“Joe?” I squeaked.
“It’s me,” he said.
“Seriously, Joe? You’re here.”
“I’m here,” he said now. A statement.
“Joe,” I repeated and, without an ounce of forethought, I popped off the bench and into his arms. I hugged him more tightly than I’d ever hugged anyone in my life because seeing him erased fifteen years, and touching him brought me back to the last time I felt deep love for a man, and holding him meant that he was real and so was I.
He didn’t pull away and neither did I, until finally he had the sense to ground this moment in reality, to acknowledge that fifteen years was forever ago, and certainly there was a lot of time to account for. He released me, but we withdrew only inches from each other, and though I knew I had no right, I took the liberty, anyway: I placed the flat of my hand against his cheek, and then traced his thick eyebrows across his brooding eyes and let my finger find the crevice of his top lip. As I blinked, I paused with my eyes closed because feeling him and smelling him brought me right back; at that moment I could taste his lips without even kissing them.
“You’re here,” I said, still struggling to register this illusion. “You’re really here.” All these years I questioned whether my memory was reliable, or whether the image of him I held on to was an artificially beautified version of him. But my memory was spot-on because Joe was before me and the peak of his lips and angle of his jaw and generosity in his eyes were there, just like I recalled.
“Jenny’s not coming,” he said. “In case you were worried about her. She and I coordinated.”
“You talked to Jenny?” The thought of my two favorite people conspiring to surprise me nearly launched me into a bout of tears.
“I talked to Jenny,” he said.
Now we separated a little farther, far enough that my hands—hands that were respecting no boundaries—found their way to the terrain of his muscular shoulders, sliding down his tanned biceps. My eyes scanned his body and when they found their target—Joe’s legs: one there, one not—I lurched into his arms again.
“I lost my leg in my last tour,” Joe said.
“I see that,” I whispered into his neck. My mouth on his flesh felt entirely at home.
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“Is that why you’re wearing shorts?” I laughed.
“I figured I’d get it right out there,” he said. “Just in case.”
I hugged him tighter. “Just in case what?”
“I didn’t know if you would care . . . about it.”
I pulled from him, looked into his gorgeous eyes. “Of course I care about it. For you. Not for me.”
He smiled. “As I recall, I owe you a cup of coffee.”
Joe was parked in the lot across the way from the Arrivals curb. He led the way and I followed behind him, wheeling my suitcase. When we reached his van, he opened the back and approached my suitcase, ready to heft it into the back.
“I got it!” I said, aware of how clumsy, how slightly elevated my nervous voice sounded. “I’ve been lugging this thing everywhere. I could put it in.”
“No, I got it,” he said, and lifted it easily into the back.
“Do you want me to drive?” I asked, the words springing from my stupid mouth before I could call them back. He drove here, dummy, I reminded myself. Surely he could drive.
“I’m all set,” he said.
A half hour later, we settled into a dark booth of a diner. We ordered our meals: a Reuben for me, a turkey club for Joe, a giant pile of fries for us to split. Two homespun milk shakes. We stared at each other, and hacked through the silence with stilted starts and stops. To me, Joe looked exactly the same. His hair was perhaps thinner, his skin a tad rougher, some lines etched into the corners of his beautiful hazel eyes. Finally, we found our rhythm.
“I’m so sorry about Frank,” he said.
“I still can’t believe he’s gone,” I said. “A year ago he was fine. The deterioration was especially fast for him . . . because of the stroke.”
“In a way—”
“It’s good, I know,” I said, finishing his sentence. “It was horrible seeing him as less than the man he was. It was like monsters had invaded his brain.”
“It’s hard to believe that he was human, after all,” Joe said. “I kind of thought of him like a guardian angel.”
“He had a special way.”
I gazed at Joe. Really looked at him. In front of my eyes was my love from fifteen years ago, and to me he looked exactly the same.
“Your dad used to tell us,” Joe said, imitating Dad: “‘Kids, who you are and what you’re made of isn’t a dissertation. You should be able to sum up your beliefs in a sentence or two. If you are clear on who you are, then people will trust you.’”
“Yep.” I remembered. Dad and his elevator speech.
“I was there,” Joe said solemnly. “At the funeral.”
“What?” Goosebumps rose on my arms. The thought that Joe was nearby, as we buried Dad, made me want to cry.
“I’m sorry I didn’t stick around,” Joe said. “I chickened out. Convinced myself it was a bad idea, and kind of crept away before you saw me.”
I thought back to the funeral, how when Taps played, I had been thinking of Joe. Had he been only feet away from me at that moment? “I love that you were there,” I said. “And as much as I would have loved to have seen you then, I wouldn’t trade the reunion we just had at the airport.”
Joe swallowed hard. My tough high school boyfriend had always been sentimental.
“Tell me what happened to you, Joe,” I said, and then, brushing aside any doubts about the inappropriateness of my actions, I covered his hands with mine.
