In the Name of Honor

by Richard North Patterson

  Beneath her veneer of self-reliance, Terry realized, Meg had contemplated her family far more than he had guessed. “How did that affect him growing up?”

  “I wasn’t there, of course. I do know that his father’s friends encouraged him to enter the academy. But I don’t think he ever doubted that the army was his destiny. Fortunately, God granted him the privilege of living. And the burden—to cope with, and pass on.” Meg cut herself off, saying, “This must sound utterly demented to you. Not to mention completely self-absorbed.”

  “Not at all,” Terry said. “My dad was an accountant, and I can still recite the words of his CPA certificate.”

  Meg surprised him by grinning. “Exactly my point. You’ve already decided that we’re all completely nuts. That doesn’t exactly promote self-revelation.”

  Terry smiled at this. “Every family,” he assured her, “is nuts in its own way. Yours is just more interesting.

  “Mine, like yours, was Catholic. God was a source of comfort and consolation, and He still pervades my mother’s thoughts to a degree that resembles magical thinking. But our God never drafted us to be heroes. He had other things in mind.”

  Meg sipped her martini. After a time, she said, “I think we all imagine the God who meets our needs. Other than the photographs, my dad’s most tangible legacy was the prayer book his father read from as a child. Dad uses it now. He still won’t start his day without reciting the Daily Office, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

  “You could say he’s just devout. But it’s more than that. My grandmother told me that he began reciting those same prayers when he was six, the morning after learning of his own dad’s death. These days I almost never hear him; he closes his bedroom door. But I know he’s keeping a compact with his father.”

  Despite his skeptical feelings about religion, Terry found this story touching. “Too much certainty scares me,” he told her. “I’ve always found the legend of your father’s piety a little off-putting. This makes him far more human.”

  “Dad’s very human,” Meg said softly. “He’s learned to hide that. But what causes the most harm is when he hides it from himself.”

  The enigmatic remark, Terry felt certain, did not allow for questions. Instead he asked, “How religious is your dad?”

  “Very. In Dad’s sensibility, religion and the military reinforce each other. Both venerate self-sacrifice and a sense of duty; both require obedience to higher authority.” Meg’s voice was soft and almost valedictory, as though the man she described no longer lived. “But there was nothing blind or mindless in what he felt. My father believed that only a clear-eyed adherence to rules could free us from selfishness and random impulse, allowing us to be better than our fallible nature might allow. Impulse led to misery.”

  “And so abortion—”

  “Is the taking of a life created by God, which is not our right as humans. Except, of course, for war in defense of freedom.” She gazed at the table, frowning. “I learned early that abortion was a sin. So were adultery and divorce. A husband’s or wife’s duties included loyalty to their family, which depended on order to survive. To betray the family was to betray God.”

  Terry detected in her tone the faint discordance of bitterness and belief. “So if one of you committed adultery,” Terry ventured, “or were gay, that would betray your father?”

  Meg looked up at him. “We’re talking about Brian, I assume. My father didn’t say these things harshly; he’s not a harsh man. It’s simply what he believed to the depth of his soul. So rather than rebelling, we grew up wanting never to disappoint him. As his son, Brian felt this most of all.” Meg’s tone remained even. “I’ve got no evidence that Brian’s gay. But I’m very sure he never slept with Kate. All I’m saying is that it was always hard for him to disappoint my father.

  “I’m not sure you can ever understand what that feels like. Two things Dad said are with us still. The first is ‘Character is who you are in the dark.’ But the second was that we should always behave as though someone else was watching us. Dad meant God. But when we were young, we thought of Dad instead.”

  Terry tried to imagine feeling this about his father. Perhaps he could have, before his father’s death. Now it was painful to remember his own innocence, and far easier to indulge his curiosity about Meg’s family, and Meg herself. Cautiously, Terry asked, “How did your mother take that?”

  The faint smile Meg gave him was no smile at all. “Rose already told you, Paul. Our mother resigned.”

