I've been away from here for awhile, so much going on in RL that I haven't had the inclination to do much of anything! But this struck me one day, inspired by a song called "It's My Life," sung by Micky Dolenz of the Monkees. Please let me know what you think. I own nothing, by the way. NOTHING!
xx==xx==xx
Breakfast was the only peace in an otherwise long and crowded day. Immediately following his mother's special "monster breakfast," as the family had always called it, Robert Hogan had been whisked out of the house he grew up in to a "meet and greet" across what seemed like all of Bridgeport. The new pastor; the dentist, whose son had been in the Pacific theatre; the local pharmacist; a little group of ladies who had gathered together twice a week to pray for the men who were off at war. The list was endless. But Rob had smiled and nodded and shaken hands, politely declining the offers of tea and cookies, not just because he hated tea, but because aside from a never-to-be-ended love of chocolate, he had gone off sweets in the last three years. Just as well; some things had been tough to come by in the war, even for men who could snap their fingers and get almost anything they wanted from England's best. Bombing raid? No problem. Chocolate chip cookies? That might take a little longer.
Lunch had been just as mentally trying. He sat down with a veterans group and discussed the differences between the Great War and this war, and was asked to go into specific detail about what life was like as a POW. He had to make things up, or leave things out, and in either case it didn't leave Rob sounding like much of a man. Escape? Never. Oh, I tried... but the Germans kept finding me and bringing me back. My men, too. It wouldn't have bothered him so much if he could have at least hinted that his men had done more from Stalag 13 to end the war than they could ever have imagined; this way, he felt like he was denying their work, something that didn't sit comfortably with him, and he ate very little, as his stomach was in knots.
When he got back to the house, there was a message waiting for him: call Washington. Rob's mother wrinkled her brow in confusion and a bit of irritation. "She wouldn't even tell me who she was. How do you know who in Washington to call?" she asked.
But Rob knew, and he excused himself and disappeared into the upstairs bedroom where a second phone was. A luxury, he knew; but when he saw the trouble his dad seemed to have going up and down the stairs, and when he realized how important communication with the outside world was to them—something, they had told him, brought on by not wanting to take the remotest chance on missing a call that might bring information about their POW son—he insisted on paying for a second line to be installed upstairs, to make it easier for them to get any other calls from now on. It was the least he could do, he thought, with more than a twinge of guilt that he could never tell them what he was really up to in all his innocuous letters home.
He dialed, knowing the number. "It's Hogan," he said to the person who answered. Then he waited when he was put on hold and transferred. His trained ears listened for a sign that his mother had picked up the receiver downstairs. She hadn't. "Sir," he greeted, when his call was again picked up. Then he listened, and nodded, and accepted his orders, and hung up.
Back downstairs, he just smiled without teeth when his mother raised her eyebrows at him. A silent question—but he knew that if she didn't actually ask, she wouldn't expect him to answer, and so he just kissed her on the cheek as he headed out the back door. His mind wandered, and for a full two minutes he stood only a few feet from the house, looking.
"Not much exciting out here," came a voice.
Startled, Rob pulled himself out of his trance and turned to see his father, looking out across the yard next to him. "What?"
"Nothing exciting out here," James Hogan repeated. "Just an apple tree and a swing."
Rob let his eyes sweep the yard again before he answered. "It's perfect," he said finally. "It's got a lot more going for it than you could imagine."
"You think so?" his father asked.
"Yep."
"I can't see how." Rob's father stepped off the back porch and took a couple of slow steps into the yard. His son unconsciously followed, stopping when he did.
"Well, there's grass under my feet, for one," Rob said.
His father looked down. "That there is," he agreed.
"And the tree... well, that's smelling sweet as perfume right about now," Rob continued.
His father looked at the blooming tree in the far corner of the yard. "I suppose it is," he said with a nod.
"And the buttercups are just waiting to turn the neighborhood kids' chins yellow."
"Those kids come every summer. We couldn't bear to get rid of the swing when you kids finally grew up. And your lemonade was always legendary." An awkward pause. "Your mom's just couldn't hold a candle to it for them when you were... away."
Away. There was a silence as Rob absorbed the word, and what it really meant. Eventually, he added quietly, "There's no barbed wire on the fences here."
"No."
Another moment of stillness. Then, almost in a whisper, Rob's father said, "So, Washington called today."
Rob nodded. "Yep."
"They trying to get you back to work already?" his father asked with a small laugh.
Forced, Rob noticed. "Not quite. I have my four weeks. Still have two to go." Just a couple of day trips I have to take...
