The War Within (5 page)

“What did she do? Did she let him think he had a chance, or did she set him straight?”

Grandma Meredith’s voice was as gentle as a spring rain. “He was dying. We all knew it. We couldn’t call him an expectant because he was conscious and alert, but as soon as we deflated the MAST trousers, his blood pressure would drop and he’d bleed out in a matter of seconds. As I said, his right leg was missing. His left, as it turned out, had also been amputated by the force of the blast. The medic who had treated him in the field had placed it in the MAST trousers, hoping we’d be able to reattach it somehow. But, really, there was nothing we could do except wait for him to decide when he was ready to go. The doctors knew it, the nurses knew it, and so did he.”

Jordan’s heart ached as she began to mourn for a man she had never met.

“Robinson sat with him the entire time. She held his hand and listened to him talk. She listened to him tell stories about growing up in South Carolina and his adventures in Vietnam. The woman who warned me not to get too attached listened to every single tale Bobby told as if she had never heard anything so fascinating. She had never met him before, but she made him feel like they were lifelong friends. She made him feel like he mattered to someone, which, for a grunt too busy fighting off driving rain, leeches, and trench foot to see the big picture the brass loved to natter on about, was a very big thing.” Grandma Meredith smiled in obvious admiration. “When he passed, she was right by his side. We had to pry his fingers from hers he was holding on so tight.”

She looked down at her own hands as if they bore the marks Bobby had left behind on his way from this world to the next.

“That was the first time I ever saw her cry. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the last.”

Jordan could sense the bond that had once linked Grandma Meredith and Natalie Robinson to each other. She wondered what had driven them apart. Had the war come between them or something much more mundane?

Jordan flinched when her ringing cell phone shattered the silence. She reached into the console between their seats. “Sorry, Gran, I thought I’d turned off my phone.”

“That’s okay, dear. I could use a break anyway. There’s a rest area coming up on your right.”

Jordan glanced at the phone’s display to see who was calling. Brittany. Finally. She checked the traffic with her side mirrors, turned on the blinker, and pressed the phone to her ear.

“Hey, Britt. Give me a second to pull over.”

“Where are you?” Brittany asked, all breezy and casual as if nothing was wrong.

“Grandma Meredith and I just crossed the border between Tennessee and Georgia.”

“Talk about Hicksville.”

“Ah, it’s not so bad. The rural areas remind me of home. Not nearly as many cows, but close enough.”

“Like I said. Hicksville.”

Brittany had a sarcastic sense of humor, but Jordan couldn’t remember her turning the sarcasm on her with such venom. Brittany had changed—
they
had changed—and she didn’t know how to fix it.

She pulled into a parking spot and shut off the engine. Grandma Meredith unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car. Jordan didn’t know if she really had to pee or if she was simply clearing out to give her some privacy.

“Back in a minute.”

Jordan knew Grandma Meredith couldn’t hear her, but she waited until she walked away before she asked, “What’s going on, Britt?”

Brittany tried to laugh off her question. “You tell me. You called me, remember?”

“I called you almost a week ago.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Packing up my apartment and preparing for the drive to Seattle. Now I’m here and semi-settled. I think I’m turning into a mushroom from all the rain, but the protestors’ collective passion keeps me energized.”

Jordan wished she could be there to experience the excitement for herself.

“Anyway,” Brittany said as if she had more important things to do than work on their strained relationship, “I got back to you as soon as I could. How are things with you?”

“Confusing.” Jordan ran her hands over the walnut steering wheel. The cool, smooth wood provided a soothing contrast to the heat building inside her. How could Brittany be so cavalier about something so serious? Didn’t their relationship mean as much to Brittany as it did to her? “When my flight landed in Milwaukee, the first thing I saw when I checked my messages was a Facebook notification saying you had changed your relationship status from
In a Relationship
to
It’s Complicated
.”

“And?” Brittany said warily.

“Are you breaking up with me?”

Brittany sucked in a breath as if she’d just been told there’d be a surprise exam on material she hadn’t studied. “I changed my status because it
is
complicated.”

