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“Um, yeah, he emails us all the time. I just got one last night. He received the care package I sent, so he was just reaching out to say thank you.” She laughed. “Oh, and he was telling me about some drama between the new recruits and how one of them...”
I can only imagine that I looked close to tears when she trailed off mid-sentence.
“Hey,” she looked down at her phone, letting me know that I was wasting time she could be spending with other, more interesting people, “I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon enough.” She started to walk but then stopped and turned to look over her shoulder. “Grace?” She gave me a quick once over before landing her parting shot. “You don’t look so good. Maybe you need to get some rest...or hit the gym.”
I wanted to slap her face. And his.
He was sending emails toher? Eli I could understand. Maybe even Eli’s parents. But he didn’t even ask formyemail address. Nope, I was reduced to second-rate snail mail, and apparently Damien was afflicted with a bad case of writer’s cramp.
Walking away, I remember beating myself up over not sending him care packages. The thought never crossed my mind. I pictured him opening a box filled with his favorite snacks, lip balm, dry socks, and other things any moron would instinctively know that a soldier needed while stranded out in the middle of the desert. She probably tucked a note inside, too. Maybe even a picture with her smiling and looking her best.
I resigned myself to the fact that Damien wasn’t the man I thought he was. He was in love when he wanted to fuck, but not so in love with the consequences of fucking.
Heartbroken and angry, I wasn’t the least bit hungry, but forced myself to nourish the life growing inside of me. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I got up every morning and dragged myself to class. I didn’t have a game plan. I was just going through the motions.
Another month passed before I heard that Eli had taken his own life. Frannie, a fellow nursing major, told me Gianna hadn’t been to class in weeks, and then heard the grim news from a professor who was starting a collection for the scholarship fund the family had set up in his name. Frannie was the one who sat me down and told me that Damien was killed in the line of duty, and that Eli had taken his own life soon after.
I never reached out to Gianna. I was walking through life like a zombie at that point, overwhelmed by a combination of guilt, grief and fear. I just kept going, putting one foot after the other.
So after I checked into a hotel in Durham last month and dialed her number, I was more than just a little bit nervous. I had no idea how this was going to go.
She was quiet for a moment and then whispered my name when I told her who was calling. “Grace?”
“Yes, Grace Dawson. How are you, Gianna?”
“Why are you calling?”
Still the same old sweetheart I remember.
“I’m calling because I’m in town, and I wanted to know if you had any information about where Damien is buried. He didn’t have any family, and I haven’t been able to get information from the government because I’m not listed as kin. I know how close he was to your family so I was hoping you could help me out.”
“You want to visit his grave?”
“I do. And Gianna, I should have reached out to you a long time ago. I was so sorry to hear about Eli.”
She cleared her throat and then sighed. “Damien is buried next to him in our family plot.”
Trembling, I couldn’t keep the emotion from my voice. “That’s good. He would have wanted that. He loved Eli like a brother.”
She rattled off the name of the cemetery and some basic directions to lead me to the spot. Her goodbye was quick and curt. I ended the call shaking my head. After all these years the girl still intimidated me.
The next day I was up bright and early.
And so was Gianna.
I was crouched down, running my fingers over the words engraved on his headstone:Beloved Son, Devoted Friend.
“Father,” I whispered as I ran my fingers over the empty space where that word should be.
“I knew you were pregnant.” I’m not the least bit startled or surprised by the interruption. “I saw you one day when I was out running errands with my mother that summer. You were huge.”
Standing up, I looked over my shoulder to see her chewing gum and staring off into the distance. Never in a million years would I expect Gianna to go all warm and fuzzy on me. No, even an olive branch would be delivered with a side of snark.
She moved to stand beside me, leaving a few feet of space.
“I thought Damien would be buried in Arlington.”
“He could have been. Eli too, but my parents wanted them both close by. Damien had my parents listed as his next of kin.”
