The Heart You Carry Home (2 page)

Finally alone and still, Becca clenched her teeth until her face turned red, and hot tears burned in her eyes. She was a twenty-one-year-old woman throwing a tantrum, however silent. But who gave a damn? As a child, she'd lashed out over every affront.
Kick as hard as you like, but you can't crack the earth,
her mother would say after she'd been called to pick up Becca early from school.

Nothing had changed. Then, as now, her rage felt like all she had.

Becca forced herself to breathe slowly in and out like her first running coach had taught her. She thought about her well-tested strategy for winning long-distance races. First, gain momentum from a fierce burst of energy. Next, fall into a steady rhythm. And finally, when you felt confident in your movement and your breath, hit your stride.
Momentum, rhythm, stride.
Becca repeated the mantra in her mind.
Momentum
[breath],
rhythm
[breath],
stride
[breath]. She felt her body calm and her heavy eyes close.
You have options,
she reminded herself.
You're free now. Hit your stride and you can outrun anything.

B
ENJAMIN THOMPSON SURVEYED
the litter of glass at his feet. He'd poured at least four beers down his throat in twenty minutes flat. Then, belly bloated, he'd thrown the remaining bottles against the side of Becca's car. Even now he could feel the swing and release, followed by the glorious
smash!
It had been downright cathartic, breaking things, alone in a field, nobody to judge him. Now he was calm—at least calm enough to go home. To be in bed with his wife, where a newlywed was meant to be.

If only an awful headache weren't gathering behind his eyes. He rooted in the car for another beer. Finding none, he decided to make a quick pit stop. He needed to be as clearheaded as possible when he walked in the door. He had taken Becca's car and he felt bad about it, but with his own in the shop, how else was he going to leave? And he'd had to leave. Otherwise, he might have done something horrible. Just a month before, he'd stood before all of their family and friends and pledged to protect her.
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend Rebecca Keller against all enemies, foreign and domestic. So help me God.
He'd taken the car as a protective measure. She would understand.

Crunching on glass, Ben walked to the driver's side and slid into the Cadillac. Becca had dubbed it the Death Star—the vehicle was so hulking, so full of menace. But to Ben, the car felt more like a hearse. Which made him the corpse. Except the dead were not supposed to feel pain, and tension pulsated in the middle of his forehead like a third eye. He put the key in the ignition and realized that he'd been thinking about the wrong pledge.
Support and defend
the Constitution;
love
his wife. But it was all the same. Loving, honoring, supporting, defending: each word was a stand-in for commitment. And Ben did not renege on his commitments.

He drove home on high alert, casting his eyes back and forth like searchlights. The lush alfalfa fields—welcome assurance that he was no longer in Iraq—did nothing to allay his fears. He needed that beer. Home for eight weeks, and little but the taste of hops could force the dark shadows—tree branches and crows' wings—back into their proper shapes, prevent them from morphing into snipers and camouflaged IEDs. Ben kept telling himself that he knew better. He knew the difference between imaginary and real, between Iraq and Tennessee. But then he'd get behind the wheel, helpless against the urge to scan, to tap his foot, to speed.

He stopped at the first bar he came across. The sight was a relief, like home base in a game of tag. Just one beer and then back to the house to be the kind and loving husband he'd vowed to be.

It was late Sunday night—or was it early Monday morning? Either way, look at these drunks and insomniacs. How pitiful! He ordered a beer and slid into a booth. Just one more, he promised himself when he realized the first was gone, and he ordered another. But next, a whiskey appeared. Time began to unspool, and soon, Ben was lost. He hadn't moved, but in his mind, he'd flown over the ocean, across the continents, and landed heavily on the potholed surface of Ali's Alley. The sun was very hot, and the air smelled of burned metal. There was music, but instead of the Arabic scale, it was a fiddle tune called “Sally in the Garden,” his father's favorite. And Ben was walking to the command outpost—the COP—to meet Corporal Eric Coleman for a game of pickup soccer. After a while, Ben realized that he was having trouble walking, because he was dragging something attached to a rope tied around his waist.

