Broken Road (15 page)

“My name is Arnold Willman. I also served in Vietnam. Bet most of you weren’t even born yet.” There was a slight chuckle from the group. “I’ve spent most of my time since traveling here and there. Guess you could call it being homeless. I’ve had the odd job or two. I probably dabbled in some drugs but if I did they musta worked ‘cause I don’t remember nothing about it.” Another ripple of laughter. “Anyway, I’m here because Louis found me a place at the halfway house. He said this group might be good for me. Don’t know about that but I’m willing to try. As far as that rule thing guess I never really though about it. Maybe I’ll figure it out while I’m here.” The next man couldn’t have been more than 24 or 25 years old. His dark hair was almost to his chin and his arms were propped up on his knees. Sitting on the edge of his chair he seemed to be rocking back and forth. Riley could also see the numerous jagged cuts going from his wrists up to the edges of his short sleeve t-shirt.

“My name’s Alex. I don’t think my last name matters. I did two tours in Iraq and it messed me up good. I lost my leg.” He said lifting up one side of his jeans so they could all see the prosthetic. “I
 
hurt my back and got shrapnel lodged in my chest.” He lifted his shirt so they could see the angry red scars that hadn’t quite faded. “They don’t know how I survived. The pain was really bad so they gave me some pills but the pain never goes away. My family thinks I’m an addict that’s why they sent me to a rehab place. I made it through but just because I don’t take the pills anymore doesn’t mean that I’m not in pain. Sometimes it’s so bad that I have to do something, you know? So I don’t know if being here is going to help me or not.” He said and slid a trembling hand up and down one of his cut up arms. Louis nodded and it was the next man’s turn.

“I’m Brian McGuill. I’m not a veteran. My son was.” The man wearing the bright blue polo and dockers was looking down at his feet in an attempt to hide the tears welling up in his eyes. “He, he killed himself about 6 months ago. I’d prefer not to say how. But ever since he came back something just wasn’t quite right. We didn’t notice it at first. He didn’t have any scars, you see. Not like he lost a leg. . .” He nodded in the direction of the young man with the prosthetic. “Or got wounded. In fact, he got some medals for saving a couple of his buddies. He did pretty well when he came home. Found a job he liked. He even got married a year ago. Our daughter-in-law is due with our first grandchild any day now. Everything was fine. I talked to him that night. We were going to go golfing that weekend. He hugged me and he told me that he loved me and that he’d see me for tee time. Then he went home. . .” The man paused as tears streamed down his face. “And he… he killed himself. Dani found him, that’s our daughter-in-law. Everything was fine . . . but it wasn’t and I want to know why. So that’s why I’m here. I want to know the truth, what happens to people over there so I’ll know what to tell my grandson when he asks me what happened to his dad. That’s why I’m here.” Brian McGuill hung his head and the man next him put a hand on his shoulder and told his story and his reason for being there. So it went around the circle as some men, not all, shared their names, where or when they’d served and what their secret, addiction or hurt was until they got around to Riley.
 
That’s when he realized that they were all staring at him and he found himself staring back. But he had nothing to say until one of the men sitting on the opposite side of the circle looked at him closely and spoke.

“Hey, aren’t you that guy from the tv? You know the one that rescued that little girl and that other soldier?” Riley looked desperately at Louis, who didn’t seem the least bit worried. He sat calmly with his hands on his lap watching everything unfold. Riley was beginning to panic.

“Yeah, you’re that guy aren’t you?” Another man called out and the group began to buzz as it dawned on them who he was and before Louis had a chance to calm everyone down Riley had left the circle and was gone.

