Last Salute

by Tracey Richardson

  Pam nodded. In silence they stared at the casket for a few minutes longer until Trish gently guided her away.

  Chapter Four

  As Pam followed Trish up the brick path to Trish’s house, she was reminded of her childhood home—a two-story, wood-sided Victorian from the late 1800s, with a brick fireplace in the living room, a long porch at the front of the house, a small backyard that hadn’t been nearly big enough for the two sisters to play in. But they’d loved that house, their mom especially, and she’d worked hard to hang on to it after their father’s death when she and Laura were kids.

  Trish’s home was very tidy inside, ordered but pleasant and warm. Dark hardwood floors gleamed and were partially covered by brightly colored area rugs. Bold abstracts hung from the walls, professionally framed photos too. A floor-to-ceiling bookshelf was crammed full of hardcovers and paperbacks. A home well lived in and appreciated was what came to Pam’s mind. As she took in her surroundings, she noticed the evidence that Trish lived alone. The shoes all looked the same size, identical-sized jackets hung on the coat rack, and there was simply not enough clutter for two people. But she asked anyway.

  “Yup, just me,” Trish replied with a smile that was hard to read. “And I’m between dogs. My last one died five months ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Trish led them to the kitchen table that looked out on to a deck and a handsomely gardened backyard. “I’ll get another dog some day, when I’m ready. Do you have any pets?”

  “With my work schedule, I don’t think I’d have time for a pet rock.”

  Trish busily rummaged through the cupboards, and it occurred to Pam that she was the kind of person who liked to keep busy, who didn’t keep still for long.

  “You don’t have to go to any trouble, Trish. I’m really not hungry.”

  “Me either, but I’m going to grill us up some cheese sandwiches and throw together a caesar salad. And I’m going to sit here and make sure you eat.”

  Pam laughed a little, the first time in days. “I’m not the kid sister anymore that you and Laura had to babysit.”

  Trish smiled, thunked a cast-iron frying pan on the stove. “All those nights your mom worked, Laura and I having to babysit you. We couldn’t wait until you went to bed. Remember how we used to bribe you?”

  “I sure do. I had quite the drawer full of candy bars, thanks to you guys. I used to sneak down the stairs and peek at you making out on the couch. Amazing you and Laura never caught me.”

  A faint blush worked its way up Trish’s cheeks. “I suspected as much. I suppose Laura and I can be credited for you turning out gay as well, hmm? Being such, ahem, visible role models?”

  Butter sizzled in the frying pan as Pam thought back to when she was a precocious ten-year-old with a mammoth crush on her big sister’s girlfriend. She would dream of Trish kissing her like that, of her sweeping those liquid brown eyes so lovingly over her and looking at her the way she looked at Laura. She used to tag along as much they allowed her, and she’d clandestinely inhale the faint fragrance of Trish’s floral soap and shampoo and close her eyes and listen to that honey-smooth voice. It was intoxicating being around the pretty seventeen-year-old Trish, who had the softest touch and the kindest smile and who never treated her like the annoying little sister of her girlfriend. Pam had never divulged her youthful crush on Trish for fear she might have been mocked. Or worse, pitied.

  “Well,” Pam joked, “I had to get the idea from somewhere.”

  Trish placed the cheese sandwiches in the hot butter, pulled two glasses from the cupboard and filled them with iced tea. “I guess I’m still waiting for my toaster oven on that one.”

  “Funny, that’s exactly what Laura said the day I came out to her. I was in first year med school. She laughed and said, ‘Do you have to copy me in everything?’ She was joking of course, because she knew the one thing I’d never copy her in was joining the army.”

  Exasperation fell across Trish’s face in hard lines. “I tried so hard to talk her out of joining that damned army. Threatened to break up with her, promised to follow her anywhere as long as it wasn’t to an army base. I tried everything. Even said I’d put off my own schooling and get a job to help her pay for medical school, since tuition was her big excuse for joining.”

