To this day, I can't fully explain the feelings I had when Lou gave me that news. My brother was coming home. My faith in him being alive was well placed, it turned out. I admit now that years have gone by that I wondered sometimes if I wasn't just some fool in denial. But then I got the first letter from him while he was still in the hospital in Germany.
Joanie had been so happy to hear that something good was coming to our family. She smiled more than she had since long before the first miscarriage. Things felt sort of right again.
I got home really late from work one night. I'd had some meeting or another that had kept me. Her car was already in the drive when I pulled in and the smell of some wonderful meal wafted to greet me as soon as I opened the door.
I found her in the kitchen smiling and humming to herself.
"You ain't trying to turn yourself into June Cleaver again, are you?" I asked as I slid my arms around her from behind while she stirred something or other on the stove.
She shook her head against me.
"I was in a good mood today. I felt like…being domestic."
"Tell me about it," I said.
"Well," she began turning in my arms and rising on her toes to kiss me lightly. "First of all, we've got a couple new lawyers at the firm so we aren't chasing our tails as much. And we're almost through all the preliminaries on the cases from the riots."
I know the firm—well, the partners in the firm at any rate—had a hard time thinking about hiring anyone new. It wasn't that they didn't need the help. They would have needed help for the glut of cases anyway and then when Noah died…
But Mr. Cohen and the others just couldn't bear the thought of replacing them. I'm sure on some level they knew that wasn't really what they were doing but it felt that way to them. I understood. It was good to hear they were moving on enough to take care of themselves. And that I might get my girl back in the evenings. I had missed her.
"There's more, isn't there?" I prodded and she nodded smiling at me as she handed me a basket of rolls to take to the table.
"I shouldn't delight in this so, James," she said almost tentatively before she blurted it out. "Rosemary's going to prison! I know it's terrible of me but after everything she did…they way she was with Billy and then with you. You weren't innocent, I know that but I also know…well, I know she was at fault. You're just too sweet to see what she was at first. And how she neglected poor Michael and then…well…she says she does everything to make things better for Michael. But…he needs love, James. He needed a mother who would rock him to sleep and sing to him and tell him stories at night. He never once had that but he had a father who did. He had a father who loved him more than words could ever express. He had a father who loved him more than he loved his own life. She took that from that sweet little boy."
There were tears standing in her eyes and I wanted to move closer to her, to pull her to me but her shoulders were squared. I got good at reading her body language through the years. She did not want anyone interfering with what she was feeling right then.
"She took him from us," she hissed.
I looked at her dumbly.
"I know what I've said about Noah being a grown man and a proud one at that," she went on. "It's true too. He was too proud for his own good. He was too noble. I'm mad at him too but it's still too soon. It feels wrong to be angry with him. Her though…I have no problem being mad as hell at her! I've never really felt hate before, James. But I feel it now and I'm glad she's going to prison. I'm glad she'll be gone for a very long time. I can say it's because I want to protect Michael from her and that's not truly a lie but really I'm glad because I hate her."
"How do you know she's going to prison?" I asked. The rest of what she had said suddenly wasn't as important. I was starting to get a sort of strange feeling that I was going to find out about things I would wish to have remained ignorant of.
"We negotiated it," she said proudly.
"The firm represented her?" I was…I don't even know the word for what I was. It was something close to repulsed. Like finding out her father had decided to represent some Nazi war criminal who'd been discovered in Brazil or something.
"Sort of."
"What exactly does 'sort of' mean?" I tried to keep the accusatory tone from my voice but it didn't work very well. I wasn't happy.
"Well, she called the firm and talked to Uncle Eli. There was a meeting. We're all still hurting very badly over what happened but then…we thought about what Noah wanted. He went out there because he was afraid for her safety. It might have been warranted and it might not have. I lean toward it not being, but that was why he went. He still loved her even if I think that was the most foolish thing he could have done. And he would want someone looking out for her interests. Uncle Eli and Daddy took the case on the condition that she surrender her parental rights to Michael. I know that's shady and I can't even guess what Noah would think of that part. But we knew it was a way to make sure that when she did get out of prison that she wouldn't be coming to bother Sam and Emma and trying to take him back from them."
