by Ann Tatlock
Truman nodded; his eyes shone. “It sounds like a nice story.”
“It was. It was like a fairy tale. But then two Christmases later, Seth was in Iraq and”—she shrugged—“now we’re here.”
“I see.” Truman nodded and gazed back down at his hands. “You’ve entered a chapter you didn’t expect.”
Jane slowly shook her head. “I didn’t expect this at all. We would have been married this summer if he hadn’t been wounded.”
“And now?”
“Now?” Jane sighed. “I just don’t know.”
“What does Seth say?”
“Mostly, he says he wants me to go away.” She tried to laugh, but her laughter fell flat. For a moment she wondered why she was spilling her thoughts to a stranger. Yet, oddly, she felt perfectly comfortable in the company of Truman Rockaway. Maybe he was just one of those people who’d never known a stranger in his life. She looked at him, locking onto his gaze. “What should I do, Truman?”
“Give him time,” came the reply. “He’ll come around.”
“You mean, you’re not going to tell me to just forget about him?”
“No. Why should I tell you that?”
“Everyone else is, it seems. Even his own mother. After she spent a month with him at Walter Reed, she came back and said to me, ‘If you no longer feel you can marry Seth, I understand.’”
Truman frowned and leaned toward her over the table. “Do you still want to marry him, Jane?”
“Of course.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I love him.”
“Then that’s good enough for me.” He leaned back and seemed to relax. “And it should be good enough for everyone else.”
“But it isn’t. Not even for Seth.”
“Well, now, like I said, Seth will come around. He’s suffered a huge loss, you know. There’s a whole lot of grieving ahead of him, and that’s something he can’t get around. He has to go through it. But once he’s through it, he’ll begin to see things more clearly.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yes, I do. I’ve seen it happen plenty of times. You wouldn’t believe what some people survive, only to go on and lead productive lives. Happy lives too, for the most part.”
“But some people don’t. I mean, some people never adjust.”
“A few, maybe. But they’re in the minority. The will to live can’t be underestimated, Jane.”
“That’s what I’m counting on, I guess. Seth was always so—I don’t know—full of life, happy, upbeat. It made me happy to be with him. We laughed a lot together.”
“It’ll be like that again.”
Jane felt suddenly nervous. “Right now, Truman, he doesn’t even want to live, much less laugh. I mean, he really doesn’t want to live.”
“Like I said, that’s normal. Give him time.”
“But—” Jane stopped and took a deep breath. “Truman, he said if I loved him, I would help him die.”
Truman’s eyes, placid only a moment ago, now flashed anger. He leaned over the table again and laid both large hands on Jane’s slim shoulders. “Now you listen to me, Jane. Are you listening?”
Jane nodded. She was rendered mute by his sudden surge of emotion.
“We never let anyone die. Never. Do you hear me?”
Another nod.
He squeezed her shoulders lightly. “Tell me you won’t help him die. Promise me that.”
She drew in her breath and let it out slowly. “Of course I won’t.”
“But do you promise?”
“Yes, I promise. I could never . . .”
She couldn’t finish. For a moment they sat staring into each other’s eyes, unable to look away. Finally he loosened his grip. His hands fell to his sides.
“I’ve got to go. Got to finish my rounds.” He stood, stared off toward the hall.
“All right.”
He took a few steps toward the door, then turned back. “Jane, I—”
“Yes?”
He started to say something, stopped, then said, “I’ll see you later.”
“All right.”
She watched him walk away, her eyes moving with him as he shuffled past the row of windows and out of sight. She looked down at the half-empty pint of chocolate milk on the table. When she lifted it to her lips, her stomach turned. She threw it away and headed home.
10
Overhead, the stars flickered like far-off firestorms while a half-moon squatted among them, pale and serene. Jane lay on a reclining lawn chair in the Penlands’ backyard, one arm tucked beneath her head and one cradling Roscoe, who was curled up beside her. The other dog, Juniper, was stretched out on the grass beside the chair.
