A Hero Comes Home

by Sandra Hill

  “Amen,” they all said, even the kids.

  Everyone dug in then, and the food, simple as it was, was excellent. He had two helpings before the cake was served with ice-cold milk. That, too, was excellent, even better than his mother’s, he had to admit.

  Mostly, things weren’t awkward, as he’d expected, because the kids talked nonstop. About everything.

  Boy Scouts. “Those darn knots!” Jake was reminded by Luke.

  Bicycles . . . Mark’s needed a new chain.

  Fishing . . . Mommy’s friend K-4 had taken them, Matt revealed, causing Sally’s face to pinken.

  The upcoming Lollypalooza, in which Mommy was going to sing, which caused Sally’s face to grow even pinker.

  “It’s just for fun,” she explained.

  “Uncle Kevin is gonna play the guitar while she sings,” good ol’ Matt added.

  Uncle Kevin? Okaaay. Jake arched his brows at Sally.

  But she was looking the other way.

  Deliberately?

  And the kids were off and running in another direction.

  “Are you still a captain in the Army?” Mark wanted to know, speaking around a mouthful of cake.

  “Sort of.”

  His father and Sally gave him pointed looks.

  “They want to make me a major.” If I take their freakin’ DC job.

  “Is that bigger than a captain?” Mark wanted to know.

  “Um, sort of. It’s a higher rank, son. That’s the correct word, not bigger.”

  Mark ducked his head, and Jake could tell that he’d embarrassed him by correcting his language. Hadn’t Sally mentioned that Mark was the sensitive one?

  “It’s a mistake lots of people make,” he elaborated.

  And Mark’s head went back up.

  “Do you have an eyeball, or ith there juth a hole there?” Luke wanted to know, pointing at his eye patch.

  “Yes, I have an eyeball.”

  “Is it a glass one?” This from Matt. “I saw a video on YouTube where a guy could pop out his glass eye. It was so cool.”

  “Matthew Dawson!” Sally chided. “What did I tell you about watching YouTube videos without my permission?”

  “It was a long time ago. At Bobby Allison’s birthday party, and everyone else was looking. I couldn’t not look and be a dork.”

  “Dork is not a word we use in this house, young man,” Sally said.

  Jake listened with amusement at this exchange between mother and child. Then answered Matt’s question. “No, I don’t have a glass eye. I wear the patch so I don’t creep people out, although I should probably keep it off more often so I can force the eye to exercise. In fact, the doctor suggests I wear the patch over my good eye sometimes to force my injured eye to work, in an attempt to regain mobility. That’s its main problem. The injured eye doesn’t move up and down or to the sides the way it should.”

  “You can exercise an eye?” Mark honed in on the least important part of what he’d said.

  All three of the boys pondered that idea then as they did a pretty good version of the Three Stooges attempting to roll their eyes in various directions, including cross-eyed.

  His father was chuckling, and Sally was shaking her head with resignation at their antics.

  Jake figured it was now or never. He couldn’t hide it forever. “Here goes,” he said and flipped the eye patch upward. To his surprise, no one gasped or looked like they were about to vomit.

  “It’s still blue,” Sally remarked.

  What? As if the eye color were important! But she said it in a nice way—he knew how much she’d always liked his blue eyes—so, he forgave her.

  His dad was more practical. “Can they make it any better?”

  Jake shrugged. “There are some experimental surgeries I might try. Later.”

  “I don’t think it’s creepy,” Matt concluded. “I was ’spectin’ blood and gooey stuff, like snot.”

  Sally put her face in her hands for a moment with dismay.

  But Jake was okay with his kids’ observations. He wanted them to say what they thought. Better that than folks who pretended not to notice his bum eye, like they had back at the hospital before he’d started wearing the patch.

  Luke got up and came over to give him a closer look, even touching the scars that had yet to fade from the stitches. “Kin you thee me at all, from that eye?”

