Message from Nam

by Danielle Steel

  “Don’t wait too long.” She looked pointedly at the girl she’d raised, and thought to herself that Paxton was prettier than ever. She looked older and more mature, and her features seemed more sharply etched, her body slightly fuller in the right places.

  “What do you mean?” Paxton looked suddenly worried.

  “Maybe he’ll find someone else who don’t wanna wait, or maybe some girl chase him and catch him … or I dunno … life is funny sometimes, sometimes it makes you sorry when you wait for somethin’ too long, like you shouldda done it while you could, but you cain’t no more … baby, I think you should get married.” But Paxton thought maybe the old woman just wanted to see her married while she was still well enough to enjoy it. And she knew Peter would wait. He wasn’t the type to go running off with someone else. She was sure of that. And they had waited this long. They could wait one more year until next summer.

  And on the day Paxton flew home to him, President Thieu was elected in South Viet Nam. And by a month later, thirteen thousand Americans had died in Viet Nam and seven hundred and fifty-six were missing.

  And Gabby told her she was pregnant again then. The baby was due the following June. It seemed a long time away to Paxton, almost as long as their wedding.

  Her fourth year at UC seemed almost anticlimactic to her. Paxton felt as though the days were flying by, and she and Peter kept talking about their plans after graduation.

  They all spent Christmas together at the Wilsons that year, and after Christmas, as they had before, Peter and Paxton went up to Squaw Valley to go skiing. They had a terrific time, and laughed about how Gabby had met Matthew there two years before and how so much had happened to them in the three and a half years they’d been together. It didn’t seem long to wait anymore. June and Paxton’s graduation seemed just around the corner. And then she was going to decide about a serious job, and get married by the end of the summer. It was less than a year now.

  But when they came home, there was a letter waiting for him in the mailbox from his draft board. They had called him. Paxton could almost feel her heart stop as she read the letter.

  “Christ, what’ll we do?” Paxton asked with a look of terror.

  “We pray,” he said, and later that evening he called his father. His father admitted that he had no pull as far as the draft board was concerned, but he asked him point-blank if Paxton was willing to get married. “I’m sure she would,” he said quietly, and she guessed instantly what his father had asked him, “but we really want to wait till next summer.” He knew how important it was to Paxton to wait and do things in the proper order.

  “I don’t think you should wait. If that’ll get you out of this, do it.” And they all knew it might, but nothing was certain anymore. It was up to the individual draft board whether or not they’d accept marriage as a deferral. And lately, eleventh-hour marriages weren’t being respected for deferrals. It was probably too late. And Peter really didn’t want to push Paxton to get married before graduation.

  “We’ll see, Dad. Maybe they’ll change their minds when I go to the physical. I’ll be twenty-six in six weeks. It’s hardly worth it. They want the young ones.” But when he hung up, there were tears in Paxton’s eyes. She was terrified that they’d take him.

  “Don’t be silly, babe.” He pulled her close to him. “I’m too old. They’re not going to take me.”

  “And if they do?”

  “They won’t.”

  “Let’s get married.” It was what she wanted now, but he really didn’t think it would help now.

  “That’s not the way to do it. We haven’t waited three and a half years in order to rush out in a panic and have a shotgun wedding.”

  “Why not? Peter, I don’t want to wait.” She suddenly remembered Queenie’s words … sometimes life makes you sorry when you wait too long.… “I want to get married.”

  “Stop panicking.” He tried to sound calm. It was the first time he had ever seen her so frightened. “I’ll talk to my boss tomorrow.” But he shared Peter’s view. They weren’t going to draft someone a month from the cutoff age, it just didn’t make sense. And if they wanted to, he could probably stall them. It was only six weeks, after all.

  But when he went to the Oakland Induction Center for the physical, they took him. It was done. He was in. And neither of them could believe it. Paxton felt like the world had come to an end. She wanted to hide him but he wouldn’t hide. He didn’t believe in the war. He had even burned his draft card, she reminded him. But he was a responsible adult now, he said, the son of the publisher of the Morning Sun. And he had to go now, or at least that was how he saw it, even if he didn’t like it.