  “I meant before that.”

  Meg studied him. “If you really want the flavor of things, I remember her saying, ‘You’re so impressive, Tony, when you chisel your marble tablets.’ I’m sure she wanted to diminish him in our eyes. But she was way too drunk and fragile to resemble Dorothy Parker. Her most successful impression evoked Sylvia Plath.”

  Terry winced inside. “I’m sorry, Meg.”

  “For asking, or for what she did?”

  “Both.”

  Meg drew a breath. “Outside the family,” she said at length, “we never talked about it. We still don’t. So this is hard for me.”

  This was ventured less as a rebuff, Terry sensed, than as a request for understanding that would also close the subject. For the rest of dinner, neither spoke of Mary McCarran.

  WHEN TERRY SUGGESTED A nightcap, Meg hesitated, and then, to his surprise, accepted.

  They sat in a shadowy corner of Vidalia’s bar, swirling brandy in snifters. At the first harsh sip of amber liquid, Meg seemed to shiver. She put it down, staring past Terry, absorbed in unspoken thoughts. Suddenly, she asked, “Why are you so curious about me?”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. I can read it in your face. Is that only about Brian?”

  Terry paused, and then saw the truth before he spoke it. “No,” he acknowledged. “Especially since I met with Rose.”

  She angled her head, giving him a quiet, probing look. “Did she tell you that I found her?”

  “Yes.” Terry hesitated. “I’ve been imagining how that felt.”

  “How can you, Paul?”

  “Maybe I can’t. But I was pretty young when my father died. That gives me a place to start.”

  Meg gazed into her brandy, as though watching her own memories resurface. With a detachment so complete that it seemed an act of will, she said, “It was different than you might think. Finding her was the beginning, not the end.”

  AS OFTEN HAPPENED WHEN her mother did not appear, Meg called Aunt Rose to take them home from school.

  Brian sat in back, Meg next to Rose. It was a beautiful spring day and, except for worry about her mother, Meg felt happy. For the first time in sixth grade, her report card showed straight A’s. She almost told Aunt Rose, except that she wanted to save it for her mother. If it was not too late, they could call her father in Germany.

  Their house was unlocked. Brian went to his bedroom to dress for soccer practice. Meg hurried to her mother’s bedroom, filled with excitement and trepidation. She hoped that her mother had not passed out.

  The room was empty. Her clothes were strewn across the double bed; Meg barely noticed the envelope on her father’s pillow. Knowing her mother’s pleasure in warm baths, Meg slowly approached the bathroom door.

  “Mom?” she called.

  No answer. But she could see that the light was on through the crack beneath the door. Hesitant, she knocked, worried that her mom had fallen asleep in the bathtub.

  Still no one answered.

  The doorknob turned in her hand. For reasons she did not comprehend, Meg feared to step inside. She tried imagining that her mother was in her robe, perhaps drinking in silence at their kitchen table. But surely she would have called to them when she and Brian entered.

  Slowly, Meg cracked open the door.

  The first thing she saw was her mother’s face, still and pale. Her long blond hair lay in glistening strands against the white of the bathtub. Only then did Meg grasp that the water was dark red.


  Stomach knotting, Meg struggled to take in what she was seeing. Then she spotted the knife on the bath mat, its sharp edge tinged with blood. When Meg dared look at it again, the mask that was her mother’s face said that her soul had left her body.

  Reeling forward, Meg fell to her knees. She fought to stand again. On wobbly legs, she staggered from the bathroom without looking at her mother. Remembering Brian, she softly closed the door behind her.

  She had to keep her brother from seeing this.

  Frozen in the bedroom, she tried to narrow her thoughts to an image of Brian’s face, still innocent beneath his tousled blond hair. Then she saw the vanilla square against her father’s pillow. Edging toward the bed, she saw “Tony” on the envelope, written in her mother’s perfect script.

