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Betsy stood talking to a friend of our parents. She had a polite smile on her face, a toddler on her hip, and a beautiful yellow dress on. Her hair was done up special, and she looked like spring personified.
I took off running, catching the attention of the crowd. Little Billy grabbed for Betsy’s leg and held on, unsure of what was happening. Betsy turned to me and gasped, covering her mouth with her hand before handing one of the girls off to the lady she’d been talking to.
When I got to her, I grabbed Billy up first and then hugged them both, inhaling the hairspray scent of her and trying not to bawl like a baby.
Billy started crying immediately, and I wondered if I should have left him alone, given him more time to come to grips with a daddy he hadn’t seen in over a year and probably didn’t remember much at all.
I pulled back and smiled at him. “Hey, buddy, it’s your daddy. I missed you so much.” I met Betsy’s wet eyes and thought I’d never seen anything more beautiful than her familiar face.
“Hi,” I whispered, leaning in for a quick kiss. Her arms tightened around my neck. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
“Welcome home. I can’t believe you’re here,” she said with a sniff and a smile.
“Dah-dee,” a little voice squeaked from nearby. I looked over to see one of the girls staring at me with her hands up in the air.
“Gina-bonina, good gracious!” I said, letting go of Betsy so I could lean over and scoop her up. “What a big girl you are! Thank goodness your mama sent me some pictures of you three or I wouldn’t have recognized you.”
I saw Brenda poke her head out from behind my mother’s skirt and winked at her. She immediately hid again.
“Hi, Mom.” My voice croaked a little when I saw her, and her face crumpled. She lurched toward me and held on tight.
She smelled like Pall Mall cigarettes and Jean Nate After Bath Splash. It was a combination so embedded in my childhood memories, I let out a deep breath and inhaled again.
I was home. And just like that, life managed to get in the way. Betsy had elected to stay in Hobie instead of moving into base housing with me, so for the next several months, I busted my tail at the base in San Antonio during the week and raced home to help our parents on the farm on the weekends. I rarely slept, I hardly ate, and I sure as hell didn’t have time to socialize or even spend much time with my wife and children.
My friendship with Major Marian had settled into a semiregular letter-writing exchange wherein we swapped information about our relative duties, hijinks around base, the trials and tribulations of a part-time farmer/rancher, and little else of consequence. We were like distant pen pals. Every letter I got from him with its superficial bullshit made me angrier and angrier and lonelier and lonelier until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
One weekend almost a year after returning from Vietnam, I hit a wall.
Instead of driving straight to Hobie, I drove directly to Fort Wolters and broke down like a baby the minute I clapped eyes on him.
Chapter 12
Weston “Major” Marian
When Doc had first returned stateside, to Texas no less, I’d spent an embarrassing number of hours trying to determine how I could concoct an excuse to see him. We were best friends, after all. It would make sense to visit each other now that we were within a few hours’ drive. But then I’d come to the conclusion that my crush on Liam Wilde was dangerous, if only to myself, and seeing him in person might make things much worse for me.
So when the opportunity didn’t present itself and he didn’t push for it, I took it as a sign. I backed off and lectured myself to keep things cordial. Friendly. Arm’s length. We kept in touch with letters back and forth, but every time I started to put real thoughts and feelings down, I remembered his wife and children. I would never do anything to break apart a loving family like that, so I kept my correspondence simple.
But the need to be close to someone, be close to him, burned inside me every single day. So much so that when I opened the door to my apartment and saw him standing there, I truly thought my mental instability had finally created a visual hallucination, if only to give me the slightest emotional reprieve for a brief moment.
I stared at him. His dirty-blond hair had grown out from the shorn cut he’d maintained in the army. It was wavy and thick now which made him look even younger. Maybe that was what part of my subconscious clued me in to the fact it wasn’t my brain playing tricks on me. Doc Wilde was really there. His cerulean eyes were careworn and filling rapidly, and I noticed in the moment before I reached for him that he’d dropped at least ten pounds he could ill afford.