  And if he got married now, it was too late. He was in, and there was no discussion.

  It was like a bad dream. And in Viet Nam, two words that gave Paxton nightmares now, twenty thousand Communist troops moved south for surprise attacks during the Tet, Vietnamese New Year celebrations. And on January twenty-third, the North Koreans had seized the USS Pueblo. It was the same day Peter had to report to Fort Ord for basic training. Paxton wasn’t going to see him again for eight weeks, and after that, God only knew where they would ship him. The only thing that encouraged him was that as an attorney, he would probably be given a desk job somewhere, and at least he would never see combat. But even though he reassured Paxton and his parents, he was still scared. This wasn’t what he had planned to do with his life seven months after he finished law school.

  “Peter, please … let’s go to Canada … I’ll do anything,” she begged him before he left, but he didn’t want to hear it.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I want you to finish school.” He knew how much it meant to her, and how well she was doing there, and he didn’t want to run away now. He might as well face it and make the best of it. It would certainly put a crimp in his career plans but two years wasn’t the end of the world, he told himself. He could have trained as an officer but that would have extended his time. He preferred to do two years as a “grunt” and come home quicker.

  There was nothing he could do to stop it now. But Paxton begged him not to go right up until he left. She even drove him to Fort Ord and cried copiously when she left him. “I’ll see you in a few weeks, sweetheart. Now stop it.” And he had insisted that she go back to San Francisco and stay with his parents. But after a few days she went back to the house in Berkeley. She had been so happy with him there that she wanted to be in the house they’d shared. And she waited every night for him to call her. When he finally could, she felt as though she had died, waiting to hear from him. It had been eight weeks since she heard his voice, and she hadn’t studied anything. She couldn’t think of anything but Peter. But as soon as he called, he told her he was coming home that weekend. He was, but not with great news. He was coming home to tell them that he was leaving for Saigon five days later.

  CHAPTER 9

  Peter’s last days in town were an agony for everyone, and most especially Paxton. They all wanted to be with him, to talk to him, to let him know how much they loved him. His father even tried to pull some strings, to no avail. His only friend on the local draft board said he couldn’t help him. Everyone was in the same situation these days, there were too many families desperate to save their sons, but there was nothing anyone could do. He had to go if he’d been called, and all he had to do after that was stay alive once he got there. He had been assigned to Viet Nam for a standard tour of thirteen months. Three hundred and ninety-five days, he had told Paxxie. And after that he’d be assigned somewhere in the States and it would be all over. It meant a slight delay in their plans, but nothing more than that, he claimed. Although they both knew different. It meant that for the next thirteen months they would both be holding their breath and praying, that nothing would happen to him, that he would stay alive, that he would make it home again. And more than anything Paxton felt guilty now for not having married Peter sooner.

  “Let’s go to Canada,” she whispered to him late one ni
ght, as they lay in the guest bed at his parents’. The Wilsons wanted him to stay at home for his last few days, and they had invited Paxton to join them. They still expected them to sleep separately, but Peter crept silently into her room at night, and back to his own in the early hours of the morning. They couldn’t sleep anyway. Paxton was too upset, and he was tense. He was so busy reassuring everyone, and at night he had his own fears to contend with.

  He had lost weight at Fort Ord in the past two months, and “muscled up,” but now his eyes had a look of pain that tore at Paxton’s heart. His were eyes that said, “I don’t want to do this,” but he felt he had to.

  “We can’t go to Canada, Pax,” he said calmly, and lit one cigarette from another. He had hardly ever smoked before, but in boot camp, it had become a constant habit. “What the hell would I do there?”

  “You’re a lawyer now. You could take their bar, and start there instead of here.”

  “And break my father’s heart. Pax, I’d never be able to come back here.”