"I wouldn't have guessed those two would make that kind of deal," I mused.
"This is hardly selling their souls to the devil, James," she defended. "Rosemary's still going away for a very long time. She was treated fairly…which everyone should be entitled to, no matter what they've done. We honored Noah and we protected his son. Nothing is wrong with that. It was the right thing to do."
She was right, of course. Even if it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than me. It just didn't feel like the right thing right then. I told her as much too. I'm sure that didn't make that part of things easier for her that I said what I did about it but I know she understood. I opted to never tell Billy who'd represented Rosemary.
"So…is that all that's put you in such a good mood today?" I asked needing to change the subject.
"Of course not," she nearly sang to me as she pulled me to the table and sat me down. "I'll just be a second, my love."
Everything was on the table and I had no idea what else she thought she could need. But then she came back and put an envelope in front of me. It was an airmail envelope. It was from Germany. I suddenly couldn't breathe.
Joanie's hands rested on my shoulders and I felt her lips press to the side of my head.
"I am so happy to admit I was wrong, James. Go on…gloat…tell me you told me so. Please. Nothing could be more wonderful."
I shook my head.
"I don't care about right, Joanie," I whispered. "I care he's alive. I knew it all along. I did. I felt it. I know it's crazy but I felt it all the same."
I had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat and my hands shook as I held the envelope. It was a little bent for its trip over the ocean but I think I've rarely beheld such a beautiful sight. There was Kid's handwriting. There was my name on the front and his in the corner. The writing had smudged slightly in transit. It was still very legible but I could tell it had been through a little on its journey from him to me. I guess that was fitting for all we'd been through. I studied the stamps on the front. The language was foreign but familiar all the same. There are a lot of similarities between Yiddish and German. Maybe that was fitting too. Here was my brother, the man who knew me better than anyone else in the world and yet, we were now little more than strangers to each other. We'd lived lives while we'd been apart that made us different people.
"I…dinner smells wonderful…but…I need to…I need to be alone for a little while."
"Of course," she said through her own tears. "I'll wrap it up and we can eat later. I'm right here if you need me."
I just nodded and stood up. But before I left the room, I pulled her close to me and kissed her. I don't think I'd kissed her like that in a long time, far too long of a time. I needed to then. I should have more often. I'd succeeded in getting her pregnant twice and hadn't kissed her like that. There's something wrong with that.
When the kiss ended, we were both panting.
"I love you," I said, stating the obvious.
"So I gathered. I-I'm sorry for…for not believing. Can you forgive me?"
"I can forgive you anything."
Those were words that would come back to haunt me. I didn't know it then and I won't get to that part of the story for a while but they would all the same.
I left the dining room and headed to the study. It was quiet there and I knew I could read in peace but my girl would still be close if I needed her strength. For all the times she would get shaky, she was always strong for me when I needed her. I probably shouldn't have taken that for granted so much but I suppose that's just human nature.
I settled down behind the desk with the letter and the beer that had been next to my plate when I sat down at the dining room table and took a deep breath. I don't know what I feared in opening that letter. I knew he was alive. The only news I considered bad was already eliminated as a possibility.
Of course I also knew that there could be other news that was nearly as bad as his death. For him to write to me and not just wait to talk to me or add a note onto a letter for Lou meant that there was news I would need to brace her for.
I know what you're thinking, Lou is strong and tough but we men like to protect our women. And sometimes people need more protecting than they want to believe. I knew that if there was something bad to tell her that he wasn't about to ask me to keep it from her but that he was asking me to find a better way to tell her.
My hands shook as I opened the envelope. He could have sent it through the military post. It would have gotten to me before he came home but it would take longer. You would think that military mail would run faster and sometimes it does but it's a hit or miss sort of thing and if you have important communications, conventional airmail was the better and faster way to go. Nowadays he could have just emailed me or something, I guess but we was a long way off from laptops and such back then.
