Two days later, they were back home again. The police had not wanted to let them go. The cases kept opening up, more law enforcement types came and went—FBI, Treasury, IRS, state and federal prosecutors. But there came a point when all the questions had been answered at least once. So they shrugged off the demands and the complaints and they left. Tatyana slept over at Easton’s that night. The Greys had a guest apartment that they said Tatyana could call home for a while. Easton wanted to have his legal representative close at hand while all the questions continued.
The next morning, Wayne went for a run with Julio. The kid stayed the distance, especially as Wayne had to take it easier with his restitched thigh. They stopped in front of the Cloister development and stared at the silent bulldozers and the empty half-finished structures. Then they turned and ran home.
When they got back and finished stretching, Jerry walked down from the porch to hand Wayne his coffee. All without breaking stride in his argument with Foster. “Nothing beat Sid Caesar for funny.”
“Oh. Like you actually know what you’re talking about.”
“I know what I know, all right. Victoria, help me out here.”
“You gentlemen are doing fine without me.” She looked up long enough to smile at them. “Hello, boys. Have a nice run?”
“Julio pounded me into the dust.”
“Oh, right. Like I suddenly got ready for the navy.”
“Don’t have anything to do with them pansies,” Jerry said. “They got them pretty white uniforms, they might as well sashay around in a skirt. You want macho, you go marine.”
Julio snorted but said nothing. Wayne pressed his grin into his knee. The kid was definitely learning.
Foster went on, “Ed Gardner, now, he was the king of funny. You ever see Duffy’s Tavern? They had everybody on that show. Edward G. Robinson, May Whitty, Bob Hope, Fred Allen, John Garfield, Jack Benny, Tallulah Bankhead. Anybody who was somebody fought for a chance to get on Duffy’s Tavern.”
“Huh. You want talent, you don’t got to look no further than Sid Caesar’s radio show. They had Neil Simon writing with Larry Gelbart. Not to mention Mel Tolkin. Howard Morris. Mel Brooks. And what’s his name. Max Liebman.”
Julio asked Wayne, “You know what they’re talking about?”
“I think you’ve got to be a hundred and nineteen to understand.”
Jerry called over the porch railing, “You want, I can toss your breakfast out in the street.”
Julio rose to his feet and pointed at where the Ferrari had sat under a live oak for four days. Long enough to become richly coated in leaves, pollen, and other donations. One of Detective Mehan’s buddies had driven it back to the community. “The lady in the parking lot, she’s crying for a bath.”
Victoria said, “What about breakfast?” But the kid was already moving.
Wayne went in for a shower. He heard the voices through the bathroom wall. Then they stopped. He dressed and came out, pretty certain what he would find.
Tatyana was seated in his living room. She was dressed in what for her was very casual—white shorts and a rose-colored top that fell off one shoulder in a manner that was both modest and revealing. She had on no makeup and looked about nineteen years old. “I didn’t ask them to leave.”
Wayne stood in the doorway to his bedroom. “You’re too fine looking for this place.”
“This is your home, Wayne. I am very comfortable here, thank you.”
He pulled a chair over. Glad now that no one else was there. “I need to finish telling you something.”
“No, Wayne.” She pulled up her legs and sat cross-legged on the couch. “Not unless you really want to.”
“I want.” And amazingly enough, he truly did.
“You are talking to a girl born in a place of ice and dark and cold. A small girl without family or friends. I grew up and tried to build order and protection into my life. Then a man hurt me. Then another man. I vowed to wall myself up and never let anyone close. But inside I always yearned for someone to come for me. Someone good and caring. Someone …” She swallowed hard and clenched her features against the emotions, and she never took her eyes from his face. When she could, she finished, “You’re not the only one carrying ghosts.”
The simple acceptance made him want to reach over and kiss that incredible face. Like he had permission. Which, in fact, maybe he did. But the memories were pushing out now. He did not need logic to know it was time. “Patricia and I met, dated, and married. All in nine weeks and one day. The army is a lot of things, but flexible in its timing it ain’t. I already knew we were headed out. Southern Afghanistan. Patrol duty. I had no idea what the words meant. I couldn’t have found the Paki border on a map. But I was going, and she was willing, so we found a justice of the peace and got married.”
He turned so the memories could scroll across the sunlight outside his front door. More than the trees’ shadows cut the day’s light without diminishing the heat. “Every time I got a leave, we fought. It wasn’t working out and we didn’t know what to do about it. She was in noncom housing outside Fayetteville, North Carolina, a tough place for a lady who’d never lived away from home before. Her folks were so upset over what she’d done, eloping with a guy they had met just one time, they basically just shut her out.”
Strange how he could sit there in the shadows and see things so clearly. Far clearer than he ever had before. Distanced by the day and the woman listening so intently beside him. “I loved her and I’d like to think she loved me. But I just don’t …”
“She loved you,” Tatyana said softly. “Accept it for a fact and let it go.”
He nodded without taking his eyes off the spooling memories. “I was totally conflicted. I wasn’t ready to be a husband, much less a family man. But I loved her. I came back after my tour was over and had the two roughest months of my entire life. Duty upcountry was nothing compared to that. And it was my fault.”
“Partly.”
“No.” He looked at her then. Ready to accept the word guilty. For the very first time. “I’d signed on again before I came home. They asked me to go back for another tour and I was ready. I loved her, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to settle down. So I came back, but only halfway.”
She started to say something, but stopped. Just rocked back and forth with her body, as though keeping the words inside forced her to do something. But her gaze never left his face.
“The month after I got back to Kabul, she wrote me this letter, blamed me for everything. I felt like I’d taken a mortar round straight to the heart. I tried to call, she wouldn’t speak to me. I wrote, she sent the letters back unopened. The next communication I got from her was a request from her lawyer for a no-fault divorce. She got remarried as soon as it was final.
“The week before I was discharged, the guys in my platoon, they put together this going-away present, a duffel full of semi-stolen gear. Topped it off with instructions on how to take the guy out.”
He had to look away. “I found out where they’d gone and I basically started stalking them. Her new husband was a doctor she’d met on base. When he went civvy they moved down here. Bought their place on the island about two years ago.”
He wanted to stop. The shame ate away at his core. But the memories, now released, refused to stop. “She was a different woman. She had all the things I’d never given her. Happiness. A husband who came home at night. A real home.” He took a very hard breath. “A son.”
She reached over then. Just rested the tips of three fingers on his hand. Not saying a word. Just there.
Somehow the touch was enough to stifle the need to confess more. About how he admitted defeat and ran away. Again. This time running so far and so well he almost didn’t make it back. Even now, wondering if he ever really could.
She rubbed his shoulder through the shirt. Back and forth. A gentle motion. Kneading away the ache.
If only she could do something about the memories.
Then again, maybe she could.
In time.