A Hero Comes Home

by Sandra Hill

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Don’t you have pain meds?”

  “I do, but I don’t like to take them.”

  “The opioid addiction thing?”

  “That and the fact that they dull my brain, make me sleepy.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m gonna take one in a few minutes,” he said, then looked directly at her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, babe, but I’m gonna sleep on the couch tonight.”

  She wasn’t sure if he meant because of the stairs, or because of the mistake they’d made earlier with the “almost sex” on the sofa. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, or to engage in that particular discussion tonight.

  He was still looking at her. Was he expecting her to argue with him, or offer to sleep on the couch with him? Which would be tight, and therefore involve more than sleeping. He was, after all, still an attractive man, and she had been celibate for a very long time, and he was her husband. Instead, she said, “I’ll get you a pillow and sheets.”

  He was the one who nodded now, and then was back to massaging his leg and staring straight ahead.

  She thought about offering to do the massage for him. Perhaps with some warm oil. No, no, no! That would lead in the same direction as sharing the sofa. She felt the need to say something else, though. “Jacob, I am glad to have you home. I hope you know that.”

  He didn’t look at her when he said, “I’m glad to be home.” It was almost as if he was surprised to be “glad,” that perhaps he hadn’t wanted to come back here.

  Maybe she wasn’t the only one who’d been thinking about divorce three years ago. Or even now.

  Later that night, she awakened suddenly, disoriented. She wasn’t sure what had drawn her from the deep sleep she’d fallen into the second she hit the mattress. It had been a long, long day. For all of them.

  Any mother—especially the mother of three boys—was alert to the slightest disturbance in the air during the night, even when asleep. She looked at her bedside clock. Almost two a.m. She slipped out from under the sheet and coverlet and made her way down the hall.

  First, Matt’s tiny bedroom where she saw that he was spread-eagled out on his back, uncovered, snoring slightly. Because he was prone to throat infections, he would probably need to have his tonsils removed next year. She covered him, kissed him lightly on the forehead, and left the room.

  Next, she checked the second bedroom where Mark was on the top bunk and Luke on the bottom. Both fast asleep. She kissed them, too, and was about to leave the room when she heard a shout from downstairs, “No!”

  It was Jake.

  That must be what had awakened her.

  Had someone entered the house? An intruder bent on theft? Or, more likely, a reporter? But, no, she was about to grab for Mark’s metal baseball bat when she heard Jake muttering, “Name: Jacob Lloyd Dawson. Rank: captain. Identification number . . . No! Oh, Jesus, please, not the knife again!”

  She dropped the bat and ran down the stairs. In her bare feet, she approached the living room unnoticed. But maybe Jake wouldn’t have heard her anyway. The television was still on, some old war movie, and she could see by the lighted screen that he was flailing about on the floor, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs.

  Because of all the weight he’d lost, she could see his ribs. And scars. Many, many scars. Not just on his leg.

  She stopped and leaned against the door frame. Oh, my God! Look at him! Oh, my God!

  He was moaning now, clutching frantically at his injured eye. The eye patch was on the floor beside him, along with the balled-up sheet and blanket and the pillow that she’d laid out for him earlier. He must have rolled off the couch in the midst of this nightmare, or whatever it was. Sometimes Mark suffered from night terrors. Was that what this was? Or something more?

  “Jacob,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  He jackknifed to a sitting position and then, in one fluid motion, up into a low crouch. The sound that came out of his mouth was almost feral.

  “You’re just dreaming, Jacob. It’s not real,” she said softly, the same way the doctor had told her to approach Mark when he was still in that half-sleep state. She stepped forward, intending to help him up and onto the sofa. That position must be killing his leg muscles.

  He was looking at her, but she could tell he wasn’t really seeing her. He was seeing something, though.

  “You vicious bastard!” he yelled and tackled her to the floor. Instantly, he had her pinned down with his hands against her shoulders. “Tables are turned now, motherfucker.”