I pulled out the thin paper to see his handwriting. It looked out of practice. I imagine it was. Communication was sometimes very limited in those places and he might not have written anything in quite some time.
I trained my eyes on the page.
"Dear Jimmy," it began.
"It sounds strange to start with the typical 'how are you' questions but then, maybe it's less strange after this time than the other times we ask it. I really have no idea. Last time I got letters from you, you and Joanie were both in grad school. I try to think what your life might be like now and I just don't even know where to start. I keep seeing us together under some rust bucket car trying to make it run again. I know that was a long time ago. It was a long time ago before I ever even set foot in that jungle.
"I've written her already but how's Lou? I know she came back to Detroit. I haven't heard the specifics but I'm glad she's home with family. I knew you'd look out for her somehow but I feel better knowing she was closer.
"I know it's only been two years and in the grand scheme, that's not all that long. But I wonder if I'll be coming home to the same Lou that I left. I know I'm not coming back the same person I used to be. I left pieces of me back in that jungle and what's filled in those gaps isn't all that pretty. Maybe that's to be expected. Probably it is. I'm sure it will get better in time.
"I worry about her, you know. I worry about Lou. I worried at first that it had been too long without word. I kept trying to get more letters out but I just couldn't manage it. I worried she'd give up hope. I worried that she'd move on. It's a lot to ask of her to sit around raising my children on her own without someone to help. I know you helped and the others too but that's not the same. I worried she was lonely.
"And I've worried about Theresa. Poor kid just needed someone stable in her life. I thought I was being that and then I was just one more who ditched her. She's got to be a young lady by now. I dread to think of the boys that are hanging around her. I know you've looked after her but it should have been me. I think I'm most scared of her not letting me back in. She trusted me so before. I was proud of that. I was proud to earn that trust from her.
"And my boys, Jimmy. Do they even know me as anything but a picture on Emma's mantle? I know you've tried but will they be scared of me? Will they be able to handle me coming home now? I need you to prepare them. I need you to help me with them. I'm not sure I know how to do this anymore. They were two and three the last time I saw them. My letters home meant nothing to them. I know they're probably both in school by now even.
"So, how are you, man? How's that lovely wife of yours? Probably a lawyer out to save the world by now. I see where she's coming from now. I might not have as much before but I learned far too well how badly the world needs saving. And you, I'll bet you got that degree now too. Probably out saving kids like us. I'm proud of you, you know. I thought once that I was…it doesn't matter what I thought. You're a hero now, you know that? You're the one thing we needed when we were kids.
"Now I have to get to what I really needed to write you about. I guess you know if this is all I had to say I would have stuck it in with a letter to Lou or I would have mailed it through the Army. I need to tell you some things they haven't told Lou. No one has told her how bad I got hurt. She knows I'm not okay to travel yet. I came this far just so they could get me in a decent hospital but the flight back to the states is long and I'm just not strong enough yet.
"I got injured. I was shot a couple times in the leg. Doesn't sound too bad when I say it like that but I lost a lot of blood and the bone was shattered in a couple places, I guess. I thought for a while that I wouldn't have to worry about being questioned because I figured I'd just die there. But I lived. My leg healed terribly and I couldn't use it much at all in the camp. I'd exercise it every day to keep the muscles strong but it didn't bear my weight but a handful of times in the two years I was there. When I was released, I was sick. Malaria. And the docs here have been trying to undo the damage from my leg healing so poorly. I'm feeling better with the treatment for the malaria but my leg hurts so bad that at times I wish they had just cut it off like they talked about doing at first.
