A Promise of Fireflies (25 page)

At random, she flipped the pages, holding to the words her father had written, the ones her daddy had read to her as a small child. “Rhythm of the Jungle” fell open, and in a whisper, she began to read aloud to drown the voices inside her head.

“‘Quiet swells her voice to a thick vicious roar

and bellows heartbeats of cavernous fright—

Bombs echo their thunder beyond the next rise

and tracers splinter the black cover of night.

Fire-lights flicker across boggy vine-laden trails

and hushed boots trample a muddy virgin path—

Spectral silence prowls through the murky haze

and echoes the call of death’s lonesome wrath.

Mist’s mournful shroud blankets dawn’s early light

and eyes ever watchful nurse bitter anguish unbled—

Choirs of prayers croon the jungle’s cruel lullaby

and sing reverent melodies of unspoken dread.

The rhythm of the jungle purrs poisoned rain

and taps her lonely cadence, the drumbeat of fear—

Days swallow dreams drowned in milky mists

and imprison illusions in the cocoon of desire.

Shadows embrace ghosts of fallen Eagles, my friends

and pierce private dreams, memories held deep—

’Till a whisper of wind holds hands with my dream

and your voice brushes my lips—a prelude to sleep.’”

~R~’67

Shadows of a soldier’s fears littered the pages, and she read of the metaphor of jungle rain her father had used to describe the pelting of machine-gun rounds and of the impending rendezvous with destiny he sensed would take his life. As a child, she loved the drama and color of the words. Now she understood and loved them for what they were—love (fear/destiny/anger/loneliness/death) letters to her mother—written by a young man on a battlefield twelve thousand miles from home.

Closing the journal gently to preserve its integrity—for her lifetime and beyond—she closed her eyes and held the blood-stained leather next to her heart, as close an embrace as her father would ever give. Unlike the man who’d died a soldier’s death, she wouldn’t allow his words to die too.

Curled next to Kingsley, fatigue swallowed her and the words of an eccentric, white-haired old man swirled in her head.

‘…you must learn to live with your past. Do not ignore it. Embrace it…You are your mother’s daughter and of your father’s loins…Ryan’s gift flows from you as it did him. Use it. Do not let another so gifted with words remain silent...there will always be storms, Miss Ryleigh…you must learn to dance in the rain.’

Kingsley rolled from his back and glared at her, his eyes severe slits. Just to annoy him, she kissed him squarely between his golden eyes. The cat pulled away to avoid the intrusive contact and bounced off the chair. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” Ignoring the trite apology, he sauntered off.

Ryleigh got up and searched through every desk drawer until her fingers closed on a spiral notebook. Months ago (years now?) she’d purchased the notebook in anticipation of starting another novel, a place for notes and ideas. The pages were unspoiled, nothing hidden in the pockets. But this wasn’t a new story. This was the ending to an old one. Her past had taken a twist, and so had the ending to the unfinished manuscript Evan had mercilessly stolen.

Curled again into the blue chair, she forced herself to purge troubled thoughts of Chandler from her mind, and the only sound in the makeshift study was the scratching of graphite across paper as the words spilled from her heart.

CHRISTMAS HAD COME
and gone in a whisper, overshadowed by the looming prospect of Evan’s internship in California and the final dissolution of a marriage. A few days after officially relinquishing her marital status, Ryleigh would lose her son again, this time to the quagmire of not just a big city, a monster city. Los Angeles wasn’t Phoenix, and the air lying gray and motionless across the horizon wasn’t the only thing she considered polluted. But she had to trust him and her instincts and let him go. His dreams and his future began with a small magazine publisher in California where he’d begin his dream of becoming an editor.

With Evan at his father’s and only days until his departure, Ryleigh paced the small den, the contents of the old cigar box drawing her like a magnet to iron. She’d sorted the letters by postmark, and then stacked and tied each bundle with a length of ribbon. They begged to reveal their secrets, but she’d chosen to read them gradually over time. They were few, and the fear of finishing the last one elicited a sadness she paralleled to finishing the end of a novel. And losing her family again.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the den, she removed the ribbons and turned a stack from front to back, careful not to damage the timeworn envelopes, and then placed each one in order in front of her, like tiles in an unfinished mosaic. The same familiar scrawl of the journal graced Ryan’s, the handwriting fluidly arched with a soft right slant, and at times barely legible—the similarities to her own remarkable. Her mother’s letters were written in a beautiful flowing slant, her signature with an exaggerated swirl on the curl of the first “E”. She lingered on it, mentally counting the years. Time had long passed from the girl who lived for these letters, to the woman who lay at rest. At the end, even her handwriting had been the victim of time.

She opened an envelope addressed to her mother. Ryan’s letters were signed with a single ‘R’ and the year at the bottom of the page. She touched each word, the commas and watermarks, as if imprinting them on her skin, hesitating on the ‘R’ at the bottom. She shivered. The room was warm, but it wasn’t the temperature that had caused her skin to rise in gooseflesh—but the feeling their fingers had somehow crossed the boundaries of time.

With her life in shambles and her son on the verge of leaving the state, she clung to the idea of family—embracing what she did have, and longing for what had been taken—and read the letters without intermission.

Ambrose had been right—he was uncanny that way. The letters unraveled the threads of three tightly woven lives.

Eleanor wrote of ordinary people oblivious to the war raging halfway across the planet, New York snowstorms, the pond, and a stray dog she had befriended and named Tareyton (“Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch.”) due to the perfect black spot over one eye. Summer nights in St. Louis watching the fireflies were at the heart of nearly every letter.

