The Top Gun's Return

by Kathleen Creighton

  His eyes stung and, uneasy with that, he laughed out loud. Jessie gave him a questioning look, and he said, "Nothing-just glad to be here, is all," and reached for her hand. It gave him a little pang in his heart to realize she hadn't asked him to tell her why he'd laughed or how he felt. And that she'd probably stopped asking right after he'd snapped at her that day on the plane.

  Ah hell, he thought, as familiar clouds drifted into his day. Just as well. That only meant he didn't have to try so hard to protect her from his thoughts…his feelings.

  They paused to crane at the Washington Monument, hands lifted to shade their eyes from the morning sun but didn't join the line of tourists waiting to go inside. They were short of time, and Tristan's newly developed claustrophobia was a compelling enough reason all by itself to skip that experience.

  "Feel like going all the way to the Lincoln?" Jess asked it lightly, and he knew she thought he'd be impatient with her "mothering."

  So he squeezed her hand and forced a grin to let her know he didn't mind. "Sure, why not-we can always catch a cab to the hotel from there."

  He didn't know exactly when it had come to him, the realization that it wasn't the Lincoln Memorial he wanted to see, but something else nearby. But he knew that this was a pilgrimage he'd have made on his hands and knees, if necessary. And maybe it was something in his face, his silence, or some kind of woman's intuition, but he didn't have to tell Jessie where he wanted to go. It seemed they both just aimed in that direction without either of them saying a word to the other.

  They came to The Wall at its end, the tapering point of the black granite slash that represented the conclusion of the war…that terrible war that had ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Holding hands, they walked slowly along the pathway that led deeper and deeper into the heart of the conflict…the worst of the killing. Beside them, The Wall rose ever higher, and at its apex, the names seemed to tumble out of the granite and overwhelm by their sheer numbers.

  Finally Tristan's steps slowed. He paused, heart hammering, turned and faced the shiny black surface. The names…so many names…seemed to dance and shimmer before his eyes. He put out his hand and rested his palm against the cool, smooth stone. His fingers found and traced the tiny cross carved beside one of the names. He felt smothered. The breeze was gone, the bright-blue sky had darkened, and now the cold black wall seemed to close around him.

  "The crosses mean MIA," he heard Jess say softly. "I read that, somewhere. When-if-an MIA is accounted for, the body identified, the cross is carved out to make a diamond, like the others."

  Tristan nodded, not saying anything. Not trusting himself to say anything. What he wanted to do was bow his head and let the tears come. He wanted to cry for those lost ones as he could never cry for himself. The lost ones who'd never made it home.

  But Jessie was there, and he couldn't let her know how much he hurt. So he nodded and said gruffly, "I know." He pressed his palm hard against the granite, as if he could imprint the name of that lost soul there. Then he turned to face the light…the sunshine…the grass and the sky…the towering spire of the Washington Monument.

  At least, he thought, drawing the sweet-scented air deep into his lungs, I'm one of the lucky ones. I made it back.

  Chapter 12

  There had been Starrs in Oglethorpe County since before the War of Northern Aggression. Nobody in Jessie's family knew exactly how much before, since all the records prior to that had been burned up by General Sherman during his rampage through Georgia. All Jessie or any of her brothers and sisters had ever known was that after General Lee's surrender, one Joseph Jeremiah Starr had come limping back home to find the place burned to the ground, the livestock all run off or eaten, and the old folks dead and gone. Young Joseph being a resilient soul, once his wounds had healed and his dysentery cleared up he'd set about building himself another house, married a local widow woman-of which there'd been an abundant supply at the time-and started right in on establishing a new Starr dynasty.

  Over the years, Starrs had continued to be born, live, build, procreate and sometimes die in Oglethorpe County. More had gone off to do most of those things somewhere else. A few found other wars to fight. Some of those hadn't made it back.

  The house Joseph Jeremiah built burned down sometime in the 1890s and was replaced with a huge white Victorian complete with curlicues and cupolas; the Starr in residence at the time had made quite a lot of money in textiles, and his wife had her own ideas about what constituted high style. Forty years or so later that house, too, burned to the ground, taking its owners, then in their seventies, with it.

