Authors: Hold Close the Memory
Heather Graham
Heather Graham
For my Warwick cousins,
Richard, Donna, Brent, and
Kim Astrella, with love
PROLOGUE
I
T WAS A BEAUTIFUL
wedding.
Even the weather, which was usually hot and humid, dark and brooding during the late summer season, had altered for the day. The sky was a crystal clear blue; soft breezes alleviated the glow of the golden late-afternoon sun.
It is said that all brides are beautiful, none more so than the girl who walked down the outdoor aisle of orchids and ivy, her eyes shimmering like true amber beneath the gauze of her veil. The love theme from Franco Zeffirelli’s
Romeo and Juliet
was played softly on the organ, and there were few in the assembled multitude who did not draw in their breaths, for surely the young couple joining here today were no less lovely, no less blessed, than the fabled star-crossed lovers might have been. She was just eighteen, her skin as perfect as alabaster, tanned golden by the sun. Beneath the Empire gown, studded with pearls lovingly sewn into the fabric night after night by her own hands, she was slender yet beautifully, ripely curved, glowing with youth, with vibrancy. With the small tiara of pearls on her head, she might have been a princess, regal, lithe, her smile no less a touch of gold than the burnished copper of her hair, flowing in thick, glossy curls beneath the gauze and lace veil contending with the sun for sheer splendor.
Some of the guests might have shaken their heads knowingly because such youthful marriages were usually doomed. But one sight of the groom was enough to quell such thoughts. He was nineteen, one year older than the bride, yet there was a shocking maturity in his sharp blue eyes, eyes that were as vast as the sky, as deep as the ocean. There was a strength of character to his handsome features, a certain set of his jaw, a squareness of his chin that belied his youth. One might well think that from when he could first talk, Brian Trent had been able to say, “This is what I want,” know it for fact, and move with determination and confidence to obtain it.
That assurance was with the groom as he greeted his bride, taking her hand from her father’s. The men in attendance were suddenly clearing their throats; the women were sniffling back tears. The bride and groom had written their own ceremony, and even those who had expected “some kind of hippie wedding” were surprised by the simple beauty of the vows and the young people who exchanged them.
The reception might have been an occasion for explosive arguments about politics since feelings ran high and the generation gap was indeed wide. Nixon sat in the Oval Office; the war that was not a war in Vietnam was dragging on despite all promises of withdrawal, and the tragedy of Kent State was not far behind. There were those who believed that the United States was the power responsible for saving the world, and there were those, the young people especially, who were vehemently antiwar and anti-Nixon and in general antiestablishment.
Instead, the party ran smoothly, for Brian Trent had effectively bridged the two generations with music. One band played the music of the Beatles, the Stones, and the Grateful Dead—and the bridesmaids quickly scandalized their parents by changing their summer flowered gowns to flashy hot pants—while another combo played waltzes and fox-trots and soothing melodies in the Sinatra tradition.
All went amazingly well.
Most pleased of the older generation was the bride’s father. Queried by friends about the wisdom of allowing his daughter to marry so young, he merely grinned and asked how he might have stopped his determined eighteen-year-old daughter. And he was impressed by the boy who had been equally determined to have his daughter.
Brian Trent had prepared well for marriage. He had spent the past two summers working with a construction company more than fifty hours a week to put a respectable down payment on a house near the university campus both he and the bride would attend in the fall. He had student jobs lined up for both of them, providing them with an income and time to study.
In this tumultuous era Robert Thielson was glad to have his too beautiful and spirited daughter married to this unique young man. Brian would keep Kim out of the trouble that impressionable girls, moving from childhood to adulthood, could easily fall into. Robert knew that drugs pervaded the schools, that morals were lax, that even the best-intended radical actions often turned, to tragedies, destroying a young person’s future.
Robert saw his wife across the field of rented tables and chairs and smiled, because they both had agreed that this marriage was right for Kim. Yes, he was glad Kim had married Brian. He had the strength to handle her temper, the love to guide her. He was gifted with maturity; he was wise and responsible well beyond his years.
Where other youths ranted and raved, Brian spoke quietly, making his points. He was a striking young man: bronzed and well muscled from physical labor, ruggedly handsome for his age, like a sun-god with his blond hair and well-arched brows over those extraordinarily deep and knowledgeable eyes. He was the rage of all the high school girls, but he had never shown the least interest in being anything other than friendly with any of them; he had decided on Kim for his own, and despite all opportunity, he was simply oblivious to other girls.
Of course, Robert reflected, Kim herself was a bit special. It shocked him sometimes to realize that he had fathered such a creature. She was as sharp as a whip, sweetly loving, usually responsible, yet lovely beyond the bounds of imagination with her soft amber eyes, exquisitely chiseled, delicate, yet strong features, lush, lush waves of chestnut auburn hair…and too seductive form. Robert breathed a sigh, remembering their battle over her first bikini. Thank God his new son-in-law, the young Adonis, could now worry about her, saving him from a father’s dilemma of paternal pride and gut-wrenching, protective fear.