  “Not really. Just a shadowy form. But that’s better than it was before my last surgery. Before, everything was all black,” Jake explained.

  “How many surgeries have you had, son?” his father asked.

  “On my eye . . . two.” On my leg, three.

  “Jake is scheduled for appointments next month at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City and one at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore,” Sally told his father. “I checked on the internet and they are the best places by far for eye and orthopedic surgeries.”

  Really? That was news to him. That Sally had bothered to see if those facilities were up to par for her “ass” of a husband. Hmmm.

  With the kids’ curiosity satisfied, Jake flipped the eye patch back down, and the boys were off in other directions.

  “Do you know how to play batheball, Daddy?” This from Luke.

  “Yeah. It’s been a long time since I’ve played, but . . . yeah.”

  “I can’t hit the ball worth crap,” Luke told him. The kid had more chocolate on his T-shirt than in his mouth, where, yes, his two front teeth were missing.

  With my one eye, I probably can’t hit a ball worth crap, either.

  “Luke! That is not a word that little boys use,” Sally reprimanded.

  “Ith what Coach Thutter thaid.”

  Sally looked at Jake and told him, “Coach Sutter is the T-Ball coach. You remember Ted Sutter, don’t you?”

  Yeah, he remembered Ted, and when they were in high school Ted had a foul tongue with which crap was the least of what he would have said. To Luke, he offered, “We can work on your batting, if you want. That, and your knots. No, I didn’t forget, buddy.” Almost immediately, he wished he’d kept his mouth shut as the expression of what could only be described as adoration hit his kid’s face. Shiit! He didn’t intend to be around any longer than he had to.

  “Do you wear that eye patch all the time?”

  “I’m gonna be a doctor when I grow up. Maybe I’ll be able to fix your eye for you then.”

  “I’m gonna be a fisherman like PopPop.”

  “Maybe I’ll be a doctor and a fisherman.”

  “Can I have another piece of cake?”

  “Why do you have that thing on your leg?”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “I broke my arm one time and it hurt soooo bad.”

  “Did you really live in a cave, Daddy?”

  “My scout troop went on a field trip to Crystal Cave over on the mainland. There was thousands of bats hangin’ from the ceiling. Yeeech!”

  “Bats are good. They eat bugs. Miss Lindy said so, in science class.”

  “Can I be excuthed, Mom. I hafta pee.”

  “Mr. Baxter says you’re a hero. Are you a hero, Daddy?”

  “What’s a hero?”

  “Can I go to a birthday sleepover at Danny Stewart’s tomorrow night? He’s gonna have tents in the backyard and a wienie roast and ghost stories and everything.”

  “I doan like ghosts.”

  “You’re a scaredy-cat.”

  “Am not!”

  On and on the conversation went, most of which required no responses from the adults, except for an occasional reprimand from Sally. Eventually, while Sally cleared the table, Jake went in with his father to watch the kids go to town with the games. The squealing and laughter and arguments reached a fever pitch and might become annoying later, but for now they were a joy to his ears.

  “Well, I’m going to head home,” his father announced suddenly. “I’ll see you later at the barbecue.”

  “The barbecue?”


  “Didn’t Sally tell you—”

  “No, I haven’t had a chance yet,” Sally said, coming into the living room.

  His father was obviously relieved to leave the explanation to Sally.

  “It’s just a little get-together for the folks on this street, to thank them for being so accepting of the inconvenience . . . you know, of Forge Street being blocked off.”

  “And as thanks I’m being offered as an exhibit?”

  “Jacob, don’t be an . . .” She glanced over to see if the boys were listening. They weren’t. “. . . an ass. Whether it’s tonight, or tomorrow, or next week, you’re going to have to face people sometime.”

  “I can cancel for tonight if you want, son,” his father offered. “I was just going to grill burgers and hot dogs. Everyone else was going to bring a dish. We can postpone.”

  “The barbecue is at your place?” At his father’s red face, Jake said, “No, tonight is fine. Sally’s right about my having to face people. I was just surprised.”

