Chapter 13

Jarrod eased himself back into this "thinking chair" before he took a glass of lemonade from Heath. Nick sat beside Victoria on the settee while Gene simply stood next to the fireplace. Heath took the chair beside Jarrod's.

"Why did you come back?" Eugene asked, staring at Jarrod.

"To talk," Jarrod said. "To explain to you what happened."

"You could have done that years ago."

"No, I couldn't," Jarrod said. "Until about a year ago I was still too sick to see what I needed to do."

"Sick?" Eugene asked.

Jarrod decided to spill it out fast. "When I fought in the war, I was wounded several times, and I became addicted to the painkiller laudanum. When I came home, I was still addicted, but I couldn't get any reliably and laudanum has terrible withdrawal effects. I was horrid to you and everyone else because the withdrawal effects were making me that way. After I left here, I stayed addicted and I became addicted to alcohol and opium, too, until I met my wife, and she got me to see a doctor who helped me get rid of all the drugs in my system. I'm better now. I'm not cured – addicts are never cured. But anything I did to you when I came home from the war was because I was addicted, and I was ashamed, and throwing me out was the best thing Mother and Father did for any of us."

"Wife?" Victoria asked.

Jarrod smiled as best he could. "Her name is Eloise. She's the best thing that ever happened to me, and without her I would have rotted in some opium den somewhere. She's saved me."

Eugene still glared at Jarrod, and he glared for long time, but he didn't say anything until he turned and looked at Nick. "And what's your excuse?"

Nick just shook his head. "I don't have one. I could blame Jarrod – I have been blaming him all these years – but it was really just me. During the war I felt unimportant. My big brother was fighting while I stayed out of the lines. I came home feeling like I hadn't done anything, or worse yet, I didn't do something important that I should have done. Pretty lousy reason to take it out on the people around me – and frankly, Gene, even if I never took my hand to you or Audra, I hurt you and I know it. I'm only sorry I didn't see the truth about myself before Father died."

Eugene digested everything he had heard, and Victoria looked up at him with hope in her eyes, hope that maybe at least they could all begin to understand. But Gene just said, "Like five minutes of words can make up for ten years," and he left the room.

Jarrod moaned a little and held his side as he sagged more into the chair.

"I'm sorry, Mother," Nick said.

Victoria touched his hand. "Gene's right. Five minutes of talk won't erase ten years, but I'm glad you've both told me the truth, or at least the beginning of it."

"Maybe we shouldn't stay any longer," Nick suggested.

"No," Victoria said. "You just got here, and I want you to stay. I want more time to talk and be with you again and Jarrod's in no shape to travel today anyway." She hesitated and groped for words, but ended up just squeezing Nick's hand. "Tell me more, Nick. What did you blame Jarrod for? What was the important thing you thought you should have done during the war and didn't do?"

Nick sighed and said, "Stopped Mayville."

Nick went on to explain his anger at being held back from fighting during the war, because Jarrod did do the fighting. They talked openly about Mayville and Nick's feeling that he had failed there, about Nick's reaction once he came back to the family after the war, even about Heath's experiences and Jarrod's during the war. They talked more about Jarrod's addictions and his fight to get over them. They had no idea that up the stairs, on the other side of the doorway to the guest wing of the house, Eugene had stopped to listen. He heard what they said, every word of a conversation that went on for more than an hour. He didn't want to – he didn't care, at first. But as they talked about fighting, destroying civilians, about prison camp and hospitals and drug addiction – Eugene began to understand how complicated and horrible the whole experience was, for every one of them in different ways.

He and Audra had been protected from all that. They were simply too small to deal with it. What they had to deal with was the aftermath, the two boys who came home men with problems that Gene and Audra couldn't begin to understand – and listening to his mother and older brothers discussing that horror, Gene knew a war was something he never wanted to have anything to do with. But his older brothers had, and it could never be entirely erased from who they were now.

After a while, Victoria said she wanted to take a walk to consider everything her oldest sons had told her, and she left the house alone. "You want to lie down for a while?" Heath asked Jarrod after Victoria went out.

"Yeah, probably a good idea if I rest a bit," Jarrod said. Then he smiled. "If Gene takes after me again, I may have to fight back this time. Better get my strength back."

Nick and Heath helped him toward the stairs. Jarrod's bag and Nick's saddlebag were on the floor with Heath's bag, next to the stairs. Heath let Nick get Jarrod up the stairs while he carried the bags. "Your old rooms are waiting for you," Heath said.

Jarrod and Nick looked at each other, neither one of them entirely sure they wanted to face that old childhood right now, but as they reached the first landing, the thoughts flew away. They both saw Eugene waiting there by the doorway to the guest wing.

Eugene just looked at them, and they knew by the look in his eyes he had been listening to everything that had just been said in the last hour down in the parlor. The three of them just looked at each other, and Heath stopped two steps below when he realized what was happening.

Nick finally spoke. "Want to hear more about the war, kid?"

Eugene looked from Nick to Heath and finally to Jarrod. "Maybe," he said.

Jarrod waved him on with them. "Come on. We'll talk some more."

XXXXXXX

Victoria walked around the grounds for a long time, thinking about what her sons had said to her. She thought back to the days after they came home and wondered, kicking herself, why she and her husband had never considered the possibility that Jarrod's problems were drug related. They knew he had been wounded several times – why didn't they think right away that he had become addicted to the painkillers they knew he had to have been given? And Nick – they were the ones who got the appointment for him as General Alderson's aide. They knew his temperament – they knew he came out swinging most of the time just because that's who he was. Why did they never understand that holding him back off the lines was not a good idea for a man like him? That was easy to answer for Victoria – they asked Nick to hold back because they were so worried about Jarrod who was in the thick of the fight. But why didn't they understand that he might come to resent it, to resent them and to resent Jarrod? And probably take it out on the world.

"Oh, Tom," Victoria whispered to herself at one point. "We really missed every signal we should have seen, didn't we?"

Victoria heard the faint sound of a buggy coming from around the bend in the road, and then she saw Audra approaching. She took a deep breath. They were going to have to go over this all over again with her, if she would listen. Well, she would have to listen. Victoria knew she would have to find a way to make Audra listen, and she immediately thought of how close Audra and Nick had been, especially while Jarrod was away at the war. And how hurt Audra had been when the bitter and angry man who only had time for fighting every other grown man around was the one who returned. Victoria remembered, Audra had adored Nick, and when he came back, he had ignored her. Having Jarrod physically abuse her was dreadful enough. Having Nick emotionally abuse her was even worse.

Audra pulled up beside her mother. There were no smiles from her daughter today. "Mother, are you all right?" Audra asked.

Victoria smiled slightly and nodded. "They're here."

"I know. I saw them in town."

"We've been talking," Victoria said. "Eugene has already beaten Jarrod up."

Good, Audra thought but did not say.

Victoria said, "I've asked them to stay overnight. Jarrod needs some rest."

Audra nearly turned the buggy around and went back to town.

Victoria said, "I understand a lot more than I ever did before, Audra. Gene is still confused and bitter. Would you please come into the house? You really need to hear what Nick and Jarrod have to say, even if it doesn't change your mind about them at all."

Audra looked up at the house. She really didn't want to hear anything.

"Please," Victoria said. "I need you."

Audra looked back at her mother, and she smiled a little. "Of course," she said. For her mother, she would come in and listen. But she didn't expect anything at all to change.