“Sounds like you have exactly the life I’m trying to build for myself,” Pam said.
“Then you’re a very lucky woman. As am I. C’mon, let me show you what I do here.”
Logan toured her through a couple of wings and several floors, showed her where programs such as addictions counseling, physiotherapy, cardiac rehab and sexual health were conducted. There were other areas of the hospital they wouldn’t have time to look at today, Logan explained. There were one hundred and eight beds in the full-service hospital, plus a nursing home of equal size. A program for homeless veterans took up part of another building. “We’d need the right paperwork to get you through those areas, but there’s one more place I can take you to.”
Logan led the way down a hall, stopping in front of a closed door. “This,” she said with a grin, “is our music room. I swear it’s the most popular place of all.” Gently, she pushed the door open.
Instruments of every kind hung on the walls. On the floor were a couple of drum kits, a piano, a large conga set.
A man in a wheelchair, his back to them, quietly strummed a guitar.
“They can come in anytime and use the room, the instruments,” Logan said. “There’s also piano lessons, guitar and drum lessons. Musicians volunteer their time to come in and teach. It’s great. The vets love it, everybody loves it.”
The man in the wheelchair swung around to face them.
I know that guy, Pam thought.
“Doc?” He squinted at her. “That you?”
Logan watched them with mild amusement.
“Ross? My God, it is you!”
Pam rushed across the room to him, bent down and hugged him, guitar and all.
“It’s so good to see you. How are you, Ross?”
“A hell of a lot better than I was, last time you saw me.”
“Afghanistan?” Logan prompted.
Pam nodded, quickly summarizing their experience together.
“She was my angel,” Ross said, emotion thick in his voice. “I don’t know that I would have got through it if not for this woman. Christ, I don’t even know your name, doc.”
“Pamela Wright. And I hate to admit this, but I don’t know your full name either.” She smiled helplessly. “We missed the formal introduction. Things were a bit crazy at the time.”
Ross laughed. “That’s an understatement. Rory Ross, but everybody calls me Ross. And it’s a pleasure to formally meet you, Pamela Wright.”
“Do you know Dr. Sharp?” Pam asked.
“Afraid I don’t. It’s a big place here.”
“Sure is,” Logan said. “You’re doing okay?”
He looked down at his lap, at the stumps he had for legs now. “Been better, but I’m here.”
“Well,” Logan said with empathy, “that’s the main thing. Very few of us make it back undamaged. We have to rebuild our lives with what we have.”
Ross set the guitar down, fumbled around in his back pocket. He pulled out a cell phone, tapped it a couple of times, handed it to Pam. “My little boy, Marty. Only three weeks old now.”
Pam smiled at the picture. A father couldn’t look more proud than Ross did, cradling his baby son. “Beautiful.”
“Yeah,” he said, stuffing the phone back in his pocket. “I’ve got one more surgery to go, then I’ll be able to go home for good. What about you? You still in Chicago? Wasn’t that where you said you live?”
“Ann Arbor now.”
“Sweet. Just down the road. You should come for dinner sometime, meet Marty and my wife Kelly.”
“That’d be nice.”
“One more thing, doc.” He tilted his head at the guitar. “You know how to play this thing? ’Cuz I can’t play worth a shit. Not anymore, but I still love to hear it played real good.” He raised his right hand to show Pam. It was scarred and missing two fingers. Remembering how mangled it was, she was surprised he’d managed to keep most of it.
Pam picked up the guitar and sat down on a nearby stool. She hadn’t played in months, but she didn’t think Ross would mind if her skills were rusty. She thought of Laura, how Laura loved to listen to her play the guitar when they were younger. By her own admission, Laura had never possessed the patience to learn how to play an instrument. Too much sitting in one place, she’d scoffed, and yet she was supportive of Pam learning and playing.
Pam began the opening bars of “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone.” The song came back to her more effortlessly than she expected; it was one she’d spent hours—weeks—learning when she was a teenager and despairing over her unrequited love for Trish. Now she thought, fingerpicking her way through the song, it was about Laura and Laura’s absence. Not Trish. Never Trish again.
“Damn,” Pam said after Logan and Ross applauded her. “Seems like all the good songs are about women breaking your heart, doesn’t it?”
“How about something happier, doc? Last thing I need is to sit around here listening to sad songs.” Ross was grinning around his words.
“Okay,” Pam said, then began the opening notes to Jack Johnson’s “Better Together.”
When she was finished, she set the guitar down, and turned to Ross. “How would you feel about being in a book one day?”