  His father left then, and Sally scooted into the kitchen before he could give her hell. He sat down on the low sofa and watched the boys play. It was sometime later that he woke up with no memory of having stretched out or fallen asleep. It was the silence that awakened him.

  Opening his eyes slowly, he saw that the boys were gone, and Sally was sitting on the floor in front of the sofa watching the Food Network with the volume muted, some kind of kid baking championship. A tablet and pen sitting on her lap indicated she’d been taking notes.

  “Where is everyone?” he murmured.

  “The boys are over at your dad’s, helping him prepare for the party,” she said, turning to look at him, after setting the tablet and pen on the floor.

  “A party is it now?” he teased.

  “Don’t be an . . .”

  “. . . ass,” he finished for her.

  When she realized he was teasing, she made a tsk-ing sound and went to swat at him.

  “C’mere, babe,” he said, grabbing her hand and rolling onto his side, making room for her to lie down beside him. He knew she would fit. This battered old sofa had been one of their first purchases when they’d gotten married. If sofas could talk!

  She stiffened for only a second, then settled on her side facing him.

  “Shouldn’t you be at work today, at your bakery?” he asked as he rubbed a palm over her hair, wondering if it was still as soft now as it had been when it was long. It was.

  “I have an assistant who took over for me today.” She tilted her head into his palm which was now cupping her jaw. “Why would I go to work on your first day home?”

  “You were pissed with me when I left.”

  “That was three years ago! Did you think I held on to that anger all this time?”

  He shrugged as if he didn’t know.

  “Idiot!”

  He nuzzled her neck, then leaned back a bit and said, “I’m going to like this bakery gig of yours if you smell so sweet all the time. I was going to buy you some perfume at the exchange, but this is lots better.”

  She was running her hand over his shoulder and chest and arm, relearning his body, which he knew was the same, and yet different. Leaner, certainly. But could she feel some ridges under his T-shirt? What would she think when she saw the scars? There would be questions, for sure.

  His conjecture proved true when she asked, “Jacob, what happened to you?”

  He blinked several times to mask any bleakness or horror that might be revealed in his one eye that was exposed, and said, “Shhh.” Then he did what he’d wanted to do from the instant he’d seen her. For three friggin’ years, actually.

  He kissed her.

  And the kiss was sweeter than any item she might offer in her bakery. The chocolate cake he’d just devoured came to mind.

  And the kiss was sweeter than hot sofa sex. The many times they’d rocked this very furniture came to mind.

  And the kiss was sweeter than anything his dreams could conjure up. Three years of sexual fantasies came to mind.

  In fact, when he was being interrogated, endlessly, or tortured, brutally, he’d found a way to enter a dream state where he’d made a game of picturing kisses with his wife, all different kinds, seventeen in all. And caresses . . . who knew there were fifty-four ways of touching a woman, or being touched by a woman? Then there was the sex itself. Forget all those pseudo experts in men’s magazines, Jake was the king of sexual fantasies, featuring his ten favorites.

  And forget all that SERE training soldiers, especially Special Forces ones, were given under the Army Code of Conduct for “surrender, evasion, resistance, and escape” of POWs. When it came right down to it, each man had to dig deep and try whatever worked for him to keep faith, whether in God, country, or family, or a combination of all three, that he would eventually be saved.

  In Jake’s case, for some crazy-ass reason, it was Sally’s kisses that had helped him most through some of the worst times. Maybe it was the simplicity, the honesty, of a kiss, compared to the evil he’d been facing. Or maybe it was the fact that a kiss was often the prelude to something else, a signal of hope, and he’d been pretty much without hope back then when he’d been told that everyone back home thought he was long dead.

  And so he surrendered for the moment to the sheer bliss of kissing his wife. It wasn’t a trick to make him reveal secrets. No one would beat him bloody for failing to show his pain. He could show his emotions without words. He could feel human for as long as the kiss lasted.