She had lost track of time—it might be midnight, perhaps a little later. She knew she should go inside and go to bed, but she couldn’t pull herself away from the radiant display in the sky.
“Well, Roscoe,” she said, scratching the terrier behind one ear, “it’s beautiful, but it makes you feel kind of small, doesn’t it?”
Roscoe yawned and shifted position on the chair. His ears perked up a moment, and he seemed alert to some unseen danger, but deciding there was nothing there, he lowered his head to his paws, took a deep breath, and went back to sleep.
“Okay, so maybe you’re too busy being content to worry about your place in the universe, huh?” Jane smiled briefly. “I think it’s because you don’t ask for much. Some food, a warm place to sleep, a little love, and you’re good. Maybe that’s the secret of a satisfied life.”
Then again, Jane reflected, that was all she wanted for herself. Her dreams were simple. She wanted nothing beyond the basics—marriage, home, family, a little money in the bank. She was not like her mother, who wanted the world and despaired because she couldn’t have it. “Sometimes,” Grandmother had said of Meredith Morrow, “a driving ambition can steer you right into the grave.”
Apparently Meredith Morrow had wanted to continue her quest for fame through her only daughter. Jane was nine years old the year her mother took her to Raleigh to audition for a television commercial. Jane had wanted to do well for her mother’s sake, had tried to push past the timidity and fear that had left her voice squeaking and her lips trembling, but she had failed miserably. Not only did she have no acting talent, but she couldn’t remember a few simple lines. She’d been dismissed summarily with a callous wave of a hand and a voice hollering, “Next!”
Mother and daughter had trudged through a haze of shame on the way back to the car. Before Meredith put the key in the ignition, she paused dramatically and said, “Well, young lady, you just blew your chance to be somebody.” After that, the two of them rode home in agonizing silence. Meredith had been a star, or at least a starlet of some acclaim. Her daughter, on the other hand, would be a commoner, consigned to a life among the nobodies of the world.
Jane had stared out the window, not because she wanted to watch the scenery go by but because she wanted to hide her tears from her mother. She felt as though she ought to apologize for who she was. She felt even more strongly the urge to tell her mother she hated her for who she was. She wanted to scream that never in a million years would she want to be like Meredith Morrow, a sad old lady who drank too much and made everyone around her miserable.
But she didn’t say anything.
Jane remembered that day as she lay there looking up at the night sky. From a distance of sixteen years, she could see the whole episode in sharp focus, could feel every ounce of pain and embarrassment and anger. Now she could see too, though, that maybe she and her mother finally had one thing in common: Their life dreams had been tampered with and left seemingly derailed.
But she didn’t want to think about her mother or lost dreams or broken hearts. Not now, not with the whole Milky Way glittering overhead, a bejeweled crown on the brow of the earth. If she lay quietly enough and listened hard enough, she might hear the music of the spheres, the legendary songs sung by the stars themselves.
After a moment, surprisingly, she heard something. The words rose up like a mist in her mind, then hardened into song.
My Lord, what a morning
When the stars begin to fall . . .
The voice belonged to Laney, not to the cosmos. It was years ago; Laney was in the kitchen singing while kneading her homemade bread.
“Why will the stars begin to fall, Laney?” Jane had asked.
“Because, child, we won’t need them anymore.”
“We won’t?”
“No. Won’t need the moon either. Not even the sun. God himself will be our light.”
She was always singing Negro spirituals and gospel songs. Songs about deep rivers and sweet chariots and freedom trains and bright mansions above. Young Jane would stand by the kitchen island, watching Laney’s dark slender hands at work, listening to her sing, wondering what it was all about. “Laney, why do all the songs sound so sad?”
“The slaves—they had sad lives, Janie. Sad lives. But you know what? When you think about it, you realize, they weren’t singing so much about their sorrow as they were singing about their hope.” Laney paused in her kneading and looked up smiling. “Their bright and shining hope. That’s what they sang about.”