  She was able to free her own hands, but, instead of attempting to shove him off, she framed his face with her palms and said, “Jacob, honey, it’s me. Sally. Your wife.”

  He blinked at her, still not awake, but disconcerted. She noticed that though his injured eye didn’t appear to move, his eyelid did when he blinked, which seemed odd to her.

  And then the town bells rang the hour. Bong, bong! Ding-dong! Clang, clang!

  He blinked some more, staring down at her with shock as he realized what he must have done. “Jesus,” he whispered, and it sounded like a prayer.

  “It’s all right, Jacob. Really. I’m all right. You’re all right.” She pulled his face down and took his full weight on top of her as he released a breathy exhale of relief.

  When she felt a wetness on her neck, she knew that there was something else his bad eye could do, besides blink. It could weep.

  There was hope in that, wasn’t there?

  Back to square one . . .

  Jake stuck close to home for the next few days, but he was as busy as if he had a full-time job. With Sally gone from four a.m. to one or two p.m., the empty house (except for three loud kids) became his office.

  He spent as much time as he could getting to know his boys. Giving all their bikes a tune-up. Hitting balls and showing them how to pitch. (Luke was as bad as his coach had said, but he was improving.) Teaching them all how to tie knots, especially Mark, who was trying to earn the badge and was excited for his next meeting when he could show the scoutmaster what he could do.

  This latter project called attention to his nailless fingers which fascinated his sons. Actually, the nails were one-quarter grown back by now. He didn’t want to lie; so, he just told them, “Sometimes bad things happen, but don’t worry. The good thing about fingernails is that they do grow back.”

  Yeah, right. “Bad things happen.” What a hokey thing to say. And, man, what I could tell them about bad things in this world! Which he wouldn’t, of course.

  “Just like your second teeth, which are growing in, short stuff,” he said, giving Luke a playful jab in the chin.

  Luke flashed him his gap-toothed smile, and Jake’s heart about melted. The kid was adorable. They all were. And they were so accepting of his just bouncing back into their lives after all this time.

  “Will your eye grow back . . . better?” Luke wanted to know.

  “Probably not, but it might get better than it is now, if I decide to have more surgeries.”

  “Are you afraid?” Matt asked.

  Jake wasn’t sure what he meant. “Of what?”

  “Surgery. I might have to have a surgery. On my tonsils,” Matt revealed in a shaky voice. “Cecily Dolan says they cut you open with a sharp knife and there’s blood everywhere and it hurts real bad. Sometimes they miss and take out the tongue, too. Her daddy is a doctor.”

  “Cecily is full of sh—shells. They put you to sleep and you don’t feel a thing. Afterward, you can suck on cherry popsicles till your tongue turns red and eat as much ice cream as you want.”

  Matt smiled, while Mark and Luke frowned with concentration. Jake could tell the other two were wondering if they should ask for an operation, too.

  But today the boys were off for a previously scheduled all-day scout field trip to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras. Sally had offered to cancel their participation since Jake had so recently come home, but Jake had been ada
mant in wanting them to resume their normal lives, or as normal as they could with the media spotlight still hovering over him, and therefore their lives, too.

  Jake spent the morning at the kitchen table culling through the dozens of text and voice mail messages that had accumulated, taking notes along the way. Using a special military-secure app on his phone, he forwarded the list of media ones to his liaison, Major Durand, who was in daily contact with him. To Jake’s shock and dismay, he was informed via text message today from Durand that he would be coming for a Labor Day weekend visit, just to make sure Jake was doing as well as he claimed to be. Not that he said so in those specific words.

  Immediately, Jake called Durand at his DC office and said, “You can’t come here. There’s no place to stay.”

  “Not to worry. Lieutenant Bernstein has offered me a room at his uncle’s home.”

  “Izzie?” The traitor!

  Jake had already called Mayor Ferguson declining any attention being paid to him during the holiday festivities. In addition, he’d told her that he wanted the townsfolk to remove all those bleepin’ yellow ribbons.