  The one that replaced it was also white wood frame, but since it was the Depression, when money was scarce and labor cheap, this one had been built to be simple but solid, and was meant to last. It had two stories and an attic, high ceilings and a big cluttered kitchen that smelled of canned tomatoes in the summertime and wet shoes in winter, and a pantry upon whose doorjamb generations of Starr children, including Jessie and Sammi June, had had their growth recorded. It also had a big wraparound porch where Jessie and her sister-in-law, Mirabella, were sitting in creaky white rocking chairs, taking a moment's respite from the family gathering that was noisily in progress.

  It was to this house that James Joseph Starr, just returned from the latest war-the Korean-and eager to begin carrying on the rest of the Starr-family traditions, had brought his bride, the former Betty Calhoun, a retired schoolteacher from Augusta. Having learned to drive big trucks in the Army, Joe Starr made good use of a G.I. loan to buy his own rig. With it he'd managed to provide reasonably well for the seven children Betty gave him, right up until his final heart attack-which fortunately did not happen while he was behind the wheel of his eighteen-wheeler. The three youngest of his children, including Jessie, had still been in school at the time, and Jessie's next older brother, Jimmy Joe, barely out of school himself, had stepped in to take over the trucking business. Jessie's momma, Betty, had gone back to teaching part-time, and the family had made it through the hard times, somehow.

  And they'd all stayed close, except for Joy Lynn, who'd gone off to New York City to live after her second divorce, and Roy, who was on a fishing boat somewhere down in Florida, doing who-knew-what. Jessie's oldest sister, Tracy, also a teacher, lived over in Augusta with her policeman husband, Al, and their three kids. The baby of the family, Calvin, or C.J., as he'd decided he wanted to be called, had gotten married last fall. He and his wife, Caitlyn, and the little girl they were adopting, were living temporarily a mile up the road while C.J. decided on where he wanted to hang out his shingle and start practicing law.

  Troy, Jessie's oldest brother, had been a SEAL before he retired from the Navy and married Charly, a lawyer who'd grown up practically next door in Alabama before she ran away from home and wound up in California. Troy and Charly had met each other when Charly came back south to be maid of honor at her best friend Mirabella's wedding to Jimmy Joe. Those two had met when Jimmy Joe delivered Mirabella's baby in the sleeper cab of his rig during a Christmas Eve blizzard in the Texas Panhandle. Now, Charly and Troy lived in Atlanta, where Charly practiced law and Troy had his own P.I. firm. Jimmy Joe had built his daddy's trucking business into Blue Starr Transport, which ran both long-and short-haul drivers all over the country. He and Mirabella lived nearby in a modest brick house with a big yard for their three kids to play in. Their oldest son, J.J., from Jimmy Joe's first brief marriage when he was still a kid, had pretty much grown up in his gramma Betty's house with Sammi June and was a year behind her in school. He'd be graduating from high school in a couple of weeks.

  Nobody, of course, could top Jessie when it came to sticking close to home. She and Sammi June had moved in with Jessie's mother when Tristan was deployed to the Gulf that last time, thinking it was going to be maybe for six months, no more. Instead it turned out to be almost nine years.

  It had been a good arrangement, though, for all concerned, and Jessie knew how lucky she and Sammi J
une had been, to have had the kind of security and stability the old home place provided. Even after the news had come that Tris had been shot down, their lives had gone on pretty much as before, surrounded by family and familiar things, brothers and sisters and cousins and lots of laughter and love. They hadn't had much of a chance to be lonely. Well, hardly ever. There'd always been weddings and new babies, work and school, and family get-togethers at any excuse whatsoever, with barbecues and homemade peach ice cream and watermelon in the summertime and pumpkin pie in the winter and kids rambling off in the woods and the older ones playing touch football or baseball in the fallow field next door, and the menfolk with their heads stuck under the hood of somebody's car.

  Like a lot of Starr family gatherings, this one hadn't really been planned. It had sort of grown out of everyone's natural desire to drop in and welcome Tristan back from the dead in classic Southern style, with gifts of-what else?-food.