  Without quite knowing why, Meg put the letter in her backpack. She drew herself up and went to her brother’s room.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, his soccer uniform on, staring into space. Brian was a daydreamer; while dressing for school, he sometimes drove their father crazy by drifting so deeply into thought that he lost all track of time. She sat on the bed beside him.

  “Mom’s not feeling good,” she told him. “We need to call Aunt Rose.”

  Her voice sounded synthetic, as though she were a recorded message. In profile, Brian’s eyes clouded. But he was used to this; when they found their mother comatose, Rose stepped in to help them. They never questioned why—Rose’s compassion was a given, one thing they could rely on. If there was a problem, their dad had told Meg, Aunt Rose is there for you.

  Briefly touching Brian’s shoulder, Meg went to the kitchen and dialed Rose for the second time in an hour.

  As always when Meg called, Aunt Rose sounded calm. “Is your mom not well?” she asked.

  On any other day, Meg would have appreciated Rose’s matter-of-factness, her willingness to spare Meg humiliation by acting as if her mother had the flu. Now she could not seem to deviate from the script. “Yes,” Meg answered. “Brian has soccer practice.”

  “I’ll come get him. Just make sure that Mr. Dreamy is ready.”

  When Meg hung up, she heard voices in the living room, then realized that Brian had turned on the TV. Going there, she asked him, “Hungry?”

  Without turning from the screen, Brian shook his head. “Aunt Rose is coming,” she told him. “She’ll get you to practice.”

  Brian simply nodded. When Rose came to get him, Meg asked if she could come back to the house.

  For an instant, Rose stopped to look at her. “Of course,” she said. With her usual efficiency, she roused Brian from his torpor and steered him to her car.

  The time until Rose returned seemed endless. Too stunned to cry, too sickened to move, Meg stayed on the couch.

  When Rose came through the door, Meg flinched. Entering the living room Rose asked, “Can I make you a peanut butter sandwich?”

  Meg gazed up at her. In a toneless voice, she said, “Mom’s dead.”

  Rose stared at her, lips parting. “She’s dead,” Meg repeated. “I found her in the bathtub, all filled with blood. I didn’t want Brian to see.”

  Rose’s eyes closed. Almost seeming to collapse, she sat beside Meg, pulling her close as though to give, but also receive, comfort. For a moment, she stroked Meg’s hair. “Wait here,” Rose murmured.

  She walked toward Mary’s bedroom. Minutes later she emerged, quite pale, and went quickly to the kitchen. Meg heard her calling someone. When Rose returned, she said, “The military police are coming. We’re going to my house. Kate will stay with you while I go get Brian. He’ll never see your mother.”

  “What about Dad?”

  “I’ll call him. I’ll tell Brian, too.” Rose took her hands, adding softly, “No sister or daughter could do any more. It’s my turn now.”

  Meg gave herself to Rose.

  THAT NIGHT SHE SHARED a room with Brian. He cried himself to sleep. Tearless still, Meg kept thinking about the note.

  She touched Brian’s shoulder to herself make sure that he was asleep. Then she got up, turning on the lamp, and found her backpack on the dresser.

  Meg withdrew the envelope.

  She paused, fixated on her father’s name. Then, with stiff, fumbling fingers, she opened it. There was only one sentence.

  Now you can marry Rose.

  Moments passed before Meg felt the tears running down her face. Mechanically, she opened her backpack, concealing the note that Brian could never see.

  THE NEXT EVENING HER father returned from Germany.

  He, too, stayed at Rose’s town house near Fort Bolton. He looked older than Meg had remembered him. But he was unfailingly gentle. For once, he let Brian sleep with him.

  Before that, he sat beside Meg on her bed, his gray-blue eyes regarding her with sadness. “I know how terrible that must have been,” he said quietly.

  Remembering her mother’s waxen face, Meg could only nod.

  Her father hesitated. “Your mother was very sick and very confused. It’s no one’s fault. But I know she loved you very much. Try to forgive her for what happened.”

  Meg swallowed. “Will you stay here to take care of us?”

