Twelve Months (7 page)

Vic nodded once and headed for the kitchen, while Gary swooned, “You say it best when you say nothing at all…”

Bella leaned into my ear and whispered, “How did he know I wanted white wine?”

I was into my second shrug when Vic returned to the table with a gorgeous arrangement of long stem red roses. Without a word, he placed them in front of Bella and rotated the vase until the card faced her. “Your appetizer should be out in a few minutes,” he said and strutted away again.

Gary was already on his second number when Bella plucked the card from the arrangement. It read: “Bella, I love you, forever – Don.” She looked up to find the entire restaurant staring at us.

“And always will,” I whispered when she leaned over and kissed me.

After the steaming appetizer and another round of drinks, Vic placed a silver platter before my glowing wife. It held a scrolled sheet of parchment secured by red ribbon. She looked up at him, but he never let on. She glanced over at me. “What…”

“Open it,” I said, while Gary strummed away in the background.

She did. It was the one thing she'd always wanted from me, but had never gotten – until now.

As her watering eyes read the final verse, the musician stopped playing, the restaurant went silent and I went down to one knee. I opened the ring box. “Isabella,” I said, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you be my wife…again?”

She never hesitated and dove into my arms. For a while, we just hugged.

“I love you so much,” she cried into my shoulder.

“I know,” I said. “But…”

She pushed away from me and looked into my eyes. “But what?”

“But I need your answer?” I said, grinning.

“Yes…the answer is YES!” she gasped and jumped back into my arms.

The crowd shared a collective sigh, and everyone was clapping when Bella and I returned to reality. It took a few moments before each table returned to its own conversation and half-eaten meals.

Chuckling, I introduced my beautiful wife to Gary, the musician. As they shook hands, Gary admitted, “I was so nervous.”

I bought the man a beer when Vic delivered two previously ordered dinners to our table. Though Bella couldn't touch hers, I ate and listened to Gary fill the room with a soothing melody. By the time the chocolate covered strawberries arrived for dessert, Bella was emotionally spent. She grabbed me once more for a kiss. “This has been the perfect night,” she whispered.

“And for all these years…you've been the perfect wife, my dear.”

As we left the restaurant, another round of applause carried us to the front door. I opened it for my new fiancé – only to discover a white stretch limousine idling at the curb. She quickly turned to me. “It's not over?”

I shook my head. “It'll never be over for us.” As we made our way to the limo, waves of nausea threatened to drown me.
This is Bella's perfect night
, I told myself,
our perfect night. Whatever you do…do not throw up now!

A few short weeks later, the wedding ceremony was held outdoors in the presence of family and a handful of close friends. As the Justice of the Peace recited his spiel, I gazed into my fiancee's eyes and felt like crying. We shared so much love, but had so little time left. She was everything to me. “If I could live a thousand lives,” I told her, “I would choose you as my partner each and every time.”

As a final surprise to my beautiful bride, the reception was catered by Sagres Restaurant. We dined on the same Portuguese food we'd eaten all those years ago; roast pig-cacoila, chourico and pepper sandwiches, codfish, baked beans, favas, kale soup, stuffed quahogs, grilled sardines and spit-fire chickens. For dessert, a tray of malasadas, rice pudding and custard cups were washed down with jugs of sweet red wine.

Though there were no large tents, or strings of bare bulbs zigzagging across a wet glistening street, Gary made magic on an acoustic guitar and we danced to Keith Whitley's classic,
When You Say Not
h
ing At All
. At one point, Riley, Michael, Madison and Pudge joined us to create a circle of love on the dance floor. We had the night of our lives.

As our guests finally dispersed, we returned home with the moon. In the driveway, I pulled my new wife into my arms. “I know we haven't talked about it, but what do you say we go some place tropical for our honeymoon…like Barbados?” I waited for an explosion of joy. Bella had talked about going to Barbados for years. It was her dream.

She squeezed me tight and shrugged. “I was thinking tropical, but someplace different.”

I was stunned. “Where?” I asked.

“I was thinking about the only place that ever came between us; the one place that you still need to make peace with, Don.”

A sudden wave of sorrow rolled over me. She was talking about Vietnam. The thought of it still caused me to lose my breath – and not the same way I did when Bella and I exchanged vows. “But…”

“Barbados is a sweet gesture,” she interrupted, “and I appreciate it, but I think it's more important that we face some old demons and finally put them to rest…together.” She was right.

“Okay,” I agreed. “But I'm not sure ‘Nam's gonna be the best honeymoon spot.”

She kissed my cheek. “As long as we're together, who cares where we are?”

I kissed her back, and was instantly filled with equal amounts of excitement and fear – and nausea, caused by the cancer that was gnawing away at my insides.

