“Enough.” Dad slammed down his drink on the bar. He’d used such force the glass could have cracked. “No one wants to hear these stories, Frankie. Sweet God. Legs blown off.”
“And the language,” Mom said. “Cursing like a sailor. I couldn’t believe the language you used at the club. And in front of Dr. Brenner. I had to call Millicent and apologize on your behalf.”
“Apologize on my behalf?” Frankie said. “How can you not care about my war experience?”
“It’s over, Frances,” Mom said smoothly.
Calm down, Frankie. But she couldn’t do it. Her heart was pounding and she felt a surge of fury so overwhelming she wanted to hit something.
For a moment she held back, but the effort it took felt toxic, as if the stories she wanted to share might turn to poison inside of her. She couldn’t be here, pretending nothing had changed, that she’d been in Florence for two years instead of holding men’s body parts together in her bare hands. She felt choked by her need to say, I was there and this is how it was. For them to welcome her home and say they were proud of her.
Frankie stood up abruptly. “I can’t believe you’re ashamed of me.”
“I have no idea who you are anymore,” Dad said.
“You don’t want to know,” Frankie said. “You think it means nothing when a woman, a nurse, goes to war. You think it’s glorious that your son goes to war and embarrassing when your daughter does.”
Her mother stood up, holding a now-empty martini glass, a little unsteady on her feet, tears in her eyes. “Frances, please,” she said. “Connor. You both—”
“Shut up and drink,” Dad said in almost a snarl.
Frankie saw how her mother sagged at that.
Had it always been like this? Had Mom always been a shadow woman, held together by vodka and hair spray? Had her dad always been this angry man who thought he had the right to dictate every action and emotion in this house?
Or had it been losing Finley that ruined them?
Frankie didn’t know. She hadn’t lived with them these past two years, and truthfully, she’d grieved alone and then she’d gone to Vietnam and learned a whole new kind of loss.
Frankie had to get out of here before she said something terrible.
She left them standing there, staring at her as if she were an intruder, and walked out of the house; she slammed the door shut behind her. It wasn’t like her, that burst of fury and the wanting to display it, but she couldn’t stop it. Out on the beach, with night darkening around her, she dropped to her knees, wanting to be calmed by the sound of the surf.
But it made her think of Vietnam, of Finley and Jamie and the fallen.
She screamed until she was hoarse. And the anger inside of her grew.
* * *
March 24, 1969
Dear Rye,
This time at home has been a shit show. Even as I write those words, I think, that isn’t me, but it is me now.
I’m angry all of the time. And hurt. My parents hardly speak to me and rarely to each other. They don’t want to hear anything about Vietnam.
That’s not even the worst of it. I have these terrible nightmares of the war. I wake up feeling like I’ve been beaten up.
It’s because you’re not in bed with me. I could sleep in your arms.
Dreaming of it, of you coming back, is holding me together.
I’m counting the days until you are here. With me. I think of us. You. A house. In the country, maybe. I want to have horses, a dog. A garden.
Things aren’t as easy as I thought, coming home. But it doesn’t matter. All that matters is us.
I love you.
F
* * *
On a cool evening, two weeks after her homecoming, Frankie sat in a chair on the patio, her feet tucked up underneath her, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. In her tattered Army-green T-shirt and baggy shorts, she smelled of mildew and mold and dust, but it was vaguely comforting. She sipped an ice-cold martini and glanced idly around.
She was home, in her own backyard, where soon the jacaranda tree would burst into full purple bloom, and the gardeners would spend hours raking up the fallen flowers. It was like a time capsule, this yard, where nothing ever changed. The outside world could be breaking apart, but inside these walls, all was calm, quiet, cocktails. Maybe that was why people built walls: to look away, to ignore anything they didn’t want to see.
In the last few days, the family had fallen into an uneasy détente in which no one talked about the war. Frankie hated every moment of it, felt stripped bare by her parents’ shame, but it wouldn’t be for much longer. She just had to make it until Rye came home. She hadn’t told them about Rye or their love affair; she hadn’t talked to them about anything, really. Just the weather and food and the garden. Neutral topics, all. It was the only way to hold herself together in their presence.