  It was Saturday; that morning Troy and Charly had driven over from Atlanta with a trunkful of sweet corn and watermelons, apologizing about the fact that they'd had to buy them at the supermarket, since nobody's gardens were producing so early in the season. Tracy and Al showed up around noon, bringing strawberries and homemade short-cake, and C.J. and Caitlyn hauled over a vat of potato salad big enough to feed the Seventh Fleet. Jimmy Joe had picked up baby back ribs at the supermarket and got the old, rusty half-barrel barbecue set up, while Mirabella, always the practical organizer, remembered to get paper plates, napkins, plastic cups and dinnerware, and all the other odds and ends vital for family picnics. To top it off, Mirabella's sister Summer and her husband, Riley, had showed up a little while ago, having driven all the way from Charleston with a huge cooler full of fresh shrimp-shucked-on ice. Now an enormous pot of water was simmering on the kitchen stove, ready to receive the shrimp, and the air outside was thick with charcoal smoke and the scent of lighter fluid.

  Meanwhile, small children rolled and tumbled on the lawn, ignoring their mothers' warnings about chiggers, while the older ones were off in the woods somewhere, getting as filthy as they possibly could in the shortest possible time. The women visited and tended the food and the occasional child-related crisis, while the men…did what they usually did at such gatherings.

  Except, at the moment it wasn't a car that had the undivided attention of every male member of the family, and a few of the others, besides. It was a motorcycle-a modest Honda, gleaming black and daffodil yellow-and its proud owner was Jessie's nephew and Mirabella's stepson, J.J., the soon-to-be high school graduate.

  "We made the mistake of telling him he could have the transportation of his choice if he got straight As all senior year," Mirabella said mournfully. "I never thought he'd ask for a motorcycle." She'd left her rocking chair and was leaning against a porch post, gazing at the knot of interested males out in the lane, and the way she said the word it might as well have been missile launcher.

  "Well," Jessie said, "at least it's not a Harley."

  Mirabella shot her a look. "Oh, he wanted a Harley. Thank God, his dad drew the line at that. At least…well, I guess you could say they compromised. If J.J. proves he's responsible enough to handle this one safely, Jimmy Joe told him he could have a Harley for his college graduation present."

  Jessie burst out with a cackle of laughter. Mirabella bristled and said, "What?"

  "Nothing-except you reminded me so much of Momma just then." She paused, then added, "You do, you know-you're a lot like Momma-in more ways than one. I've always thought so."

  Mirabella considered, then smiled. "I used to wonder what Jimmy Joe could possibly see in me. The first time he brought me here-remember?-and I saw you and Sammi June and J.J., all of you tall, blond and thin types-you could have been clones of my sisters-and my heart sank because here I am, you know, built just like a fireplug-short, round, and redheaded. And then your mother walked out. And I remember thinking, Okay, yes, now I understand. I think it was actually at that moment I began to believe it could work between us." Her voice was the purr of a contented woman, and Jessie felt unexpected twinges of envy.

  She studied her sister-in-law, realizing, not for the first time, that at nearly fifty, Mirabella was still an uncommonly beautiful woman. "And…it doesn't bother you that your husband picked you because you remind him of his momma?"

  Typically emphatic, Mirabella snorted. "Why should it? It always seems to me, if a man has a reasonably healthy respect and admiration for his mother, it only makes good sense for him to use her as a role model when he goes to choose a mate for himself. Doesn't it? Ha-if only more men were that smart."

  Jessie smiled; Mirabella was famous for being forceful in her opinions. Then she shook her head and had to look away, because her smile was fading fast. She took a breath and let it out, and when it did nothing to ease the knot of fear and sadness that had come into her throat, said softly, "Well, I sure don't think I'm anything like Tris's mother."

  "How do you know? I thought she died before you met him."