Despite the appalling way her family treated her, Eleanor’s letters overflowed with happiness and her love for Ryan. Even at such a tender age it was evident theirs was the profound love few people experience. And her words filled the page with the overwhelming power of love she felt for the life growing inside her. Not once did she denounce her love for Ben. Though different, it rose from her words as insightful and as deep.

But one of her mother’s letters proved more touching than all the others.

On a cold St. Louis night, Eleanor and Ryan lay huddled under heavy blankets in a farmer’s old hayloft on the outskirts of the city. Surrounded by sweet alfalfa hay, cattle lowing, and the warmth and charm of a boy she adored, it was a Christmas Eve her mother would never forget. Although chastised for her actions, the consequence of a star-filled night had also given her the most precious gift anyone would ever give her. The gift of life.

Ryleigh loved her mother. (God knows she did.) But after reading the letters, the connection grew deeper, the empathy and loss stronger than she believed possible. If not for Ambrose, she never would have come to know her mother’s immeasurable compassion, due in part, she assumed, to the losses her mother bore. Ryleigh knew her only as Mom, but in the span of a few short hours, she’d come to know her extraordinary courage—a woman who had sacrificed and lost more than most do in a lifetime. And if she could disconnect herself, it would be a poignant story—one worthy of telling the world.

Ryan’s words were just as Ambrose had described. The jungle came alive—lush with palm trees, elephant grass and villagers farming acres of marshy rice paddies and then, like a chameleon, transformed. Hillsides drenched in blackened ash reeking of death and puddled with blood, decaying animals and corpses. Monkeys chattering, birds every color of the rainbow, and idle whispers squelched by sniper fire raining down from the very trees that offered cover. The aftermath of an ambush.

Ryleigh envisioned the place that took her father’s life with awe at its inherent beauty and revulsion for the horrors of war. The scenes reverberated in the journal, the darkness, fear, and indisputable happiness woven intricately between the lines. Words could never convey the force of emotion, but the passion and pain bruised her as deeply as if a bullet had torn her flesh. She grieved for the baby boy—her brother. Ryan’s son. Raw emotion overpowered her with an inexpressible emptiness for a family that had been stripped from her. Family she never knew she had. And she openly grieved for the family she’d been given, only to see it taken away.

Entranced in a surreal world created decades ago and spelled out on aged, brittle sheets of paper, Ryleigh retied the string around the letters with a renewed insight into the two men she referred to as “father” and an unequivocal deepened love for the woman who had given her life. It was then, in spite of the secrets, she felt closer to her mother in death than she had in life.

Ryleigh raised the ball chain that hung around her neck and rubbed a thumb across the raised metal letters of the dog tag. She held it against her heart and smiled, and then sifted through the old cigar box—her treasure chest.

A ragged envelope addressed to her mother lay mostly hidden in the bottom. She peeled back the flap and inside were government bonds amounting to several thousand dollars in today’s market, her name neatly typed across the documents. Unable to absorb the reality, she set the certificates on her lap and removed another document, unfolding it with the same care she’d taken with the letters. Her original birth certificate trembled in her hands. She skimmed the information. Halfway through, she stopped on the space marked “twin.”

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

“Evan—you scared me. I didn’t hear you come home.”

“Sorry. I should have texted you. What’s that?”

“God, you’re nosy.”

“Wonder which side of the family I inherited that intrinsic quality from.”

“Very funny,” she said, forcing back a growing unease. “How was your visit with your father?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

Ryleigh dropped her hands into her lap. “It’s a long story,” she said, noticing how his blue-green eyes were accentuated by dark hair, soft curls forming where it had grown past his ears. Until now, she hadn’t realized how much he resembled the soldier in the photograph. Generations apart, yet time stood still and the past looked back at her from the same green eyes he’d inherited. All prejudices aside, her son was more handsome than the man he would someday know as grandfather.

“It’s early.”

“Some other time.”

“You’re stalling.” Evan grabbed the side chair. He flipped it backward, straddled the seat, and folded his arms across the back. “I’m not going anywhere.” He dropped his chin to his arms.

She had no reason not to tell him. If she could get through the story one more time, it would be over and she could go on with her life—if it was possible. Evan would see things differently. Didn’t he always? He found the positive in any situation. But she couldn’t tell him—not now—not when he was embarking on a new adventure.

Calling on every ounce of reserve, she forced a wide smile. “It’s nothing. Really.”

“Yeah, right,” he said as Kingsley sauntered into the room, flicked his tail, and turned an abrupt about-face. “That cat hates me, I swear.”

She wasn’t good at lying, but she was good at being Mom. “It’s nothing that can’t wait until next time you’re home. Now go—I have work to do. And Kingsley doesn’t hate you.”

Evan flipped the chair back with one hand. “Let me know when you change your mind.”

“Evan,” she said, her tone stern enough to turn him around. “I will tell you. Just not tonight.”

“Okay,” he said, “I can wait.” He hesitated, and then leaned against the doorframe. “Oh, hey, have you seen the new house Dad’s building?”

She shook her head, an unsettling tingle erupting in her stomach. Chandler hadn’t been back since their last encounter, and she didn’t know if he’d been untruthful with her again, or if he truly intended to wait. Or if she wanted him to.

“The framing’s almost done and the roof’s on. He designed this amazing floorplan and he’s doing most of the work himself.” Evan shrugged. “Then sometime this summer he’s handling the remodel of an office building into another spa for Nat and Mitch.”