"Merrill, can I ask you a favor?" Edward asked as they waited in line at the time clock.
"Sure!" Merrill's eyes lit up. She was delighted to help him in any way.
"Do you know Dolly's Liquor Emporium on Main Street?" He asked. Merrill gave him an odd look. "Joe, the man who owns the store, cashes my paychecks for me on Friday nights. He's an old friend. I need to pay someone back, and I would like to take care of it tonight, so it puts me in a bit of a time crunch, you see." He said, tucking his hands in his front pockets.
"Well, of course, Edward. I can't condone drinking; I am a Christian woman, but if you need to cash your check, I don't see why not! Can I take you to meet your friend?" Merrill asked, punching her time card.
"Oh no, thank you. You can drop me off at Dolly's. That will get me taken care of. I appreciate this, Merrill."
After Merrill dropped him off at Dolly's, he waited for her to pull away. He had every intention of getting his usual order and did not need her side eye or comments.
"Hey there, Edward!" Joe said as Edward walked through the door. "How are ya this fine evening!"
"I'm well, Joe, and you?" Edward responded as he laid his payroll check on the counter.
"Oh, can't complain, the usual?" Joe asked as he pulled cash from the register.
"Yes, and add two bottles of Jack to that, please? Oh, and Joe, can I get some of that back in small bills?
"You got it." Joe put two six-packs, two bottles of whiskey, and four packs of smokes on the counter next to the cash he had counted out for Edward.
As Joe was bagging up Edward's purchases, Edward handed a twenty back before putting the rest in his wallet. Joe shook his head and tried to hand the money back."Oh, come on now, you know I am in no hurry."
"I owe you much more than that, Joe. I insist. Let me pay back my debt." Now that Edward had cut his mother off for good, he intended to pay everyone back the money owed, starting with Joe.
"Alright, alright," Joe said, putting the money in the register. "Have a good night, Ed. I'll see ya tomorrow!"
Edward waved and left the store. He thought about going home and dropping off his bags before heading to Thelma's, but he did not want to risk Bella getting off work early.
He made it to the bar in record time. He was excited to see her. She seemed very sweet and thoughtful. He felt drawn to her in a way he wasn't sure he understood.
"Edward. Hi." Bella greeted him as he came through the door. He sat down on the same stool he had taken last week. "Can I get you a beer?"
"Yes, please."
Bella jumped right on filling the pint glass and getting it to him. She noticed he seemed calmer than the last time she saw him.
"Here ya go!" She slid the glass down the bar to Edward's waiting hand. "Let me know if you need anything else." She gave him a wink and a warm smile,
It was a busy evening, and Edward stayed until close. He made small talk with some of the other patrons and even ordered some food.
When the last customer left, Bella leaned up against the bar and started to count her tickets and settle up the drawer when Edward cleared his throat to get her attention. "Bella, I need to pay my tab."
"Sure, okay." She handed him his ticket. He passed it back with way more cash than what two beers and fries cost.
She took the money with a confused look on her face, "For the other night. I appreciate it." He said, staring at her hands.
"Oh, I told you…"
"Yeah, I know the mixed-up tickets." He chuckled. She was a terrible liar. Edward found it completely charming.
Bella met his green eyes and felt a flutter in her stomach. "So…uh… we will be out of here in a few minutes. Can I offer you a ride home?" Bella shrugged with a half smile.
"I would appreciate that. Thanks."
Twenty minutes later, the bar was locked up, and the parking lot was empty. They both sat in her car, hopeful it would start this time. Bella sighed deeply and tried to crank the engine one more time. Click. Click. Click. She looked over at Edward, embarrassed.
"Sounds like a dead battery." He said. "It's no big deal. I am used to walking. I hate it for you, though. I wish I had someone to call."
"It's a nice night, at least," Bella said sarcastically. The temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees since she got to the bar earlier in the day. They got out of the car and headed toward the street. "I am this way." Bella pointed left, knowing Edward needed to go right.
Edward softly asked, "Would you mind if I walked you home?"
"Are you sure? I am fine to walk by myself. I'm tougher than I look." Bella said, chuckling and flexing the muscles in her thin arms.
