Seeing as how he had no choice in the matter, he squared his shoulders, walked over to the directory, peeled back the pages and ran his finger down the endless list of names. Rapidly, at first, but then his trailing finger slowed…and paused. He felt a tremor deep in his belly.
He drew a long breath, then did an about-face and walked quickly down the slope, into the long black gash in the earth’s green skin known as The Wall.
He moved along without pausing, part of him noticing the details of his surroundings, as was his ingrained habit, taking in the tokens left here and there along the base of the black granite wall-American flags, flowers, photographs, hastily written notes-and the subdued presence of park security. He noticed that the casual visitors tended to keep a certain distance, strolling by quietly, almost reverently, on the outside of the walkway, now and then pointing, like polite strangers in church. Mostly it was those on a more personal quest who moved in close. Who seemed to feel a need to reach out and touch.
He found the name he was looking for at The Wall’s highest point, where the names were thickest, the numbers the most overwhelming. He was glad that it was only a little above head height and easy to reach. Slowly he lifted his hand and traced the letters: Walter T. Hawkins. Then the diamond that designated KIA-killed in action. He opened his fingers and placed his palm flat against the polished granite. He hadn’t expected it to feel so warm, almost like a living thing instead of polished stone.
In that moment something swelled and burst inside him, as unpreventable as an unexpected sneeze. It was a few minutes before he was able to mumble the words he’d waited so many years to say.
“Hey, Dad. I guess I should have come before. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long…”
Jane lost track of how long she sat on the cold marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial, watching the tourists come and go, seeing watchers in the shadows, a terrorist behind every tree. So she wasn’t sure exactly when it was that she began to get angry. When she came to realize that the intruder in her hotel room might have stolen something from her that was of greater value than any painting, even a real Renoir. When she became determined that if it was the last thing she ever did, she was going to get that something back. No art thief or petty burglar was going to run her life!
What was it that nice young instructor in the self-defense class she’d taken in those first nervous, vulnerable months after the divorce-what was his name?-Shing Lee, that was it. What had Shing always said?
Take control, take action!
Yes, that was it. To get over this awful fear and sense of violation, she had to take back control. She had to take action. It was all up to her.
The first thing she made up her mind to do was what she’d planned to do in the first place-see the sights of Washington. Later on, if she felt like it and it was convenient, she’d take the painting to a gallery and have someone tell her what she already knew: that it was an undistinguished Impressionist-style painting, not especially good, but it would look quite nice hanging over her piano.
And if, during the course of the day, anyone tried to push her down, step on her back and render her unconscious, well…thanks to Shing Lee, she had a trick or two up her own sleeve.
Just let them try, she thought as she rose somewhat stiffly and started down the steps. Riled and ready, she was almost disappointed not to catch a glimpse of Aaron Campbell lurking in the trees between the Lincoln and Vietnam Memorials.
But as she made her way slowly down the walkway past the rows of makeshift tent stalls manned by disabled veterans in their long hair and beards and tattered camouflage fatigues, selling memorabilia and souvenirs of a war they couldn’t leave behind, she found the incident in her hotel room, and all her fears and unanswered questions slipping into the back of her mind. As always when confronted with reminders of that war and those times, she developed an irritating little itch of guilt.
At the height of the dying and the turbulence and dissension, she’d had other things on her mind. In the early years of a marriage that had been troubled even then-though she’d never have admitted such a thing-she remembered feeling only a mild sense of sorrow and regret when her mother had called with the news that a boy Jane had gone to school with was MIA-missing in action in Vietnam. In recent years, though, she’d found herself thinking quite a bit about Jimmy Hill, though she’d never known him well at all. He’d been two years ahead of her, and in a different crowd altogether. But still…she had known him. She could recall his face even now. Where would he be today if he’d survived the war? Might he be like one of these men, with their maimed bodies and nightmares, their grizzled faces and haunted eyes?
So it was partly to scratch that little itch of guilt that Jane decided to look up Jimmy Hill’s name in the directory, partly to try to feel some sort of connectedness to a period of history that had inflicted such grievous injury on an entire generation, while leaving her virtually untouched. Beyond that, she had no idea what she hoped to accomplish by finding Jimmy’s name on that wall of so many thousands of names. Touch it, maybe? Say a little prayer for his family? She didn’t know. But it seemed important, somehow.
Her heart began to beat faster when she found the name in the book, followed by a cross that, according to the directory, meant MIA. But the awe didn’t hit her until she was approaching The Wall itself…until she saw the first of the names. So many names. That was when she knew that she should not have come alone, and that she would leave something of herself behind.
What was it about the place? She vaguely remembered controversy when it first opened…probably the statues added since had assuaged any disappointment that might have lingered. But it wasn’t the statues people came to see. It wasn’t the statues that made strong men cry.
Like that one there, the tall, lean man in the brown leather jacket, standing with his palm pressed against the mirror-like surface of the monument, head bowed, shoulders hunched with pain.
Chapter 6
She halted as if the wall itself had suddenly shifted to block her path, while her heartbeat stumbled and then lurched on, like a drunk running downhill.
Tom Hawkins. Yes, it was-and she’d have known him at once in spite of the old, worn-looking bomber jacket, baseball cap and aviator sunglasses he was wearing, and the oddly out-of-place briefcase he was carrying, if it hadn’t been for the grief that seemed to weigh him down like an invisible net.
For a few moments she stood motionless, in shock not so much at seeing him Here-she was beginning to half expect him to turn up “coincidentally” wherever she happened to be-or even at the giddy lift she’d felt beneath her ribs at the moment of recognition. But seeing him like this. Hurt and suffering, and so dreadfully vulnerable. It seemed almost indecent that she should see him like this, like surprising a stranger in the shower.
And yet it was her nature to comfort and nurture, and the urge to go to him and offer what solace she could was all but overwhelming. Or…maybe after all it would be better if she just turned and walked away and left him his privacy and solitude.
How long she stood there in breathless indecision she didn’t know, but in the end he looked up and saw her, and the choice wasn’t hers to make.
“Well,” he said in a cracked-sounding voice, “we meet again.”
Jane mumbled something equally inane and was rewarded with his crooked smile, which seemed to her even more heartbreakingly poignant than usual in that context.
“Are you-” he gestured toward the scrap of paper on which she’d written down the coordinates for Jimmy’s name “-looking for someone?”