We stared at each other for a moment before Joe began. “I had been on patrol in Afghanistan. A routine mission. We were getting ready to cross a canal when all of a sudden I was thrown into the air and tossed into the water. The guy behind me—my buddy Allen—had stepped on an IED. God knows how I missed it.” He shook his head. “Allen didn’t make it, but I didn’t know that. Not until later.”
I tightened my grip over his knuckles. Fought the urge to lean over and put my mouth on his hands.
“At the time, I wasn’t even aware of what had happened to my leg. All I knew was that a bomb had been detonated and I was fighting for my life. Somehow I dragged myself out of the canal. Somehow I was medically evacuated. I remember being on the helicopter, looking up at the medics. I remember their eyes. They weren’t shocked by what had happened to me, to Allen. They just looked weary—sad and weary, like they were sick and tired of this happening so often. Like they were drained from seeing whole men taken apart.”
When Joe paused, I saw that the waitress had delivered our food. He looked down at his club sandwich and said, “Let’s eat!”
“I’m so sorry you went through all of that,” I said.
“I’m honestly not sorry for myself,” Joe said. “That’s why I didn’t tell you earlier. I liked that you didn’t know, that you only knew me for me. When people see me now, I’m not just Joe anymore. I’m Joe with the prosthetic leg. I don’t feel sorry for myself, but I can’t force other people to not feel sorry for me.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I said, “but I know I already did what you must loathe: say that I could get my own suitcase, drive the car. That must be aggravating.”
“People just want to help. I get that.”
We paused, ate some fries that happened to be ridiculously delicious. We dipped into a communal mound of ketchup.
“Tell me about your children,” I said.
His eyes lit up, and he set down his sandwich. “My youngest, Jake, is a belly-laughing giggle monster. He’s my reminder of everything good and pure in the world. He’s nine and that blows my mind, because it’s true what everyone says, I could swea
r he was just born. Of course, the effect was heightened. He’s grown up for me—all the kids have—like time-lapse photography. I was deployed for much of their childhoods. I’ve missed a lot of years.”
“He looks just like you,” I said, remembering photos from Facebook.
“Olivia is eleven going on eighteen,” Joe said. “We call her ‘The Mayor’ because she is involved in everything and everyone’s business.”
“She sounds hilarious,” I said. “She likes to act, too? I think I saw photos of her in a play.”
Joe laughed. “Yeah, kind of. Olivia doesn’t so much want to act as she wants to lip-synch.”
“And then there’s your oldest—Katherine, right?”
“Yes, Katherine—Kate,” he said, his face changing from lighthearted to serious.
“What’s she like?”
“She’s one of those amazing kids who practically raised herself. She’s hardworking, studious. Straight-A student. High honors every semester. We’ve never had to stand over her to do her homework. She’s just a good, good kid.”
“A real smarty-pants,” I said. “Thirteen?”
“She’s fourteen, now.” Joe’s voice caught, like he was choked up.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
A half smile. “She struggles,” he said. “She’s a bookworm, and kind of lacks the skills to fit into middle school, you know? A lot of the girls her age are fighting over boys and jockeying for position with friendships, and Kate’s at a loss on how to play that game. She’s going to be fine, though. She’s going to be an awesome adult. Still, she’s alone a lot of the time, and the girls hassle her. There’s been some bullying. It’s a painful time for her, for me.”
I looked wistfully at the window. I knew exactly what that was like. “It is hard,” I agreed. “Clearly, I was—am—the same way, and the kids weren’t always nice and school wasn’t always a breeze. Despite my efforts to fit in, I knew I didn’t.”
“You always seemed excessively cool to me,” Joe said. “The most self-possessed person at Abraham Lincoln High. Like everyone else could play their silly games. You had bigger plans.”
“That was later, in high school,” I said. “When you and I met. It was easier by then. Getting good grades was important to more kids by then, and I knew college was right around the corner, and . . . well, I had you. That helped.”
Joe grinned.
“But in middle school,” I said, “it was grueling. I remember, once, I was in the science lab with a group of girls. We had just taken an exam and had about ten minutes to kill before our next class. One of them got the idea to play hide-and-seek, and the teacher said it was okay. We all hid except a girl named Sandy, who was ‘it.’ One by one she found everyone except me. I was just behind the door! But she and the other girls were talking, and Sandy was saying that she found everyone, and all the other girls agreed. I just stood there. A minute later, they gathered their bags and left. I slipped out from behind the door and left, too. None of them even noticed.”
“That’s a crappy story,” Joe said. “I’m sorry.”
“It shouldn’t mean much, but here I am—all these years later, and I can still recall it like yesterday.”
“That’s why I worry so much about Kate.”
“It’s probably worse on you,” I said. “Just like it was worse on my dad. As a dad, you’re helpless to make things better.”
“Dads are supposed to fix things.”
“My dad used to think he was helpful when he said things like, ‘You’ll come out of your shell,’ but it wasn’t helpful. I cringed every time he said it because it just seemed so critical to me . . . like he was suggesting that there was a better version of me inside the one that was on the outside.”
“He never felt that way,” Joe said.
“He didn’t. You’re right. The thing is, he was partially right. When it came to the social scene in middle school, I was in some measure responsible for my unhappiness. I did need to come out of my shell—not to change who I was, but to participate.”
