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The middle seat allowed him to go either direction to protect her. That’s all it had ever been about for him. Protecting her. His feisty friend who saw herself as the person least in the need of protection. Truth was, he knew she didn’t need his protection. He just had always needed to make sure that if she ever did, he’d be there.
Until he’d chosen to turn his back on her needs to protect his comrades.
He’d made that choice the day he joined up. He knew that now. Maybe she’d known, too. Adamson had suggested as much. Said he gave Emily too little credit.
Funny, he’d always thought he gave her more credit than he’d ever given himself.
He’d called ahead to make the Sunday appointment with the Garrisons, who came outside to greet him and Emily when he pulled the rental car into their driveway, a week and two days after he’d asked Emily to accompany him to Milwaukee. Mrs. Garrison—Clara, she told them to call her—had made a peach pastry from scratch and offered them coffee to go with it. Then looked at Emily’s slightly protruding belly, looked at her husband and smiled, offering to brew some tea.
He was surprised by her insight. His soon-to-be ex-wife looked pregnant to him, because he knew her body almost as well as he knew his own, and because he knew she was pregnant. But to someone who didn’t know her, she could just be a little paunchy—in the one area. She’d worn a dress, black, plain, three-quarter-length sleeves, a few inches above the knees, and stretchy. It was her funeral dress. He’d worn dress blues.
Harold Garrison led them out to a screened porch looking over a modest though nicely maintained backyard. All of the plants were little more than sticks in the fall weather, but he imagined they were quite colorful during the spring and summer. They surrounded a fountain that made a tinkling sound as water fell from one layer down to the next, ending in an oblong-shaped pool in the ground.
“Harold and Danny built that together,” Clara said. “It used to have fish in it. Danny wanted a fish tank. A simple fish tank. He got a pond.” Shaking her head, Clara was also smiling as she told her story.
Area heaters warmed the chilly sixty-degree outside air.
“I was hoping it would be warm enough for us to sit out here,” Clara said.
“I told her it would be,” Harold chimed in. “She worries, you know, but I’d looked at the Doppler.”
“He did tell me, and I do worry.” The room was outfitted with dark wicker furniture—couch, rockers, chairs and tables. The couple showed them to a glass-topped outdoor table with four chairs on the other end of the room. Clara put down the pastry. Harold followed her up with plates, forks, napkins and a serving utensil. They both went back for the cups of coffee and tea.
Tense, almost wishing the couple were a bit less hospitable considering what he had to tell them, Winston pulled out a wicker-back chair for Emily and then took his own seat next to her. Her knee touched his under the table. It could have been by accident.
But he believed it was on purpose.
“Maybe I should just leave them to their peace,” he said softly, head down.
“I know you said you came to apologize,” she replied, equally soft. “But you know you’re really here to bring them closure. To let them know about Danny’s last hours so they aren’t always wondering. The doubts, the not knowing, can cripple you.”
He looked at her. Reminded of a time when they’d been in high school, looking at colleges, and he’d been wrestling with the idea of becoming a businessman—real estate, like his father. He’d have made a lot of money following in his father’s footsteps. Could have taken over his small but successful and reputable Marie Cove brokerage from him. Emily had listened to all of his reasons for going the business route—something everyone had always expected he would do—and then calmly asked why he’d do such a thing when all he’d ever wanted was to sail for his country?
At that point, he’d never mentioned to her that he’d seriously wondered about joining the navy. He hadn’t told anyone. Taking over for his father had just been assumed. He was an only child. There was no one els
e.
“What?” she asked, bringing to his attention that he was staring at her. Before he could answer, the Garrisons were back, taking a seat.
Why was it that so often, when people met to talk, food was included? Didn’t folks get that some conversations made eating difficult?
Emily’s knee touched his under the table again. He ate. Listened as Clara regaled them with stories from Danny’s youth. Always coming back to the fact that he’d been looking out for the underdog his entire life. From pet rescue—he had to take the one that wasn’t cute—to kids in school who got bullied. The more she talked, with Harold sometimes completing her sentence or story, the worse Winston felt for them.
Danny was all they’d had.
When silence fell, more than an hour later, half the pastry still sitting uneaten on the platter in the middle of the table, coffee cups empty, Winston sat up straight, his back firmly against his chair.
“I came to tell you that I was with your son...” He paused, blinked. Swallowed. Pressed his leg against Emily’s. “I was with him before the ambush. We ate together.” He could remember their last conversation—Danny had asked Winston about being away from Emily for so long at a time, a conversation he might share with others someday. “I saw him get hit.”
He looked them both in the eye. They deserved that. Their tears ripped at his insides.
“I can attest to you, with utter honesty, that Danny died protecting the troops with whom he served. He died without fear. He died with honor.”
There was protocol. Things that were said to immediate family by the military, when they were informed about a loved one’s death. This wasn’t that.
The Garrisons had had that visit.
He didn’t look at Emily. But he felt her there. Not just her knee. He knew she was looking at him, not Danny’s parents.