  “I know. I remember some of that tension between you two back then.”

  Trish poured a premixed bag of salad into a bowl. “That was the start of all the trouble between us,” she said on a long sigh. “It only got worse and we couldn’t get past it once I realized she would have joined the army anyway, school fees or not. She loved that damned army.”

  “I hated it when you guys broke up,” Pam blurted out. She was devastated when Trish stopped coming around, hated that her sister was so unhappy for months afterward, hated that there was nothing she could do to reverse the situation. “Laura was miserable for a long time afterward. I guess I was too.”

  “Makes three of us.” Trish plated the sandwiches, added a couple of dill pickles on the side. “Sorry this is such a lame dinner.”

  “No, this is wonderful. If it wasn’t for this, I probably wouldn’t be eating at all today.”

  “Oh, Pam.” Trish reached across and touched her hand briefly. The gesture nearly reduced Pam to tears.

  To avert a burst of emotion, Pam plowed into her sandwich. “You and Laura stayed in touch over the years, so I’m glad about that.” But you never stayed in touch with me. You never even really said goodbye once you and Laura went your separate ways.

  “We didn’t for a long time, but the last four or five years, we’d talk on the phone once or twice a year, same with email. I saw her when she came to town last fall. We had dinner. I’m so glad we did.”

  Laura hadn’t much mentioned Trish to her in recent years, but Pam could read between the lines. She knew they still cared for one another on a level that was far beyond their everyday lives. They seemed to have a bond that remained strong between them. “How come,” Pam said in a wavering voice, “you and I never stayed in touch?” At one time, she’d thought they might. Or at least, she’d hoped that she and Trish were friends too.

  “I don’t know. I guess I lost track of you after your mom died and you moved to Chicago. I knew you were busy with medical school and all that, but I do wish we’d stayed friends. I’m sorry.” The brown eyes were so genuine, so understanding. Exactly the same as Pam remembered from all those years ago.

  “Me too. I’m sorry I didn’t track you down. You’re right, I was busy. Am busy. But it’s a poor excuse.” She looked at Trish and hoped her desperation didn’t show. “I could really use a friend now.”

  “So could I. Where are you staying?”

  “At the Marriott.”

  “Why don’t you stay here with me instead? Until it’s time to take Laura to Arlington? I hate the idea of either of us being alone right now.”

  The knots in Pam’s shoulders immediately dissolved. Yes, she answered, she’d like that. Being with Trish felt strangely familiar and decidedly comforting. Trish was the only tether she had now to this city, was the only person she could talk to about growing up here, about Laura, about her mom, about all the memories. Trish was practically family, and she grounded Pam in a way no one else could right now.

  The sun was setting quickly, and Trish switched on a lamp as they moved to the living room. Another switch and the gas fireplace came to life—there was still a chill to the April evening air and a dampness to the old house. Pam picked up the framed photo of the three of them from the mantel. It was Laura’s medical school graduation, and she looked absolutely thrilled and totally excited for the future. Pam, who was about to graduate from high school, was staring in awe at her big sister, while Trish stared guardedly into the camera.

  “Did you know when this picture was taken that it was pretty much over between you and Laura?”

  “Yes. We held on for a few weeks after her graduation, but we both knew our lives were moving apart. I
was already teaching here. I didn’t want to leave. Laura knew she would never come back here to stay, would probably not settle in any one place for a long, long time. We couldn’t find common ground anymore.”

  Pam set the photo back down and moved to the sofa. “You didn’t want to be an army wife.”

  Trish laughed bitterly and took a seat beside Pam. “You mean I didn’t want to be Laura’s dirty little secret. No, the army didn’t exactly put out the welcome mat to same-sex partners, and I couldn’t stand the thought of living that way. Besides, I was starting my career here, Laura was embarking on hers. I wanted to invest in my community. Laura was happy bobbing along to wherever the army sent her. It didn’t exactly make us compatible.”