  Gentle and seeking.

  Shaping.

  Ah, there, the perfect fit.

  Sweet.

  But, no, this is better.

  Hot.

  Wet and open.

  Gentle again.

  Oh, Lord, thank You for this small blessing. A willing woman. My wife.

  For the first time in what seemed like forever, Jake was glad he’d survived.

  Suddenly, he heard a buzzing noise. Not a doorbell, or any of the usual Bell Cove bell sounds. Was it in his head? Oh, Lord! Was this to be another effect of his torture, a new feature of PTSD . . . a buzzing signal when he got turned on? Red tide and now erotic buzzing. What next?

  But wait. Sally was pushing away from him and laughing. “It’s the oven buzzer. I’m making brownies for the barbecue,” she explained. Standing, she straightened her clothes and looked down at him, all blush-faced cheeks and kiss-swollen lips, her short hair tousled as if she’d just engaged in a bed romp. In other words, sexy as hell.

  As she walked away, he thought, Saved by the bell . . . uh, buzzer.

  But he remembered a time when they wouldn’t have let any damn bell, or buzzer, or an Outer Banks hurricane, for that matter, keep them from rocking the sofa.

  Chapter 7

  The benefits of a hurricane (Does IKEA know about this?) . . .

  (Bell Cove, seven years ago)

  The hurricane had been downgraded from a Category 3 to a Category 1, but still Jake’s mother and father decided to take part in the voluntary evacuation of the Outer Banks recommended by the North Carolina governor, and they were taking Jake’s one-year-old son, Matthew, with them. They would ride out the storm at Aunt Tillie’s house in Richmond.

  Jake and Sally, on the other hand, had decided to stay put, guarding the cottage they’d bought last year, as well as his parents’ place across the street. Even though they were located a mile in either direction from the Atlantic Ocean and Bell Sound, storm surge flooding was unpredictable and could be devastating. They weren’t about to risk damage to the hundred-year-old cottage in which they’d invested every bit of their savings, including the bonus he’d received for reupping.

  “Good thing I was home on leave,” he told Sally as they continued to board up the windows with plywood that was kept in the garage for just such emergencies. It might be an unnecessary precaution, but the old leaded windows, especially the ones with stained glass on them, like the one here fronting the house, were too precious to ta
ke a chance on damage. There were also a dozen sandbags sitting in the bed of his pickup in case they were needed.

  “What? You think I wouldn’t have been able to handle an emergency by myself?” she asked, sucking on the thumb she’d just hit with a hammer.

  Oh, boy! She is in one of her moods. Picking a fight.

  When he didn’t react to her question, she said, “That is so sexist.”

  Yep, mood central!

  Probably still brooding over my reup.

  Or maybe it’s good ol’ PMS.

  That would mean she’s horny as hell, as well as moody. Her hormones always go haywire before her period.

  But, man, I better not say that out loud.

  He just grinned, which annoyed her even more.

  The humidity was about a hundred and ten percent, and sweat was pouring off both of them as they continued to batten down their home. Sally wore only a little halter top and shorts. With her long brown hair pulled into a high ponytail, she still had strands plastered along the edge of her face. He was no better, in running shorts and nothing else, though his hair, of course, was military short. A blessing in this heat wave, which would soon break when the rain finally hit. Which it was starting to do.

  “You would have evacuated if I weren’t here,” he contended, putting in one last nail, then stepping back to observe his work. Good enough, he decided, then glanced at Sally who hadn’t responded to his remark. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.” She had the cutest little ski jump nose, which was raised obstinately at the moment.

  He leaned down and kissed the tip of it. “Don’t even think about trying to hunker down on your own during a hurricane. You’re not used to storms on the Outer Banks.”

  She shrugged. “You’re the one who plopped me down here after our quickie shotgun wedding and then went off to war or war games or whatever the hell it is that you do in that Special Forces unit. You have no idea what this city girl has learned while you’ve been gone.”