And then, out of nowhere, Ben's father appeared in the middle of the street. His cheeks were gaunt, his body withered, his lips cracked with sores.

“What are you doing here, Dad?” The fiddle music was so loud now that Ben was forced to shout.

Ben's father raised his arm and pointed at whatever Ben was dragging.

“What's wrong?” Ben called, louder this time. “What's behind me?”

George Thompson just stared, horrified. Ben turned to see for himself—

“—I said, you've been sitting here awhile. Do you want another?” There was a hand on his arm, but only for a moment, because his arm reacted, snapping from the table like a live wire. He barely registered the arm as his own, but it must have been, because the waitress was stumbling backward. She collided with a table, her tray toppling. “What's wrong with you?” She rubbed her back where it had struck the table edge. “You're fucking insane.”

One of the insomniacs rushed over to help the waitress up.

“
You
touched
me
,” Ben spat.

“You oughta leave,” said the man.

The guy wasn't so big and he had a belly. Ben could take him. But he wasn't looking for a fight. “I'm just sitting here having a drink!” he protested. “And then she comes over and puts her hands on me. I didn't do anything.”

“Out,” the insomniac said, thrusting his thumb toward the door like he was a goddamned umpire. Now two additional bodies appeared, their faces bug-eyed, like cartoons.

“I've been serving for you all for fifteen fucking months! And you're kicking me out because I don't want some dumb bitch touching me?”

Fifteen months forced a brief pause in the bar and the man who'd originally helped the waitress took a step back. “Come on,” he said gently. “Let's go, son.”

Ben stood, knocking over his empty bottles. “I'm not your fucking son and I don't want your pity. Do I
look
like an invalid?” He stomped out of the bar and, after a couple of jabs at the keyhole, managed to unlock the Cadillac.

Back home, he ran into the house calling Becca's name. He paused at the open door of her childhood bedroom, saw his father's fiddle lying in splinters on the floor. What happened here? In a moment, he remembered and shut the door. Frantic, he called for her again.

In the silence that followed, Ben knew she might be gone—as in
left him
gone—and the house spun madly around him. Without her, there was nothing. He rushed into the master bedroom and saw her phone on the nightstand. If she had left for good, she would have taken it. He called some of her friends; they hadn't heard from her. Finally, he called King. “King can't talk now,” said a grubby voice on the other end.

“What about Becca?” Ben demanded. “Is she there?”

There was a brief pause and then the dial tone buzzed in his ear. Ben grabbed the keys and took off toward the town limits.

Ben had been to King's only once before, on a sunny afternoon before the wedding. Then, the house had looked peaceful, almost quaint. Now, well past midnight, as he pulled up the dirt drive, he saw the place as a booby-trapped cabin out of some horror movie. He thought about the homes he'd staked out on nighttime missions, the sand-colored world seen through his night-vision goggles, cast in a sickly green light. He wished he had his NVGs now. He wished for the protection of his body armor and his weapon.

He charged up King's front steps and banged on the door. A thin rectangle of light glowed behind the picture window. And then King appeared, his belly pressed to the screen-door mesh.

“Ben,” said the old man gruffly. “It's late.”

“Where's Becca?” Ben was breathing heavily, as though winded from a long run.

“I know you two had a fight,” King said. “But it appears you haven't calmed down yet.”

“I'm calm,” Ben said. “But I need to talk to her.”

“You're drunk.”

“I'm fine,” Ben said. He grabbed the handle of the screen door and pulled it back. It was far lighter than he expected, and the door banged violently against the side of the house.

“What's that fucking racket?” said another voice. That grubby voice from the telephone. A short, sinewy man with thinning hair appeared beside King. This must be Reno, Ben thought; he'd heard plenty about the guy from Becca. “Aw, fuck,” Reno said, as though Ben's presence on the doorstep were a personal affront. “You're the sergeant King's been blabbering about all night.”

“I want to talk to my wife,” Ben said.