"It would be a pleasure." He responded with a smile. With that, the two walked for the next several minutes in near silence. They only commented on the weather or how glad they were that it wasn't raining.
When they reached Bella's house, she went up the front steps. She turned around when she saw Edward had not followed. She knew the last few blocks had done him in. His limp was much worse than when they had left Thelma's.
"Wanna sit for a while?" She asked, motioning to her porch swing.
"Oh, I don't want to keep you up," Edward said, looking at his shoes.
"I work nights at a bar. You are not keeping me up. I will run inside and grab a blanket. Do you need anything?" She asked, suddenly feeling awkward.
Edward climbed the stairs one foot at a time and made his way to sit on the swing.
"A blanket sounds nice." He had his arms wrapped around his wiry frame.
Bella was only gone for a minute when she came back out with two thick wool blankets. She handed Edward one and wrapped herself in the other as she sat down on the swing.
Bella slowly pushed the swing with her foot. She had so many questions but didn't want to push him or scare him away.
Edward finally broke the silence with a question. "Are you from Forks, Bella?"
"No, Illinois. Oak Park." She was ready for this question, and she had a well-rehearsed story. "I wanted to leave small-town life and move to the big city. So, when I graduated high school, I moved to Chicago. I got tired of the big city life and decided to travel. I flipped a coin and headed west."
"Brave of you," Edward commented. "You didn't want to go back home?"
"I thought about it, but… you know things change." Her voice had a sad edge that broke Edward's heart. Edward understood that sometimes you can't go home again.
"I saw the Grand Canyon and worked a summer at a ranch in Montana. I was headed to the ocean. I had never seen the ocean when I ran out of gas. The closest city sign was Forks. I walked a few miles. The gas station was closed, but Thelma's was open. She gave me a place to sleep for the night, and I decided to stay. She gave me a job at the bar and let me live in her garage apartment. I loved her like a grandmother."
"Where is she now?" Edward asked gently.
"She died about a year ago. I miss her every day."
Trying to find a happier subject, he asked, "What was Oak Park like?"
Bella took a deep breath and recited her story. "Wonderful. My father worked at the local bank. My mother taught piano lessons. She tried to teach me, but I was hopeless. For my sister, however, music just came naturally to her. She had a beautiful voice and could play anything."
"What is your little sister's name?"
"Elizabeth. I called her Lizzy. We lived in a little yellow house. It was nothing fancy, but we had a huge yard surrounded by a white picket fence. We would play for hours outside with our dog." She looked up at Edward, "his name was Winslow."
Edward laughed. "Winslow?"
"Yeah, I was little when we got him. I was no more than three or four. I have no idea where the name Winslow came from. He was the best dog."
"Do you keep in contact with your family?"
"They want nothing to do with me." She worked on taking deep breaths and staying in control. This was the hard part. The true part. If her family knew the truth, they would not want anything to do with her. She was sure about the fact that when she left Chicago, she knew she would never go back to Oak Park. For their sake, it was better if they thought she was dead.
Desperate to change the subject, Bella asked, "What about you, Edward? Where are you from?" She pulled one leg up to her chest, keeping the other foot on the ground to keep the steady back and forth of the swing.
"I grew up in Hannibal, Missouri. Lived there until I got drafted into the Army."
"Wow." Bella breathed. "Drafted. I'm sure your family was devastated."
"I don't have much of a family. My mother and I have a…." He paused momentarily, looking for the right words, "difficult relationship. My dad took off when I was little."
"You were hurt in Vietnam?" She motioned toward his leg.
Edward was silent for a long time. No one asked why he limped, and he never offered. He always thought they assumed Polio or some other childhood injury. He didn't like talking about the war or his time in Vietnam. It was painful in many ways. So, the fewer people knew, the better.
Bella sensed his hesitation. "We don't have to talk about it." She was all too familiar with painful pasts.
"No, I mean, that's how I ended up here, in Forks." He stared off into the distance. "I was only over there a little over a year. My buddy, Glen, and I were supposed to do a patrol around the area where the unit was stationed. It was dark, and the jungle was so disorienting. By the time we realized we were lost, we had been wandering for hours. We had a map, but when bombs are dropped, they change the landscape, and it was happening so much, your map wasn't always reliable." Edward could feel Bella's eyes on him.
