“Whew, have another one. Slow down the brain a little,” Dan said, pouring a half a shot of something, he wasn’t even sure what.
He handed it to Jack, and Jack threw it back. He shut his eyes hard. A single tear escaped and ran down his cheek. He opened his eyes again and looked at Dan through slits. “Black Label,” he said hoarsely. “You act like you own the place.”
Dan laughed out loud. “There you are. You on my planet now? What happened?”
“Gimme some water. I’m getting there.”
Dan poured a water and Jack took a big drink. By the time he lowered the glass, Paige was standing in the kitchen doorway. Dan glanced at her.
“My husband has gone for some supplies,” she said almost apologetically. “The kids are napping. I called Mel at home and told her to come right now. It’s Saturday, the clinic isn’t open.”
“I’m okay now,” Jack said. “Rick was wounded in Haditha. He’s hurt real bad. Legs, head, torso, miscellaneous injuries. They airlifted him to Germany. I have to tell Lydie Sudder and Liz.” He looked at Dan. “Liz is his girlfriend. Then I have to go.”
“Go?” Dan asked.
“I’ll have to get to Germany. This is my fault. Kid never would’ve gone into the Corps if it hadn’t been for me and all my boys, here all the time, making him think it’s just one big goddamn party. Shit.” He swiveled his eyes to Dan’s. “They said he’s bad. He might not make it. That I should be prepared for that.”
“You got phone numbers on this paper, buddy. Once your brain is engaged again, call back and get some more numbers so you can check in at Landstuhl, find out how he’s doing. You had a big shock. You need to get stable.”
“I need a cup of coffee,” Jack said. “I had to think a second who Lance Corporal Sudder was. God, my worst nightmare.”
“Sit down on a stool,” Dan said. “I’ll fix you a cup of coffee.”
Jack looked at Paige. “Try to get Mel before she makes the drive. Tell her I’m just coming home in a little while.”
Without a word, Paige went back into the kitchen to use the phone.
Jack sat up at the bar, a place he was never seen. In his usual place behind the bar stood Dan, serving up coffee in a big mug. He didn’t ask any more questions and didn’t need to.
“Ricky turned up when he was thirteen and I’d just started working on the bar. It was a shithole then. I slept in the rubble while I tried to get it straight. He was small back then—his face was covered with freckles and he couldn’t shut his mouth for five minutes.” Jack laughed and shook his head, remembering. “I let him hang around because his mom and dad were dead and he just had his grandma. And the goofy kid sucked me in. He’s twenty now. No more freckles. Six-two. Strong…”
“Gotta remember he’s strong, Jack,” Dan said. “Don’t give up on him.”
“He shouldn’t have done it, joined the Marines, but he was first in every training program, he was good….”
“Is,” Dan corrected. “Get it together, man.”
“Is good,” Jack repeated. He took a deep drink of hot coffee. “I don’t know what I can tell Lydie and Liz….”
“You tell them he’s hurt bad, in the hospital, and you’re going there. That’s what you tell them. You don’t give anyone permission to give up. If the worst happens, then you’ll tell them the worst. You don’t tell them the worst before it happens.”
“You should’ve seen him, man,” Jack said, drinking more coffee, smiling. “I taught him to hold a hammer, fish, shoot. He was such a little nerd at first, all gangles and pimples and that damn giggling, I thought he might stay that way forever. But he grew up fast—turned out to be a little faster in the saddle than was good. Whew. I felt like a father to that kid—”
“Feel,” Dan corrected. “Feel like a father…”
“I do, that’s a fact.”
Paige popped her head back into the bar. “She’s already on her way, Jack.”
“Aw, we shouldn’t have bothered her.”
“She needs to be here,” Dan said. Paige withdrew again, leaving them alone. “She’ll go with you to see the grandmother, the girlfriend. Then you’ll go see Rick. You think you’re together enough to do that? To go to Germany? Because if you’re nuts or in some flashback, you can’t chance it. It wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Jack took a drink from his coffee cup, then slowly raised his eyes. “I won’t let him down. I think I was in shock for a minute.”
“Yeah,” Dan said.
Dan stood behind the bar while Jack sat as a customer. Dan refilled his coffee mug, then pulled another Heineken out of the cooler, but this time he drank it from the bottle. For a few minutes they talked quietly about Rick and what he meant to Jack. About the letter not so long ago that described how dangerous it had been in Haditha lately.
The sound of boots on the bar’s porch brought Jack off the stool and toward the door. He pulled it open and there stood Mel, her eyes wide and her mouth open slightly. “Ricky?” she asked in a breath.
“Wounded in Iraq. He’s had surgery to stabilize him, but I’m not even sure on what. He had leg, torso and head injuries and has been airlifted to Germany, to a military hospital there. Mel—”
“Are you all right?” she asked him.
“I’m coming around. It knocked the wind out of me. Where are the kids?”
“Mike came over from next door—they’re sleeping.”
“I have to tell Lydie and Liz.”