After an exhaustive night of consummation, I awoke early and left Bella to her dreams. In the early morning light, I fumbled in the hallway closet until I found the old shoebox. It was the box that held everything that meant anything to me – a silver dollar, a pearl earring, a colored drawing of me and the kids, a white rabbit's foot, and a small wooden box that contained my greatest secret: a message intended for Madison and Pudge when I was gone. And there were also two letters, the one I'd written to Marc Suse many moons ago, and a letter I'd received from Dewey quite a few years back. I shook my head and put Dewey's letter back in the box with the rest of it.

From my dew-covered Adirondack chair, I read the yellowed letter I'd written my fallen comrade:

I folded the letter and thought about the devastating effects of Vietnam. Although the shiny medals had lost their gleam, the war was still far from over. I'd done my best to ignore it, but that one year of my life so long ago had carried me away in the eye of a terrible storm; the type of storm that rages out of control deep inside, tearing at the spirit.

I looked up to see my new bride standing there, watching me. “You' re right,” I told her. “I do need to go back to ‘Nam and make peace with it.” Unhealed pain stunted growth and stifled the spirit, and it had gone on much too long. “I'll go check for flights,” I told her.

She nodded once and started for the house.

I got up after her, but before heading for the computer, I went to the hallway closet to grab the luggage we'd taken to Martha's Vineyard.
Though I doubt this trip will be as relaxing
, I thought.

The flight took even longer than I remembered – New York to Anchorage Alaska in seven hours. From there to Taipei in eleven hours. And then into Vietnam, which took five more anxious hours. The only ray of sunshine throughout the entire trip revealed itself when we boarded in New York. I spotted three American soldiers dressed in desert camouflage uniforms sitting in coach. By the time we were a half hour in the air, three passengers seated in first class offered to swap seats in a show of gratitude. Each time one of the soldiers made his way to the front of the plane, my chest swelled with a newfound pride.

“Looks like some things have changed since you returned from war,” Bella whispered.

I nodded. It was hardly the welcome home I remembered.

“It's about damn time!” she added.

On the final leg of our journey into ‘Nam, my thoughts drifted back to places in my mind I'd vowed to never visit again.

Bella nudged my arm. “You can share it with me, you know.”

I smiled at her.

Her eyes bore into mine. “Talk to me, Don. You don't have to do this alone.”

I felt a weight lift off me and I was surprised at how quickly I jumped at the opportunity to open up and share the hell I'd experienced all those years ago. “As you know, my decision to join the Army was more my need to become the opposite of my father than anything else.”

She nodded, wrapped both her hands around my arm and left them there.

With little coaxing, I began explaining it to her and my mind went back…

It's funny the things you share in common with people when you take the time to get to know them. Seth Cabral also had a bastard of a father, while Cal Anderson loved a woman as deeply as I loved Bella.

And with Suse, it was nothing more than a twisted sense of humor that brought us as close as brothers. Other guys joked that Suse, Cal, Seth and I were the awesome foursome – together from boot camp through advanced infantry school right to deployment in Vietnam.

We'd been trained by the government to kill and there was no better place to fine-tune our skills than in the jungles of Southeast Asia. We never slept in the hooches. The rats were as big as dogs and they nested just beneath us. Most of us had crotch rot from our knees to our nipple lines because we could never get dry. So, we stripped buck naked, climbed up on top of the hooches and called in artillery fire for entertainment. It was like the Fourth of July every night. And while we slept up there, three well-trained dogs patrolled our barbed-wire perimeter. There were two shepherds and a Doberman – and they saved our hides more than once.

They knew every gap in the perimeter and could get in and out with ease. On several occasions, we'd wake to the sound of some Viet Cong screaming. The dogs would catch them in the concertina wire and gnaw on their flesh like they were slabs of prime rib. They'd eat them alive. The K9 Officer purposely didn't feed them a whole lot and we were told not to throw them anything, either. This kept them hungry enough to hunt. Every morning, Sergeant Ruggiero would walk out and finish the trapped Viet Cong with a .45 round into each head.

One of the saddest days in ‘Nam was when the K9 Officer wrapped up his tour and was preparing to ship back home. Sergeant Ruggiero told him that he couldn't take his dogs with him. He said they'd tasted too much human blood – lived off it for twelve months – and there was no way they could be trusted back in the real world. As there was no way they'd take to another master, Ruggiero offered to shoot them. The K9 Officer thanked him. “But they're my animals,” he said, “I'll do it.”

I walked over and watched. I felt like I was eight years old again, standing there with tears in my eyes. The man lined up his three loyal friends and fired the first round into the Dobie's head. The shepherds never flinched. Then, one-by-one, he popped them off. I walked away, feeling horrible for the deaths of those animals. I was grateful for their service and believed then that I cared more for them than I did for most people. Dogs were different. They never chose to hurt a man. They did as they were told and never let us down…

I stopped there. Dead dogs were one thing, but the slide show in my head was starting to show human faces.

