Marcie threw her arm toward the table with the two chairs and Mel took one. She got right to the point. “I think I did what you asked. I told her you had found Ian Buchanan, you were visiting with him, planned to stay a while and would call her when you were in town next. I honestly don’t think I got out much more than that. She wanted to know why, if you found him and talked to him, you’re not on your way home.”
“Oh, holy cow. No—holy sister.” Marcie put her head in her hand. “Well, because I got sick, but I wouldn’t want her to know that. She might come up here with an ambulance. She can move mountains when she wants to. Mobilizing the National Guard wouldn’t be impossible for Erin.”
“I kind of got that impression.”
“But this flu turns out to be a blessing. Because Ian’s very slow to get close, and he’s awful used to not having anyone to talk to. Just being here for a few days has gotten him used to me a little. We’ve nibbled around the edges of our individual lives without talking about things like the war, my late husband Bobby, what drove him to leave the Marines, his hometown, all that. But I’m getting closer. Because he’s stuck with me, we’ve been getting acquainted. Reacquainted really—we were in touch right after Bobby was hurt—briefly. So, I’m trying to build trust and friendship. One of these days he’s going to really talk to me.”
“And?”
Marcie shrugged. “Mel, I don’t know why I had to do this—come here like this. It was just something I couldn’t live without doing. When I understand the man who saved my husband’s life—”
“Wait a minute,” Mel said. “He saved your husband’s life?”
“Uh-huh,” Marcie said. “Didn’t I tell Jack that?”
“I guess not. At least Jack never mentioned it.”
“Well, he did. He risked his life to save Bobby and was injured himself in the process. It’s not Ian’s fault Bobby lived with terrible disabilities. I appreciate that he did everything he could. I don’t know if you can understand this, but despite the fact that Bobby might have lived too long in a dysfunctional body, with no concept of what was happening around him, I got to—” Marcie glanced away, swallowed back tears and said, so softly, “I was with him a little longer. I’m very grateful for the time I had with him. Unfair as that might seem to Bobby.”
Mel took a deep breath. Jack was her second husband; she’d been widowed when she lost her first husband to a violent crime. She wasn’t even tempted to explain the details at the moment. Instead she put her hand on Marcie’s arm and said, “I understand completely.”
“There are other things. The way Bobby felt about Ian—how much he admired him, for one thing. Bobby thought Ian was the greatest man ever, he wanted to be like him. And this great man—he ran away from everything and everybody. It doesn’t add up. And then there’s something so silly—baseball cards. They both collected baseball cards ever since they were boys and while they were sitting in the desert on the lookout for bombs and snipers, they talked about those stupid baseball cards. There are things I want to know. You see?”
Mel smiled. “I see,” she said quietly.
“I tried to explain all this to Erin, but she doesn’t get it. I think it’s because I’m her first concern. All she thinks about is keeping me safe and from getting hurt any more than I’ve been over the last few years. I know Ian might never open up to me—I have to be prepared for that. He’s been very blunt—he doesn’t want to talk about any of it. Whatever happened left a very big hole in his heart.”
“Okay,” Mel said, leaning her elbows on the table. “I don’t have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, but I do have a little. I have myself a marine who’s been to war way too much and he has a shaky, vulnerable side. I don’t know all the triggers. I wouldn’t want you at risk when you finally decide to confront these things—”
“He’s not going to snap,” Marcie said. “In fact, I don’t think he even realizes it, but he is not a tortured man. Maybe he was a few years ago, and maybe those memories are still disturbing, but now he’s just a man who lives in the mountains…in a simplified life…and he lives alone. It’s less complicated than it seems. At least, that’s my opinion.”
“I know. He sings,” Mel said with a smile.
“It’s not just that. He talks to me about other things. About the old man who gave him the cabin, about the deer that comes visiting. He washed my hair for me. He heated water so I could take a bath. He goes to the library and he reads every day—he doesn’t read books about how to build bombs or make poisons—he has a big stack of biographies. He’s intelligent. Has a sense of humor he doesn’t really want me to see—I’m sure he thinks I’ll get the misguided impression he’s enjoying me.”