The Summer's End (22 page)

“I'm an editor. I'll most likely find a job in New York.”

He took another pull of his beer. “What about your writing?”

“I plan to finish the book before I leave. That's as far as I've gotten in my plans.”

Their conversation was interrupted when the first poet approached the podium. The crowd hushed. Taylor gave Harper an encouraging smile. She returned the smile and, unwrapping her arms, leaned forward on the table to listen.

As one poet after another read a few poems, Harper felt surrounded by the music of words—the tempo, the cadence, the high-pitched tones and the low. Music that penetrated barriers, brought
forth memories in bursts of color, images so real she saw them come alive right in front of her. She'd been to many prose readings before for her job in the publishing house, but never a poetry reading. It truly was performance art. Harper was mesmerized. It helped her understand the meaning and heightened the emotions kindled by each spare, carefully chosen phrase.

So lost was she in the readings that she almost forgot that Taylor was going to read. Then she heard his name called and he stood up. Her breath quickened as he walked to the podium, a slim volume in his hand. She felt anxious for him. She wanted him to be good. Her stomach tightened when he faced the crowd. The overhead light cast shadows on his face, highlighting his cheekbones, his straight nose that flared slightly with nervousness.

He stood for a moment at the podium, his gaze sweeping the room. “I'm reading a poem I wrote when I returned from Afghanistan. It's called ‘Wake Up. Keep Moving.' That's what they tell a guy with PTSD when he's having a nightmare.”

Harper froze and her breath stilled in her throat. PTSD? She didn't know that he'd had post-traumatic stress disorder. Her mind raced. She knew he was a Marine. That he'd seen action. She recollected a photograph that Carson had shown her of Taylor and Thor at the Dolphin Research Center. Harper had been charmed seeing him—his beautiful body—directing two dolphins to leap in the air. Thor was on the dock. The dog had been wearing a black service-dog emblem.

I'm an idiot,
she told herself. For all that she prided herself on being observant, she didn't put these obvious signs together. Suddenly all the small details of his behavior made sense. Taylor was more than reserved.
He was alert. Hypervigilant. When he walked into a room, his gaze always scoped it out. He'd just checked for exits at the podium. Harper had done research on PTSD for Nate after the dolphin incident. She'd seen the symptoms. And been blind to them. Deliberately? she wondered.

Harper put her trembling hands in her lap and stared at the man she was falling in love with. Did this make a difference?

Taylor cleared his throat and raised his slim volume. She took a deep breath.

When he began to read, she didn't hear a hint of nervousness in his voice, and she remembered how he'd told her that once he started to read, his fear fled as he got into the words.

Don't thank me for the things I've done

Don't curse me for them either.

I've written suicide notes with blood

that say
Wake up. Keep moving.

You don't know how you'll act under fire

Be the hero or frozen in fear?

Some say you fight for your comrade, your brother.

Others say
Wake up. Keep moving.

Will I let you love me before it's too late?

Save me from a dishonorable fate?

Is there one more chance to be a hero?

You tell me
Wake up! Keep moving.

I've killed more men than I can count

In the name of country and duty.

How does God take a man's measure?

The ghosts tell me
Wake up. Keep moving.

His voice was strong and steady as he read his words in a marching cadence, bringing to life a hidden place of suffering. Harper's heart kept beat with the tempo while he read, completely immersed in his words. She leaned forward to catch every syllable, each nuance. Her heart went out to the pain he must've endured.

Since the first moment she'd seen Taylor, she'd been attracted to him. As the days passed, she came to admire his tenaciousness, his capacity for long hours of labor without a break, his neatness and unerring politeness. He was a Marine, after all. With animals he was gentle and firm. With Nate she'd seen his compassion and capacity for caring. She also grew aware of a restless energy simmering beneath his calm facade.

Tonight, listening to his poetry, Harper understood the misery he wrestled with, the guilt he carried, and the depth of feeling that he struggled to keep under wraps. He was intelligent, with an artistic soul. She listened in awe and with a new respect for the courage it took to share his feelings. For his battle to keep those raw emotions under restraint.

