I like how the last chapter didn't even say Una's name and both reviews mentioned her. Am I that predictable, you guys? ;)
Thank you for the kind reviews!
Title (and all my knowledge of German) comes from the song/album "Bring mich nach Hause" by Wir sind Helden. Apologies if I've borked the German!
take me home
Bring mich nach Hause. It's funny, Walter thinks, that he only learns about the Germans once he's sent to destroy them. Take me home. The last plea of several soldiers, murmured words of dying bodies he'd stepped over in no-man's land.
He takes a shuddered breath, turning to look out the train window. He is not there any longer, if he can believe that. It is still too - surreal. The journey across the ocean, the first step onto Canadian land - it was only a few days ago, but already it seems like a dream, separated from the present. Outside he sees the green sweetgrass and the familiar red roads, and he wonders how he can be here when he cannot seem to leave there in his own mind, no matter how hard he tries.
The train arrives at one o'clock, exactly on schedule - how could he have ever complained about the Glen trains being late? Things are always on time here, not like at the front, where trains are stopped and horses cannot pass through the mud (and the fire and the shells and the corpses).
He shakes his head, a habit he's developed since leaving the front. You're not there anymore. As if he can toss the memories off like water, like Dog Monday after a bath.
When he gets off the train, they've all gathered to welcome him home - his family, Susan, and the Merediths. He's glad the rest of the Glen hasn't come along, either in celebration or curiosity. He knows he's the first of their sons to come back home, but the idea of being around all those people makes him ill.
"Walter!"
Rilla reaches him first, throwing her arms around him, her body colliding into his with an alarmingly solid thump. For a moment, Walter thinks his gangly baby sister will break him, the soldier, in half. She smells of soap and grass and all the things of home, and Walter feels just a little safer. Rilla is laughing and crying, just a bit, and Walter has to smile - just a bit, too. He doesn't want her to cry over him (but if she knew what he's seen, she probably would never stop).
Then Mother and Father. Walter has never resisted their hugs the way Jem has, but he finds himself standing stiff and awkward when they embrace him. He wants to fall into their arms like a child; he wants to stand straight and tall as he was trained. He can't bring himself to quite do either.
Susan - good, solid Susan - takes her turn holding him, then steps back and sniffs in disapproval. "I trust in the British army as much as anyone else," she says, "but I did think they'd be feeding you blessed boys better."
Walter finds his mouth quirking up into a smile. Some things, at least, have not changed, and that is a relief. Perhaps he can learn to breathe easily again here, after all.
Reverend and Mrs. Meredith are next, clasping his free hand and murmuring words that Walter doesn't quite hear. Mr. Meredith's eyes are placid and gentle, and when he takes his hand, he gives Walter a searching look, as though Walter has some kind of answer that he needs to know.
Then Una. She steps forward and Walter recalls with sudden clarity the kiss he gave her before he left. He still isn't sure why he had done it - he had been so sure that he wouldn't see home again, and perhaps that is all. But a kiss goodbye is one thing. One upon reunion is quite another.
Thankfully, she doesn't seem to expect it, and only reaches out to touch his hand. Her fingers are surprisingly cold.
"I'm glad you're back," she says, simply.
He can only nod, wonders what to say to her - he'd thought about her surprisingly often while he was overseas, but somehow it doesn't seem to be significant, not with her here in front of him. Not that it matters - anything either of them intend to say is cut off by little Bruce, who tugs at his trouser leg and asks if he saw Jem over in France, and did he tell him that Bruce has been extra good so that Jem will come home; he says an extra prayer every night and he let Timothy Crawford have two of his favorite stamps from his collection - "And that was an act of charity, wasn't it?"
They all laugh then, and the Merediths whisk Bruce away before Walter can disappoint him.
"We'll visit soon," Rosemary says. "It's good to have one of our boys back."
She means it kindly, Walter is sure, but he feels an odd sort of panic. They'll want to hear about the war, eventually. They'll want him to tell them what it was like to fight for his country; they'll want him to tell them that it hasn't been in vain, that their sons will come back and everything will be as it was before.
Walter has never been a very good liar.
Rilla holds his arm and chatters all the way home, telling him about Jims and the Junior Reds. He hadn't really realized how much he missed her, how much of her personality could never be captured in letters.
"Olive Kirk is unbearable," she sighs, balancing Jims expertly on her hip as she helps Walter out of the buggy. Walter is almost alarmed at how natural she looks with the child - Rilla, who abhorred children, who could barely take care of herself, let alone another human being. How things change.
Not that she's lost her flair for the dramatic, of course - she claims to be in the depths of despair over Irene Howard. "She is odious, honestly, and now everything is mess because we're all on different sides and no one will let the other side get anything done" - but her infamous italics are noticeably absent, and Walter has the strangest feeling that he is talking to an equal, someone who has grown and suffered. Not a little sister, not a baby.
"You've changed," he tells her, cutting off whatever rant she's about to go on. He'd realized it in her letters, of course - she'd become more serious, more considerate in her writing. But it's in her very presence now that he realizes just how much.
She blinks. "Have I?"
He smiles a little, wishing he had a free hand to wrap around her shoulders like the old times. "Yes. I don't think even Jem could call you a baby anymore."
Her lips quirk, but something sad flickers in her eyes when he says Jem's name, and he wants to kick himself. Of course. It had been easy to pretend, in the trenches - hear the whispers of troop movement and the relief of knowing that, even for a brief time, someone you loved was away from the front lines. Easy to pretend that it would always be so.
"I don't mind 'baby' so much as 'Spider'," she sniffs, her tone light. Trying to make the conversation easier.
