t answer the door. He made his daughter stand before the man and ask what he wanted with them.
The officer wouldn’t talk to me, Aubrey wrote. All those times my father ran away from watching the news because he didn’t want to see it. He could not run away this time.
“On behalf of the secretary of the Army, I regret to inform you that your son, Private Kenneth Jay McCart, has been killed by enemy fire in Cambodia,” the man had said, doffing his beret. “The McCart family has our deepest condolences.”
Sam felt cheated because the letter arrive
d too late for him to come to the funeral. Why didn’t you phone me? he wanted to ask her. Why didn’t you let me know about Kenneth as soon as it happened? He would have driven maniacally across five states to reach her. It saddened him that he hadn’t been there to stand beside her, to support her with a hand against her spine, bracing her while mourners murmured and filed past, paying last respects to her fallen brother.
Aubrey had never given him the chance.
As Mrs. Branson sets her watering can on the stoop, spins her hanging flower pot and observes it from every side, Sam recalls his last miles driving here along the two-lane from Portland to the coast. With each mile after he turned off the highway this morning, the dense Sitka spruce seemed to grow more impermeable around him. Five miles southwest on the road and he could still see the sun. But somewhere along there, the Douglas fir and towering hemlock began to thread their limbs together like woven fingers overhead.
For a while he could still see patches of blue. Then that, too, had disappeared even though it was not yet midday.
When he’d been little and they’d stopped because he had to pee, his mother had followed him along the rest-stop path. She said she was afraid she might lose him here, that the foliage was growing so thick that she might never see him again. He’d been disappointed, of course. Being a ten-year-old boy, he hadn’t intended to actually use the men’s room. He’d wanted to hold onto the raggedy moss-covered trunk of a monstrous tree and inspect the ivy and blackberries and vincas growing in the ground, where before he’d only seen such things growing in the garden center at Hy-Vee. He’d wanted to listen to moisture dripping from a fern. He’d wanted to pretend he was an explorer like Lewis and Clark, traipsing through a primeval forest that no one had ever seen.
The mossy darkness, the feeling of being hemmed in, the skewed sense of distance, had suited him perfectly this morning as he drove here. Sam kept thinking his Mustang’s odometer was off. Every time it read that he’d gone a mile, he was sure he’d gone three instead. The narrow hands in his chrome dashboard clock seemed to rocket forward at an impossible pace.
He’d started practicing the words while he traversed the rolling hills and cornfields of his home state. He had become more certain of them as he’d passed waves of grass in Nebraska, oceans of sagebrush and herds of antelope in the Rocky Mountain West. “We’re young, Aubrey,” he planned to say with his entire soul. “Hasn’t losing Kenneth made you see that you were right? When you wrote to me how life changes? I’m not willing to risk what we have together by staying on some yearly vacation schedule where I always end up telling you good-bye.” Then Sam would say, “I’m asking you to marry me, Aubrey. That’s why I’ve come.”
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