The question hung unanswered in the air. "I'm still an officer, Dad, and I'm still in the service," Rob said finally, an awkward, and unsatisfactory, explanation. "The boss still needs to know I'm around."
"You'd think they'd leave you alone for awhile," the elder Hogan said, with a tinge of annoyance in his voice, "considering you've just come out of a prison camp." Rob said nothing. "Don't they think you deserve some kind of a break?"
"Sure they do," Rob replied, probably a little too quickly.
"Then why don't they leave you alone, so your mother and I can get used to the idea that you're safe and sound before they try and rip you away from us again? Don't they know what that does to parents? Don't they care?"
Rob was taken aback by the bitterness in his father's words, and at that moment he wished so very much that he could tell him everything that had happened in Germany, and all the work he and his men had done to help the war end more quickly. He felt a sudden pang of real guilt that he hadn't refused General Butler's strong suggestion that he start an espionage operation out of Stalag 13 and had instead taken his chances, like so many others, on trying to escape. How much less would his parents have suffered if he hadn't stayed in a prison camp for three years, running around the woods in the dark and playing I Spy? How much less secretive would he have to be around them now? How different would things have been for them, if he hadn't had to lie in all his letters home?
His father must have sensed his disquiet. "I'm sorry, Rob. It's not your fault. I mean, you didn't ask to be taken prisoner... and it's the way of the military to ignore any and all family reunions." James smiled. "But it sure is good having you home, son. Your mother and I prayed for you to be safe every day you were up in those skies. And when you were in that prison camp, well... I mean, you hear things, you know. You hear about things that just don't go the way they're supposed to. About how men who are supposed to come home... don't."
Rob's mind immediately flew to his last days at Stalag 13, and to so many days before that when plans went awry and men were hurt or worse, when there was so much fear in him that it took every ounce of strength just to move, never mind to convince his men that he was in control and confident of victory in the face of what he could only pray were not insurmountable odds. How had he pulled that off? And how many times hadn't he?
"It's good to be home, Dad," Rob said. And he meant it. "It's just so good to be with you and Mom."
"I notice you don't include your brother in that." His father chuckled, finally relaxing.
Rob appreciated the effort. "Yeah, well... One miracle at a time. The war didn't make me forget everything."
"No, I suppose not. Still, he's just as glad you're home as we are."
Rob nodded. "I know, Dad. And I'm glad to see him, too. Sort of."
The two of them laughed, and talked awhile longer about nothing before going back inside the house.
xx==xx==xx
Rob rinsed his toothbrush and dropped it carelessly back in the cup on the sink, after just two weeks home already used to the "clinking" sound that it made on contact, so different from the muted "tink" that he had heard almost every day for more than the last three years. He glanced quickly in the mirror, still not used to how much light there was in this bathroom, still not comfortable in these soft new pajamas that he had been handed when he finally got to a bed housing a mattress that wasn't full—or half full, to be more precise—of wood chips instead of springs. That first night in England two months ago, he had been so exhausted that he hadn't noticed any differences at all. But now, after two weeks in the home he grew up in, the only thing he was used to was the sound of his toothbrush clinking around in his cup. And the fact that he noticed that at all told him that he wasn't used to it, not really.
He sighed a sigh of innocence lost, and went to bed.
xx==xx==xx
Clean-shaven and in full dress uniform, Rob came downstairs. As he'd expected when he had begun his descent, his mother was in the kitchen waiting as he stepped off the last stair. He looked at her, carefully.
She nodded. "Mm-mm-mm," she admired with a smile she couldn't begin to hide. "I never could resist a man in uniform." The smile abruptly disappeared. "Why are you in it?" she asked pointedly.
"I didn't think I should meet the General in my pajamas," Rob quipped. "I told you I had a meeting today," he said, hoping that would be enough.
His mother crossed her arms, vexed. "So much for leave," she declared.
Rob shrugged. "That's the way of the Army," he said.
A sigh that was part-annoyance, part acceptance. "It sure is." She relaxed her arms. "Look at all those medals." She came closer and fingered one or two of the ribbon bars on her son's chest. "How does a kid from Connecticut get all these?"
"I had most of them before I got shot down," Rob reminded her.
"I know. Testimonies to your bravery—or your stupidity, I haven't decided which yet," she told him. "And I'd love to know how you ended up getting more of them after you got shot down."
"And I'd love to tell you," Rob answered, slipping past her and out the front door to the porch. "But I've got to go."