  “Bullshit. One day they’re going to let everyone come home again. There are too many of them there, they’re going to have to.”

  “And if they don’t? Then I can’t come home again. Baby, it just isn’t worth it.” And if he didn’t come home at all? Was that worth it? Disbelief struck her again. This couldn’t be happening to them. He was twenty-six now, an attorney, engaged, and they were sending him to Viet Nam. It was a nightmare.

  “Peter, please …” In the dark she reached out to him. And he held her as she cried, and he cried too, but he wouldn’t agree to what she wanted. He wouldn’t run away. He had never wanted to go, didn’t believe in the war. It had been years since he’d burned his draft card. But still, he knew he had to go, and when it came right down to it, he was willing to serve his country. In boot camp, they had gotten them all fired up about “Nam,” and how much he was going to hate “Charlie.” They told them horror stories of children carrying machine guns there, and VC hiding in the brush, and booby traps, and tunnels filled with Viet Cong waiting to kill him. But there were other things they didn’t say, the heartbreak, the agony, the grief of losing a friend, the horror of stepping on a mine, or killing a woman with a baby because you were so scared you couldn’t think straight.

  Still, he felt he was prepared, and over and over again he reassured Paxton in his last few days that he was going to be careful and not do anything crazy.

  “You swear?” She extracted another promise from him before he went back to his room, and he kissed her.

  “I swear,” and then with a slow smile, “I swear I’ll come back to you … in one piece … and ready to get married and have fourteen babies. You’d better be ready for that, Pax. I’ll be an old man by then.” But then she’d be more than ready and she’d have gotten all her independence out of her system.

  “We could get married before that, you know.” She was willing to marry him right then, and he knew that. But he didn’t want to get married this way, in a frantic rush, hysterical, afraid. And he didn’t want to take the risk of making her a widow. He was willing to wait, and he knew she’d wait for him. He wasn’t afraid of that, and after all their years together they both felt married. “I love you …” she whispered again, and he kissed her and went back to his own room as the sun came up. It was the last of March 1968, and he was leaving for Viet Nam the next day. And he had a lot to do today. It was Sunday.

  Gabby and Matt and the baby came for lunch that day. Marjie was fifteen months old and she had just learned to walk and she was into everything. And Gabby was seven months pregnant. Peter spent a long time talking to her, and after lunch they went for a walk in the garden. They both looked as though they had been crying when they came back. But everyone cried that day. Even Peter’s father.

  And that night after Gabby and Matt went home, they all sat and listened to Lyndon Johnson. He promised to reduce the bombing again, and promised peace. And then he stunned everyone by announcing that he wouldn’t run for reelection. At least it was something to talk about. Something other than the fact that Peter was leaving in the morning.

  That night he came to Paxton’s room before his parents even went to bed. He didn’t want to wait a moment longer, and he lay all night and held her in his arms as they both cried. He didn’t want to die, didn’t want to kill anyone, and didn’t want to leave the girl he loved, and yet there was no question in his mind that he had to.

  Paxton still blamed herself for not marrying him long before and yet it had seemed so sensible to wait until she finished college. But what was sensible now? What made sense? A war half a world away, in a place that no one really cared if we won or lost, a war we couldn’t win and never would, in a country where we couldn’t defend ourselves because we were too afraid of retaliation? Nothing made sense to them, or anyone. And none of it made sense to Paxton.

  They stood at the window and watched the sun come up, and then went back to bed and made love for the last time, and when Peter finally left her room, as he walked back to his own, he ran into his father.

  “Morning, Dad.” He smiled sadly at him, and tears filled Ed Wilson’s eyes as he nodded. He had held him when he was a baby and now he was a man, and he was desperately afraid he might lose him.

  They all had breakfast together that day. They were all perfectly dressed, wide-awake, their faces looked alert and serious, and they ate in total silence. It was Peter who finally spoke first, as he slowly pushed his chair back from the table.