  "I've seen pictures-she was dark, like Tris-but that's not what I mean. From what he's told me about her, she must have been tough as nails. Typical German woman-the boss of the house, if not the household, if you know what I mean." She sighed as she watched the knot of menfolk and adolescents of both genders gathered out in the lane. With arms crossed she absently rubbed her upper arms with her hands, though it wasn't chilly. "With Tris and me it was different-maybe because I was young when he met me. Or…maybe I'm too easygoing, I don't know. Anyway, he was the boss, and that was that. About pretty much everything. I guess I just…wanted to please him. So I always-"

  She broke off with a gasp as a metallic scream ripped the soft air. The black-and-yellow motorcycle had just shot out of the knot of spectators and was tearing off down the lane, a long, lean figure hunched low over the handlebars.

  "Oh…God, that's Tris. What is he-" She stopped herself with fingertips touched to her lips, and cleared her throat.

  "He'll be fine," said Mirabella dismissively, following her gaze. Then her eyes came back to Jessie, and she made a sound that was half sympathy, half exasperation. "Honey, don't worry. He's a big boy. I imagine he's got some catch-up living to do."

  "It's not that," Jessie muttered with a sniff, impatient and appalled at the tears that seemed to flow so easily these days. She scrubbed them away with her wrist and, because she knew Mirabella wasn't going to rest until she'd gotten to the bottom of the reason for them, she went on bluntly, almost angrily, "Sometimes I think…maybe I was too damn agreeable. Back then. Too accommodating. I mean-if it's true men want a woman like their mommas, and I sure as hell wasn't…I can't help but think…you know…"

  "Think what?" Mirabella wasn't inclined to help her out.

  "Maybe," Jessie mumbled, embarrassed to voice the thoughts that had been haunting her, "he was bored with me."

  She expected another one of Mirabella's patented snorts, but instead her sister-in-law said, with unheralded gentleness, "Now, why would you think that?"

  So Jessie snorted instead, and began pacing restlessly across the porch. "Because he sure didn't seem to mind being away from me. In fact, it always seemed to me like he was eager to be gone. I think he loved being out there, in the middle of the action. I don't think he was ever happy when he was home."

  She stopped to dash away a tear and stare across the yard at nothing. "We fought about it," she said at last, softly. "Before he left for the Gulf, that last time. I'd stood up to him, for once. I told him he was being selfish and childish, going off to a war zone when he had a wife and child right here who needed him. He didn't have to go. But he'd missed the action during the Gulf War, because of that water-skiing accident, remember? And he figured patrolling the no-fly zone was going to be his last chance at flying combat missions. He was so damn stubborn about it-he just kept saying, 'It's something I have to do.' Like nothing in the world was as important to him, not me, not Sammi June-nothing. It made me so angry, 'Bella. I was actua
lly…I'd started to think-" She put a hand over her eyes and drew a shaking breath. "Oh God. I was thinking what it would be like…not to be married to him anymore. Not to have to always be saying goodbye to him, then getting used to him coming back. I was actually thinking maybe, when he came back, I'd leave him. That's why I moved back here and got that job at the hospital."

  "Oh, Jessie," Mirabella said softly. "I had no idea." After a moment she added in a thoughtful tone, "And yet, all those years, you never remarried."

  Jessie angrily dashed away tears. "Well, it wasn't that I didn't love him. I was just so tired of being alone all the time…seeing Sammi June's heart get broken over and over again. And then he didn't come back, and-" she gave a high, hard laugh "-I'm thinking, Okay, God's punishing me."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake," said Mirabella. "Like God's some sort of puppetmaster with a weird sense of humor? I never have been able to buy that." She shook her head, and her smile grew softer. "I think things have an odd way of working out, that's all." She paused, and then…"Jimmy Joe was angry with me when he first met me, did you know that? He thought I was being selfish because I'd had myself artificially inseminated when I was pushing forty and hadn't found Mr. Right. He thought I was just awful to bring a child into the world and knowingly deprive it of a father. But, you know what? And I told him this later-if I hadn't done that terrible thing, then I wouldn't have been out there on that interstate on Christmas Eve, having a baby in a blizzard, and I never would have met the one man in this world, I swear, with the temperament to put up with me."

  "Oh, 'Bella." Jessie couldn't help but laugh. Then she was wistfully silent, thinking about it.