"Angela's cooking, so they went to get stuff for dinner while we waited for you. We're having pot roast."
"I thought you were vegan."
"I am — three hundred and sixty-four days a year."
"You're a trip." He grinned and turned as Nicholas pushed a beer into his hand.
"It's great to see you, Scott." Nicholas was getting choked up.
"You, too. I'm going to go say hi to Dad."
Nicholas snickered. "Good luck. He's kind of cranky today."
"Today?" Mitchell winked and headed out past the sliding glass doors. He walked across the long backyard, the brown, gold, and orange leaves crunching underfoot.
Dad's woodworking shop was actually a two-car garage he'd had built about a year after Mom had died. Dad had spent many weekends cutting, routing, sawing, and sanding, and everyone said it was good therapy for him. Mitchell was only fourteen when Mom had died, and her loss was devastating to them all. She had been born in Latvia, in the Saldus district, and Mitchell could still hear her thick accent: "You must do your homework. You must study. You must not throw away the great opportunities of your life!"
She had worked hard to become a pharmacist, and when she had passed, Mitchell had taken on the role of rearing his younger siblings because Dad worked overtime to support them. But Dad still managed to teach Mitchell a strong sense of leadership that he passed on to his brothers and sister.
Mitchell crossed around to the side door, which was cracked open. "Dad?" He pushed open the door.
His father, William David Mitchell, had donned a pair of denim overalls, and his sizable gut tented up the central pockets. He had a flat-sided carpenter's pencil behind his ear and was staring down the edge of a long piece of pine he had balanced on one of his tables. Dad glanced up, a thin layer of white stubble rising from his jaw. "Well, well, well, the prodigal son returns home in his foreign-made rental car."
"You haven't been here the whole time?"
"Nope. I saw you pull up."
"And then what? You came running out? You trying to avoid me?"
"You?" He chuckled under his breath. "You know I hate all that hello crap. Damn house is so noisy with everybody here."
"Nice to see you, too. What are you making?"
"A tortoise table."
Mitchell's mouth fell open. "A what?"
He grinned. "Just kidding. Your sister forwarded me a couple of your e-mails way back when. All those weekends out here with me, and you're not even building furniture anymore? Doghouses and turtle houses?"
"I just finished up a real nice piece for my company commander. It's a custom footlocker for stowing military mementos. I even engraved it."
"Yeah, well I'm working on a nice box myself. Figure I'll save you kids a lot of money once I croak."
"What do you mean? You're not… you're building your own coffin?"
His eyes widened. "Absolutely."
"Dad, is there something you want to tell me? I thought the stress test went okay."
"It did."
"So what are you doing? Tommy's getting married tomorrow. Does marriage make you think about—"
"No. It makes me think about your mother. About missing her. That's all. I'm happy for your brother."
"You don't think this is weird?"
"It's morbid, yeah. But weird? Nah. It's smart. We'll save a lot of money, and I'll go out in style, in a box I made. You can't beat that."
"Whatever you say." Mitchell shifted up to his father and gave him an awkward hug. "They're making a pot roast."
"I know. I say we eat, get drunk, and you can tell us all about your missions. You got any juicy stuff? You meet any beautiful frauleins who are double agents?"
Mitchell chuckled. "Dad, it's all pretty boring."
"Uh-huh. And speaking of frauleins, you know Tommy's fiancee just hired an accountant — and she got invited to the wedding."
"And I should care because…"
"It's Kristin."
Mitchell slumped. "Oh, man."
"You haven't seen her in a long time."
"And I don't think she'd mind a few more centuries."
"Whatever happened between you two is water under the bridge. She's still single, and she teaches one of those kick-step whatever classes at the gym, too."
"How do you know? You've been talking to her?"
"She did my taxes this year. Gave me a good deal."
"But Dad, you know how it is. It never works out."
"One day it will. And I guess I'm just selfish, Scott. What can I tell you? Maybe you can fall in love with her, quit the army, and come back home so your old man can enjoy a few more years with his firstborn son."
"That's your plan?"
Dad wiggled his brows, then he frowned as his gaze lowered to Mitchell's bottle. "You come all the way out here with just one beer?"
"Take a break, Dad. Come on. You can build your coffin another day."
"Okay, but at the wedding, just don't ignore Kristin. Dance with her. Talk to her."
Mitchell gave a reluctant nod. "I'll try. Hopefully she won't draw blood."
FIFTEEN
The dinner conversation focused mainly on Tommy, who had been wise enough to have his bachelor party the weekend before his wedding. It had taken him three days to recover, Mitchell had learned. At least he hadn't come home with any new tattoos, just a world-class hangover.
Afterward, they'd had coffee and a triple-layer chocolate cake that, according to Jenn, weighed over five pounds. Mitchell had fended off their questions about his work, saying only that it was not as glamorous as they imagined.
Finally, they retired early for the evening. Mitchell would sleep in his old bedroom and, as expected, Dad still hadn't changed a thing. The dog-eared and fading Metallica and Michael Jordan posters still hung from the back wall; the Atari 2600 game console still sat atop Mitchell's dusty old Zenith; and the Uncle Sam poster — I Want You for U.S. Army — was still tacked to the wall above Mitchell's bed.
In fact, Dad had left all of the kids' bedrooms untouched. Mitchell assumed that all the memorabilia made Dad feel less alone. Jenn had been arguing with him for years to get rid of everything, sell the old house, and get a nice little house in The Villages, Florida. Dad would have none of it. He still had a few more years to go before retirement, and with work and his woodshop, he was "too busy to even think about that."
Even Mitchell's comic book collection still sat in plastic milk crates inside his closet. He thumbed through the stacks, pulling out an issue of DC's Sgt. Rock and another, Marvel's The 'Nam, both among his favorites. He brought them back to the nightstand.
After stripping down to his T-shirt and boxers, he sat on the bed and looked around. He could never have imagined that the little boy sleeping in this tiny room would, years later, travel around the globe. He was just a small-town kid who had joined the army because he couldn't afford college and had planned to use his GI Bill benefits to help pay for tuition once he got out. He and thousands of other guys had the same idea.
But army life suited Mitchell. The camaraderie, the loyalty, and the pride he felt were unlike any he had experienced in civilian life.
One night at the hospital, just a few days before the cancer had taken Mom, she had held his hands and said, "Scott, just remember, you are a very special boy. You were not born to live an ordinary life. Do everything you can to make the best of it. I know you will make your father and me very proud."
He never forgot those words, and he often thought that his mother somehow knew what would happen to him.
Mitchell shut off the main light, flicked on the small reading light on the nightstand, and settled down for a good read before turning in.