Bella tightened her grip even more, but never uttered a word.

For a while, I thought about the lunacy of Vietnam; skirmishing eventually grew into a full-scale war, with escalating U.S. involvement. The most savage fighting occurred in early 1968 during the Vietnamese New Year known as Tet. Although the so-called Tet Offensive ended in a military defeat for the North, its psychological impact changed the course of the war.

We'd shipped in at the tail end of 1968 when President Johnson ordered a halt to U.S. bombardment of North Vietnam. In 1969, as President Nixon began troop withdrawals, Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnam president, died. Massive demonstrations of protest were in full swing at home when we finished our tour of duty. By then, according to us, the war had claimed the lives of 1.3 million Vietnamese and fifty-eight thousand American troops. If there was a winner, somebody forgot to tell us.

I looked up to find Bella smiling at me. Only she could give me the space I needed and still be right there by my side. Mentally and emotionally, I felt a little better about the trip, thinking,
I'm in good hands this time.
Physically, however, I couldn't imagine anything but jagged knives causing the kind of pain that shot through my upper abdomen.
I need to take some pain meds now
, I thought,
or I won't even make it off this plane.

When we touched down at the Ho Chi Minh City Airport, Bella and I were met by several greeters who bowed in traditional Oriental greeting before us. It was unexpected and felt awkward.
Where there were once rifles pointed at our heads, now we're embraced?
I turned to Bella and shrugged. Something deep inside felt very different and it didn't take long to figure it out. I was no longer filled with hate, an all-consuming feeling that had been fueled by my fear of losing my life in the war, as well as having to take the lives of others for a cause I didn't believe in, nor truly understood.

We gathered our bags and stepped outside of the airport terminal to hail a taxi. It hit me. The heat and humidity were downright oppressive, nearly unbearable, and I was reminded of the endurance it took to survive in this climate.
Some things haven't changed,
I thought.

As we drove through the city toward our hotel, though my heart remained in my throat, my eyes took in every detail.

Vietnam was an ancient land, struggling to catch up with the modern world. Even with their massive population, there was a significant lack of technology. There were more bicycles and mopeds on the road than cars. What struck me most, though, was that these people were happy; most of them smiling, others waving. A slight grin made its way into the corners of Bella's mouth, as she watched my reaction. She could tell I was dumbfounded.

Hundreds of people stood along the roadside; some even outside their homes, selling chickens, liters of gasoline, soda and cigarettes. “For a non-capitalistic country, everyone's selling something,” I whispered to Bella.

“It's the way of the world, I guess,” she replied.

The taxi driver jerked the car to a stop and jumped out to grab the bags from the trunk. As I opened the door for Bella, I felt something take a good bite out of the back of my neck. I swatted hard.
The bugs haven't changed, either. ‘Nam's still infested with them.

For sixty-three American dollars per night, we checked into a four-story, French colonial-style hotel called The Continental. It was located in the hub of the business and commercial district, adjacent to the famed Municipal Theatre. When we opened the door to the room, I was baffled again. Considering my previous accommodations, it was no wonder. The room was an old mansion style, with a beautiful city view, a nice double bed and a bathtub with overhead shower. As Bella unpacked, I skimmed through the hotel's impressive list of amenities: air conditioning, gift shop, several restaurants, laundry service, car park, lounge bar, business center, fitness center, spa and sauna. “Wow,” I muttered and got up from the bed to take in the view. There were two young prostitutes peddling their goods on the corner just below our window. I shook my head. From this perspective, it could have been 1968 all over again.

Bella took a nap to recuperate from the long flight, but – surprisingly – I was too wired to sleep. I flipped through some magazines and got caught up on my history:

I put down the magazine and walked back to the window. From what I remembered, this city was the military headquarters for U.S. and South Vietnamese forces, and suffered considerable damage during the 1968 Tet offensive. Throughout the 1960s and early 70s, at least a million refugees from rural areas poured into the city, creating serious housing problems and overcrowding.

Just as Bella began to snore, I decided there was no time like the present to face my demons. I pocketed two pain pills –
just in case
, I thought – and headed for the street.

Unlike Hanoi, where the temperature could dip into the fifties, the city I once knew as Saigon enjoyed summer year round. The streets were bustling with bike bells, car horns and people talking to each other in their native tongue. As I walked, I searched their faces. Most appeared genuinely happy to see me. Music played in the background and I heard a child's laughter. I stopped. The little people who were once sent to booby-trap us were now nothing more than children, playing and having fun. I scanned the streets, searching for danger. There was none. Those who would have pulled a pin on a grenade and thrown it into my sleeping bag were now shining shoes or peddling their goods in some back alley. The changes took some time to process – laughter instead of screams; aromas of street vendor delicacies instead of rotting flesh; the sight of people smiling, not grieving in some village over a corpse I might have been responsible for.