Joe considered this, then sighed. “I just can’t stand seeing her in pain. And of course I worry about her hurting herself. I don’t think she would, but it’s there, in the back of my mind.”
“Just make sure she’s involved in things she truly loves. Even if it’s some solitary activity, like writing poetry, try to encourage her to join a club—poetry club, or a teen writing program at the library. Just so she has contact with someone. And obviously, make sure she knows that you’re there for her—totally open, with no judgment.”
Joe sucked on the milk-shake straw until he heard scraping sounds. “Guess I killed this guy,” he said. We studied the table and saw that we had powered through both of our sandwiches, fries, and milk shakes. “I forgot you were such a good eater.”
I picked at a burnt end of a french fry.
“What about you?” Joe asked. “Tell me about your life.”
“There’s not a lot to say.”
“Are you kidding?” Joe said. “It sounds like you’ve been crazy successful in business. And now you’re off gallivanting around the globe—Italy to India. What’s that all about?”
“All that’s new,” I admitted. “All post–Frank Fletcher. And it’s a bit of a departure from my actual history.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I don’t know how to explain myself,” I said, then faltered, tapping at the plate with my burnt french fry. “People want an accounting of what you’ve been doing, you know? If you’re married. How many children you have. In what school district you live.”
“That’s just standard conversation,” he said. “People don’t know what else to ask.”
“To the outside observer, it probably looks like I haven’t done much.”
“How can you say that?” Joe asked.
“Because I don’t have the things that matter.”
“The things?”
“You know . . . a husband, kids.”
“But—”
“But I’ve been happy—content, at least. And there’s a lot to say for that. It wouldn’t be many people’s choice, but I don’t regret for a minute that I stayed near my father, that he and I built a business, that I cared for him while he was sick. All that was meaningful to me.”
“Missy, you don’t need to explain yourself to me. I’m not looking at you like you’ve wasted your life.”
Behind Joe our waitress moved between other tables, topping off ketchup bottles.
“It just went so fast—five years, then ten, then fifteen.”
“You’re sounding like you’re looking at your life like it’s winding down, instead of in the middle of a continuum that started when you were born. Who’s to say, Miss? Maybe you’ll live to be a hundred. Maybe this point on your time line is just the beginning.”
“Maybe,” I said, and though maybe was just a two-syllable word, I took my time with it, because all of a sudden my heart was creeping into my throat and my hands were sweaty with anticipation. Who’s to say this isn’t just the beginning? Was Joe intimating that he and I might have a point, a series of points plotted further down my time line?
Our waitress brought the bill. Joe handed her three twenties and asked if we could hang around for a while.
“As long as you’d like, sweetheart,” she answered, whisking herself away toward the cash register.
“What happened with you and your wife?” I asked quietly. “If you want to tell me. You certainly don’t have to.”
Joe’s face twisted in consternation, just as it had years ago when he would work a tricky trig problem. “Lucy is a good woman, a good mother. But all of these years she’s been a military wife—a marine wife, to boot—and there is a lot involved in that. Moving, getting settled, and then moving again. She’d make good friends, have a network of people she could count
on, and then we’d have to do it all over again. It’s hard. Military spouses give up a lot.”
“What happened?”
“I was gone a lot. She was home dealing with the kids. Her mother was ill at the time. And when I came home from my second tour, she thought it was for good. She had been itching to go back to work.”
“Did she?”
Joe fiddled with the box of Splenda and sugar packets. “She was getting ready to—but then I deployed again. The surge in Afghanistan forced many of us to deploy unexpectedly, far sooner than we ever thought. Lucy was furious, for so many reasons. I guess there was already a lot of tension between us.”
“And then you came home with one leg,” I said.
“That was pretty much the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said. “Because as an officer, I should have been safer than some. Wrong place, wrong time. Lucy was angry, but she shoved it down and rolled up her sleeves and got me through the tough times. Learning to walk, function. Those weren’t easy days, and I was a lousy patient—depressed, withdrawn. My lost leg was the least of my problems. I also had a broken arm, which complicated matters tremendously, and a ton of aches and pains. By the time the cast came off my arm, my bruises had healed, and I was accustomed to living with one leg; by the time I was ready to reconnect with ‘the living,’ Lucy already had one foot out the door.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“There was a lot of recuperating involved, a lot of rehab. Lucy felt obligated to stay, yet every fiber in her was screaming for her to leave. She got me through the tough times, and then one day—when she sensed that I was fine—she started going out on job interviews. She landed a great job as an event planner for an international law firm.”
“What has that meant to the kids?”
“It means that she’s gone a lot of the time. She goes on these trips with the lawyers—business trips and reward trips. She’s kind of like the on-site concierge. Last year she was gone over two hundred days. So the kids are with me.”
“Doesn’t she miss them?” The words left my mouth without thought. Of course she missed her kids.
“She needed a break from it all. She needed to find out who she was, other than a marine wife.”
The Light of Hidden Flowers Page 23