“He's drunk,” King said to Reno.

“You think?” Reno said.

They were talking about him like he was an animal under observation and the two of them were goddamn zoologists.

King looked suspiciously at Reno. “You been drinking too?”

“Just your sissy diet soda.” Reno smiled, flashing metal.

“What is this bullshit?” Ben said. Who were these men, the fucking odd couple? “Becca!” he called. “Becca, we need to talk!”

And then she materialized from the gloom, hair mussed and eyes squinting with sleep. She wore sweatpants and a worn-thin army T-shirt that revealed the shape of her small breasts. He felt a deep flush of desire for her, then tenderness.

“Becca, how'd you get all the way out here? I'm so sorry about the car.”

She didn't respond. She just stared.

“I think you'd best leave,” Reno said. “And leave the car. It's not yours to take, and you're in no condition to drive it.”

“Becca!” Ben kept trying to see her behind the men, craning his neck until he was sure it would snap. She looked sad. Was she crying? He needed to get closer. “Becca,” he pleaded. But she seemed to float away from him, to fade into the darkened living room. “Why did you come out here?” he asked, but King and Reno were like a wall that his words couldn't breach. Why wouldn't they let him in? Just to talk. That's all he wanted. “I came back!” he cried. “I came back for you and you were gone!”

Was he wearing his body armor? He felt so heavy. Heavy enough to knock through the men in his way. He lunged.

In the next instant, pain exploded in his face. It was less of a feeling than a sound: a bubble of white noise, like a broken television set. Then Ben was weightless. He reached his arms out as though to grab Becca's T-shirt. But there was nothing to hold on to as he flailed and fell. His body hit the ground, his head knocking hard against the earth. Then he didn't see or hear anything.

R
ENO HAD REACHED
the Smokies and still no sign of life from Ben. He peered at the inkblot bruise between the kid's eye and upper cheek; he hadn't intended to knock him out cold, but the sergeant had come at him like a bulldozer. At first, Reno worried King would be furious. But King said only “Better you than his own father-in-law” before lifting Ben baby-like into his thick arms, buckling him into the Cadillac, and telling Reno to drive him home.

Reno hoped Ben didn't have a concussion, hoped that the punch combined with the booze had just temporarily carted the sergeant off to la-la land. And he was grateful for some quiet time to think. All night, right up until Ben showed up, King had been talking his ear off about the wedding. Reno couldn't quite get his head around the thing. Not the wedding itself—he supposed kids did much dumber things than get married just weeks after coming home from war. But the way King had been all mushy about the event—now, that was odd. He'd insisted on describing Becca's dress, waving his meaty hands in the air in a futile attempt to convey a sense of its shape, beaming at how she'd sewn it herself.

“Was it silk?” Reno had asked, trying to be helpful. “Satin maybe? How about chiffon?”

King shook his head, helpless. “How do you know what chiffon looks like?” he demanded. But he'd pressed on. He said that his heart nearly stopped beating when Becca appeared at the top of the aisle. And not just because of how stunning—how glorious—she looked, but because of the expression on her face. She'd looked at Ben like she couldn't believe her luck. “Like she'd won the Powerball jackpot!” King exclaimed. And when the music started—Becca's cue to walk—she didn't move. She just stood there, her eyes locked on Ben, the two of them laughing hysterically. It was awkward, King said. People grew restless. But he understood that his daughter and her intended had been transported to some other, secluded place. Their bodies were only decoys, keeping the secret of their private communion.

Still, King worried. Ben was twenty-five. Becca was barely drinking age and had another two years of college ahead of her. Maybe that was normal here. Even late, compared to many of the guests, who weren't in college and never would be. But King knew that as soon as Becca started down the aisle, time would begin moving again. Her joy, frozen and pure, would begin to thaw.

Hearing this, Reno, who'd been King's own best man many years before, said, “You sure you're still talking about them?”

“That was a different time,” King said. “Different circumstances.”

Different time, same circumstances,
Reno had thought. But he'd kept his mouth shut.