29. The Things Men Do
Stevie was smiling when I woke up. "Good morning. How do you feel?"
"Tired." I let him pull me close for a morning kiss. "What time is it?"
"Nine-fifteen."
"Nine…Stevie, you're…"
"I called in and took a sick day. We'll just have to stay in a regular suite at Picture Perfect Place."
"Damn, I really wanted that wet bar. Where's Marsha?"
"I called Daycare, too. The kids took her in, and they'll pick her up if I don't call them first. Today is for you. Now, get cleaned up. I'll fix us breakfast."
Barely recognized the face in the bathroom mirror. It was drawn, with puffy red eyes. Last night was the first real sleep I had had in days. I could have fallen asleep again under the warm water.
A smell hit me when I reached the bottom of the stairs. My stomach rumbled.
"Stevie, are those…"
He looked over from the griddle. "Chocolate turnovers? Yes, your mother gave me her recipe."
God, she does accept you. "I haven't had these since we brought Marsha home, when Mom stayed over for two weeks." The turnovers brought back some happy memories. After the kids come, you learn to treasure the times when it really is just the two of you. We sat and ate and laughed.
After we finished we put the dishes in the sink. We went into the den. Steive sat down at the end of the couch. I decided to lay down with my head in his lap. Wouldn't Dr. Judd be jealous? I took a deep breath.
"James' and Ann's Kim was seeing this real piece of work named Bobby Johnson."
You know the story, so I'm not repeating. It all came back to me, hard. I could feel the gun buck in my hand, smell the powder, see the blood. Sometimes I couldn't go on. I cried and cursed and held onto Stevie's arm like I was drowning. He never let me go. An eternity or two later, he was wiping my eyes.
"One thing I don't understand," Stevie frowned, "the Department has a psychiatrist. They're going to send Reneca to him for Dante's. Why didn't they send you?"
"CYA. To protect the public, confidentiality doesn't apply to sessions regarding the use of deadly force. If he was put on the stand, he'd have to talk. Remember, we weren't there in any official capacity. You can bet whoever sent us there would leave us out to dry."
"So they send you out, rake you over a Review Board, and just leave you to twist in the wind? One thing I'll say for the Corps; no matter how they sent you into a fight, you came home on a ship. You were with your buddies, and a trained counselor, who had to be a combat veteran himself. And you had to talk, even if you just said a few words."
His eyes were somewhere else. I sat up and put a hand on his shoulder. "Stevie?"
"It's nothing. This is supposed to be about you."
"No, it's about us. Stevie, you've been here for me the whole time, I just couldn't admit I needed the help. Don't make my mistake. Don't lock me out."
He looked down. "I've never told anyone outside the Corps. Sometimes it's better to not know what people are capable of."
"I know what they're capable of." I looked into his eyes. "I've never asked you before, but I'm asking now. What happened?"
He took a deep breath. "We never expected the attack. One day, the fighting's three days outside of Monrovia, the next, they're in the city. Intel later claimed the French must have brought them in by sub. By the time we got ourselves together, they were half way to the harbor.
"I was with the embassy garrison, we had three companies. My platoon was sent with a Liberian battalion to launch a counterattack. We hit them as they tried to cross a market square. That sent them reeling, so we pressed them back several blocks. They had been busy. We came across the house of a minor official. The family was piled in the front room. That's when we heard a baby.
"The point man was a kid from Minnesota; Dan Larson. Nice kid, Ron reminds me a lot of him. After they checked the street, he and a couple of Liberians went in. He picked up the kid…that's when we heard the explosion."
His eyes were screwed shut and his breathing was ragged. "Bastards had rigged the baby with grenades. It killed everybody in there. We charged down the street and cleared three more blocks. Then we came to a clinic.
"The staff was dead outside. You could see through the windows. It was a women's clinic. Everyone inside was dead…except in the nursery. There were six bassinettes. We could see…see the wires under them."
