The gate area at LAX was crowded. She saw military personnel sleeping on benches, sprawled on the dirty floor, using their duffel bags as pillows. Passing time on their way home. It didn’t seem right: Men who’d been shot at, and in some cases been patched up and sent back into harm’s way, sleeping on the floor between flights. The military paid your way to a base airport; once there, you had to buy your own ticket home. A real thank-you for serving your country.
As she neared baggage claim, she saw a group of protesters holding signs: END THE WAR BEFORE IT ENDS YOU! DROP ACID, NOT BOMBS! GET OUT OF VIETNAM NOW! BOMBING FOR PEACE IS LIKE SCREWING FOR VIRGINITY!
They saw her, coming their way in her skirted Army uniform, and thrust their signs at her, as if to convince her.
Someone spat at her.
“Nazi bitch,” one of the protesters yelled.
Frankie stumbled to a halt in shock. “What the—”
A pair of Marines appeared and flanked Frankie, one on each side of her.
“Don’t listen to those assholes,” one of them said. Bookending her, they made their way to the carousel. “We got nothing to be ashamed of.”
Frankie didn’t understand. Why would someone spit at her?
“Go back to Vietnam!” someone yelled. “We don’t want you baby killers here.”
Baby killers?
Frankie’s duffel bag thumped onto the carousel. She started to reach for it, but one of the Marines beat her to it. “I’ll get that for you, Lieutenant.”
“Let the bitch get her own bag,” someone yelled. Others laughed.
“Thank you,” Frankie said to the Marine. “I mean … I heard about the protests, but this?”
She looked at the people crowded around the carousel, men in suits and women in dresses, who’d said nothing to help her. Did they think it was okay to spit at an Army nurse coming home from war? She expected it from hippies and protesters, but from ordinary people?
“Ain’t no World War Two victory parade,” one of the Marines said.
“Guess losing a war isn’t something people cheer for,” said the other.
Frankie looked at the two men, saw the ghosts that lived behind their eyes. The ghosts that lived in her, too. “We’re home,” she said, needing to believe that was what mattered.
She saw that they needed to believe it, too.
Outside, she thanked the Marines for their help and looked for a cab. Alone out here, she saw the way people stared at her. First there was a widening of the eyes—surprise at seeing a woman in uniform—and then the narrowing of mistrust or outright disgust. A few looked right through her, as if she weren’t there. She considered changing her clothes, but decided against it.
Screw them. She wasn’t going to let them shame her.
At the curb, she put out one arm to hail a cab.
The nearest yellow taxi veered out of the middle lane, headed toward her, and slowed. She stepped off the curb and the cabbie yelled something and flipped her the bird and sped away, stopping not far away for a man in a suit.
One after another, taxis slowed for her just enough to get her hopes up and then sped away.
Finally, she gave up, bought a bus ticket, and ignored the veiled looks thrown her way as she lugged her heavy bags onto the bus.
What was wrong with the world?
It took four hours and three bus changes for her to reach Coronado Island. By then, she had been spat on four times, flipped off more times than she could count, and become used to—or at least immune to—the way people looked at her. No one had offered to help her carry her heavy duffel bag.
At the ferry terminal on Coronado, she was finally able to hail a cab. A dour-looking driver didn’t make eye contact, but picked her up and stopped outside the gate at her house, for which she was extremely grateful.
She hauled her heavy duffel out of the vehicle and dropped it on the sidewalk and stood there, soaking in the sense of coming home. The air smelled of the sea, of lemons and oranges, of her childhood.
She looked over at the mighty Pacific Ocean. She could hear the surf from here; the familiar sound soothed her anxiety. A group of kids on bicycles, with playing cards in the spokes, sped past her, laughing. She couldn’t help thinking of Finley, of the forts they’d once built among the eucalyptus, of the sandcastles they’d built, of the hours spent on bicycles. Come nightfall, the porch lights would start coming on up and down the street—beacons used by mothers to guide their children home for dinner.
A pair of Navy jets screamed overhead. She couldn’t help wondering if they were piloted by men who would soon be flying combat missions on the other side of the world.