"You want to talk about it?"

"About what?"

"Anything-your leg… the war. I think you purposely kept the bad stuff out of your letters for my sake. Maybe you wanna talk about it now."

The red arc of the cigarette going to his mouth created a barrier more palpable than barbed wire.

"What’s the sense in talking about it? I went to war, not an ice cream social. I knew that when I joined up."

She felt shut out and hurt. She had to give him time to open up, but tonight wouldn’t be the night, that was certain. So she searched for subjects to bring him close again.

"I’ll bet Miss Beasley was surprised when she saw you."

He chuckled. "Yeah."

"Did she show you the scrapbook of newspaper clippings she kept about all the action in the South Pacific?"

"No, she didn’t mention that."

"She clipped articles only about the areas where she thought you might be fighting."

He chuckled soundlessly.

"You know what?"

"Hm?"

"I think she’s sweet on you."

"Oh, come on, she’s old enough to be my grandma."

"Grandmas got feelings, too."

"Lord."

"And you know what else? I think you kind of feel the same."

He felt himself blush in the dark, recalling times when he’d purposely charmed the librarian. "Elly, you’re crazy."

"Yeah, I know, but it’s perfectly okay with me. After all, you never had a grandma, and if you wanna love her a little bit it don’t take nothin’away from me."

He tamped out his cigarette, drew her against his side and kissed the top of her head. "You’re some woman, Elly."

"Yeah, I know."

He pulled back and looked down into her face, forgetting momentarily the haunting visions that sprang into his mind uninvited. He laughed, then Elly snuggled her cheek against his chest once more, and went on distracting him. "Anyway, Miss Beasley was wonderful while you were gone, Will. I don’t know what I would’ve done without her-and Lydia, too. Lydia and I got to be such good friends. And you know what? I never really had a friend before." She mused before continuing. "We could talk about anything…" She ruffled the hair on his chest and added, "I’d like to have her and the kids out sometime so you can get to know her better. Would that be all right with you, Will?"

She waited, but he didn’t answer.

"Will?"

Silence.

"Will?"

"What?"

"Haven’t you been listening?"

He removed his arm and reached for another cigarette. She’d lost him again.


There was no doubt about it, Will was different. Not only the limp, but the lapses. They happened often in the days that followed, lengthy silences when he became preoccupied with thoughts he refused to share. An exchange would become a monologue and Elly would turn to find his eyes fixed on the middle distance, his thoughts troubled, miles away. There were other changes, too. At night, insomnia. Often she’d awaken to find him sitting up, smoking in the dark. Sometimes he dreamed and talked in his sleep, swore, called out and thrashed. But when she’d awaken him and encourage, "What is it, Will? Tell me," he’d only reply, "Nothing. Just a dream." Afterward he’d cling to her until sleep reclaimed him and his palms would be damp even after they finally fell open.

He needed time alone. Often he went down to the orchard to ruminate, to sit watching the hives and work through whatever was haunting him.

The smallest sounds set him off. Lizzy knocked her milk glass off the high chair one day and he rocketed from his chair, exploded and left the house without finishing his meal. He returned thirty minutes later, apologetic, hugging and kissing Lizzy as if he’d struck her, bringing by way of apology a simple homemade toy called a bull-roarer which he’d made himself.

He spent a full hour with the three children that afternoon, out in the yard, spinning the simple wooden blade on the end of the long string until it whirled and made a sound like an engine revving up. And, as always, after being with the children, he seemed calmer.

Until the night they had a thunderstorm at three A.M. An immense clap of thunder shook the house, and Will sprang up, yelling as if to be heard above shelling, "Red! Jesus Christ, R-e-e-e-e-e-d!"

"Will, what is it?"

"Elly, oh God, hold me!"

Again, she became his lifeline, but though he trembled violently and sweated as if with a tropical fever, he held his horrors inside.

