Bob has stopped retreating into the dark. The boy’s voice has risen and it’s angry and though it takes too much from Bob to make out the words at this distance, too much squeezing in his head, he knows the boy is telling off his father, standing up to him, and Bob is breathing hard, his right hand is itchy but he keeps it at his side for the moment. Still he owes it to the boy, so he strains to hear, and there’s Viet Cong and there’s jihad and there’s Hitler and there’s beheaded and Bob can’t draw his next breath because there’s just too much in his chest to get past.
Jake has stopped talking. He’s panting a little.
Robert wants badly to have words now. His life, his work, is about words. None come to mind. Jake is smart. Robert has listened to him carefully. He’s heard him. He understands how Jake can see the world in this way, how he can see this cause as just. But how to reason a young man out of going to war? As reasonable as Jake’s words sound, his decision itself isn’t about reason. But now that the babble in Robert’s head has quieted, the only words he commands can’t begin to address Jake’s rush, his passion.
It may be too late anyway.
Robert says, “Have you already joined?”
“I’ve taken the aptitude test. And I’ve passed the medical. I make it official next week.”
“What do you need from me?”
“If you can talk to Dad, help him through this. He’s really upset. He won’t get off it.”
Kevin is smart too. He’s surely said it all. Robert despairs of finding a way to dissuade Jake.
“Your dad isn’t making any sense to you?”
Jake shrugs. “It’s not really about sense. He loves me.”
“I love you too, Jake.”
“But you made the same choice when you were my age. For a worse cause.”
Another irony for this night. That was also about a father’s love. A worse cause indeed. And Robert suddenly has relevant words: “Are you sure you’re not doing this because he does love you? Because you need to be your own man, separate from him?”
Jake turns his face away to the trees. To think this over.
Bob straightens sharply. Something’s happened across the way. Since he resumed his breathing, Bob has held himself very still, in body and mind, trying to understand what was before him and what he should do about it. But either the words faded or his mind has. And now the boy has looked away again. As if he’s been slapped across the face. Things can change quickly. Bob puts his hand inside his coat. Holds the Glock but keeps it inside there for the moment.
Jake turns his face back to Robert. He says, “I’m sure. Living with what I believe, how I feel, I couldn’t bear to watch the future unfold if I don’t do what I can.”
Robert does love this boy. Loves this smart, tough, quick Jake, who has not gotten enough of his grandfather in his life. Robert lifts his hands to grasp Jake at the shoulders.
Oh no you don’t. Bob slips his Glock from his pocket, takes a breath. Breath control. Trigger control.
Robert cups Jake’s shoulders and he begins to pull him toward him.
Bob’s right hand comes up strong, steady, brings the Glock to bear, tracking the side of Robert’s head.
Jake could take one breath more, could have one more flicker of a thought, he could hesitate for the briefest moment to accept from his grandfather what he has resisted over and over in the past few weeks from his father, but Granddad can do this because he was a soldier, because he went to war, Granddad knows what it means because he’s been there, and so Jake rushes now, he opens his arms to Robert and they hug.
And one flicker, one breath, one moment away from squeezing the trigger, Bob’s right forefinger freezes, and a deep recoil of air rushes into Bob, drops his right arm, pushes him back as if a Viet Cong sniper has been following him through these woods and has squeezed off his own round and shot Bob through the center of his chest. Because this father and this son have embraced.
Bob leans against a tree. Closes his eyes.
Robert and Jake say nothing but hold the embrace for a few more moments. Then they let each other go and they turn and head back through doors, into the hallway.
They pause before entering the visitation room.
“Thanks, Granddad,” Jake says.
Robert reaches out, cuffs his grandson on the shoulder. He fills with a thing too complicated to call regret, though his insistently abstracting mind would be content with that. “What are you going to do for them?” he asks.
“The Marines?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what the test was about. Whatever they want. But you know the first thing they teach in the Corps. Every Marine is a rifleman.”
Robert manages a nod.
Jake says, “Well, time to deploy.” He opens the visitation room door, holds it for his grandfather.
Robert finds himself immovable with the thought that Jake would have made his Grandpa Bill proud.
He flicks his chin to Jake to send him on in. Jake winks and says, “Cover me.” And he disappears.
The door swings closed.
Robert reboots.
He goes in.
Near the door Peggy is quickly closing in on Jake. She reaches him, hugs him, releases him while giving Robert a tilt-headed frown, and she propels her grandson toward the buffet room.
She does not follow but comes to Robert. “Where were you two?”
“Jake wanted to talk.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s okay.”
“I’m sure it’s hard for him,” Peggy says. “Losing his Grandpa Bill. He’s not experienced death before. That’s a blessing, of course. But now he’s got to face it.”
“He’s fine, Mom.”
“Your father loved that boy.”
“I’m sure he did.”
“He was so full of love.”
Robert doesn’t have any words for that.
Peggy’s eyes are filling with tears. But not about Jake. Or the old man. She’s fixed on Robert now. She lifts a hand and touches his cheek.
He accepts it. Waits.
She withdraws the hand, looks over her shoulder.
Several dozen visitors are arranged now in small, softly murmuring groups about the room.
Peggy turns back to her son. “I’m weary of them, Bobby. Can we talk a little?”
“Of course,” he says, hoping she won’t speak to him as Bobby. “There’s a place through here.”
He leads her into the back hallway. For a moment they pause between the two sets of doors. “This is nice,” she says.
Beyond the porte cochere doors, beyond the back driveway, in the darkness of the trees, Bob has settled to the ground at the foot of an oak, his back against the trunk. The Glock is still in his hand, though he is presently unaware of it. His head is full of a high metallic whine. It’s often there. Words can cover it over. Or other sounds. But he has no words to speak, for the moment, and the woods around him are silent. So he listens to the whine. Idly. An oscillating whine. Though its highs and its lows are very near each other, he can distinguish them. He’s smart that way. He begins to count in his head. At each peak. One. Two.
Robert and Peggy step away, toward the end of the hall opposite the kitchen. They stop in the amber bloom of light of a torchiere. They face each other. Peggy initiates a hug, which Robert returns. They hold this for a long moment and then Peggy pulls away, but barely a half step, maintaining the connection of their eyes.