  Even though he’d thought he was being polite using bleepin’, rather than the more graphic word he was thinking, Doreen was offended. “Why don’t you tell them yourself? They’re only trying to show their love.” She didn’t add Sally’s usual tagline of “ass,” but she was probably thinking it.

  “I know that,” he conceded, “but it’s embarrassing.”

  “Live with it, boy. You’re a hero.”

  He could have argued that point, too, but instead he’d agreed to make nice with the elderly mayor by being one of the judges in the Lollypalooza talent contest. Not that he had any intention of doing so. Maybe he would skip town by then.

  And now he had to deal with this pole-up-the-ass military dude. He suspected that Durand was going to show up like Jake’s rucked-out guardian angel. “You’re just going to call more attention to me,” he complained.

  “No. I’ll be in civilian attire. Just a weekend of R & R. I even bought a Hawaiian shirt and surfer shorts.”

  Oh, my Lord! “Since this is supposed to be a vacay-type visit, is your wife coming with you?”

  “I’m not married.”

  Surprise, surprise. Who would have you?

  “But still looking. Ha, ha, ha.”

  Suddenly, an image of Gus’s hot-cha-cha mother came to mind, and Jake cringed. Note to self: warn Gus to keep his mother under wraps.

  “We can just say I’m a friend of Lieutenant Bernstein’s.”

  Yeah, like anyone’s going to believe that! On the other hand, maybe you and Izzie can cruise the singles bars. I can’t wait to make that suggestion to the traitor. “You better start calling him Izzie if you want to pull that off.”

  “Roger that,” Durand said.

  To which, Jake rolled his one eye.

  “Also, I’ll have a team of agents incognito around the town. The media will be there in droves trying to get at you.”

  That was just great! In a town that thrived on gossip and minding each other’s business, there was no way they wouldn’t recognize strangers in their midst. Yeah, it was tourist season, and there were bound to be the usual strangers, but Bell Cove-ites had a nose for strangers with ill intent . . . their words, not his. And, yes, they put newshounds in that category, unless it was publicity they were seeking.

  “I still say we should schedule one carefully orchestrated media event where you can answer a few questions and say that that is the only interview you will be granting.”

  Carefully orchestrated, Jake repeated to himself. He could imagine what that would involve. A love fest for Balakistan and Nazim bin Jamil.

  Not gonna happen! “Sorry. I’m not ready for that. I am going to talk to Laura Atler, the editor of the local weekly tabloid this afternoon, an old friend. Nothing political. Just a glad-to-be-home vanilla feature.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. You need more prep first.”

  “No. I can handle this. Don’t worry. I won’t upset your political applecart.” Not yet anyway. Where that last thought came from, he wasn’t sure. He had no inclination to become a hot football between the US and some foreign nation.

  After that, he called Izzie. “What the hell? You’re coming to Bell Cove? And becoming bunkmates with the asshole? Why? Is the Army making you come to babysit me? Or do you and Durand have something going on?”

  “What? I can’t come to sip a few suds with my best bud?”

  “Bite me,” Jake said. “By the way, I’m meeting Laura Atler for lunch today. She asked me if ‘that loser Izzie Bernstein’ is coming to Bell Cove anytime soon. Says she has something to return to you.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  Izzie and Laura had had a thing going on in high school and even into college, but something had come up to break off their relationship. And later Laura got engaged to some other dude. As far as Jake knew, that engagement had ended rather dramatically, or so Jake had heard on one of his leaves. “Any idea what she wants to return to you?”

  “No idea,” Izzie said.

  He was clearly lying. “Well, well, well. Do I smell a relationship brewing?” Jake teased.

  “Not a chance!” Izzie declared. “Maybe I won’t come to Bell Cove, after all.”

  Jake laughed.

  But then Izzie turned the tables on him by asking, “Speaking of relationships, has this been a commando week for you and Sally?”