  “Well, you guys, I probably won’t have a breakfast like that for a long time.” Certainly not served by a maid in uniform, in a formal dining room, on Limoges, with silver service, and Porthault napkins. Nor with people he loved and who loved him, in clean clothes, and in a room where no one could hurt him. “I’m going to miss you.” The honesty of his words broke the dam, and they all began to cry, Peter, his parents, and Paxton, each promising the other to be brave, that he’d be home soon, and telling him how much they were going to miss him. And Paxton realized more than anyone how lucky they were that they were able to say what they felt to him. Had her brother gone, no one would have been able to say anything about how afraid they were, how sad, or how much they loved him.

  And half an hour later, the foursome set out for Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, with Peter in a brand-new uniform and carrying an enormous duffel. He had been told to report there by noon, and he didn’t know exactly what time he’d board the plane, but once he left them, it didn’t really matter.

  It was a warm sunny day, and Mr. Wilson’s driver said not a word as he drove them there, but when they arrived, he got out and shook Peter’s hand with admiration.

  “Good luck, son. Give ’em hell.” He had fought in World War II and to him the idea of war still had some meaning. When he had gone, he had known who the enemy was, who the good guys were, and why he was fighting. Peter was less sure of it as he nodded.

  “Thanks, Tom. Take care.” He repeated the same words to everyone, and for a long moment he held his mother. “Take care, Mom … I love you.…” She wanted to sink to her knees and wail at the thought of seeing her son sent off to war, but she bravely nodded, kissed him again through her tears, and squeezed Ed’s hand until he thought his fingers would break, while Peter said good-bye to Paxton. “I love you too …” he whispered, unable to speak by then. “Take care.…” And then, he turned away from them, and disappeared into the cavernous building. They could go no farther with him, and Ed Wilson thought it was just as well. It was already painful enough saying good-bye to him here, and he thought it might be too much for Marjorie to watch the plane take off, carrying her baby into danger.

  He helped them all back into the limousine, the two women crying with their arms around each other.

  “I should have married him.…” Paxton sobbed openly, and Marjorie only shook her head in fear and grief.

  “You couldn’t know what would happen.” No one could. No one knew anything about the war he was going
to, and the price he might pay to be there. “My God, I hope he’s careful,” his mother said softly as they crossed the Bay Bridge back to San Francisco.

  Paxton had lunch with them, but they were all too spent to say very much, and that afternoon, she packed her things and went back to the house in Berkeley. She had an exam that afternoon, in her last eco course, but she had already decided not to take it. She couldn’t remember anything anyway, except where Peter was and where he was going. All they knew was that he was flying to Hawaii, and then Guam, and then on to Saigon, and if he could he’d call her. But where he was going after Saigon wasn’t clear yet. And Paxton hoped nowhere. With any luck at all, they’d put him at a desk and leave him there, she had urged him again and again to trade on the fact that he was a lawyer. But he hadn’t been assigned to the legal corps. If he had been, he would have been kept stateside. They didn’t need lawyers in Viet Nam. They needed grunts to fight their war and look for mines, and hunt Charlie down in his caves and tunnels.

  Peter’s parents had urged her to call, and to come to dinner, or stay with them, anytime she wanted. But all she did that first day was lie on the bed they had shared and smell his after-shave on the clothes he had left in their closet. He hadn’t had time to pack up anything, even though they were giving up the house in July, and Paxton hadn’t wanted him to. She wanted to be there with his things, and with him. This way she didn’t feel as though she’d lost him.

  Gabby called her that afternoon. And they both cried. She said it even made her depressed about the baby.

  “I just want him to come home,” she wailed. They had always been so close, especially in the last few years during the time he’d spent with Paxton.

  “So do I,” Paxton said mournfully, looking around the silent kitchen.

  “Do you know what day this is?” Gabby asked typically, but Paxton didn’t know or care, although she knew she’d never forget it. “It’s April Fools’.”