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“Calm down, babe,” Mia called. “When did you ever really have control?”
“Do you see the emotional abuse I get in this house?” Mark huffed at Keith, who grinned up at me.
“Why we spend money on TV is beyond me.” Savi shrugged.
Once I was downstairs, I found Sue in the kitchen. I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled my beautiful wife in close.
“I was just thinking of you.” She wiggled in closer. “Guess who I ran into this morning?” I shrugged. “Tracy Livingston.”
“Wow, I haven’t heard her name in years.” I kissed her neck.
“She’s doing great.” She pushed back against me. “She’s up here for a ski trip with her husband and their three kids. I know she’s been living in Texas for the past twenty years. We’re going to meet for coffee tomorrow. She was asking about Zack and how you two were doing. We had so many wonderful times together. You two really should come.”
“I’d love to. I’ll see if Zack’s free,” I replied with my face buried in her hair. She sighed happily as I pulled away a little, and we both watched the kids play through the window. “Tracy Livingston,” I repeated with a chuckle. “She was really rooting for us, wasn’t she?”
“She was.”
“Who is this Tracy woman?” June came in and buried herself in our hug. We both chuckled and wrapped an arm around her. June was our nanny’s younger sister.
“Tracy was my best friend and played matchmaker for me and Daniel.”
“I’ve never heard that story.” June pulled away. “In fact, I’ve never heard how Shadows came about either. Care to spend a little time sharing? I’ve brought fresh scones from Zack’s.”
I had a mountain of work to do, but a chance to tell that story was a lot more appealing.
“I can’t say no to that.” We made a fresh pot of coffee and warmed the scones then settled ourselves in some comfy chairs next to the fire. Scoot, our cranky old cat, was on full display as usual. He insisted on lying on his back to prove his masculinity to anyone who was unfortunate enough to see it.
“Start from the beginning, Daniel.” June pulled a blanket over her lap and wrapped both hands around her warm mug. “I want to know everything.”
“There’s probably a lot you already know.”
“Don’t skip a thing.” She wiggled to get comfy in the big chair across from me. “I could use a good story today.”
“Okay, I’ll just skip forward a bit after Abby arrived because you know a lot of that.”
“Just don’t leave any good parts out.” She glanced at Sue when she returned.
“Well, if that’s the case, Daniel will need this.” Sue handed me my father’s notebook from Cole’s study where I had kept it all these years. I hadn’t known of its existence until I was older. Before he died, he’d given it to me. He said he wanted to show me what it felt like when your son was lost to you because of war. He wanted me to know what it was like from his perspective as a father, because one day it might just happen to my own son. Or the son of someone close to me. He thought a little insight from a father who’d already gone through it would be helpful. “It’s my father’s journal,” I informed June. “It's from the time I served in Nam and after.”
“Oh, wow,” June cooed. “It’s amazing your dad did that.”
“All right.” I smiled at Sue and started to tell my story from the beginning.
Location: Vietnam
Coordinates: Classified
Daniel
We approached the camp on our bellies, using only hand signals. I motioned to the men to freeze as I thought I heard a sound. Every breath, every beat of my heart was calculated because the moment you let your guard down you were dead. We just hoped we could rescue even one more and do some damage before that day came.
I hated this damn place. Mud covered our skin to keep the swarms of mosquitoes from eating us alive. We often had to stop to clean out our boots in fear that we’d get the dreaded flesh-eating disease that had taken the lives of more than a quarter of our men. Food was nonexistent at this point. We were living off the land, which was a joke because this land gave us nothing without a fight, and from what I’d experienced in this country so far, I was more than ready to go home.
We crawled forward to position ourselves to get a better look at what could only be described as a big birdcage. About seven or eight of our men were inside that thing as it swung ten feet above the jungle floor. Frank crawled up beside Jimmy off to my right, and I saw a shadow on his six. Before I could warn them, I saw a flurry of movement, then Zack’s head showed itself. His grin flashed as he motioned with his bloody knife that he’d just looked after the problem.
I caught the attention of one of the men in the cage, and he alerted the others to our presence just as Jimmy signaled urgently, holding up two fingers, and we all strained to listen. I saw Ray freeze at some movement, and I carefully bellycrawled a few feet forward then separated the grass with the barrel of my rifle. I found myself face to face with a young boy who had dropped his armload of wood. I slowly lifted myself up as his eyes stared into mine. He whispered something I couldn’t understand, but his watery eyes and the urine trickling out of his shorts told me he was scared. The knowledge flashed through me of other times a soldier had smiled at a child to show a moment of compassion only to have them drop a bomb at their feet.
It was a faceless war that spared no life.