  Jake had made the mistake years ago, soon after his marriage, of confiding in his best friend—okay, bragging—that he and his wife had enjoyed a unique “commando” game week while he’d been home on leave. As in, they’d gone commando the entire time, him without briefs and her without panties, so that they could have sex anywhere, anytime. And whoo-boy did they ever! Jake still had dreams about the porch swing, and the outdoor shower, and the bed of his pickup truck on Lookout Cove, and the lighthouse restroom, and . . .

  Which was nothing compared to the time that he’d heard that chewing cinnamon gum before engaging in oral sex could produce really amazing results on the receiving party. That leave home had been remarkably hot, in more ways than one.

  Enough of that! “No, Izzie, we are not going commando with three kids in the house.” And, frankly, the sex has been nonexistent, period. But Izzie didn’t need to know that.

  “See, all the more reason why I should never get married and breed a bunch of Mini-Mes. The commando game, though. I’m saving that for a special babe, minus the wedding ring.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  They both laughed, and that’s how they ended the call.

  Jake took a shower in the outdoor stall then, and hardly thought about those other times with Sally. Who was he kidding? He got turned on just thinking about them and took care of business in the only way that had been available to him in recent times. He dressed in black running shorts, a plain white T-shirt, and sockless athletic shoes. His hair, which had been shaved when he first arrived at the hospital in Germany, was growing out and would soon need a cut if he was going to keep it military short, which was debatable at this point. Wearing the pirate patch today because the eye felt irritated after spending too much time in the sun with the kids sans protection, he grabbed for his truck keys and prepared to go into town to meet Laura at the Cracked Crab for lunch. It would be his first foray out of his neighborhood in the daytime hours.

  He left off the brace for the few hours he would be gone, but he did take the blasted cane with him. Although he didn’t start formal rehab until next week at the facility Gus had recommended, he’d been working with his old free weights out in the garage, and the leg felt slightly better. Still, in the old days, Jake would have jogged the five blocks to the town square, easy peasy. He loved to run. Unfortunately, that might not ever be an option again. Although there were vets with more severe injuries who managed to run marathons, he reminded himself. He was playing it one day at a time.
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br />   He waved to the security guard who set aside the barricade for him as he drove down the street. Tentative plans were for the barricade to go down after Labor Day, but that depended on Durand and his Pentagon cohorts and whether the media would have given up by then. As it was, he was pretty sure those were news vultures following him in a plain panel truck and a black sedan. Just in case, he zigzagged through the neighborhood and down some alleys. He lost whoever they were.

  If he had turned left at the end of the road, he would have shortly been at Bell Forge, but a right turn went past the Rutledge Christmas tree and landscape business, through the residential area, heading toward the town center. He cut through the back of the Rutledge property and reemerged onto the main road for town. On a man-made bluff along the way stood Chimes, the mansion built by the Conti brothers, original founders of the bell-making factory, and now owned by one of their descendants, Gabe Conti, an architect. When he got to the town square with its central parklet and gazebo he saw that it remained the same, and yet was different. There was no longer any on-street parking, but instead vehicles were directed to two parking lots one street over on either side of Beach Road, or Highway 12, that passed through the entire Outer Banks. And while the old standbys were still there—the two churches, a hardware store, Abe’s deli, a quilt shop, Sally’s bakery, several restaurants, including the Cracked Crab, and gift shops—there were some new boutiques and specialty stores.

  After parking, he walked with his cane along the side street and came out on the side of Our Lady by the Sea Church. The handicap ramp there seemed like a sign to him, pretty much saying he had no excuse to avoid going in.

  The church was empty as he slid into the back pew. Even if he’d lost his religion, he had to admit there was something peaceful about being in a church, and this was an especially beautiful one with its marble pillars and stained glass windows. There must have been a wedding recently because the altar was decorated with numerous baskets of red roses and fluffy white baby’s breath. He recognized the latter because his mother had a huge bush of the stuff planted in her backyard. She’d always said that anyone could make a beautiful bouquet in a vase, no matter the flowers, as long as you used baby’s breath as filler.