Chapter 6
Everyone—living and dead—in the room stopped in their tracks, not that the ghosts really have tracks. Everyone, that is, except Mac, who was auditioning comfortable places to sit. He settled on the easy chair facing the sofa.
“Is that what I think it is?” Paul asked. I nodded, and so did Alison. His right hand went immediately to his goatee.
Mac barely had a chance to settle into the easy chair and look up when Melissa saved us. Before he could notice he was the center of attention, she cleared her throat and said, “That’s a really cool bracelet you’re wearing, Mac. May I see it?”
Alison’s guest, who was being careful to keep his long robe closed all the way to his white socks, seemed puzzled by the question. “Bracelet?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Melissa answered, pointing at Mac’s left forearm. Alison looked concerned, and Maxine moved closer to Melissa, just in case. She’s very protective.
He looked at it as if it were someone else’s. “Oh!” he said. “Sure, of course. I’d forgotten.” He leaned forward as much as he could and held out his wrist. “It’s called a POW bracelet,” he answered. “Do you know what that means?”
Melissa stole a quick glance at her mother, and Alison shook her head. “No, sir,” she told Mac. “What is it?”
The older gentleman explained, as I had, the origins of the bracelet. “I’ve had it for at least forty years, I guess,” he said, then looked at Melissa as if he’d forgotten she was there. “I’ve never taken it off in all that time. And it’s not just nostalgia.” He looked at Melissa. “Do you know what that means? ‘Nostalgia’?”
Melissa didn’t look for signals from Alison that time and nodded. “It means thinking about something that happened in the past and how you miss that time,” she said.
“That’s very good,” Mac responded. “You’re a smart girl.”
Well, that was obvious, of course. But I held my breath a bit when my granddaughter pushed the question a little further, even as Paul hovered down to look more closely at Mac’s face. Paul says facial expression is important when interviewing subjects. “You’re not thinking about a war, are you, Mac? That’s not the kind of time you’d have nostalgia for, is it?”
Alison looked a little concerned, and Paul said, “Easy, Melissa,” but Mac just smiled.
“No, you’re right,” he answered. “A war is a very bad thing, and that’s why I spent years protesting it. I burned my draft card and refused to go fight a war I thought was immoral. Spent a few nights in jail for what they called illegal assembly and incitement to riot.” He seemed proud of that.
“Did you go to Canada?” I asked, trying to buy time for Paul and Alison to think. “A lot of the war protestors ended up there to avoid being drafted.”
Mac smiled strangely, like he was remembering something both funny and sad at the same time. “No. The fact is, I had a high draft lottery number, and they never actually called me up. The whole thing was crazy; just a product of the military industrial complex.” I knew that was true of my husband, Jack, too—the Selective Service System had set up a “lottery” based on birth date, and if you got a high number, you probably weren’t going to get drafted. He’d been lucky.
Paul, Alison and I all looked at one another. There had to be a connection to Sergeant Elliot! But how to ask Mac?
But then the guest looked a little concerned, and made eye contact with Alison. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Should I be more careful?” he asked, and his eyes darted toward Melissa.
“Don’t worry about it. We’re open to all points of view here,” Alison answered, then looked at me. “Mom, I just realized the drip coffeemaker won’t be working and I’ll have to make coffee on the stove. Could you come into the kitchen and help me with that?”
“Of course.” I stood and followed her into the kitchen, carrying a lit candle. I knew this was a ploy to get me away so we could talk about what was going on.
Once inside the kitchen, though, Alison looked desperately at me. “How do you make coffee on the stove?” she asked.
It was worse than I thought. My daughter actually didn’t know how to boil water. “When the power comes back on, I’m giving you cooking lessons,” I told her.
“Not now, Mom . . .”
“No, when the power comes back on. You need to learn.” I knew what she meant, but I wanted her to know I was serious.
“Teach Liss, not me. There’s still hope for her.”
I filled a teapot with water and put it on the stove, which I lit with a match from the top drawer next to the sink. “I’m teaching both of you,” I said firmly. Then I told her about the measuring cup, but neither of us could come up with a plausible explanation for its migration to Mac’s room. “We’ll ask Paul when we can,” I said.
“What do you think the POW bracelet on Mac means?” I asked Alison just as Maxine was emerging through the wall from the den.
“No clue,” Alison said. “That’s Paul’s department.”
“Did anybody get a close look at the POW bracelet on Mac’s wrist?” I asked Maxine. “Whose name is on it? Was it Sergeant Elliot’s?”
“I don’t think Melissa was able to see it, or at least she hasn’t said so yet,” Maxine reported. “And he’s been moving his hand around too much for me to see. I can ask Paul if you want.” Maxine is always so eager to help; it’s a wonder that Alison sometimes says she’s difficult.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Alison said. “We need to get back in touch with the sergeant.”
Alison got four mugs out from the cabinet, and I got some instant coffee from the pantry section next to the refrigerator. “Four mugs?” I asked.
“Liss likes coffee now,” Alison said. I thought she was a little young, but Alison treats Melissa like an adult, and Melissa acts like one, so I suppose I can’t argue with how that girl is growing up.
The wind was still howling around the house, and we could hear the rain pelting the roof and the boarded-up windows. Alison had checked three times for water in the basement; she had one small gas-powered generator to run the sump pump if necessary, but so far it had not been needed. “Why would Sergeant Elliot suddenly need that bracelet? Why wouldn’t he answer when Paul tried to Ghostmail him?” Alison continued.
“Ghostmail?” I asked.
“I’m trying out a new catchphrase.”
“Fail,” Maxine sang as she disappeared back through the kitchen wall. Alison looked up at the spot, shook her head and went to fill the cups with hot water from the teapot.
• • •
“Fail?” I asked.
“Okay, maybe we didn’t fail,” Marilyn Beechman said. “But you certainly can’t say we succeeded in Vietnam.”
The television behind her in my studio apartment showed helicopters taking the last American troops out of the war. I had thought it would be a time for celebration, particularly among those of us who had opposed United States involvement, so I’d called Marilyn, now working for a local law firm. She’d come over after work for a glass of wine.
“I’m not talking about the country succeeding,” I said. “I’m talking about us. We protested to the point that the government had to end the war. Isn’t that success? I can take off this bracelet now, can’t I?” I reached for the POW bracelet, a little worse for wear, that had rarely been separated from my wrist for three years now.
Marilyn reached over and grabbed my hand gently. “No, you can’t,” she said. “Colonel Mason is still missing. You can’t take it off until he’s accounted for.”