Physically, he continued healing. Within a week after his return he was restless to walk without crutches, and within a month, he followed his inclination. He loved the bathtub, took long epsom salts soaks that hastened the healing, and always eagerly accepted Elly’s offers to scrub his back. Though he’d been ordered by Navy doctors to have checkups biweekly, he shunned the order and took over tending the bees even before he discarded the crutches, and went back to his library job in his sixth week home, without consulting a medic. His hours there were the same as before, leaving his days free, so he painted and posted a sign at the bottom of their driveway- USED AUTO PARTS & TIRES-and went into the junk business, which brought in a surprising amount of steady money. Coupled with his library salary, government disability check and the profit from the sale of eggs, milk and honey, which was constantly in demand now that sugar was heavily rationed, it brought their income up to a level previously unheard of in either Will’s or Elly’s life.

The money was, for the most part, saved, for even though Will still dreamed of buying Elly luxuries, the production of most domestic commodities had been halted long ago by the War Production Board. Necessities-clothing, food, household goods-were strictly rationed, at Purdy’s store, their point values posted on the shelves beside the prices. The same at the gas station, though Will and Elly were classified as farmers, so given more gas rationing coupons than they needed.

The one place they could enjoy their money was at the theater in Calhoun. They went every Saturday night, though Will refused to go if a war movie was showing.

Then one day a letter arrived from Lexington, Kentucky. The return address said Cleo Atkins. Elly left it propped up in the middle of the kitchen table and when Will came in, pointed to it.

"Somethin’ for you," she said simply, turning away.

"Oh…" He picked it up, read the return address and repeated, quieter, "Oh."

After a full minute of silence she turned to face him. "Aren’t you going to open it?"

"Sure." But he didn’t, only stood rubbing his thumb over the writing, staring at it.

"Why don’t you take it down to the orchard and open it, Will?"

He looked up with pain in his deep, dark eyes, swallowed and said in a thick voice, "Yeah, I think I’ll do that."

When he was gone, Elly sat down heavily on a kitchen chair and covered her face with her hand, grieving for him, for the death of his friend whom he couldn’t forget. She remembered long ago how he’d told her of the only other friend he’d ever had, the one who’d betrayed him and had testified against him. How alone he must feel now, as if every time he reached out toward another man, that friendship was snatched away. Before the war she would not have guessed the value of a friend. But now she had two-Miss Beasley and Lydia. So she knew Will’s pain at losing his buddy.

She gave him half an hour before going out to find him. He was sitting beneath an aged, gnarled apple tree heavy with unripe fruit, the letter on the ground at his hip. Knees up, arms crossed, head lowered, he was the picture of dejection. She approached silently on the soft grass and dropped to her knees, putting her palms on his forearms, her face against his shoulder. In ragged sobs, he wept. She moved her hands to his heaving back and held him lovingly while he purged himself. At last he railed, "Jesus, Elly, I k-killed him. I d-dragged him back to that f-foxhole and left him th-there and the n-next thing I knew a b-bomb hit it d-dead center and I t-t-turned around and s-saw his r-red h-hair flyin’in ch-chunks and-"

"Shh…"

"And I was screamin, Red!… Re-e-e-d!" He lifted his face and screamed it to a silent sky, screamed it so long and loud the veins stood out like marble carvings along his temples, up his neck and above his clenched fists.

"You didn’t kill him, you were trying to save him."

Rage replaced his grief. "I killed my best friend and they gave me a fucking Purple Heart for it!"

She could have argued that the Purple Heart was justly earned, in a different battle, but she could see this was no time for reasoning. He needed to voice his rage, work it out like pus from a festering wound. So she rubbed his shoulders, swallowed her own tears and offered the silent abeyance she knew he needed.

"Now his fianceé writes-God, how he loved her-and says, It’s okay, Corporal Parker, you mustn’t blame yourself." He dropped his head onto his arms again. "Well, doesn’t she see I got to blame myself? He was always talkin’ about how the four of us were g-gonna meet after the w-war and we’d maybe buy a car and go on v-vacation someplace together, maybe up in the Smoky Mountains where it’s-it’s c-cool in the s-summer and him and me c-could go-go f-fish-" He turned and threw himself into Elly’s arms, propelled by the force of anguish. He clasped her, burrowing, accepting her consolation at last. She held him, rocked him, let his tears wet her dress. "Aw, Elly-Elly-g-goddamn the war."

She held his head as if he were no older than Lizzy, closed her eyes and grieved with him, for him, and became once again the mother/wife he would always need her to be.

In time his breathing grew steadier, his embrace eased. "Red was a good friend."