"No breakfast—not even coffee?" his mother asked, following him out.
But Rob only leaned back toward her and planted a kiss on her cheek. "No time," he said, as a vehicle pulled up in front of the house. "My ride is here. I'm not sure what time I'll be back. Please don't worry if I'm not here for dinner, okay?"
Another sigh, this time of full resignation. "I won't." She watched as the car carrying her long-gone son disappeared around the corner. "That you know about."
xx==xx==xx
It was dark when the car pulled up in front of the Hogan house. Rob looked through the window to see if there were any lights on inside, and nodded to himself when he saw one coming from the living room. It was late; someone was waiting up for him.
Rob thanked his driver and headed to the front door, pausing for just a second to remind himself of whom he worked for, and then headed inside.
"So, you made it back," his dad said in greeting.
"Yes, sir," Rob answered.
"Everything go all right?"
"Just fine, sir."
"Stop calling me 'sir'; I'm not an old man yet."
Rob smiled. "Sorry. I've been saying it all day; it's a hard habit to break."
Rob's father nodded. "Sounds like you've been talking to some pretty important people then. I wouldn't think a General would have to call too many people 'sir.'"
"There's always someone higher up than you, Dad," Rob replied. "You told me that yourself. Part of your humility training, remember?"
The senior Hogan laughed. "So, it sunk in?"
"Mostly."
"Want a cup of coffee?"
Rob paused as he suddenly remembered countless cups that one of his core team, the Frenchman Le Beau, would bring to him in his office when he was up late working on some scheme to trick the Nazis. His mind must have wandered for more than a split second because he caught his father looking at him curiously. "Uh—no. No. Keeps me up."
"That was the idea."
"Oh."
"Forget the coffee. Sit down."
Rob suppressed the urge to say, "Yes, sir," and simply sat.
"So, tell me about your day."
"Dad..."
"I know, I'm just kidding. I'm not an idiot, you know." The son tensed and the father smiled to relax him. James regarded Rob for a moment, then sat back in his own chair. "Your mother and I are curious, son."
Rob said nothing.
"We don't understand how a boy from Connecticut ends up getting General's stars pinned on him—by Dwight D. Eisenhower, himself!"
Rob pursed his lips and shrugged. "He was in the neighborhood."
James snorted softly. "And where all those ribbons came from, after you were captured." Rob maintained his silence. "And why Washington is still calling for you, even though the war is over, to see people that you, a General, have to call Sir all day." Rob straightened uncomfortably. The move wasn't lost on his father, who then added in a low voice, "And how your hurt your hand."
Rob immediately stopped massaging the outer two fingers of his right hand, an unconscious habit he had picked up after the Gestapo had played hardball with him at Stalag 13 and broken them at the base. The Hochstetter Special, he would refer to it as a rueful joke, although nightmares about the encounter still haunted him upon occasion, and there was still some pain, especially in cold or damp weather. Every time he felt a jolt from it, he remembered his team's inauspicious departure from Stalag 13, and then the jolt moved to his heart, and his eyes.
As it did now. "Rob?" his father prompted quietly.
Rob shook himself into the present. "Sorry." He cleared his throat and sat even straighter. "Dad, you know I'd tell you and Mom everything I could—"
But his father was shaking his head. "No, my boy. No. You'd tell us everything you thought we could take hearing." James leaned forward in his chair earnestly. "Rob, we know a lot of things happened that you can't tell us. We have no idea why, and no idea what." Rob opened his mouth to protest, but his father touched his arm to keep him silent. "We just want you to know, son, that if there's anything you want to tell us, no matter how hard you think it is... we'll hear it. We'll listen to it. And we'll laugh with you and we'll cry with you and we'll be mad at the world with you. But mostly, we'll be here for you. Always. Do you understand that?"
His father's words left Rob speechless and tearful, suddenly glad the light wasn't any brighter. "I understand," he managed. Then he whispered, "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Now get to bed. Your mother's expecting you to mow the lawn in the morning, and you know she likes that to start early."
"Right." Rob rose, grateful for his father's words, and his wisdom. "And getting in trouble with her is worse than the trouble any brass could cause me."
"You're right about that, son," James answered. "Rob, can you tell me one thing?"
Rob tensed. "What's that, Dad?"
"What was it like, meeting Ike?"
Rob smiled. "He's a great man, Dad. It was an honor."
"I thought so," his father nodded. "It would be an honor for him, to meet my son."
Rob's smile widened. "Good night, Dad."
"Good night, Rob. See you in the morning."