“First Lydie,” Mel said. “Then we’ll go home and while you pack, I’ll get on the computer and find you plane tickets. Then we’ll go to Eureka to see Liz. We’ll go in two cars, I’ll take the kids with me. When you head for the airport, I’ll bring the kids home. Unless you need me with you in Germany. Thing is, I don’t have the kids on my passport. Shit, how dumb was that, with Rick in Iraq! Why didn’t I take care of that? Well, maybe I should come. I can fly to L.A., get the passport handled in a day, and—”
“Mel, stop. You’re not dragging the kids to Germany,” Jack said. “Come on, let’s get going.” He held the door for her.
As she was leaving, she looked over her shoulder at the man behind the bar.
“I’ll—ah—leave a few bucks on the bar,” Dan said. “And help the lady in the kitchen till her husband gets back, if she needs me.”
“Don’t worry about the few bucks, unless you want to pitch in for that Black Label you threw down my throat,” Jack said with a weak smile.
“Thank you,” Mel said.
“Hey—” Dan shrugged “—glad I was here.”
Jack started to leave, but then he stopped again and looked at Dan. “The thing that did it, the thing that knocked me out for a while… When I told the sergeant who called that I’d get right over to Germany, he asked me if I didn’t want to wait until Rick was out of surgery, until they knew his condition, in case he didn’t make it. And I said no, I wasn’t waiting. I was either going to see him or bring him home. Just thinking that? It put me in shock.”
“Well, stop thinking it now,” Dan said. “Get going. Remember, he’s strong.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Yeah.”
“Jack. Remember, you’re strong, too.”
Lydie reacted exactly as Mel expected. She gasped, got teary and twisted her hands, asking questions for which Jack had no answers. But then she straightened her neck and stiffened her spine and began to pray. “I’ll be all right,” she said bravely. “When you get there, tell Ricky his grandma is fine and praying for him. He worries about me too much. I don’t want him to worry when he should be working on getting better.”
“I’ll come by and check on you later today,” Mel said. “Don’t get upset and forget to test your blood, take your insulin and eat. Promise me.”
“I promise. Now go. Don’t waste your time here. He needs you.”
Liz was another story. After booking a flight and packing a duffel, Mel and Jack drove to Eureka in separate vehicles. Liz met them at the door before they were halfway down the walk. “Is he alive?” she asked before they even told her why they were there. Her eyes were as big as hubcaps and frightened. “Is he alive?”
They couldn’t even get in the door. “He was wounded, Liz,” Jack said. “He’s seriously hurt, but he’s in the hospital. They airlifted him out of Iraq and he should be in Germany soon. I’m going to see him, and when I get there, I’ll call you immediately and tell you his condition. I’ll—”
“Take me,” she said, whirling around and fleeing back into the house. Over her shoulder she said, “I knew all day. I knew. I couldn’t get him off my mind and I was worried all day. I worry a lot, but not like lately. I have a passport and—”
“Liz! No!” Mel said. “Now stop, honey. Let Jack—”
“No, if Jack won’t let me go with him, I’ll go by myself. I’ve never been on a plane, but I’ll figure it out. I have to go, I have to be there for him, I have to—”
“Maybe she should,” Jack said quietly.
Mel tugged on his sleeve to bring his ear to her lips. “Jack, what if you get there and it’s the worst case? You shouldn’t have to deal with all this.”
“It’s not going to be worst case,” Jack said. “And if it helps Rick… Maybe it’ll help Rick.” He looked at Liz. “You have a computer?”
“Of course.”
“You pack. Mel will get you a ticket. You have to hurry. We have to drive to Redding.”
“I knew all day long,” she whispered. “I have almost a thousand dollars saved.”
“Where’s the computer?”
“In here. In my bedroom. Will it cost more than a thousand dollars? Because I could borrow some from my aunt Connie.”
Jack took the baby out of Mel’s arms, hanging on to both children, freeing her. “Put it on the card, Mel. Get her a ticket on my flight if you can.” Mel just looked up at him with a large question in her eyes. “It’s his girl. He loves her. And she knew all day. There’s a bond. He’d probably rather have her there than me. Besides, we have to get it straight, how you act around someone who’s been critically wounded. Liz is up to it.”
“Liz, will your mom be okay with this? You’ll miss a bunch of school.”
“I’ll call her. She’s got her cell phone. It doesn’t matter—I’ll make up school. This is Rick. I have to be there with him.”
“Liz,” Mel said. “What if it’s terrible? What if he’s not okay?”
She threw a soft suitcase on the bed and looked at Mel with clear, determined eyes. “Then I have to be there even more.”
Mel sighed and sat down at the computer.
By the time Mel left Jack and Liz to begin their long journey to Frankfurt, her kids were just about psychotic from waking too early from naps, being hungry, having been transported all over the place. It would make sense to just go home and try to settle them, but she couldn’t. She had to speak to Connie, Liz’s aunt. She should tell Preacher and Paul, Marines who felt close to Rick. She should tell Cameron to look out for Lydie, since he was living at the clinic and Lydie was just down the street.
And after that she would go home to a lonely house and two fussy kids. It wasn’t typical for Mel to feel totally frazzled, but she did. She loved Rick as much as Jack did.