I took my other hand and put it on his. He shook a little, and took my hand. "They were waiting for us. Whenever the gun fire died down, you could hear the babies. They were hungry, they needed changing, they wanted attention. They would cry until their voices broke, and when they could, they'd start again. It went on the rest of the day and into the night.
"That night, the company commanders did the strangest thing; they shot dice! Next morning, the winner led a picked squad across the street. Five made it. The second place commander led another squad over to the hospital. You could see them in the nursery. They mixed up formula and fed the babies. They changed them, touched them. And on a signal, they…they…picked them up."
God, Stevie, no wonder you can't stand to hear a kid, any kid, cry. It was my turn to hold him. Just when you think you've heard and seen everything people can do to kids. After a while he recovered, he gave me an odd look, like he was scared, then he went on.
"We didn't take prisoners after that. At first, we shot them out of hand. When ammunition became an issue, we used bayonets. Then we got creative. Before long, the enemy wanted nothing to do with us. So the command pulled us back and used us as a fire brigade. In a month, we had our backs to the harbor. Just two blocks from being driven into the sea.
"The French navy had a blockade going, unofficial, of course. Liberia wasn't considered worth a war. The regiment in the countryside could fight its way clear. We only stood to lose three Marine companies in Monrovia. Navy did air drops in the harbor. It was the Empire that acted. We knew something was up by the way the attacks were getting desperate. If they could drive us into the sea before the Empire could get to Monrovia, then the British would go back, rather than cause an international incident.
"They hit us with tanks, tanks! Sure, they were Renaults from the fifties, but we didn't have any anti-tank gear. Never needed any. We ended up filling bottles with gasoline and rags. We burned a couple out that way. I was throwing one when I got hit. Lost four feet of upper intestine. Doc says I would have died of peritonitis if we hadn't been on such short rations. They kept me under for a week."
Sure, I had training, for talking to kids. I had no idea what to say, so I just put my head on his shoulder. He sighed.
"Now you know. Guess I'll have to treat you right, now that you've got me dead to rights."
I looked up at him. "I'll keep to the Code."
We'd been talking for a while. It was back to the kitchen for a light lunch. After that, I took his hand, and led him upstairs.
It was everything I could have hoped it would be. Gentle, soothing, cleansing. No great high notes, just caring. I didn't even hesitate.
"Stevie, there's one more thing I'd like to talk about."
"Shoot."
"Well, it's like this. I had no business wearing white at our wedding."
"Sasha," he shook his head, "we'd had a few sessions before. It was obvious that there were no rookies in that bed."
"It's more than that, a lot more. You know, how in the movies, the cad says 'they meant nothing to me'? Stevie, they didn't. They meant nothing. It wasn't like I had a line waiting outside the room, but there was no connection. Well, maybe with the last one before you, but he got weird on me.
"Then you came along. I'd never felt that way about a boy. It was great; I couldn't get enough of it. But when you popped the question, I just couldn't get over the fear that it was all just a thing for me, that I'd revert to type. The thought of breaking your heart…"
He put his hand on my cheek. "The worry should've told you enough. I always wondered what was going on." He kissed me. "There's no need to worry now, is there? Why don't you get a little more sleep?"
I didn't have to be told twice. It seemed like no time before he was shaking my shoulder again.
"Wake up; they'll be here in half an hour."
"Who?"
"The kids, they're bringing Marsha. We're going out. They asked her what she wanted for dinner, and she said pizza, so we're going to Cheeze Pleeze."
We piled into the back seat when they drove up. Marsha gave me a big smile when I got in. Couldn't ask for better medicine.
Ron took in a big breath when we walked into the place. "Oh, man, burnt pizza!"
After a while, Stevie and Ron took Marsha to the games. While they played, Kim and I watched.
"How are things?" her face was a little anxious.
"Better, a lot better. Think I'll be all right eventually. And you?"
"Good." She nodded. "We went to a park. Walked, talked. I told him a lot more, he just said he knew me, and that was enough for him." She rested her head on her hands as she watched him. "I'm so lucky."
"Know the feeling, kid."