“It seems pretty simple to me. I want to be with you and you said you felt the same way. What’s complicated about that?”

“It just is.” Brittany sighed. “I was hoping we could be civil about this.”

“Civil about what?”

“We need to take a break.”

Jordan’s heart began to race. She had hoped she and Brittany would be able to talk things out, but the prospect seemed to be more of a long shot than a sure thing.

“We’re going to spend the summer thousands of miles apart. I won’t get to see you for three whole months. How much more of a break do you need?”

“A permanent one.”

How had she known Brittany was going to say that?

“Why?”

“We moved too fast.” Brittany sounded like she was scrambling for an answer. Something that sounded good without adequately addressing the question at hand. “I mean, how much do we really know about each other?”

“We’ve been sleeping together for seven months. We know every inch of each other.”

“That isn’t what I mean. Yes, the sex was great, and it was the one part of our relationship that seemed to capture most of your attention, but we were like cotton candy. All sugar and no substance. If you can’t admit it, I will.”

Jordan bit her lip to keep from crying. How could Brittany’s opinion of their relationship be so different from hers?

“I know what you look like in various positions,” Brittany said, “but I don’t know what’s going on inside your head. I always get the feeling you’re telling me what you think I want to hear instead of what’s really on your mind. Do you really believe the same things I do or are you simply parroting my ideas?”

“Social activism as a way to pick up chicks. Thanks for thinking so much of me.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Actually, no, I don’t. Why don’t you explain it for me?”

“You’re not who I thought you were.”

“Meaning?”

“When we first met, I was attracted to you because you seemed to have so much gravitas. I looked in your eyes and saw such depth of feeling. I wanted to explore those feelings with you. Once I got to know you, I realized your eyes aren’t the mirrors to your soul. They’re one-way, reflecting what the viewer sees instead of what you really feel. You’re about as deep as a wading pool.”

Brittany’s words pierced Jordan’s heart. She felt like a prized insect being pinned to a board and put on display. “Thanks for that.” She stared into her lap as tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Like I said, I don’t want to hurt you. I’m just being honest. You should try it sometime.”

“Are you trying to say I’ve been lying to you?”

“Not exactly.”

“What I asked you is kind of a yes or no question. ‘Not exactly’ isn’t a valid response.”

“Fine. You’ve been holding back. You shared your body with me, but not your mind or your soul. I don’t get where you’re coming from.”

“I’m a fucking open book, Britt. Always have been, always will be.”

“I beg to differ. You claim to be anti-war, but how can you be when you romanticize the role your grandparents played in Vietnam, one of the bloodiest, most misguided conflicts our country has had the misfortune of being involved in?”

“You met my grandmother once and my grandfather died long before I met you. If I embellished things a bit when I introduced you and Grandma Meredith, I did it because I wanted you to like each other. But let’s get something straight. I love my grandparents and I am understandably proud of everything they’ve accomplished in their lives, but I didn’t know any of their service history until Grandma Meredith and I began the trip down here.”

“Yet I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve heard you wax rhapsodic about the fact they met and fell in love while they were in the Army. Whenever you talk about them, you’re as wrapped in the flag as they once were. I can practically hear you pledging allegiance to Uncle Sam and whistling ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy.’ You wear your grandfather’s dog tags like they’re some sort of fashion accessory when what they really are is a political statement. A statement of your true beliefs.”

Jordan closed her eyes as she felt her life begin to spin out of control like a car that had just hit a patch of black ice. Family was important to her, but she would never allow them or anyone else to come before her principles. “You’ve said a lot of things during the course of this conversation, Brittany, but you’re right about only one: you don’t know me at all.”

“And whose fault is that? Mine? Yours? Does it even matter at this point?”

“It does to me. I wish it did to you, too.”

Jordan ended the call and let her tears fall. She had been misunderstood all her life. By friends, classmates, and strangers alike. People who took one look at her exterior and expected her to be something she wasn’t. She’d thought Brittany was different. She’d thought Brittany could see her true self. How had she been so wrong?