Epilogue
It was warm for November—spring coats and light shoes weather. The pungent scent of distant burning leaves permeated the air, and Pam breathed in deeply. She loved fall, loved the four seasons of the Great Lakes. She loved living in Ann Arbor again, loved the city’s refinement, the signs of learning and teaching everywhere. It felt like a city of possibilities, with the continuous promise of bright futures rolling out from it like a red carpet. She loved the autumn weekends too, when the city was bathed in yellow and blue as alumni swarmed in to watch the football games. The party atmosphere made her feel young, happy, weightless again. She and Laura had been to the Big House a handful of times to see a football game, and they’d acted as silly as the rest of the young fans, painting their faces, drinking beer, yelling and stomping their feet in wild cheers. It was Laura who’d taught her how to throw a football. How to spread the tips of her fingertips over the string, how to spin, release, and arc the ball, using her wrist.
Beside her, Trish held her hand—strength and love in their entwined fingers. It was Veterans Day, and Laura’s name had just been pasted on a plaque for the memorial wall downtown. A shaky version of “Taps” was being played on the trumpet by a nervous, young cadet. There were veterans from many wars here, some old and stooped and nearly blind, others more youthful, but they too stooped with a weariness that hadn’t been delivered by age.
Pam thought of her own weariness, wondering if it showed in her face, in her body. Laura had been gone seven months. And while Pam had found incredible happiness in those months, the loss hadn’t left her. Probably never would, she guessed. She’d filled some of that space with her work at the VA hospital in town—the new health program for women vets—and of course with Trish. They hoped in the next couple of years to fill more of that space with a child too, and Pam couldn’t wait. But she knew, deep down, that something would always be missing from their lives. Laura.
She squeezed Trish’s hand as a minister, then a priest, recited a prayer.
“You okay?” Pam whispered.
Trish smiled at her, nodded. There was pride in her eyes and a sense of peace that had finally supplanted her anger. They’d both come to an acceptance of Laura’s death, its heartbreaking permanence. And yet in some ways, Laura was more alive to them than she had ever been. With Trish it was through the book she had begun writing about Laura and veterans returning home. With Pam it was through her work at the VA hospital. They weren’t ready to completely let the army off the hook—it wasn’t a perfect institution by any means, and it had made its share of mistakes—but at least now they understood the necessity for its existence, respected and appreciated the tireless sacrifice its servicemen and women had made. Freedom and justice came at a price. And while she hated that
her sister had paid the ultimate price, Laura had certainly not been the only one. Many other good men and women had paid that price too, and they all belonged to the stars now, Pam thought with hopeful determination. They are part of everything now, all of us.
Silence, heavy as a blanket, hung over the ceremony. An army colonel in full dress uniform stepped on to the podium, his polished boots making a thudding sound in the quiet. He cradled a small red velvet box in his large hands. He cleared his throat nervously, but when he spoke, his voice was strong and clear. He spoke about Laura and her army career, listed all her impressive accomplishments. He opened the box to reveal four medals, to be presented posthumously. There was an Iraq campaign medal, an Afghanistan campaign medal, a Purple Heart and a commendation medal. He called Pam to the podium. She tugged Trish along, and together they accepted the medals.
These pieces of ribbon and precious metal would not magically heal their hearts, Pam knew. But they would be a reminder of Laura’s excellence, of her commitment, and they would be symbols of what Laura had believed in. They would be symbols of her quest to make the world a better place, and for that reason, they were precious to Pam.
The gathering disassembled quietly, people peeling off alone or in small groups. Pam and Trish lingered, touching Laura’s newly affixed plaque on the wall.
“Hmm,” Trish muttered. “What do you think Laura would have thought of all this?”
Laura hated pomp and circumstance, but in her heart, she was a proud woman, a proud soldier. “She would have liked it, I think.”
“I think so too. You ready to meet the gang?”
“Yes, let’s go,” Pam answered. They were meeting Logan and her wife Jillian and their young daughter Maddie for dinner. Rosa and her new girlfriend were joining them as well. They would celebrate and have a good time, and they’d give one hell of a toast to Laura, Pam thought with a smile. She tucked the box of medals inside her jacket. She’d bring them along and put them right in the center of the table, as if Laura herself were joining them, smiling in that way of hers that was both cocky and humble at the same time.
Bella Books, Inc.
Women. Books. Even Better Together.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
Phone: 800-729-4992
www.BellaBooks.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Other Books by Tracey Richardson
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
Bella Books
Last Salute Page 24