That was what Jane most needed now. Hope. Bright and shining. And seemingly as elusive and unreachable as the stars.
“Come on, Roscoe,” Jane said, nudging the dog. She pulled herself up from the lawn chair and stretched. “You too, Juniper. Let’s go in. Time to get some sleep.”
She walked across the dark lawn with Roscoe and Juniper prancing at her heels. As she thought about sleeping and waking up and going back to the hospital once again, she sensed an unwelcome heaviness inside. Even before she reached the house, she knew she was feeling something that she’d never before felt in relation to Seth.
In her heart was a tight and unmistakable knot of dread.
11
Seth wasn’t in his room, but one of the aides was there putting fresh linens on the bed. He snapped open a clean white sheet and let it drift down over the fitted sheet already hugging the mattress. He must have noticed Jane out of the corner of his eye, because he paused in the midst of smoothing out the wrinkles with his thin dark hands. He looked up at her and smiled. “Hello, Miss Jane. You looking for Mr. Seth?”
“Yes, um, let’s see. You’re Sausalito, right?”
He shook his head and laughed quietly. “No, I’m Hangson Bwambale. Or as they say it in English, Hoboken. My cousin is Sausalito.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“No, no. It doesn’t matter. As we say, we answer to either name.”
“Well, you’re good sports, then. People should at least try to learn your real names.”
Hoboken chuckled again and shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“So you don’t mind being called Hoboken?”
“Not at all. One day I will visit this great city in New Jersey that I’m named after.” He finished tucking in the sheet and reached for a pillowcase from a pile of linens on the chair.
“Hmm,” Jane said, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe of Seth’s room. “You might be disappointed. I’ve never been to Hoboken, but it’s not known as one of our country’s great vacation spots.”
“But it’s close to New York City, right? I hear that’s the greatest city in the world. I’ll visit there too, right after I see Hoboken.”
Jane nodded. “That might make the trip worthwhile, then.”
“Of course the trip would be worthwhile, Miss Jane. I hope to see many places in America before I return to Uganda. This is a most amazing country, you know. In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve grown to love it almost as much as my own.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He smiled. “You know the song you have, ‘God Bless America’?”
“Yes?”
“Well, God—He has blessed America, even though many people here don’t know it or don’t believe it.”
Jane thought a moment. “I suppose we take so much for granted.”
Hoboken tucked a pillow under his chin and worked the pillowcase over it. “Yes. Sometimes . . . what do you say? It’s hard to see the forest for the trees. But these people”—he dropped the pillow on the bed and waved a hand—“they know. That’s why I am happy to work here. The men and women I help take care of, they were willing to fight to help defend the blessings.”
Jane pushed herself away from the doorframe and took one step into the room. “That’s a nice way to put it, Hoboken. I’m going to remember that. So many people think this war is senseless and that our troops are being wounded and killed for no reason. If they’re right, that makes Seth’s injury so much harder to accept.”
Hoboken looked kindly at Jane as he shook his head. “I’ve never known of any war that made sense, Miss Jane. To me, they all begin for a reason that is senseless. Greed. Power. Just plain hate. You know? All these things are evil.” He paused as he laid a thin woven blanket across the foot of the bed. “I know many Americans thought the war in Vietnam was senseless too, and when the soldiers came home, they were scorned for a war they didn’t start. That is . . . what do you say? That is barking up the wrong tree.”
“Barking up the wrong tree?” echoed Jane.
“Yes. Soldiers don’t start the war. They only do what they are told to do by their country, even if it means a great sacrifice for them. That’s why I admire them—the people I work for here. I am proud of all my patients.”
“You’re a wise man, Hoboken.”
He shook his head. “Not so wise, I’m afraid. Just a simple man who hopes he has the same kind of courage if I ever need it. Some people might feel sorry for Mr. Seth, but not me.” He shook his head again. “I am proud of him.”
