Out of Splinters and Ashes

by Colleen L. Donnelly

  “I don’t recall any of those names.” My grandfather’s voice came through the wall and around the edge of the door. Way to go, Grandpa. Grandpa never talked about the Second World War or his time in the army, not even to me in the sixth grade when I wrote a report on it. He’d been a soldier before the war began, and dismissed any questions about his part in it by saying he never fought in any of the battles, being sent back home with injuries before the US ever joined in. In spite of Grandma’s claims Grandpa wasn’t the same man she’d seen off, my mother had seen old newspaper articles proving he was, the community welcoming Grandpa home and hailing him as a hero, especially because of his injuries. Grandpa had been shipped back with scars I’d never seen except for what showed below the long sleeves he always wore and the limp he managed well for his height. Mama believed Grandma resented being with a man who walked a little bit different. I asked Grandma about that and she told me it wasn’t the gimp in a man’s gait that made him crippled, it was the gimp in his eye.

  Grandma always created a ruckus whenever the subject of those military days came up, making so much noise with whatever she was doing it was impossible to hear what little Grandpa said. I never knew if it was his stubborn silence on the subject she was trying to drown out, or whatever he might have said had he been given the chance. Whichever it was, she capped each of his brief dismissals about his part before the war by reminding me that far more truth was told in fiction than anywhere else, and if I wanted to know anything about that era, then Non Bookends was where I’d find it—stories being the truth a man would otherwise deny.

  The men in Grandpa’s living room didn’t look like the sort of men who’d thank me and leave if I suggested they go sift through Grandma’s bookshelves for whatever they needed to know about Lieutenant McCoy. I tapped Grandma’s little booklet on my hand, then stood, swung the bedroom door open, and marched into the living room.

  “Coffee?” I said to my grandfather’s ashen face, waving the book as a hopeful conversation starter. Grandpa sat alone on one side of the room in his favorite chair, the leg he favored sticking out in front of him like a long, thin pole. The other three men sat in perfect order on the sofa, shoulder to shoulder, stripe to stripe, What are you doing here? written across their faces.

  “Cate.” My grandfather struggled to his feet with far more effort than usual. He rose until his head towered above mine, white hair, straight and fine, falling over his forehead. If they would leave and Grandma would actually come, maybe he’d struggle less and get his color back. “Why don’t you go on now.” He paused. “You can read your grandmother’s books better somewhere else.”

  “I’m almost finished with this one. I’ll leave them here when I’m done. For her.” It was a bigger lie. I smacked the booklet on the palm of one hand as I surveyed the three stolid figures who looked like they’d never read fiction in their lives. They were watching my grandfather instead of me. I glanced his way as he reached for a nearby cane he rarely used. The slow and easy manner he’d always maneuvered with looked different with them in the room. Each movement seemed more pronounced, his deliberate ease telling me Grandma was right—he’d been expecting these men. I stared at my grandfather. Maybe what had always seemed like relaxed behavior had been waiting, instead. Braced…just like he was now as he leaned into his cane. “If you decide you want something…” I forced a smile at him and the three faces that didn’t smile back. “I’ll be right in there.” I nodded to the bedroom doorway, wishing for even a half smile on my grandfather’s face. A look that didn’t come.

  “Best if you just went on.” Grandpa’s knuckles were white like Grandma’s had been. Even the scars striping the hand that gripped the cane were whiter than usual.

  “I’ll be in there.” I nodded toward the bedroom again. If I’d come with my camera, I could go to the basement, to the small developing lab Grandpa had built for me so I’d take pictures instead of running. But the basement was too far away to hear. I pointed the book in the direction of the bedroom. “In there.”

  “Then close the door. So you can concentrate better.” Grandpa tipped his head toward Grandma’s booklet.

  I walked straight to their room and closed the door behind me, staying close as the latch clicked, close enough to hear my grandfather settle himself back into his chair. I laid the booklet on the highboy dresser nearby and folded my arms on its top, resting my chin on them so that my ear was close to the door. There would be an ending to this discussion in my grandparents’ living room, and I would stand here until I heard it. I wanted McCoy out of the air and these expected men to go away.