"How were you found?" She asked.
"Well, we decided that trying to find our way in the dark would get us more lost. We were tired and thirsty, and we knew it would be dawn in a few hours. We found some shelter in the thick underbrush and took turns trying to get some sleep. The bugs over there are unbelievable." He held his thumb and forefinger a few inches apart to show Bella how big the bugs were.
"Gross." Bella shuttered.
Edward nodded as he continued. "Anyway, when the sky started to lighten, we thought we knew the direction we needed to go. The map seemed accurate." He swallowed hard.
"You don't have to…" Bella's voice trailed off. Even in the dim light, she could see he was distressed.
"No, it's ok. I have only told one other person what happened. My friend Joe." He swallowed hard again and wiped at a tear that threatened to fall. "We were following a path on our map, or so we thought, but we ran into a fork in the road that wasn't supposed to be there. We debated which way to go, but it was getting light, and we needed to stay on the move. We picked left for no real reason other than we thought our camp was toward the south." Edward shifted in his seat as he silently willed his voice not to waiver. "We followed the path until it made a sharp turn, and we walked right into a minefield. Glen was to my left. We tried to find stones to toss as we stepped through the makeshift path. He moved too far off the path and stepped on a mine." Bella gasped. She wanted to reach out and touch his arm. She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to take the fear and pain away she saw so clearly on his face.
"I was blown back off the trail but, by some miracle, didn't set the whole field off. The last thing I remember clearly was hitting the ground and my ears ringing so loud they hurt."
"Oh, Edward, I am so sorry," Bella murmured, wishing she had the right words.
"Sometime the next day, I was found by our company medics. I had taken a lot of shrapnel. It was already infected, and I was becoming septic. A helicopter got me out of there and took me to Da Nang. There was an Evac Hospital there. That's when I found out Glen had died. They told me he didn't know what hit him, but I swear, Bella, I heard him moaning and calling for his wife. I still hear it in my nightmares." He wiped the angry tears from his eyes.
A sob caught in Bella's throat. "Edward, that is awful. I am so sorry you lost your friend.
"It should have been me. I play it over and over in my head. Suppose I had been on his left or if we had taken the other fork in the road. If we had never gotten lost in the first place, he would be home with his wife and children. I had nothing to lose and nothing to come home to. It should have been me."
"Edward." She said, not sure what to say next. She understood the burden he carried—the guilt of surviving.
"But how did a boy from Hannibal find his way to Forks after leaving Vietnam?" She asked, hoping for a happier subject.
"Well, at the hospital, I met a very nice nurse."
"Oh, I see. Now the story gets exciting." Bella teased, enjoying how it made the corners of his mouth turn up ever so slightly.
"Not like that. She reminded me of my mother before my father left." Bella nodded. "Because of the infection, I had a high fever. She would put cold compresses on my forehead and chest. She always hummed. When I started getting better, I had to learn to walk again, so I would follow her around, helping her change bandages and make beds. We would talk. She told me how she had grown up in Seattle, and the Pacific Northwest was peaceful. I decided that when I returned to the States, Seattle sounded like a good place to start over. A few weeks later, I was shipped stateside. I spent a few weeks at Camp Roberts in Monterey, California. Then I got on a bus bound for Seattle, but I only had enough money to make it to Forks."
"Wow, Edward, you are courageous." Bella was still trying to wrap her head around everything he had told her. She hoped they could have more talks like this.
"I really should go," Edward said, looking at his watch. "Bella, it's almost five. You need to go to bed." He gave her a tender smile.
She yawned and agreed they both did. Edward stood up stiff after sitting for so long. He hated to go, he enjoyed talking to her, and he left lighter than he had in a long time. As he cautiously descended her front steps, he called back, "Are you working tonight?"
"You bet. Four til close!" She told him as she let herself in the house. "See ya this evening." It was more of a statement than a question. She hoped she would see him again this evening.
Edward got home and got into bed. He had a beer and a cigarette before drifting off to sleep. Tonight, instead of the nightmares of Vietnam, he dreamt of Bella.