  “True. But you two loved each other so much. I was young and naive, I know that, but I thought you guys would always be together.” She remembered how they were in high school—always laughing, always holding hands, always so damned happy, like they were meant to be together forever. “I could hardly believe it when suddenly you weren’t a couple. To me it was like, I don’t know, what the breakup of the Beatles must have felt like to our parents’ generation.”

  That got a smile from Trish. “Well, like the Beatles, I guess even good things have to end eventually. Life gets harder and it seemed like it got hard pretty fast for Laura and me.”

  “Would you still be together if Laura had never joined the army?”

  “Laura was never not going to join the army. She needed that adventure in her life, needed to feel she was doing some good in the world, serving others in a way she couldn’t have done working at some stateside hospital or clinic.” Trish’s face flushed. “Sorry. I don’t mean to suggest that what you do…”

  “No, I know what you mean.” Hell, lots of days, she felt she wasn’t doing much good at the hospital either, but in her heart she knew she was doing something useful with her life. Not on a global scale like Laura, but still, she was doing some good; she was helping people. “Laura had a certain hero mentality about her. She was born to it. It was not something I could ever emulate, even if I’d tried.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t, or you might have…”

  “Died too?” Pam supplied, her thoughts turning somber. Death was the reason they were here, chatting in Trish’s living room, reunited again. How strange it felt that it was just the two of them together, that the third and most important link in their triumvirate, Laura, was absent. A tricycle without one of its wheels.

  Trish leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “Dammit. Why couldn’t she have chosen a safer path? I mean, she could have done noble work and not had to risk her life on the other side of the world. This…this…what’s happened, it’s something I always feared would happen. I can’t say I expected it, but I feared it.”

  Pam’s throat tightened. She’d had those same thoughts, knew Laura would be in harm’s way as long as she stayed in the army, but she’d convinced herself Laura would skate through it. “There was no way we could have talked her out of it. I tried, I know you tried too. She was going to live her life the way she wanted, no matter what the people who loved her had to say about it. She was her own woman. I accepted that a long time ago.”

  “I know. You’re right.” Trish clamped her arms around herself as if warding off a chill. “I guess I could never truly accept that stubborn insistence of hers, which is why I let her go. I had to let her go so it wouldn’t hurt so much if something happened to her. And now…”

  “Now she’s gone,” Pam muttered softly around the lump in her throat.

  Trish shook her head, her mouth a bitter line. Pam knew she too would grow angry, that she’d go through this same stage at some point. But right now she missed Laura, terribly. Couldn’t fathom what the future would look like without her. It was so damned sad, a hollowness that was so gut-wrenchingly awful. She buried her face in her hands and let the sobs rack her body in turbulent waves.

  “Oh, Pammy.”

  If Pam could have smiled, she would have. It was the pet name Trish had called her when she was little, and it transported her back to that time and made her feel loved for a tiny moment. Made her feel sheltered in a way she hadn’t felt since those days.

  Trish crouched down beside her, pulled her into an embrace, held her tightly, as tightly as a mother would hold a small child crying out in pain. Pam buried her face against Trish’s shoulder, felt the warmth of her hand rubbing gentle circles on her back. There was no one else who could hold her like this, who could understand her loss, who could empathize with her aloneness in the world. With Laura gone, Trish was now her only real link to her past.

  “Trish, please don’t leave me,” she choked out.

  “I won’t, Pammy. I promise I won’t.”

  Chapter Five

  Hundreds of people—possibly as many as a thousand—shuffled past the flag-draped casket to pay their respects. Most of them Trish didn’t recognize, though she did notice some former teachers, a few childhood friends, former neighbors of the Wrights, some of her colleagues at the school. Local politicians showed up too, of course, to do their duty. Trish found herself wishing her parents, who’d retired to Hawaii more than a decade ago, had made the trip back. But they were remote, physically and emotionally, as usual. It was just her and Pam, and she marveled at how Pam heroically managed to stay on her feet for the four hours it took to greet everyone personally. Camille stayed close at hand.

