by JoAnn Ross
He looked up at her.
“Who the hell are you?”
Annie pulled a chair up beside him and sat down so he wouldn’t have to look up at her. “I’m a friend. Annie Shepherd. You and I make scrapbooks together sometimes.”
“The hell I do. Scrapbooks are girlie things. My Annie makes scrapbooks.” He gave her a long look. “You’re pretty enough,” he allowed. “But my Annie looks like a pinup girl.”
“I know.”
His brow furrowed. “You know my sweetheart?”
“Only by the pictures you’ve shared,” she said, taking the family album from the side table and opening it to the wedding photo. “This is one of my favorites.”
He stared at it for a long time. Annie realized that having been lost for a while in the confusing labyrinth of memories, he was having trouble figuring out what Annie was doing in her postwar wedding dress while they were trying to return him to war.
“She made that dress herself,” Annie reminded him.
He nodded as a spark of comprehension dawned in his eyes. “From parachute silk.”
“Silk you sent her home during the war,” Annie said gently. “World War II.”
“I know which damn war it is,” he snapped. Then stopped. Looked down at the photo again. Then out toward the garden, where red, white, and blue petunias had been planted for the upcoming holiday.
“Which war it was?” he said tentatively. It broke her heart watching him struggle to pull himself back from those mists of time.
Annie had been working on living in the moment. She couldn’t imagine the difficulty of trying to live in the moment when your mind had become like the shifting sands on the beach.
Another thing occurred to her as Charlie slowly turned the pages, taking in the photos she’d helped him put together. She’d only known Charlie Buchanan a few months. Mac had known him as being that strong, hardy, tale-telling grandfather for decades. How difficult must it be for him to watch the unraveling of a life? A life they’d made together after he’d already lost his father at too young an age? What helplessness and yes, at times, like today, what hopelessness he must be feeling.
When that idea proved too depressing, she turned her mind back to the project at hand.
“That veil is mosquito netting,” she reminded him as he stared at a photo of the young and happy couple cutting a tiered white wedding cake. Charlie’s now age-spotted hand was still young and strong atop his bride’s on the knife.
“I brought that netting home for her,” he said, more to himself than to Annie. “From the Pacific.”
“It was very clever of you to think of it. And she looks beautiful in it.”
“I wanted to get married as soon as my ship docked in San Francisco,” he said. “But she made me wait because she said she’d already waited so long, a few more months wouldn’t hurt to do it up right.”
He ran an aged finger, bent and broken from various tangles with ropes and traps as a fisherman, over the faded black-and-white photo. “After all I’d put her through, worrying about me, especially after I nearly drowned at sea, there was no way I wasn’t going to give her anything she wanted.”
He lifted his eyes, which were wet with tears, up to Annie’s.
“Ollie Nelson pulled me out of the water. Up onto the deck of the Minneapolis. Nearly fell into the drink himself doin’ it. That’s how we met.”
“Yes,” Annie said as her own eyes filled.
“He saved my life. And became my best friend.” He looked down at another photo of the small wedding party consisting of bride, groom, and two attendants. “And my best man.”
“He was a friend for many years,” Annie agreed softly.
“Was.” The word lingered between them as he processed that idea. “And now he’s gone,” he said finally. “And I’m the last one left.”
She could only nod.
He sighed. A long sigh filled with reluctant acceptance and deep regret.
Then, with effort, Charlie pushed himself out of the recliner. “We’d best get going,” he said. “I’ve got a memorial to go to.”
40
Fortunately, although the largest room at Genarro’s funeral home was filled to capacity with fellow veterans, the service didn’t last long. Before driving Charlie by the house, so Mac could take over, Annie had called and given him a short version of how she’d gotten him back on track. Knowing how intransigent his grandfather could be, Mac suspected it couldn’t have been easy, and now not only did he still want her, but he had even more reason to be grateful to her.
He had every intention of crossing that line between friends and lovers, but at this point Mac realized that what they’d begun to build between them was more than just friends with benefits.
Something deeper.
Something he was going to have to consider for both their sakes. Because while the chemistry between them was more powerful than he’d ever felt, he’d also learned the hard way that maintaining a relationship was difficult enough even before adding in the complexity of being a single father.
He no longer had just himself to think about. He’d screwed up so much about parenting, he didn’t want to mess up his daughter.
Although he’d realized that Annie had a point about wanting to be careful about not hurting Emma, having watched them together today, he realized that he was going to have to balance all the different relationships in his life carefully. Since he was used to being a just-go-for-it kind of guy, that wasn’t exactly his long suit.
“You okay?” he asked Charlie as they left the service. Because of the way the day had started out, and because Mac was concerned about how his grandfather was doing, he was relieved when Charlie decided to skip the interment and the supper planned for afterward at Bon Temps.
“After getting through the war alive, I’ve always figured any day I’m aboveground is a good day.”
“Got a point there,” Mac agreed.
The older man didn’t say anything on the drive back to the memory care residence. Which was just as well, since Mac didn’t want him talking about anything that might cause battle flashbacks while he was in the truck.
