Ma’s window was open and an autumn-scented breeze blew through. The lace curtains fluttered. Pa was sitting on her bed, on that ring-patterned quilt, in that cascade of light. His back was bowed, his head down. He was looking at the toy wooden horse he held in his hands.
Beside him sat Miller. His stare made my spine go cold. He knew everything about me—why Pa was waiting, why I wouldn’t go inside. Beyond the window, the sky was all soft gray clouds, like a tender rain was coming. Forgiveness tugged at me with its small, insistent fingers. Pa looked so frail, so old. Wars wear you out, Bobby, even the personal ones like Pa fought. I stood there, my hand on the doorjamb, knowing that Miller expected me to come in. I couldn’t. After a while, I walked away.
Travis Lee
DECEMBER 22, THE RESERVE TRENCHES
Dear Bobby,
Yesterday between shelling and carting wounded, I had tea in Riddell’s dugout. For that short time the day was quiet. I sat on a crate and watched sun wink on the trench’s standing water.
Riddell told me how he gets scared sometimes. How the shelling gets him down.
“I know you’re going to make it home,” I said.
He shrugged.
“I know you will. I seen you.” I’d seen him walking down that tree-canopied path to his sister’s house. It was late fall and the war was over. The path he was walking was strewn with leaves; but the sun was out in England, and the last of the late flowers bloomed. I knew the end of Riddell’s story like I’d once known which shell holes to hide in. There’s a lot of things I’m aware of. I know that when we die, we find kindness. I know that we sleep for a time, and someone watches over. I’ve been told the secrets of spirits. I’m a lucky kind of a man, that way.
Riddell nodded. “Father O’Shaughnessy always said you ’ad the gift.” Politely, he asked, “You see the rest of ’em, lad? Mind telling me?” Riddell, still mother-henning his chicks. “Like to know about Lieutenant Blackhall. Man’s been kind.”
Blackhall would make it through with a pension and some pain. I knew that by the time the war was over he’d consider that to be reward enough—just a little calm, just the chance to hoist a few. Blandish would go home unscathed; and Uncle Tim, whose girl would still be waiting. For me, there was a compassionate mist. It would close over me the way the water accepted Miller. That’s the part I didn’t tell him.
Riddell broke out some candy his sister had sent. It was herb candy, and it had a bite to it. Wasn’t as good as O’Shaughnessy’s box of French chocolates, but it wasn’t bad.
“Calvert?” he asked. “Would ’e ’ave made it, lad?”
“Don’t think so.”
Riddell nodded. “You was protecting ’im. Thought as much.”
“We’re all of us protected.”
Saying it out loud that way made me finally understand. Even Marrs in the fire, even Foy’s leaking and blistered body. No matter the pain, every story has a happy ending, if only because the letting go is sweet.
“I dreamed about Miller,” I told him.
“A good man,” Riddell said.
Miller, who knew forgiveness; who, despite it all, believed in justice. When I dreamed that dream again, I decided, I would walk down the hall that smelled of floor wax and camphor. I would stop in the gentle spill of light from the doorway, and this time I would go inside.
I know things, Bobby, so I know that when I take the toy horse from Pa’s cupped hands, he’ll raise his head. Our eyes will meet and we’ll see each other for the first time.
Riddell said, “Nice to ’ave your gift. A comfort, like.”
“I’m lucky that way.”
It was homey there. Over the stink of the trench, Riddell’s dugout smelled of pungent herbs and hay.
Nothing much happened that afternoon, Bobby, but I’m telling you about it because it was important. It helped me understand what had happened the night before. I woke up from a sound sleep and saw the calico girl standing before me, solid and as real as life. And I swear to God I wasn’t dreaming.
Behind her stretched the graveyard. The moon was high there, and everything shimmered. Past the marble angels, a golden inferno went walking: O’Shaughnessy. Marrs and Trantham walked with him, bright and unknowable as stars.
The calico girl leaned so close that I could smell the lavender scent of her. No, I thought. I prayed hard to anyone who would listen: Please not yet.
She straightened, looked down at me a while. “Not quite yet,” she promised.
She faded then. Everything faded until I was looking at the peeling door of the aid station and remembering her sad smile. I’d let us both down, you see? For despite everything I’ve been through, despite everything I’ve seen, I’m still afraid of the dark.
You listen careful now, Bobby, for I must tell you the most important secret: The black by the cypress looks threatening, but beyond waits a calm and sparkling place. And if I never bequeath you anything else, I give you this certainty: That shimmer I’ve seen is the power of the universe. It runs through me and you, through the dead men in the field and through the rats that eat them. It’s love. Funny how simple
Mrs. Leon Stanhope
Box 56
Harper, Texas
December 24, 1916
My dear Mrs. Stanhope,
I regret to inform you that your son, Travis Lee Stanhope, expired of battle wounds yesterday. I did not know him well, but I have heard that he was a brave lad and acquitted himself well during the campaign. You should have been proud of him.
He was sitting in his dugout when a gas shell hit. It may be some consolation for you to know that he bore his injuries with extraordinary courage and with little complaint. All in all, he did not suffer long.
Enclosed please find his effects along with a stack of personal papers which were found in his haversack.
My deepest sympathies,
Roger Dayton Gilchrist
Roger Dayton Gilchrist, Captain, B.E.F.
www.doverpublications.com
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