  Discussion revived in the living room following throats being cleared and my grandfather’s apology for the interruption. I could hear it in his tone, even if they couldn’t, the chance he was giving them to leave. An opportunity to say my disruption was no problem, that time was short and they needed to go anyway. But they didn’t say those things. Instead, one asked Grandpa where he kept his military memorabilia.

  “I kept nothing from the service,” my grandfather replied. I straightened from the highboy and pressed my ear to the door. The men argued that most veterans kept everything—uniforms, orders, photos, awards, and souvenirs. “I didn’t. It bothered my wife.”

  I covered a gasp with my hand, holding in the shock at Grandpa’s claim, which was tantamount to saying, “I love my wife.” I stared at the door, unable to believe what I’d heard. That’s what love sounded like…and it had been here all along. The war and everything military pertaining to Grandpa did bother Grandma. She’d told me when men go overseas they leave their women behind—wondering. Wondering what some had already suspected, others had denied, and a few had realized before their men’s enlistments even began. I never understood what she meant, but the “bother” was there. The “bother” that had silenced the uniformed men’s interrogation of my grandfather and fueled Grandma’s refusal to have anything to do with this man.

  I stared down at the booklet on the dresser top. Grandma’s and Grandpa’s had never seemed like the love story Mama wished it were, yet there he was, telling these men he’d willingly forgone everything from the service, everything that bothered his wife. Not at all what I’d expect from a man who’d watched his wife march away from him again today. I opened the booklet and peered at a love story like Mama had dreamed of for her parents. One that was natural, not nearly so much work, steady and stable, fixed in black ink, forever dissolved onto a soft and quiet background.

  It occurred to her as they ducked into a tiny café away from the rain that the evidence of his lithe power, along with the foreign style of clothing, the marshaled posture, and the accent, all indicated he could be torn away from her. Could, but her heart knew he wouldn’t. No matter where he went, her heart would always be his, and his hers. He knew it, too. They dropped into seats at a small table against the wall. And there they sat and spoke without accents, without words.

  “Pre-trial” shot from the other room. It jarred me from Mama’s dream, silencing the gentler words in black ink. The lieutenant’s name was said again, followed by my grandfather’s assent, the sort of assent that said, “Yes, sir,” while at the same time saying, “I think you shouldn’t.”

  Those men were wrong, the way they passed over my grandfather’s implied suggestion they reconsider, and his respect for his wife who was bothered by things pertaining to the military. I applauded my grandfather for stripping their living room of everything that said “Welcome” or exposed anything of her. And I imagined my grandmother’s face when I told her how mistaken she’d been about this man all these years, and that those he’d expected were nothing and gone.

  They stood. I heard three dull-colored but starched uniforms rise to their feet and lead a tall, gaunt, elderly man limping to the door.

  I cracked the bedroom door and listened to an exchange of dates and times instead of thank-yous or goodbyes in the living room. I stared at the worn little booklet that, gauging by its age, was probably
written close to a time of war, maybe even the Second World War, the period they were interested in. I spun it toward me and glanced inside the front cover as the screen door creaked open. Grandma was right. I’d learned more from these few paragraphs about a man overseas than those men had in an hour from my grandfather. No author’s name, no publishing date inside the cover or on the first page. If it was from the 1940s, or even the 1950s, I’d run it out to them before they drove away. Slap it in their hands and tell them what Grandma’s favorite playwright, Henrik Ibsen, claimed—Really good stories don’t answer questions, but they ask them. Ask just the right ones so we can see our answers.

  Grandpa didn’t say goodbye, just like they didn’t to him. His guttural, “Yes, sir,” was all I heard. I would beg him to go to Non Bookends with me and tell Grandma what he’d said to these men. I’d suggest it when they were gone, making him understand how much she needed to know that he cared. It would probably take a war-sized explosion to get him away from his favorite living room chair or from the front porch where he would amass piles of wood shavings at his feet. Whatever it took, I would do it. The two of them needed it. I needed it. And even Emerson would need it as he ran for the senate.