It was only after Charlie was settled into his room that he said, “Did I ever tell you about how I met Ollie?”
“During the war,” Mac replied, even though now, thanks to Annie, he knew more.
“I was on the Lexington. It was a carrier based out of Pearl. But we missed the attack because we’d been sent out on December fifth, two days earlier, to ferry some Marine dive-bombers out to reinforce Midway Island.”
“Lucky,” Mac said. Sensing a story coming, one he’d been hoping to hear, he pulled up a chair.
“Yeah. It all didn’t seem real when we were called back to Pearl and saw the destruction. My first thought was relief we hadn’t been there. Then I felt guilty for feeling that way. Finally, I just settled on being goddamn mad.”
Which was smart, Mac thought. Since his pops still had a lot of war to get through and being dragged down with survivor guilt wouldn’t have helped anyone.
“I had two friends on the Arizona,” he said. “Jerry Long and Pete Novak. We’d met at the enlisted men’s club and I’ve gotta admit I was real pissed when we got our orders to leave on the fifth, because there was going to be a big Battle of the Bands at the club on the next night.
“Jerry and Pete kept ragging me about all the pretty girls I wasn’t going to get to dance with, not that I would’ve danced with any of them, because it would’ve seemed like cheating on Annie, but it would’ve been fun to have some beers and listen to the bands.”
His gaze turned a little distant. “But I never saw either one of them again because they went down with their ship.”
“You never mentioned that when you took me to the memorial on that trip to Hawaii.”
Charlie shrugged. “Why talk about something you can’t change?”
Or why talk about something that still hurt? Mac wondered if the increasing loss of time deli
neation between past and present might cause ancient survivor guilt to rise up again. Which could cause depression.
Another thing he was going to have to ask Analise to watch out for.
“Look in the bottom drawer of that dresser,” Charlie instructed him. “The album’s under some sweaters. It’s the blue one.”
Mac found it easily. It was, appropriately, navy blue, with The United States Navy in raised gold letters and the round Navy seal showing a bald eagle with spread wings perched on an anchor in the center.
Obviously more of Annie’s work.
The first page showed the same photos that were on the board outside the door. Charlie in his recruitment photo, and another in his work dungarees on board.
Then the images changed as fast as life must have changed for Seaman First Class Charles Boyd Buchanan.
“This is the Lexington.” He tapped a finger on a faded old newspaper photo of an aircraft carrier, its deck filled with planes. “My flattop . . . We sure saw our share of action over the next months.” Although his tone was matter-of-fact enough, Mac figured his words were probably a major understatement.
Beneath the photo someone had listed the various battles the carrier had taken part in. “That Annie Shepherd looked those up online and wrote them all down,” he said, confirming what Mac had guessed.
His pops turned the page. “And this is her during the Battle of the Coral Sea. May ’forty-two.”
The carrier was engulfed in a cloud of billowing black smoke and she was listing dangerously. Although the paper had yellowed and cracked with age, Mac could see sailors diving off the deck.
“She’d been hit with some bombs, which caused a bunch of fires and explosions, but the crews were able to get all the fires out and we managed to keep refueling and sending planes up,” he said.
“But finally there were just too many explosions, so the captain gave us the abandon-ship order. At that point, though I was always scared spitless of sharks, going in the water was preferable to staying on board.
“So, there we all were, two thousand plus, sliding down the monkey lines, but the problem was that when you got to the last twenty feet, there were no more knots on the rope, so you’re trying like hell to hang on, but it’s wet and you’re sliding into the guy in front of you, and the guy above you is sliding into you and the rope eats up your hands something goddamn awful.”
He held out his hands, palms up, revealing faint white scars that Mac had never before noticed, given how dinged up his grandfather’s hands were from years of commercial fishing. It crossed his mind how they both carried physical reminders of their individual wars.
“Finally, I just said a real quick version of the Hail Mary and leaped into the water. The flattop was creating some heavy swells in an already rough sea while going down, which had me worried for a while she was going to tip over on me. But then I was pushed a long ways from the ship and from what I could see, I was all alone, which I’ll have to admit didn’t give me a whole lot of confidence about making it out of the water alive.”
“I can imagine.” Actually, Mac couldn’t. At least he’d been mostly unconscious during his much shorter battle experience.
Charlie’s eyes took on that soft, unfocused look that suggested he wasn’t seeing the scrapbook, or the room, or the red, white, and blue garden outside the window, but miles of smoke-engulfed sea with oil and gasoline and God knows what else floating on it. Bodies? Likely, given what Charlie had said about the fires and explosions.
“It was strange,” he said, sounding as far away as that day. “The swells rise up and carry you down, and keep you there until you’re pretty sure you’re never going to breathe again and you can’t see another soul, or even the ship, until you manage to kick your way back up to the top.”
“How long were you out there?”
“They said about two hours, but it seemed like forever. Finally, this whaleboat, which was a little wooden boat they used to ferry sailors on and off ships in those days, showed up alongside and they took me over to the Minneapolis, a heavy cruiser that was part of the fleet.