"I need you to explain to Lou that I got hurt. I'm okay, Jimmy. I'm not dying of this and I'm coming home more or less in one piece but I got hurt and I'm fighting to be able to walk off that plane to her but I'm not the man I was. I'm not really whole anymore. I am scarred up and even if I can get walking again, I'll always have a limp. Sooner than I should, I'll be in a wheelchair. Tell her all this, Jimmy. Tell her how bad off I am. Tell her it's okay if she doesn't want to be saddled with me. She didn't choose this. Sickness and health couldn't mean this. Tell her that a dear John letter would be easier to come to terms with here, before I head home, than getting there and finding out she can't, or doesn't want to, deal with this. If everything I dreamed about in the camp is gone, I'd rather know now than to think it's still out there for me. Tell her I won't bother her if she doesn't want this life I'm shoving on her. Tell her that I just want to see my boys once in a while but I won't interfere. Tell her she can move on. Hell, for all I know she already has. I could be alright with that. I really could. I'd try to be anyway.
"I wouldn't ask something like this of you but I can't do it myself. I guess I know somewhere it's right but if I tried to look her in the face and say this, I wouldn't be strong enough. I'd beg her to stay with me if she was in front of me. I need you to tell her. I'm not asking for her benefit. She can handle anything after all she's been through already. I need you to do this for me. It's not what I want. I know you know that. But what I want doesn't seem to matter anymore, if it ever did at all.
"Of course, you don't get out of things as easy as I'd let her off. You're my brother as sure as if we shared blood. But I won't make it awkward for you to still be her friend too. I promise that.
"I have one other thing to tell you before I sign off. It's going to sound crazy but I need to thank you for saving my life. I don't mean when we were kids. You did then but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean in the camp and even before.
"I was injured and laying on the jungle floor and I wanted to surrender to death but I couldn't. I tried to die. I tried to will myself dead just to stop the pain but then I could see you. I could hear your voice in my ears. I heard you call me brother. I heard you tell me that I had to come home. I fought to stay conscious because of you. In the camp, more than once, I thought to kill myself or say or do something stupid that would make them kill me. But then I'd hear you. And once I heard you, I'd see my family. I'd see them as they stood on the tarmac that day I shipped out. I'd feel Bobby's arms hugging me tight or see Theresa roll her eyes at me. I'd feel Lou's lips on mine.
"Sometimes you'd come and sit with me all day. There were times when I was in a little cell all day alone and you'd come and sit on the floor and talk. You didn't say anything much. Just tell stories about when we were kids. I know you weren't there. Don't go diagnosing me with some strange mental problem or something. But I knew you were thinking about me and I knew you believed in me.
"In the night, I would whisper to you. I would tell you I was still out there. I would beg you to take care of my family. I somehow felt that you could hear me or that you'd somehow know. I'd talk to Lou too. A couple times I felt like she was fading from me but you were always there. You never left me. Your voice was always strong to me.
Maybe I am crazy. I guess we'll see when I get home what you think. In your professional opinion, that is. What I am sure of right now is how tired I am. I will sign off now. I will see you soon, Jimmy. I will see you very soon.
"Love, H. Francis 'Kid' Cassidy"
I pushed myself up from the desk chair and sort of staggered out of the den. It wasn't alcohol that made me unsteady. I hadn't even finished the beer I'd taken in. It was his words. I knew he was probably hurt some. I wasn't ready to hear what I had though. I wasn't ready to hear that he was willing to give up his marriage out of some altruistic sentiment. I was pretty sure what Lou's reaction would be but then I thought for a minute about how I'd feel if all of a sudden I was in the shape he was. How would I feel about saddling Joanie with something like that? And with me it would be from a car accident or something. Kid chose to do something Lou hadn't wanted him to and then this happened. I understood him then. I still was pretty sure Lou wouldn't give half a thought to his having a limp or maybe needing a wheelchair someday. He was alive and he could hold her and she could have his blue eyes back and all to herself.
I guess I'm saying that I saw both sides. I mean I could think of how I would feel about asking that of Joanie but then I could think of how I would feel if something happened to Joanie and she wasn't the independent, able-bodied woman I married anymore. I know I could never live without her and I could never live with the knowledge that she needed something without trying to help her get it or outright be what it was she needed. I knew that's how Lou would feel.