Tonight she was seeing Taylor with opened eyes.

When he finished, there was rousing applause. Everyone in the room knew that he'd spoken from the heart. As Taylor walked back to the table, many people stopped to talk to him, shake his hand. Harper saw how people liked him, how this was a group of his friends, a world of his that she'd not known about before tonight.

“You were incredible,” she said excitedly when he sat down again at their table. “I
understand now what you meant when you said sharing your writing is a gift. A giving of a part of yourself. I felt that when I listened to you tonight. That you were telling your story. It was so powerful.”

He didn't respond right away. He doused his thirst with a long swallow of beer and set the bottle on the table. Then he reached out and took her hand. The gesture surprised her. It was so unexpected. So intimate. Suddenly it felt as though her whole being were captured in that one hand.

Taylor looked into her eyes. “I was reading to you.”

She shut her eyes for a moment, then said in a soft whisper, “I know.”

Another poet was announced, breaking the moment. An older woman with snow-white hair and black glasses approached the podium. Taylor glanced around the room, then rose to his feet, not letting go of her hand. He bent low to say in her ear, “There's a free table on the sidewalk. Let's go.”

Quietly, so as not to disturb the reader, he led her to the outdoor table. She was sorry when Taylor dropped her hand to pull out her chair.

A different waitress, equally perky, promptly came to take their order. When she left, Taylor pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Must you?”

He shrugged. “It puts me at ease.” He put his hand up to arrest her argument. “I know it's not good for me and I'm going to quit.” His gaze was resolute. “But not yet.”

“Okay,” Harper said, although in her heart it was anything but. She watched as he put a cigarette in his mouth, pulled out matches, and, cupping the cigarette in his hands, lit up. As a rule, Harper didn't
date men who smoked. She thought it was a nasty habit that only brought misery in time. Looking away, she knew, too, that she had such bad associations with smoking because of her mother.

Taylor took a drag from his cigarette, then waved the smoke away from her direction.

She relinquished the battle. “I'm fine. My mother is a chain-smoker. I'm used to it.”

“Just one. I promise.”

The waitress returned with her wine and another beer for Taylor.

Taylor took a drink, as though summoning his resolve. He cleared his throat. “That poem,” he said, referring to her earlier comment, “it
was
personal. I wrote it when I came back from Afghanistan.”

“I figured that.”

He paused to flick his ash. “You know I had PTSD?”

“No.”

“Carson never mentioned it?”

“No. . . . How did
she
know?”

“That's what started me working with dolphins. It came up at the DRC.”

“Of course.”

He shifted in his chair. “Does it bother you?”

“No,” she replied honestly, looking directly into his eyes. “Should it?”

He stared back, his eyes pulsing. Then he averted his gaze and shrugged. “It bothers some people. They don't want to get involved with someone who's crazy.” He took a long smoke.

“You have PTSD. You're not crazy.”

“No. I'm not.”
He looked up and she saw relief. Even gratitude. “I'm glad you know the difference. Not everyone does.”

At that moment she wanted to be as eloquent with words as he had just been. To share all the feelings roiling inside her. To reassure him. To allay his fears. And her own.

There were no words. So instead she leaned toward him and cupped his chin in both of her hands. Then she kissed him. Sweetly, tenderly. A kiss filled with promise. When she drew away, she saw that he'd dropped his guard to reveal vulnerability.

Harper leaned back in her chair and picked up her glass. “Carson
did
tell me you were great with the dolphins.” She smiled before she sipped the cool wine.

A smile filled with memories flitted across his face. He, too, leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “I went there as part of the Wounded Warrior Project. Dolphins are amazing animals. Honest. Funny. Wise. They have a very real presence. You look a dolphin directly in the eye and you know you're making contact with an intelligent being. You feel it in your gut. They see you. Really see you.” He looked at his cigarette. “They helped me through tough times. So I just kept coming back.”

“How did you get involved with poetry?”

