Seeing him in the wheelchair made her heart ache. She knew prosthetics were highly advanced these days, she knew he would have every advantage his parents’ money and the VA doctors could give him, but dammit, he had been a tall, strong, athletic young man, and now he was cut down-literally-before he had even had a chance to flower. She wondered if any of the Ellises had given Will, or themselves, the space to grieve that loss.
She broached the subject when the rest of the family conveniently disappeared on assorted after-dinner chores, leaving her and Will alone in the dining room. “I haven’t seen you at church since I got back,” she said.
“Did my mom ask you to talk with me?”
“Yes.” She poured herself another glass of merlot.
“I don’t need a talking-to. I’m doing fine.”
Clare propped her chin on her hand. “Are you angry about losing your legs?”
He made a face. “At who? The Iraqi insurgents? My CO? The government?”
“For a start, yeah.”
“What’s the use?” He smoothed over his expression. “It’s done. I need to move on.”
“In the first place”-Clare ticked off a finger-“anger isn’t useful, or therapeutic, or rational. It just is, and when life hands you a shitty deal, you have the right to be angry.”
Will looked shocked. She almost smiled. Who would have thought she could scandalize a nineteen-year-old marine?
“Second”-she ticked off another finger-“we’re all so in love with the idea of moving on and growing through loss and making lemonade when life hands us lemons that we don’t take time to mourn. Before you can move on, you have to stand still and account for what’s been lost. Sometimes, you have to throw the damn lemon against the wall and yell, I wanted chocolate chip cookies, not this bitter fruit. ”
Will hiccupped a laugh. “Yeah. Well.”
“You know, your mom is hoping I’m going to set you to rights over the dessert plates and biscuit crumbs.”
“’Cause you have the awesome power of God behind you. Like a double-magic throw in D and D.”
She smiled. That was the first thing he had said that sounded like the old Will. “She told me you don’t want to go to a psychiatrist.”
“No. No. Absolutely not. I’m not going to have somebody banging on about sibling rivalry and my parents’ expectations when what my problem is, is that I got royally fucked up in Iraq and I’m never going to walk normally again.”
He looked at her, challenging her to be offended by his vocabulary.
“You know what I think you could use? A veterans’ group.” She slid the black-and-white brochure out of her pocket and smoothed its crumpled edges on the tablecloth. “There’s one starting up at the community center the week after next. It’s not analysis. It’ll just be a few other guys who know what you’re talking about because they’ve been there, too.”
He picked up the brochure and rolled his eyes at the overearnest pictures of waving flags and solemn soldiers. “What, another bunch of cripples? No thanks.” He tossed the brochure back onto the table. “I did that at Walter Reed.”
“Will. There are a lot of us who came back wounded. Some of us just don’t show it on the outside.”
“Yeah?” He leaned forward, his muscular forearms contrasting with the flowered tablecloth. “Where were you hurt, Reverend Clare?”
When did it stop being safe to fall asleep?
“I didn’t mean me personally.”
“You said us. You said there were a lot of us.”
Her fingers clutched around the stem of her wineglass. “I’m fine. We’re not talking about me, anyway.”
“That’s what you want me to do, though. Talk about what happened. Talk about how I’m feeling. With other vets. Like you. So. Are you like me?”
“No! I mean, yes, of course I’m like you, but no, I’m not… I don’t have…” She thought about the noise in her head, the constant roaring tumult she tried to keep in check with booze and pills. For a moment, she could see it all, the dark tunnel vision, the brilliant explosions, the blood, the broken bodies-she picked up her wineglass and swallowed the entire contents in one gulp. She reached for the bottle and emptied it into her glass. “I’m fine.” And she was. There were stresses coming back into civilian life. Everyone knew that. There had been stress in the seminary, for God’s sake. Lord knows, she’d experienced stress as the rector of St. Alban’s. So she ran hard-when her ankle wasn’t wonky-and relaxed over a glass of wine and maybe used a sleeping pill to help get a good night’s rest. That was dealing with stress in a healthy way.
“You’re fine,” Will said.
She nodded. Smiled at him. Her heart rate was coming back down. She hadn’t realized it had been pounding.
“Then I’m fine.” He leaned back. Unlocked his wheel brakes. Rolled away from the table.
“Will, wait.”
“No.” He looked at her, his eyes hard. He looked, she realized, like a man, instead of the boy she always saw. “Either you’re telling the truth, and I’m some sort of freak who needs a blankie and a blow job to get over what happened to me, or you’re full of it, in which case, you’re dealing with it the same way I am. By keeping your head down and bulling through from one day to the next.”
“Will, just because I don’t think I need help-”
“I’ll make you a deal, Reverend. If you go, I’ll go.” He wrapped his hands around the edges of his wheels and jerked himself into a turn. “Do you remember what you said to us in confirmation class? You said we should accept ourselves as God accepted us. And if we did that, no person, or job, or experience could define who we were. Because we were God’s beloved. Remember?”
She nodded. “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” The verse seemed to come from very far away.
“How’s that working out for you?” He rolled out of the wide dining room arch before she could come up with a response. “Dad,” he called from the other room. “I’m tired. Will you help me to bed?”
Anne poked her head in from the kitchen. Listened as Chris pushed Will up the hall, the wheelchair’s hard rubber tires rumbling over their wooden floorboards. She dropped into the seat next to Clare. “How did it go?”
Clare rubbed her hands over her face. “Not so hot.”
Anne pressed her lips together.
“I’m sorry, Anne.” She took another drink of wine to quiet the other, older noise, the one that named her a failure as a priest. “I thought we were establishing some rapport, but then I got him mad at me. He’s not really tired, he’s angry.”
Anne’s mouth dropped open. “He’s angry?”
“I’m sorry.”
Anne grabbed her arm. “No! That’s great! He hasn’t shown any anger in-God, I don’t know how long. Oh, Clare, I knew you could do it.” She threw her arms around Clare in an awkward hug. “Will you come and talk with him again? Soon?”
The dark tunnel reappeared outside the limits of sight. “Of course I will.” Clare swallowed more wine. “Of course.”
Chris Ellis gave her a ride home. She had planned on walking back, but it was a mile, and her ankle was wobbly-she thought it was her ankle, messing up her balance-and so she accepted the lift. He let her out in her drive. She waved as he drove away, feeling guilty for not finding the right words to reach his son. She limped up the kitchen steps and paused at her dark door, breathing in the scent of night jasmine and honeysuckle, listening to the mad chorus of crickets singing for love before the frosts came and mowed them all down.
She remembered something Russ had told her once. I was drinking pretty heavily then. Of course, I never felt drunk. Just numb. When would that happen to her? When would she get to stop feeling so bad?