But I would have the conversation with her all the same. I would talk to Theresa and try to help her with the transition. I would talk to Bobby and Jack a few more times and get them ready for their dad coming home and I would make sure Lou knew she had an out and no one would judge her. I would do it because my brother asked it of me and I was just too grateful for him being alive to ask anything of me at all to deny him any request. If he asked me to dance naked in the outfield of Tiger Stadium during the seventh inning stretch, I probably would have. No one would be the same after something like that but I'd do it for him.
"Are you alright?"
The question startled me. I don't know why it should have. I walked into the living room after all. Joanie was sitting right there on the sofa reading a magazine. That right there was a good sight. I hadn't seen her read anything but law books and legal papers in far too long. But I hadn't even noticed her there. I think my head was still in a hospital room in Germany. I hadn't ever been farther from Detroit than our honeymoon in Miami, but my head was in Germany all the same.
I didn't answer. I just stared at her like she had spoken in Yiddish or Mandarin or plain old gibberish for all I knew. She jumped up and came over to me, tentatively reaching to touch my face.
"James, are you alright? Is something wrong?"
Her voice was quiet, hushed, but so full of love, of care.
"He-he needed me to do a few things for him before he comes home," I said handing her the letter. I don't think I knew I was still clutching it when I walked out of the den but it was easier to let her read it than try to speak too much.
I watched her eyes speed over the pages. Joanie was always a very fast reader. Then those huge brown eyes lifted to mine. I could see the tears standing in them but then she swallowed hard and whispered in a steady voice.
"Are you alright? Can I help you? Tell me what you need."
I looked at her and I couldn't think of words to say really. I pulled her tight to me and held her as fiercely as I could. She hugged me back and then I whispered into her unruly hair.
"Kiss me."
Her face turned up to mine, tears streaking her cheeks but a smile gracing her lips all the same.
"Gladly."
I kissed her but good right then. I kissed her that night better than I had in years. I felt her tears on my face. I knew then I had been too distant from her even while I thought I was doing right by her. I hadn't been anywhere near the husband I should have. I promised myself I would do better. I meant it. I can honestly say I tried. I can also say I didn't succeed but, again, that part of the tale comes later.
When we parted, I lifted a hand to wipe away her tears. She nudged her face into my fingers. I just looked at her. Honestly looked at her. She was not the girl who'd brought her car in for a tune up years earlier. Gone was the ponytail and the saddle shoes. If she tried for those again, it would look absurd on her. She was matured. A woman who'd grown into herself. Yet, I still felt like that loser grease monkey who didn't deserve to breathe the same air as her.
The funny thing was, at the same time I knew I wasn't still that guy. I'd become a man. I'd become a man I could be proud of. Kid had too. We all had and I had earned the right to be with her. I don't know if that sounds like a good realization to come to or not. Maybe I always should've felt worthy. Maybe I should have known that the man I wanted to be was the man inside me all along and that, the man inside me, the man I wanted so badly to be, deserved things. Maybe I should have always felt worthy, but I didn't. I think that's pretty normal.
I understood so much in that moment and it felt good. I felt whole. I don't think I had for a really long time. I know I tried to fill the gaps with work and friends and family and fixing up the house. I hope that if word had come that Kid had died that I would have healed in those empty places. I hope I'm not lying when I say they stayed empty just because of my belief he was still alive. I'm not sure that's honest but then I never really got to test it and for that I will be forever grateful.
I know I was looking at Joanie strangely right about then. My brow wrinkled and I think I might have been near laughter when another realization hit me.
"What?" she asked.
"You did say you wrapped up dinner, right? I'm starved."
She giggled at me and I swear it was like music. She hadn't laughed near enough around that time. I don't think I understood until that night the toll Kid's being missing took on her. I don't even know how much was worry for him and how much was worry for me but she hadn't really allowed herself much joy in the time he'd been prisoner.
"I'll heat it up," she said patting my face and smiling at me like she hadn't seen me in years. Hell, I guess in a lot of ways she hadn't. "You get the TV on and get settled. It's almost time for Ironside."
So this is different from what it was before. I made some changes based on some very good notes from someone with a much better bead on the character of Kid post POW camp. Hope it's to everyone's liking.-J