  Her father clasped her shoulders. “For two weeks, yes. Then Rose will look after you until I get back. She also loves you, Meg—very much.”

  Tears came to Meg’s eyes. Touching her face, her father asked, “What is it, sweetheart?”

  Mute, Meg went to her backpack. When she reached inside, she felt a tremor go through her, and hesitated. “What is it?” her father repeated.

  She could not answer. All she knew was that she could no longer bear this alone. With relief and dread, she gave him her mother’s note.

  Reading it, her father blinked, and then his eyes became fixed. He was so quiet for so long that he seemed to have forgotten her. Then, in an instant, he became himself again. “Where did you find this?”

  Despite the compassion in his voice, something in its quality implied that he was speaking to an adult. Perhaps it was this that made her response so level. “On your pillow,” she said. “No one else has seen it.”

  Her father absorbed this. “She was sick,” he told Meg. “Maybe it was the alcohol. Her brain stopped working the way it should.”

  She waited for something more—an explanation or a denial. “You did right,” her father continued. “This would only hurt your brother, and other people as well. No one else should know about this except for you and me. Can you do that for our family?”

  Yes, Meg promised. She could.

  AS MEG FINISHED, HER face showed so little that Terry marveled at her gifts of repression, even as he fought to contain his muted horror. “Does Brian know about the note?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Terry hesitated. “And Rose?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve never spoken of it.”

  Terry shook his head. “That’s a lot to carry around, Meg. And a lot to place on a twelve-year-old.”

  “It wasn’t his fault. She did that—I’m sure that having me find that note was part of Mother’s exit strategy. My dad was nowhere around.” Her voice was flat and weary, hinting at what the memory still cost her. “My age didn’t matter to her, so it couldn’t matter to me. I could fall apart, or I could help my dad and Brian. That’s what I chose to do. If you want to see some cosmic significance in that, I can’t stop you.”

  The look in her eyes, searching Terry’s, was far more vulnerable than the words implied. “I was wondering,” Terry said, “how that affected your feelings about Rose.”

  Meg looked away. “I could never sort them out,” she answered. “I think part of me wanted them to marry. But the note took Rose’s kindness to us and turned it into treachery. No doubt our mother knew that.”

  “Do you think she was right?”

  Meg’s brow furrowed. “I’ve never known. I could only read the tea leaves, imagining portents in what little I saw.”

  FOR YEARS THE IMAGE had stayed with
her.

  It was Christmas that same year. Their father was home; they were back in the house where their mother had died. Brian was not yet ten. Before his bedtime, Meg played Monopoly with him, then headed toward the kitchen for a Coke.

  She paused in the hallway. Her father and Rose were in the living room. They had turned out all the lights, save for the multicolored bulbs on the fir tree all of them had decorated. The two of them stood together, gazing at the tree, and then Rose took her father’s hand.

  Neither of them spoke, or even glanced at the other. For a moment, Rose leaned her head against his shoulder. Then she released his hand.

  Meg went to her room. When she came out again, Rose Gallagher was gone.

  “THEY WERE ALWAYS FRIENDS,” Meg said. “Rose kept on looking after us. She tried to do as much for me as any mother could.”

  Terry sipped his brandy. “And you looked after Brian. And, to some extent, your father.”

  “Mostly Brian. I didn’t want him hurt. Now he has been, terribly, and I don’t want him hurt anymore.” She searched his face for understanding. “Among all of us, he’s the special one. Or was.”

  “And you think he entered the military to please your father.”

  “It’s more than that. Brian wanted to become my father. If he could manage that, maybe he wouldn’t feel pain anymore.” The sadness in her voice was marbled with regret. “Someone should have stopped him. Instead of replicating my father, he couldn’t escape him. Brian became an infantry officer, just like Dad and the dead McCarrans who preceded him. So the army gave Brian a lot, but expected more. I always thought he’d have been better in a place like USAID, trying to help people without dragging around a rifle and my father’s reputation. Instead he ended up in Sadr City.”