Soldier On (26 page)

When eight o’clock arrives, I head to Mr. Walker’s room to see if he needs any help getting out of bed.”

“Mr. Wal—”

I freeze in my tracks when I see that his room is empty.

“Mr. Walker?”

I check everywhere. The downstairs bathroom. Back to the kitchen. I even check the front porch, but there’s no sign of him. I’m confident he couldn’t have climbed the stairs by himself, so I grab my jacket and rush outside, hoping to find him on the porch.

Nothing.

“Mr. Walker?”

I yell and yell, but the only sound I hear in return is Duke’s frantic bark coming from behind the house.

That’s when I remember the pond.

My heart races as I run to the back of the house. It might be spring, but the mountain air is still cold and a soft frost gently dusts the ground. In the distance, I can see Duke standing at the edge of the pond.

And I see Brandon’s dad sitting on the wooden dock.

Relief floods my veins as I run toward the water. I don’t want to frighten him, so I stop just short of the dock. Duke rushes to my side.

“Good boy,” I whisper, petting the top of his head.

Slowly, I step up onto the creaky wood. Mr. Walker looks up at me and smiles.

“Good morning, Stephanie.”

He knows my name!
I sigh with relief.

“Good morning, Mr. Walker. What are you doing out here?”

“Just looking.”

“It’s pretty cold just to be looking.”

“Is it?” He seems surprised. That’s when I notice he isn’t wearing shoes.

“Mr. Walker, where are your shoes?”

He nods toward the water.

“You threw your shoes in the water?”

“She needed them.”

“Who needed them?”

“Diana.”

His wife.

“Diana loved to swim.”

His legs twitch, and I begin to panic.

I have to get him away from the water. I have to get him back to the house.

“It’s too cold to swim today, Mr. Walker.”

He nods, but I have no idea if he understands me.

“I was a bad husband, Stephanie. I should have gone swimming with her more.”

“That’s okay. Diana wouldn’t want you to swim today. It’s way too cold.”

Mr. Walker turns his head toward me.

“My son loves you.”

I’m close to tears.

“I know he does. I love him, too.”

“He’ll take care of you, Stephanie. Will you take care of him?”

“I promise I will.”

“And you’ll go swimming with him?”

Does Brandon like to swim?
I have no idea. But it doesn’t matter right now.

“Yes, Mr. Walker. When the weather is warmer, I’ll be sure to go swimming with him.”

He seems satisfied with that answer as he gazes down into the water. I hear footsteps behind us. I know it’s Brandon, but I don’t dare turn around.

“Mr. Walker, I’m very cold. Would you take me back to the house?”

He tilts his head to the side. “Are you cold, Stephanie?”

My teeth chatter in response, but I know it’s not from the chill in the air.

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, then, we need to get you inside. Wouldn’t want you to catch a cold.”

He steps away from the edge of the dock and turns toward the house. I take his left arm, and it’s only then that I let myself look at Brandon. His face is pale, and his eyes are filled with tears.

“Good morning, Brandon. We need to get Stephanie inside. She’s cold.”

I watch as Brandon takes a long, steadying breath.

“Okay, Dad. Let’s take her inside.”

Brandon moves closer to his dad and takes his arm, and the three of us walk back toward the house.

The house is too quiet. It unnerves me. A house this beautiful and big should have happy sounds and sweet smells, and it probably does when the girls are home. But today it’s too silent. Too still.

Time passes slowly when you’re waiting, and with each ticking of the clock, I grow a little more anxious. I’ve tried to keep busy. I’ve thrown out the cold breakfast, done the dishes, and mopped the floor. There’s nothing left to clean, unless I want to go upstairs and strip the beds.

I don’t.

Instead, I sit at the kitchen table and try to read the newspaper, but the words swim on the page. Duke refuses to leave my side, and I’m grateful for the company. Brandon is with his dad, and they, along with Christian and Dr. Edsall, are in the bedroom. They’ve been in there for over an hour. I have no idea what’s going on, but I don’t need a doctor’s diagnosis to know that Mr. Walker had a hallucination of his wife swimming in the pond.

And he was ready to swim with her.

My mind swirls with what ifs . . . conjuring image after horrifying image of what could have happened today.

I can’t stop shaking, despite the blanket that surrounds me.

Suddenly, I hear a door open, and seconds later, Brandon walks into the kitchen.

“Hey,” he says softly.

As soon as I hear his voice, I fall apart.

Brandon lifts me into his arms and carries me into the living room. Once we’re on the couch, I bury my face against his chest. I shake. I cry. He rocks me and murmurs sweet words that just make me cry harder.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to see me this way. I should be stronger. I want to prove to you I can handle this.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to prove anything to me.”