  The toughest part for Trish was listening to the speeches. An army major spoke first, though he’d only barely known Laura. He talked a lot about the mission, about the army, like it was some higher calling that mere mortals wouldn’t understand. It mildly offended Trish. Right now she had only condemning thoughts about the mission and its horrendous human toll. If she had the power, God knew she’d bring all the men and women in uniform home right this second.

  How had it all come to this, Laura in a casket? How had the years slipped by in the blink of an eye? Had it really been seventeen years ago that Laura announced she was joining the army so that she could go to medical school? Followed by thirteen dangerous years of service, starting right before 9/11? With the same sick feeling in her stomach, she remembered the day Laura announced she was joining up. It was a day that closed one chapter in Trish’s life and began a new and involuntary one. It was the day she had to begin letting go of the dream of the two of them moving through life together, because the army would become Laura’s lifemate, her first priority. The army would take the best of Laura and leave Trish with only the dregs, and that simply wasn’t good enough. She deserved more from Laura, and it somehow seemed easier back then to pull away, to start planning for a future without her. Lines could be drawn so easily, so definitively, when you thought you still had your whole life ahead of you, Trish mused.

  “If you love me, you won’t do it.”

  “If you do it, I’ll leave you.”

  “I won’t wait for you, Laura. I won’t play second fiddle.”

  “I won’t sacrifice my career for yours.”

  “I won’t live a lie for the army.”

  Yes, she’d said all of those things and more, using her words like clubs. She’d forced Laura to make a choice between her and the army. And she’d lost.

  Camille began speaking, her words giving the service a more personal touch. She described how she looked up to Laura for her professionalism, her talents as a doctor and a soldier, her selfless commitment to the army and her country, her bravery. Always her bravery, Camille said through a tearful smile. She described how Laura once ignored a rocket attack on base to finish the surgical procedure she was in the middle of. How she once went out in an armored vehicle down a road riddled with IEDs (improvised explosive devices) to get to a soldier trapped under a wrecked truck in a ditch. How she would stop at nothing to help someone, friend or foe. The army was lucky to have had Laura, Camille concluded, but not as lucky as she was to have called Laura a friend.

  Trish involuntarily held her breath as
Pam moved to the lectern, her shoulders rounded with the invisible weight of grief. She looked tired, fragile, so damn alone. She was a beautiful young woman, thirty or thirty-one years old now. Her hair was still naturally blond, her face not yet lined, but her eyes were old beyond their years. Pam had seen much suffering in her young life. Her dad had perished in a plane crash when Pam was barely a preschooler. Her mom, a hardworking janitor at the university who sometimes had to moonlight at a second job to make ends meet, had died more than six years ago of cancer. With Laura off somewhere across the globe, Pam had put off her medical career to be her mother’s primary caregiver in her final months. Pam had undoubtedly seen much sickness and suffering in her chosen profession as well, and Trish longed to see Pam in happier times. A smile would be a start, even for a few seconds—a smile that said she hadn’t a care in the world. A smile to wipe away all the sadness.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Pam announced softly. “I know that if Laura could, she would thank you too for not only honoring her life, but for honoring the life she chose as well. Joining the army…” Pam’s voice broke and she took a moment to compose herself. “Joining the army is not for everyone. Certainly it’s not for me. And as much as Laura’s chosen life scared me, it was what she wanted.” Pam glanced softly at Trish, and Trish knew Pam’s words were meant for her.

  “In fact, Laura talked about little else besides the army for the last thirteen years. I know that she truly felt a part of something much bigger than herself, and really, what better sense of purpose can a person have than to be a part of something much grander?”

  There were nods of agreement in the crowd, smiles of understanding. Pam took a long moment before she began again. It had to be so hard to say nice things about the army right now. If it’d been Trish up there, there was no way she could do it. She’d tell them to stick the mission right up their asses!