“Let me stop you right there.” He headed to the metal desk beneath the boarded-up window, which was covered with papers and ashtrays and dirty dishes. He rifled through a pile of envelopes and magazines and plucked out a piece of paper. “Here,” he said, handing her a telegram. “Three days ago, two assholes in uniform showed up here to tell me my kid was dead. Shot down. Some place like Ankle. Ankee. Who the hell knows?”
Frankie stared down at the telegram. We regret to inform you … Lieutenant Commander Joseph Ryerson Walsh has been killed in action.
“Remains ain’t recoverable, the shitheads said. He certainly won’t need no welcome-home party,” Mr. Walsh said.
Frankie couldn’t draw a breath. “It … can’t be true…”
“It is.”
“But—”
“Go on, missy. Nothing for you here.”
She turned away, stumbled out of the dirty office, and made it to the Bug and collapsed inside.
The telegram shook in her hand.
We regret to inform you.
Rye. She thought of him carrying her to her hooch … the night he’d shown up in her OR, worrying about her … their first kiss … that night on the beach on Kauai where he’d shown her what love felt like. I’m afraid I’ll love you till I die …
Rye. Her love.
Gone.
* * *
Frankie didn’t remember driving home. When she pulled into her parents’ driveway and parked, she looked up through her tears and was vaguely surprised to see where she was.
She got out of the car, forgot to close the door or take her keys. She walked into the house and went directly to her bedroom. Music followed her—Pat Boone, her mom’s favorite singer, tried to soothe and romance with his voice, but she barely heard it.
It had been only a few hours since she’d heard those words—killed in action—but already it felt like a lifetime of sorrow. Interminable.
She climbed into bed, shoes and all; she leaned back into the stacks of pillows against her headboard and stared up at the frilly pink canopy.
Grief blunted the world, put a thick, cottony veil between Frankie and everything else. She was so numb it took a moment to realize that someone was knocking on her bedroom door.
“Go away,” she said.
The door opened. Her mother stood there, smiling uncertainly. It was how they looked at each other these days, but Frankie didn’t care about that, either. “There you are—”
Frankie heard her own scream and knew it was a mistake, but she couldn’t stop herself. She went from screaming in anger to sobbing in the time it took for her mother to get to the bed.
Frankie rolled away, tucked her legs up into the fetal position.
Mom edged up onto the bed beside her, stroked her hair. For a long time, she didn’t say anything, just let Frankie cry.
Finally, Frankie rolled into her mother’s embrace, instead of away from it.
“What is it?” Mom asked.
“I fell in love in Vietnam.” Frankie drew in a shuddering breath. “He was shot down. Killed in action.” She looked at her mother. “How could I not have known?”
“You never said anything about a man over there…” Mom sighed heavily. “Oh, Frances…”
“You didn’t want to hear anything about the war.”
Frankie waited for words of wisdom, for something—anything—to remind her that she still had a reason for living.
Mom said nothing, just stroked her hair and held her close.
Frankie felt her heartbeat slow, felt vaguely that it might be physically breaking down and would be unable to beat in a world without Rye, in this body of hers that felt suddenly foreign.
Footsteps, coming down the hall.
Her father appeared in the open doorway, a briefcase in one hand, a handful of mail in the other.
“A friend of hers was shot down,” Mom said.
“Oh,” Dad said. He turned around and walked away, closing the door behind him.
Frankie curled into her mother’s arms and cried.
* * *
They’re shooting at us.
Pop-pop-pop.
A spark of light hits the Huey broadside. The gunner shoots back, the chopper veers sharply to the left, then up to the right, does almost a pirouette.
Another shot. Sparks. The ra-ta-ta-tat of the gunner shooting back, and then a loud crack of an explosion. The tail of the helicopter bends, breaks, falls to the jungle. Another explosion; this one is the fuel tank. The chopper bursts into a ball of flame and smoke and crashes to the ground.
A thick black column of smoke and flames shoots up from the jungle; the trees catch fire.