“Grow up,” she told herself as she knuckled away her tears. “You’re twenty-one now. You’re supposed to be an adult. Stop crying like a kid who has lost her favorite toy.”

She took several deep, shaky breaths and tried to pull herself together as she watched Grandma Meredith talk with a group of older men crowded around a long black travel trailer with “The Wall” printed in big red letters on the side. Most of the men wore chaps or riding leathers. Their patch-covered vests made them look like a graying motorcycle gang. Grandma Meredith didn’t seem to have anything in common with the ragtag group, but they were gabbing away as if they were old friends.

After a few minutes, Grandma Meredith shot a look in her direction. Her features creased into a frown. Turning back to the men, she pointed to the car, seemingly indicating she had to leave.

Jordan scrunched down in her seat after the men’s heads swiveled in her direction. They probably couldn’t see her very well through the tinted glass, but she didn’t feel like being the center of attention. Theirs or anyone else’s. She wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head until her life began to make sense again.

Grandma Meredith exchanged handshakes with the men and, in a few cases, heartfelt hugs. Then she began to walk back to the car with the sense of purpose she always displayed whenever she was on a mission.

Jordan sat bolt upright in her seat and took a quick peek in the rearview mirror to see if she looked like she’d been crying. Her eyes were red and starting to get puffy so she slapped on her sunglasses just before Grandma Meredith opened the door and climbed into the passenger’s seat.

Jordan took another deep breath and mustered a smile, trying to look as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She and Grandma Meredith talked about everything, but she wasn’t ready to talk about the conversation she’d just had with Brittany. She didn’t want her to feel partially responsible for the breakup. The fault lay with her and Brittany. No one else.

“Who were those guys?”

“They’re with the Moving Wall,” Grandma Meredith said. “The miniature version of the Vietnam Memorial that travels from place to place so vets who can’t travel to DC can see it.”

“Okay, but why were they hugging you?”

“I dug a bullet out of one’s shoulder after the Tet Offensive. A couple of the other ones spent some time at the evac hospital when I was stationed in Long Binh.”

“Small world, huh?” Jordan watched as the truck attached to the trailer slowly pulled out of its parking spot. The men she had seen Grandma Meredith conversing with escorted it on their motorcycles. Travelers all over the rest area watched the convoy make its way to the interstate, most doffing their hats and some pausing to salute. “Where are they headed now?”

“They’ll be in Georgia most of the month. They’re going to spend a week in the major cities like Atlanta, Augusta, and Savannah and a weekend here and there in smaller towns before they head down to Florida. After that, who knows?”

“Are you going to see it?”

“I might make a day trip when it reaches Savannah. We’ll see.”

Grandma Meredith’s eyes dimmed with uncharacteristic sadness. Jordan had visited the actual memorial when her junior class had taken a field trip to Washington, DC, when she was in high school. Even though she hadn’t taken part in the war herself, she had been incredibly moved by the sight of the hundreds of names etched into the stately granite wall—and how much the people behind those names meant to the visitors who came to see them. Papa George could have been one of those names. So could Grandma Meredith. Thankfully, both had made it through with relatively few scars to show for it.

Jordan started the car and reached for the gearshift. “Are you ready to hit the road?”

“Not yet.” Grandma Meredith placed her hand over hers. “You seem upset. Did something happen with Brittany?”

Jordan felt the color drain from her face. “How did you know?”

Grandma Meredith smiled wanly. “I’ve been around the block a time or two. I recognize the signs. What happened?”

Jordan hunched over the steering wheel and picked at the walnut inlay with her thumbnail. “She broke up with me on the Internet, then called to make it official.” She glanced at Grandma Meredith to gauge her reaction.

Grandma Meredith’s eyes narrowed. She looked like a mama bear ready to fight off a threat to her cub. Jordan could have kissed her.

“Did she offer an explanation?” Grandma Meredith asked, giving her a consoling pat on the knee.