“There were all these guys, leaning over the railing, pulling us onboard. Ollie was the one who got me onto the deck, where my legs seemed to have gone out on me, I guess from all the treading water I’d done, so I lay there flopping around like a dead fish.”
“No surprise there. And you became friends.”
“And shipmates. The Minneapolis saw action in near every battle of the Pacific, winning seventeen battle stars.”
“Impressive,” Mac said, having no idea what that meant, but Charlie’s pride was evident.
“Sure was. She also brought troops back to the West Coast at the end of the war.
“But I didn’t know all that was going to happen that day. All I could do was watch with the others as the admiral sent the Phelps out to sink the Lexington. It took five torpedoes to finally send her down, which was a shame, because she’d performed valiantly, but giving her a decent burial was sure better than the way they sold the Minneapolis to some rich metal company for scrap.”
The spark of anger, born from what must have been long-smoldering embers, seemed to bring Charlie the rest of the way back to the present. “Twenty-seven hundred and thirty-five men survived that day. Another two hundred and sixteen were killed.
“It’s them I’m going to be in that parade for,” he told Mac. “There’s not that many of us old-timers left and the ones who weren’t lucky enough to make it home need to be remembered. And if I get confused again, like I guess I did today for a spell, it’s your job, as family, to straighten me out and make sure I get there to honor them. You and your Annie.”
“She’s not my Annie,” Mac said.
“So you say.” Charlie winked. “But I’m putting fifty clams on the line that says otherwise.”
“You’re not talking steamer clams.”
His grandfather had always been a gambler. Fishing was, itself, a dicey occupation and he’d always enjoyed the poker games down at the VWF.
“You know better than that.” He grinned like the Charlie who’d welcomed Mac into the family by tossing him into the bay. Mac had learned it was a Buchanan summer tradition. “I’m talking dollars, boy. And believe me, you’re going down.”
41
Mac returned to find Emma sitting up in bed, finishing off a bowl of tomato soup and crackers. The bed was covered with all sorts of stickers and papers and various other things.
“Annie brought me all this cool stuff,” she said, crunching a cracker.
“That’s way cool. But it’s Ms. Shepherd.”
“She said I could call her Annie. Because she’s my newest best friend.”
“‘Ms. Shepherd’ is so stuffy,” the woman herself, who was anything but stuffy, commented.
“How are you feeling?” Mac asked his daughter.
“Okay. My wrist was beginning to hurt again, but Annie gave me some more medicine. She said that my bones will heal faster if my body isn’t fighting pain.”
“That’s what the doctor at the hospital said,” Mac agreed. “Why don’t you let me take that tray into the kitchen and talk to Annie for just a minute?”
“Okay. Then you can come back and help me make my scrapbook from all the pictures you took for me at the hospital.”
“Thanks,” Mac said when he and Annie were out of hearing. “I really appreciate all you’ve done.”
“I told you, it’s no problem.”
“Yeah. It is. I dumped a lot on you and for all I know you don’t even like kids.”
Annie wondered if he was serious. “If I didn’t like children, I’d be in the wrong business,” she said mildly. “Preserving childhood memories brings in nearly as much income as my vacation photo business. And kids are always coming by for stickers. I love them. And Emma’s adorable, Mac. She’s bright and funny, and talented. You should be really proud of her.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” he said.
&nb
sp; “I think you had more to do with it than you’re giving yourself credit for. Having her mother leave couldn’t be at all easy for a little girl. Then with moving here and having to start a new school and make friends . . .
“Well, she seems amazingly well adjusted.”
“Dad says kids her age handle divorce in chunks. I figure she must know Kayla’s never coming back or she wouldn’t be so set on finding a replacement mother.”
Knowing that she currently topped that list had Annie struggling to think of something, anything, to say, but Emma rescued her.
“Daddy,” a voice called from the bedroom, “are you coming? I want to get started on my scrapbook.”
“In a minute, peanut,” he called back. “How much do I owe you?”
“For what?”
“For all those things you brought.”
“Don’t be silly. You bought enough the other day to pay my electricity bill for a month. I just grabbed some theme papers and stickers for this occasion. They’re a gift.”
“Well, thanks. For them and for staying with her.”
“That was a delight. And easy, since she slept most of the time you were gone.”
Annie didn’t add that Emma had insisted she lie down on the bed with her, and she knew that Mac’s scent, from his pillow, was probably now permanently embedded in her mind.
“Are you going to be able to work tonight?”
“I don’t go in to the station until after she goes to sleep. So, since Dad called to let me know he’ll be back in the next hour or so, we should be fine.”
“Good. Well, then, I’d best get going.”
“I’m sorry we missed lunch. Or whatever.”
“Another time,” she suggested.
“Definitely,” he agreed. “Wait just one minute.” He held up a finger, then left the room and was back in seconds.
“She’s asleep again,” he said in a low voice.
“That’s good. She needs her rest. Plus it gets you out of scrapbooking.”