Brenda checked into a motel just a few blocks from downtown Broken Bow. It was a quaint little place that reminded her of a bed and breakfast Shane took her to for one of their first anniversaries. She paid in cash and tried not to hesitate as she signed her name as
Renae Messersmith.
To some extent, she’d been shocked at how quickly she’d been able to lie to the older gentleman about who she was. She’d been sweating bullets and he hadn’t even paused to wonder if she was really who she said she was. It scared her. But then lying had become easier in the last year. It hadn’t started that way but that’s where it had taken her. It had been a disappointing meeting with Mr. Samson over at the farmhouse. She hadn’t expected to see the house in such disrepair. She hadn’t expected to see Shane’s name carved into the wall of his old bedroom upstairs. Brenda sat on the bed and looked around. This was to be her home for the next few weeks and she wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about that. She thought about unpacking and putting everything into the small dresser drawers but in reality all she really wanted to do was lay on the bed. Brenda was tired. Was 5pm too early to go to bed? It was 6 back home. She stood up to go to the bathroom when she heard something drop onto the carpet. It was the manilla envelope holding the map to the property that she’d brought with her to meet with Mr. Samson. As she bent to pick it up another set of papers fell out. She sighed. Picking them up she realized that it wasn’t the map but one of Shane’s old emails, folded up and saved. Brenda’s hands trembled as she unfolded the pages. It was from one of his first deployments, before the trouble, before the affair, before the picture on the road outside of Baghdad.

Dear Bren,
 

I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since the last time I wrote. I’m sorry.
 
I wish I could tell you exactly why I haven’t written, but I’m sure you wouldn’t get the information in this e-mail even if I put it in. Classified and all as it is. . .
 
Needless to say that it’s been a tough few weeks.
 
I’ve spent more than one sleepless night, thinking about the things I’ve seen over here. There are images burned into my memory that just don’t go away. A lot of good people have died fighting over here. A few of them were friends. It has been really hard to deal with lately.
 
I don’t want to worry you, but I need to talk about it a little. I miss you an awful lot these days and wish that I could just sit with you on our front porch back home and forget this place.
 
I’ve been trying to understand why the locals just don’t seem to have any fight in them. It would make our job a little easier if they resisted more.
 
But they’re afraid.
 
I guess I don’t blame them but I don’t understand it.
 
It’s their country and their towns that are getting overrun. Some of the stories I’ve heard just make me want to knock some sense into them.
 
Especially when it involves the kids.
 
There’s a lot of heartbreak.
 
We have a few local guys who joined us two months back and really seem to know what they’re doing.
 
Their main job so far is to run interference for us. I have to admire their spirit and their balls.
 
A couple of times, one or two of them have stepped right in front of our guys at the first sign of sniper fire. They’re ready to take a bullet for guys they can barely talk to if it means we’ll help them get it done.
 
Sometimes it works out for them and sometimes it doesn’t. We lost a few of them recently and it was hard.
 
I’m not ashamed to say that I’m proud to serve with these local guys. They’ve stuck it out and taken the heat from their own people. They’ve sacrificed too.
 
It’s also been tough for them when it comes to some of the younger guys in our unit.
 
You know how it is.
 
I guess we were all like that once.
 
They think they’re superman or something.
 
Maybe I’ve seen enough to know that I don’t want to be the guy in the cape.
 
These boys act like they're playing some video game they can just turn off at the end of the day.
 
They’re always talking crap about the local guys and the SOB’s shooting back at us when they’re in camp.
 
Away from camp they’re scared shitless, just like everybody else.
 
That’s why us older and “wiser” guys don’t say anything.
 
It wouldn’t do any good anyway.
 
They’re young and they’re stupid.
 
It might be all they get to be. So let them.
 
It’s hard enough for them. Sometimes I wish I were 18 again.
 
Maybe this would seem more like an adventure to me. Could be that if I were younger, things wouldn’t hurt so much after a long day in the desert.
 
Wouldn’t that be nice!
 
Wow.
 
I sound like an old man, don’t I?
 
I probably look it.
 
I noticed I had a couple more gray hairs when I was shaving this morning.
 
May come back to you looking like a grandpa.
 
You’ll just have to settle for being my trophy wife, I guess.
 
Bren, I really look forward to the leave I’m getting soon.
 