He shrugged. “It was part of my therapy. When I came back from the war, I felt emotionally numb. I was hypervigilant. Terrified to go out in crowds. It's part of PTSD.” He looked at his cigarette. “You want to die, and sadly, some guys do.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Yeah.”
He sipped from his beer. “I'm one of the luckier ones. My physical injuries healed. It took longer for the psychological wounds to heal. The wounds you don't see. I went through a lot of different therapy—art therapy, EMDR, the dolphins, video games. That's how I knew what to do with Nate this morning.”

“I wondered about that. You were so good with him.” Then she smiled. “And so was Thor.”

“He's trained to bring me out of that dark place. He senses when I'm having a nightmare and licks my hand and my face to wake me up before I get to the red zone. You saw how it worked with Nate this morning. His job is to bring me back from the war raging in my head. We both knew what that little guy was going through this morning. When he's in a tantrum, it's like being stuck in a nightmare and you can't wake up. It tore me up to see him like that. Thor, too.”

“I heard him whine.”

He took a swallow of the beer.

Harper sipped from her wine, set the glass on the table. Waited, then asked, “What happened to you in Afghanistan? If you don't mind my asking.”

“It's a long story.”

“I have time, if you want to tell me about it.”

Taylor took a drag from his cigarette and looked to the street, considering. When he turned back, he took a final swig from his bottle, then tossed his cigarette in. Looking up, she saw decision in his eyes.

“I was in Afghanistan,” he began slowly. His voice sounded far away. “The days all seem to blur into each other in my mind, so I can't even say exactly when the accident happened. It sometimes feels like it was just the other day. It's all so different there—the smells,
the sounds, the people. But we had our routines. Jobs to do. Sure it was tough, but we knew what we'd signed up for. And we had our friends. Our band of brothers.”

He reached for his packet of cigarettes, paused as though remembering his promise, then let his hand drop.

“We were out riding in a caravan, on our way to a new location. Like we'd done dozens of days before. We were prepared for trouble. I was wearing body armor and a helmet.” He laughed shortly. “Man, it was hot. Hotter than here, trust me. My buddy Dave took off his helmet to wipe his brow.”

Taylor stopped speaking and rubbed his forehead. Harper went very still, knowing he was coming to the hard part of the story.

“I still can't wrap my mind around how one small, insignificant movement can mean the difference between life and death. He took off his helmet just long enough to wipe his brow . . .” Taylor paused to look off. “It wasn't our truck that got hit. If it was, I wouldn't be here now. No way.” He shrugged, looking down at his feet. “One minute I was looking at his face, the next minute there was this loud bang and I went flying. Got knocked out. When I came to, I couldn't see anything. I mean, I was blind. Everything went white and my ears were ringing. Reaching up, I felt blood coming out of my ears. When my vision finally cleared, I saw I was lying in a ditch. I was in a kind of daze, not thinking clearly. I wasn't sure what had happened. When I could drag myself to stand, I wished I couldn't see. There was wreckage everywhere. Bodies . . . The head truck that caught the IED was shredded. My buddy Dave, he was dead. And three other brothers. Gone in an instant,” Taylor said in a husky voice.

Harper didn't speak.
She blinked back tears of sympathy trying to imagine that magnitude of loss and pain. And what it might do to a person.

“You know, I keep thinking how fate dealt the cards that day. If our truck was first in line, or if I was the one who'd removed my helmet, or if I was in Dave's seat, it'd have been me that died instead of him.”

“But it wasn't.”

He shook his head and said under his breath, “No.”

Harper thought to herself,
Thank God,
but remained silent.

“They got me to the medic,” he continued in a steady voice. “Compared to some of the other guys, I got off easy. I didn't lose my life, or my sight, or a limb. I told the doc I was fine and I could go back. I didn't have any wounds I could see. But I wasn't fine. It was the beginning of my second tour of duty and the third or fourth time I'd gotten blasted by some IED. This time, it was my ticket home. I hated being there and wanted to go home. But not like that.”