  A car started in the drive. I opened the bedroom door farther and leaned around its edge. My grandfather’s tall form listed to one side as he stared through the screen, relying more heavily than usual on his stronger leg. I snatched the booklet and flipped to the back. Maybe there was still time to give those three what they wanted so I could make sure they stayed away.

  He said he’d return. His blond hair, almost white now it was dry, disappeared under a cap he tugged from a pocket. She shook her dress, damp and cool but no longer sticking to her skin. If he were anyone else, if this had been any other time, she would have asked, “When? When will you return?” But “when” didn’t matter with him, because in her heart he’d never leave. He would always be with her, even as she watched the tall back of his jacket disappear.

  ~Amabile

  The car drove away. I slapped the book closed and tossed it onto the bed next to its envelope and the other two, instead of into the trash like Grandma eventually would. Or maybe wouldn’t, once she realized Grandpa truly loved her and stories like this had a place in her store. Maybe Non Bookends would have a new crusade. Maybe everything my mother had wanted and I had worked for was finally here.

  “Grandpa,” I said to his tilting frame, “we’re going for a walk.”

  Chapter 3

  Grandpa nodded at my suggestion to walk, took the front steps the way I took runs—fast and feverish, in spite of his limp—and veered left instead of right at the end of his front sidewalk, pivoting on the leg he relied on, ignoring my raised hand pointing the opposite direction toward Non Bookends.

  “Grandpa, slow down.” I hurried to catch up with him. “I asked you to walk, not race.” I glanced his way as I came alongside him, at his lean form stretching and dipping a good full stride beyond my shorter one. His white hair fluttered with his pace, his limp and age the only things keeping him from an all-out run.

  “Racing isn’t in me. Neither is fast.” Grandpa slowed and glanced down at me, the sort of half-smile on his plainly handsome face that never made it to his eyes.

  “Well, take it easy and save some energy, then.” I grinned at him. I wanted his energy for far, not fast, a square of blocks that would end us at Non Bookends.

  “You still entering that marathon?” He gazed down the sidewalk as we went. The man who’d asked almost nothing of me asked again in his own way—stop running. Not just the sidewalk between their house and Grandma’s store, but altogether.

  “Entering, yes, but not to win. Unless you want to loan me your legs. Then I could win.” I didn’t run to win. He knew that. Everyone knew that, but if I reminded him now I’d sound more like Grandma than myself. I didn’t have his legs, but I was fast. Fast enough I’d been forced to race to win in high school, where Jill—taller and older, now someone who thought of herself as a friend—had beat me. Even Jill’s husband Frank, who bicycled alongside my runs, his worn-out knees turning him into everyone’s except Jill’s coach, carried a stopwatch and set imaginary finish lines I ignored.

  “Running’s not in the family. And speed takes more than just legs.” Grandpa said it the way he’d said it hundreds of times before.

  “Legs that stopped with my mother.” Seeing Grandpa was like seeing my mother—light hair, fair complexion, long legs, and lithe build. My mother could have raced and won; she carried more energy in her than anyone I’d ever known. She was feverish like Grandpa was now, even with me lagging enough to slow his limping stride. “Dad always teased Mama about all the shoes she wore out, the way she raced around. He said she could have made a fortune as the cover girl for someone’s vitamin ad campaign.” But her energy hadn’t been like that. She was feverish and frantic, always running, hammering out her dreams, her ponytailed blonde hair making her look like a cheerleader ready to throw herself into a flip.

  I tossed my head, sending my own hair back, loose and brown, like my father’s. I wasn’t like Grandpa or my mother, I was my father’s everything—shorter, smaller, and darker.

  “Mom could win the marathon.” If she could channel her nervous energy into a straight line.