He smiled again as he saw the young couple glancing at each other over the top of someone’s grandmother’s head. He could see the messages of their wanting to leave to be alone crossing with static electricity between them.
They left to a shower of rice and a young girl singing a romantic ballad of young love beginning.
Everyone agreed they were beautiful young people—a god and a goddess—and it was a marriage made in heaven.
Of course, it wasn’t a marriage made in heaven. She had her temper; he had his. There were adjustments to be made as they set up housekeeping, learned to live together, learned to adapt to the rough life of college students, learned new responsibilities.
There were new people to meet in college, new enticements. She was more impressionable than he, and in turn, he became more serious, more demanding. She was informed curtly he would either (A) break her neck or (B) create blisters on her rear end if he discovered her “messing around.” She was indignant; she had never “messed around.”
But there were the good times, too. He believed fervently in her mind, in their futures. And she adored him. Every time they argued, they made up in bed, and every time they lay together, they discovered more of each other, more of the rapturous beauty that flamed between them.
In general it was just as Kim’s father had expected—a good marriage, a sound marriage. Brian Trent knew how to manage finances; he could work like a beaver. And he knew how to control the beautiful wife who went limp in his arms, then became a creature of sweetest, wildest passion.
Shortly after the first year of marriage the first setback hit them. She found that despite their precautions, she was pregnant, and she was shocked. Her education and the world still lay before her. She was not ready to be tied down. She was only nineteen years old. It was impossible, despite her love, despite her own beliefs, not to play with the idea of abortion.
When she told Brian, she had never seen him angrier. He wouldn’t even listen. He was so explosive that she, never one to give up an argument until her case was stated, choked back her words. By the evening’s end he had convinced her that despite the problems that would arise, they would manage. Brian would always manage. He had pointed out that she would never forgive herself if she made that choice. And he was right because deep inside she knew that they had already created life.
That was only the beginning of the end of paradise. As he worked out new schedules for sharing this new responsibility, reminding her that he was their main support, a year ahead in his studies and she was going to have to accept being a mother, things beyond their power were changing in the world. A lottery for the military draft went into effect and student deferments no longer meant anything.
Brian Trent’s number was low—too low. He was called during Kim’s fourth month of pregnancy. Rather than be drafted into the Army, Brian enlisted in the Air Force. She cried; she ranted; she raved; she pleaded. She couldn’t handle it alone; she was pregnant. But Brian was firm, even though he didn’t want to go.
And he wouldn’t run to Canada. It wasn’t just the two of them anymore to suffer the possible repercussions. They were going to have a child, and now, whether he agreed or disagreed with the country’s policies, he had no intention of becoming a runaway, a draft dodger. Brian would do nothing illegal. He didn’t think he could have run anyway; he knew that he definitely couldn’t when he was about to become a father.
Brian came back after basic training, his golden head shorn, to attend childbirth classes with Kim. She talked about school, and Brian tried to speak lightly about the Air Force, saying that at least the military would now make the hospital bills almost negligible. Then they forgot about school, finances, and the future and spent their time together making love with rigor, and tenderness, and finally the tempest born of desperation because Brian had been assigned to go to Vietnam.
She didn’t know how he managed to get home for the birth of the twins, but he was there, loving her, talking to her, soothing her way through the surprise which had gone undetected. As the boys were born, she laughed because there were two and so healthy. She and Brian were thrilled, and then she cried because she was so happy and because she thought of what she had almost done.
Brian came home once more. He was incredibly proud of her, shaking his head with admiration as she explained that it was easy to nurse both boys.
They bickered about little things during his leave, but the bickering was born of tension. The more serious fights of their first year were over; they felt now like an old married couple, past their second anniversary. Combined with the year and a half they had spent dating, they had been together forever and would always be.
Kim was certain of that because to her Brian was the sun. There was no one like him. Even now, after all their time together, the birth of the twins, everything—all he had to do was come near her, and she would feel his unique heat, the power that was Brian. He could merely look at her with eyes that radiated the strength of the sun, touch her with hands made strong by physical indomitability, and she would begin to quiver, feeling heat explode inside her. She vaguely told herself that she allowed him to be the dominant partner in their marriage, but that wasn’t really truth: It had nothing to do with her allowing him. Brian was dominant; in a mass of people he would stand out, as surely as the sun.
During his short stay with her they cherished the times that the twins slept. They spent all of it making love, and each time they made love, the sun burst inside her. Without Brian, without the sun, she would surely die.
Before the elections of 1972 Richard Nixon promised that the U.S. involvement in Vietnam would end. American troops would be withdrawn. The peace talks in Paris continued. By late March of the following year the full-scale and disastrous flight from Saigon would take place when North Vietnam began a heavy rocket and artillery attack against the city despite the promised American withdrawal already under way.