Walter is about to respond, but then he crosses the threshold and it hits him that he is home. Ingleside's parlor looks the same as it always has, the afternoon sunlight catching the glass on the mantle, and he can hear Susan preparing lunch in the kitchen - it is as it always was in his dreams, but this is not a dream. He is here, for good this time.
He's not sure he can breathe.
Rilla notices the change, notices his lack of response, and curls her arm protectively around his. His baby sister, consoling him. Well - isn't that how it was, before he left, when being called coward was the worst that had happened to him? Perhaps he hasn't won any strength of his own in France after all.
"Susan made a batch of monkey faces," she says, pulling him back to reality. "It's a good thing Shirley's away, or you two would have to fight over them."
Walter's mouth quirks, as he tries to ignore the sting that Shirley's name causes - his silent little brother, gone without fuss or ceremony. "I'm afraid Shirley would have the advantage there," he says, shifting his weight briefly to his bad leg. "But then, that would never happen. You know Susan would make a batch especially for him - you and I would have to do the fighting, Rilla-my-Rilla."
She breaks into a smile, apparently relieved that he can still joke, and impulsively throws her arms around him, nearly knocking him off balance.
"I missed you," she says, her voice muffled in his collar.
Walter wishes he could hug her back without falling over, but she lets him go before he can try.
"Sorry," she says. "I - forgot."
He gives her a small smile. "I forget sometimes, too."
"Really?"
He tells her about when he'd first received his crutches and then his cane, how he would try to step forward on his injured leg or let go of his crutches to open a door. Rilla smiles as though uncertain whether or not she should laugh.
He wants to tell her that it is okay, that all he wants is for everything to be as it was before, but he's not sure if that's even possible - and Susan calls for lunch before he can even try.
His plate is heaped with some of his favorite foods - he has at least twice the amount as everyone else.
"Oh, Susan," Mother says, laughing. "You'll make him explode."
Susan purses her lips. "I have not given him that much food, Mrs. Dr. dear - and Walter could never look like one of those horrible zeppelins anyway. Those European languages really are something else, but I'm not sure even those strange French names could be quite as ugly as that language the Germans made up - "
German hadn't always been ugly, not all the time. Sometimes they could hear the conversation from the opposing side, across no-man's land, the rhythm of jas and bittes, ist and sehr, Vater unser im Himmel, geheiligt werde dein Name...
Susan is still talking. "What were they feeding you at the front? I'd write to that Winston Churchill - he's no Lord Kitchener, to be sure - but then, note-writing is more President Wilson's territory, and I do not approve of that man's tactics."
They all chuckle, careful not to laugh too loudly and offend Susan, who always speaks in utmost seriousness when it came to such matters.
"We mostly ate bread," Walter says, in response to her question. "Sometimes meat, but tinned meat isn't exactly - the most savory thing you'll ever eat. Tea, water, beer…" He shrugs. Only a few months - or has it been longer? - and he's already forgotten what he'd eaten, day in and day out - the same meal every day. Memory is strange that way.
Susan frowns. "You haven't started drinking, have you?"
Dad coughs loudly in an attempt to cover up his laughter. Walter thinks he smiles, but he's not sure his face quite makes it there.
His room is the same as it always has been - not a thing has been moved. He runs a finger along his bookshelf, but it comes away clean. Of course - Susan still would've dusted, keeping it ready for him. She is like that.
He sits on the bed - his bed - his rucksack (a German word, he remembers, they hate them so much but yet they share so many things) at his feet. He knows the contents well - another set of clothes, his letter of discharge, his medal of "Distinguished Conduct" - as though he'd done anything distinguished - the few photos and trinkets he'd taken with him to the front, some poems, his letters. This is it, then, he thinks. All the proof that he was ever there, ever survived. All that separates him from the Walter-that-was and the Walter-that-is.
No more of that. This is why he had gone in the first place, isn't it? To prove that he is bigger than his fears, bigger than cowardice and petulance - big enough to see beyond himself. What was it Nan had said, one night before he left? "The way Walter broods, you'd think this was his war alone." He had hated her in that moment, but over in Flanders, had realized that she was right. That was the night he had written "The Piper."
He feels the sudden urge to see the poem, to look at his words and know they are real. It takes him a minute to reach his bag - he can't quite bend the way he used to, skin pulling painfully as it stretches and joints protesting as he leans down. You should ask Elder Clow how he gets up in the morning, Ken had joked in his last letter. Walter's not sure that's such a terrible idea.
The magazine that printed his poem is in a bundle with several unanswered letters - he has to write back, he reminds himself. He traces the black print with his fingertips, reading his own words back to himself. What matter that if Freedom still be the crown of each native hill? It was worth it. He has to believe that.
(There is another poem, one more difficult to read, crushed at the bottom of his bag. But he will not think on that, not now, not in his room bright with sunshine, surrounded by everything he loves. Those thoughts have no place here.)
He replaces the magazine and looks at the letters. The first one is from Di - Di, his favorite sister, his confidant. He can't even remember what she had written to him about. That makes him feel guilty - he has not been the best brother.
Or the best friend, he adds mentally as he looks through the rest - Jerry and Carl and Ken and Faith and Una had all written to him while he was in the hospital, and he had only responded with short notes telling them that he was returning to the Glen. He has to write them something real now. Una, he decides, he can leave - anything he wants to tell her, he can say in person.
The rest, though…He sighs. He's not sure what to tell them. But he's ignored them long enough.
Walter sits down at his desk - his desk with its upright chair, different pens in the old jam jar he'd taken from the pantry. No more crouching over in the damp and dirt, peering through candlelight, trying not to press too hard for fear he'll tear the paper against whatever flimsy surface he's writing upon.
No, he is home, and he is safe. Soon, everything will be right again.
As he writes to Di, telling her all that has transpired, using his way with words to regale her as if it were all an adventure, he almost begins to think it true.