I want to go home to you and the boys.
 
I need to go home, especially after they asked me if I’d consider staying on a few months longer than my tour.
 
They think I’m good with the younger soldiers.
 
The word “father-figure” was thrown around.
 
Am I old enough for that?
 
Seems to me that 37 isn’t that old, but maybe they listen to me cause I talk like their dads?
 
I guess, I’ve told a couple of them to get their shit together and maybe I’ve talked a few of them off the “ledge” when it got really bad.
 
But I wasn’t trying to be anyone special. The only dad I want to be is Callan’s and Taylor’s.
 
That whole conversation with my CO just made me want to get the hell out of here even more.
 
After I take the leave and come back I’ll have six months left.
 
I’m counting the days.
 
I can’t wait to see you, Bren.
 
Please don’t go and cut your hair or do something weird to yourself before I get home cause I’ve spent the last 10 months thinking about you and the way you looked the day I deployed.
 
I want to find you just like I left you. . .except for all the crying.
 
I don’t want to see you crying when I get back.
 
I want to see you smile for me.
 
It sure would make my day.Well, baby, I got to get off the computer.
 
There’s some kid waiting to email his girlfriend back home and I’m already over the time limit by 10 minutes.
 
He knows I could kick his ass, which is why he hasn’t said anything.
 
But, I should let him have a chance to “call” home. I don’t know when I’ll be able to write again.
 
Hopefully, I’ll be on my way home before you have to worry about it.
 
I love you, Bren, with all my heart.
 
Kiss and hug the boys for me tonight and read Taylor that book I always read
 
to him when it’s my night.
 
It’s the crazy one about the pigeon. When I can’t sleep, I recite that book to myself to keep from thinking about other stuff.
 
It works (most of the time).
 
I’m doing it again tonight and I’d like to think that when I do it and you’re reading it to him, it’ll be like it’s me there with all of you.
 
Don’t forget to make the voices. Tell Callan I’ll call soon. Okay.
 
Now, I have to go.
 
I love you, baby, and I’m holding you in my dreams.
 

Love you all,
 

Shane

Brenda gently folded up the pages, held them to her heart, and cried herself to sleep.

Brenda knew that getting the farmhouse fixed up was going to take time and money. She had made the decision to take up the project one night when she couldn’t sleep at the motel a week after she’d arrived. She needed to keep her mind occupied and her hands busy. She had the time, at least for now since she’d taken an extended leave of absence from her job and there was some money from the insurance the Army had given her after Shane’s death along with some in savings that she could access. Brenda was determined to do it first because it was in a sense Shane’s childhood home but secondly because she couldn’t go home until she figured things out. However, until she could find someone to survey the property and help her clean it up she was stuck watching bad cable tv and eating out of the vending machine. She was still hesitant about going out to restaurants or other public places even with her drastic change in appearance. Brenda couldn’t trust that Meagan McGuinnis wouldn’t be mounting a dirty campaign against her that would ruin her life and hurt those she loved. She included Jon Procter on the list of those people she cared for even if she couldn’t really say she loved him or had ever loved him. It was true that she had engaged in an extramarital affair and that it had become not only emotional but physical.
 
She might want to reframe it all she wanted during the sleepless hours she had endured especially now that she had so much time on her hands, but in the end she had to call a spade a spade. Jon was right,she couldn’t say that she had
never
felt anything for him during their time together. She felt a lot that’s
why
they were together. She wanted connection, she wanted affection, she wanted all of those things that she had told herself Shane couldn’t or wouldn’t give her not even after so many years of marriage. Jon gave those things willingly and she took them willingly. No one forced her to do it. So what was different?
Your husband is dead.
Yes. There was that. Shouldn’t it be easier then? Here she was
 
free from the man that couldn’t give her what she wanted and free to be with the man that could. So what was the problem?
Guilt?
Yes. There was that too. But there was something more, something she couldn’t put her finger on. It made her restless, sleepless and yes God forgive her-
desperate.