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“And?”
“And now that I think about it, why is that his concern? She’s our child.”
“Lucy is his flesh and blood, too,” countered Hilly.
“He didn’t bring Lucy into this world. We did. It’s our responsibility, not his. And I regret tellin’ the boy that it was his burden.”
“I don’t understand you, Francis. Does family mean nothing to you?”
“The fact that family means somethin’ to me is why I’m tellin’ you this.”
“You’re making no sense whatsoever,” she replied.
“Havin’ Lucy changed our lives. I’m not sayin’ I’m upset that we had her. I’m not. I love that sweet girl. We made her together. But it broke the natural cycle of things. We have kids, we raise our kids, our kids go off and make their own way and raise their own children. Lucy can’t do that. And just because she can’t, why is it Jack’s job to step in? Because if he has her to take care of, his life will be completely changed, too. There ain’t many women who’ll marry a fellow if they know they’re goin’ to have to take care of a grown woman, and maybe not have her own kids because of that. Life is complicated enough without addin’ that to his plate.”
“And when you talked to him, what did he say about caring for his sister?”
“He didn’t have many answers or opinions, and why would he?” He edged closer. “Is really none of what I’m sayin’ makin’ sense to you?”
She glanced down. “I suppose it really isn’t fair to him.”
“Lucy will be taken care of, Hilly, one way or another.”
“You mean a nursing home? You know we put my mother in one for a single week. When I saw how they were treating her—”
“You took her out of there and nursed her yourself in addition to takin’ care of three kids right up until the day she died years later. No child could have done more than you did, even though Lord knows your momma wasn’t always there for you. When your time comes you can rest easy on that.”
Hilly looked away, her mouth twitching, which Frank didn’t quite know how to take. Then she walked off. He heard the door to their bedroom open and then close, with finality.
CHAPTER 21
FRANK LEE WALKED OUT THE back door and trod the short dirt path to his garage. He glanced at the Ford engine block he was rebuilding. He hoped that Hilly would agree to use the money to buy that dishwasher. Several of the neighbors had bought one and the husbands had been uniform in their opinion that the appliance was a godsend.
“Happy wife, happy life,” said one of them.
Lord, let me get there.
He slid open the bottom drawer of his rolling toolbox and took out the folded-up paper. Jeff Lee had always had extraordinary penmanship and Frank enjoyed reading the book reports that his youngest child did for school. However, this letter was from a grown man with significant issues weighing on him.
Jefferson Lee had served gallantly in the Army, a decorated soldier, a Green Beret. He had talked about wearing the uniform ever since as a teenager he’d seen a picture of his father in his military attire and held some of Frank Lee’s old medals. He had been part of the first wave of seasoned warriors to go to Vietnam after the Gulf of Tonkin. Jeff Lee had fought hard and been wounded twice, and kept right on fighting. But when he’d come back stateside for a little R and R, he had instead gone to Canada and never returned.
His son a deserter. It had hit the veteran Frank Lee like a tank round to the heart.
Folks didn’t mention his younger son anymore. But it was the glances they gave him, the pitying expressions that said, I’m so sorry you raised a coward, Frank.
But his son had not been a coward. He’d been brave, earned medals, been shot up. Far more than the sons of the men who looked at him funny had ever done.
This letter had come shortly after Jeff had left for Canada. In it he explained his reasons for doing what he did. He wrote that he didn’t expect his father to agree or approve, but he needed him to know.
Frank hadn’t cared about those reasons the first time he read the letter. Or the second or the tenth.
He sat down in his recliner, lit a Camel, and took up reading the fine handwriting again. And as he did so a part of him began to glimpse reason behind the words, and even eloquence, justifying the drastic action his youngest boy had undertaken in the face of a war in Southeast Asia with dubious origins and intents emerging on a daily basis.
He finished and lay the letter on his slack belly. He thought about the bayoneted Daniel coming back to the States after fighting for a country that clearly didn’t care about the likes of him, which laid insult on top of injury on top of unjust damnation. He could understand Daniel not wanting him to come around. Tuxedo Boulevard was all he had. Folks like Frank had everything else. Why should they get that, too? Because if a man didn’t have one damn thing to really call his own, then what the hell was the point of being a man at all?
He lay fully back in his recliner and let the oppressive heat wash over him. And even with that, Frank Lee felt oddly cold. As though he had no blood left in his body.
* * *