“Thank you,” Jane said. “I’m proud of him too.”
Hoboken picked up the remaining linens on the chair and moved around the bed. “And I know you came to see him,” he said, laughing lightly, “not to listen to me. So without further ado”—a flash of white teeth—“I will tell you that Mr. Seth is out on the porch.”
“Out on the porch?” Jane echoed.
“Yes, there’s a screened-in porch at the end of the other hall. Go back to the nurses’ station and turn left. You’ll find it.”
“Okay. Thanks, Hoboken.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Jane.”
The porch ran the length of the building and provided an airy alternative to the sterile confines of the ward. Wicker chairs and ceiling fans gave it a homey appearance, making it a popular haven for patients, nurses, and aides. Even now, a number of men in wheelchairs were parked there, chatting among themselves and with the aides who were assigned to accompany them. Jane’s gaze traveled from face to face, a winged hope looking for a place to land. As soon as she saw Seth, the dread she’d felt last night began to lift, replaced by the familiar ache of joy.
She went to him and kissed his forehead. Seth gave her a passive glance in return. “I see you’ve come back for more.”
“I wanted to know how you’re doing today.”
“Ready to run a marathon, as you can see.”
Jane winced as she glanced at the aide in the wicker chair beside him. She was young and pretty, hardly more than a teenager, fresh and full of life. She seemed a strange contradiction, sitting there among all the broken soldiers.
“Here, take this chair,” she said to Jane, jumping up and waving a hand.
“Are you sure?” Jane asked.
The aide nodded. “So long as someone’s with him, it’s all right. I’ll wait over there till you finish visiting.”
With that, she moved away, leaving Jane and Seth alone in the middle of the crowded porch. “Nice girl,” Jane said.
Seth didn’t respond.
Jane sat down and, sighing, looked off toward the hospital grounds. She was well aware of Seth’s body beside her, heavy and inert, stretched out in the huge padded wheelchair, his head cradled in a headrest
, his arms and hands lying flat on the armrests.
She hated that chair. She hated that he was in it. She hated the sniper’s bullet that had stolen his body and their dreams. She wanted the life they had before, wanted it desperately.
Jane sighed again, and even as she did, she heard Laney’s voice: “Well, child, as Mamma always said, life’s gearshift’s got no reverse, so you have to just keep moving forward.”
She turned to Seth and took a deep breath. “You know, Seth,” she said, “everyone on this floor has a spinal cord injury. You’re not the only one.”
“So?” He avoided her gaze.
“Do you ever talk to anyone else, just to see how they’re coping? I mean, it might help to talk to other people who are going through the same thing.”
Seth was quiet a moment before saying, “Sure, I talk to the guys. How can I avoid it? But what you don’t understand is that it’s different for everyone.”
“But there must be some common ground—”
“Most of the guys on the floor—their injuries are lower. They might have lost the use of their legs, but at least they still have their arms.” Seth paused again, another long moment. His face sank a shade deeper into pain as he added, “And their hands.”
Jane nodded. One look around the porch showed many of the men able to wheel their own chairs, talk on cell phones, scratch their own noses. None of which Seth was able to do.
“If I had my hands,” Seth went on, “I could keep on working. It wouldn’t be impossible for me to at least do some carpentry work.”
She couldn’t disagree. “I know, Seth.” She laid a hand over one of his. It was large and warm and unresponsive.
“I can’t feel that, you know,” Seth said.
Jane nodded. She willed herself not to cry.
Seth finally turned his face toward her and locked on to her gaze. “Nights are the best, Jane,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“The dreams,” he said. He looked up at the ceiling and swallowed hard. “When I’m asleep, I’m whole again. I mean, I know I’ve been shot, just like in Iraq, but it doesn’t matter. In my dreams I can still walk. I can sit down and stand back up. My arms and legs do whatever I want them to do, and . . . I don’t know, I’m me again. I’m who I was before.”