  We were straight-lining far enough from Grandpa’s house that it was time to turn. His limp and my steady stride were taking us nowhere except away from where I wanted him to go. I glanced down the sidewalk, a block and a half ahead, where grandiose flower bushes spilled over someone’s front fence, crowding the walkway. “Maple Street?” I asked. He nodded at the nearest intersection, and we veered left at the corner, his limp an advantage as he leaned into the turn, and then into the next, our off-rhythm footsteps carrying us back toward his house instead of to Grandma’s store.

  Grandpa’s pace quickened the final block to his home, a comfortable Cape Cod style, just like every other house on the block. My grandparents began on this street with other World War II-era newlyweds, those families eventually moving on. I glanced up at my grandfather. Today their world would finally make it past 1940. “Grandpa, I need to walk more. How about we…”

  “Whew.” He slowed at the end of their sidewalk, stretched tall and lean, pinching his waist at one side. “Like I said, running’s not for me.”

  I eyed him, seeing if he really looked tuckered on the outside or if it was just on the inside like he always looked. He stared up toward their porch, his towering height accordianing back down to his usual tired slump.

  “Who’s going to be on trial?” I blurted the same moment he asked, “How were the books?” He turned up his walk, and I followed, both of us heading toward their porch, side by side in a sudden silence.

  He shoved his hands into deep trouser pockets, blousy beneath the belt he had cinched around pants far too large. Bony fingers and scars I hardly noticed anymore disappeared, only the cuffs of his long sleeves showing above the pockets’ edges.

  “No one you’d know, and possibly no one,” he said the same moment I asked, “What books?”

  He frowned down at me. “The books you had in the house, the one in particular I saw you looking at for your grandmother.”

  “Oh, that book. Not her type.” I shook my head, knowing I was wrong. It might take time, but once Grandma heard what Grandpa had done for her, the ice would thaw. “And so if it’s no one I know who’s going to trial, that leaves you out. Right?”

  He paused at the first step up to his front porch and stared toward the screen door above. “A man’s always on trial, don’t you know?” He managed a half grin, a wobbly streak of thin lips penciled across his face. “Even an investigation is a trial, and that’s all this is. You’d best get on, now. Go take a picture for that photo display you’ve been hired to do. Or take one of that politician you’ve been dating…Emerson. Or go eat.”

  “Need help re-cluttering the living room first?” I asked as he headed up the steps. I did have picture
s to take for the display, my hobby turned profitable—The Faces and Hands of New York—and Emerson took every chance he had to be in one of my photos. He was handsome, and the only part of me that ran to win as he raced toward the senate. “I have time.” I didn’t want my grandfather left on trial or a part of anyone’s investigation, nor did I want him living as if he were. I wanted him living with Grandma, and loving her by avoiding military paraphernalia. I wanted him in my pictures, his face bent over long, wounded hands carving wood into something instead of nothing. And Grandma’s face soft for a change, half hidden behind one of her books, her hands clasping some author’s gospel, no longer determined to make it her own. Both heads, both sets of hands, together. “You had it too neat. I could un-straighten the magazine stacks before I go, bring out a book or two, or leave a glass of iced tea beading on the coffee table.”

  He shook his head when he made it onto the porch and to their door.

  “You sure?” I asked as bony fingers and a scarred hand reached for the screen door’s handle. He pulled it his way, still shaking his head, the familiar creak masking any chuckle I hoped he had. “Have it your way, then. I left Grandma’s books on the bed,” I called as he stepped inside. I would go run now, to Non Bookends, to cover my lie and tell Grandma I left her three new arrivals at their house. Grandpa’d done his part; he’d silently loved. I looked at his shadowy form through the mesh, the lanky man with the limp, the non-runner with the scars. It was Grandma’s turn to love back now. And if she refused to come here and hear it from him, I’d tell her everything she needed to know before I ran to take my pictures.

  Grandpa raised a hand and waved from the doorway, not even turning as he did.

  “I only read that one, by the way. Amabile. Just stuff hers back into its envelope, if you would. I left everything lying there together.”

  He caught the screen door behind him, the hand he’d raised dropping to his side.