“I do. I absolutely do. Because this is
our
life now. This is
our
normal, and I want you to know that you can depend on me.”

“Steph, look at me.”

I lift my eyes toward his.

“You saved my father’s life today. If you hadn’t . . .”

His entire body begins to tremble, and I wrap my arms around him so the blanket covers us both.

“You saved him,” Brandon whispers, resting his forehead against mine. “You were so good with him. You knew exactly what to say. I couldn’t have done that. I couldn’t have stayed calm and collected.
You
did. You saved his life.”

I shake my head. “We don’t know if he would have jumped.”

“We don’t know that he wouldn’t have.” Brandon gently wipes my cheek. “Thank God we didn’t find out.”

We hold each other close. I have no idea how long we stay like that, but eventually, the bedroom door opens, and I open my eyes to find Christian and the doctor watching us closely.

“Brandon, I think Dr. Edsall should take a look at Steph.”

I wipe at my face. “No, I’m okay. Honestly. I just needed a good cry.”

“I could at least check your blood pressure?” Dr. Edsall offers. “I think it would make Christian feel a lot better.”

“I’d feel better, too,” Brandon says. “Let the doctor check you out, Steph.”

“Only if you let her check you out, too.”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “Always so stubborn. Okay.”

Dr. Edsall checks our vitals. Both our blood pressures are elevated, which doesn’t surprise anyone. I refuse the light sedative she offers, so she prescribes a hot bath, a favorite book, and a good night’s sleep.

After Christian walks the doctor to the door, she returns to the living room and sits down right beside us. I’m still in Brandon’s lap. I’m warm here.

“How are you really?”

“I’m okay.”

She nods and reaches for my hand. “Steph, I want to thank you.”

“Please don’t thank me. I didn’t—”

“Don’t say you didn’t do anything. You probably saved our father from drowning. He honestly believed our mom was in the pond, and I firmly believe if you hadn’t found him, he would have jumped in. Even if he had survived the fall, he wouldn’t have survived the cold temperature, and he certainly wouldn’t have survived the water.”

“Are the hallucinations new?” Brandon asks.

“He’s only had one other that I’m aware of. It was of Mom, too. He thought he saw her sitting in the porch swing. Dr. Edsall thinks he’s harboring some deep remorse for the way he treated her. It’s just waited until now to manifest itself.”

Brandon nods. “He’s talked about her a lot the past three days. That’s unusual.”

“I mentioned that to the doctor. She thinks it’s because of the disruption of his routine. You’re here. The girls aren’t. And he met Steph. Dad recognized pretty quickly that the two of you are close. Maybe it’s reminded of him when he and Mom were young and in love. Maybe it’s a complete coincidence. We have no way of knowing.”

“Is he sleeping now?” I ask.

“Yeah. He was very relaxed during the doctor’s exam, and I know that’s because of you. Brandon told me how patient and calm you were. How you convinced him to come inside. I’m a nurse, and I don’t know if I could have handled it as well.”

“Well, I’m a mess now.”

She laughs softly. “You know what? You’ve earned the right to be a mess. Things happen at the hospital that really shake me up sometimes, but I manage to hold it together until I’m in my car. There are many times I cry all the way home. I am not Wonder Woman, and neither are you. It’s okay to be human.”

And then the most amazing thing happens.

She hugs me.

It’s late in the afternoon when we finally get packed and head downstairs. We’d only planned to stay a few days, but I can tell Brandon’s disappointed to be going home so soon. He didn’t get to see much of his nieces, and he never got the chance to show me his hometown.

I promised we’d come back, right after graduation.

This afternoon, Brandon added extra locks to the doors while Christian arranged for a nurse’s aide to be there day and night. It will be expensive, but hopefully it’ll take some stress off Christian so that she can have a life of her own and keep Mr. Walker safe and comfortable at the same time.

Saying goodbye to Mr. Walker was hard. Maybe it was because I never had a dad of my own, or maybe it was because I was still emotional from what happened at the pond, but when he hugged me, I cried like a baby. This made him nervous until I promised they were happy tears.

And they were. Nothing but happy.

While Brandon and Christian make some final arrangements in the kitchen, I walk around the living room, looking at the pictures on the wall. I stop when I come across a photo of Mr. Walker in his uniform, with an American flag in the background.

It looks so much like the picture of my dad.

Reaching down into my shirt, I pull out the ball chain and my dad’s tags. I let the silver slide through my fingers as I think about the last few days.

I’ve spent my life hating the military. In my mind, it had stripped me of the privilege of ever knowing my father. But really, I was angry at the wrong thing, and for the wrong reasons. My dad made a choice, and if his picture is any indication, he was proud of that choice. Just like this picture of Brandon’s father. He looks just as proud in this old eight-by-ten as he does in the faded newspaper clipping.