Chapter 4 - THE MAN WHO NEVER CAME HOME|
I stared at Colonel Mercer while the telephone trembled against my ear.
"Edward?"
The line crackled.
"Listen carefully, Quinn."
His voice sounded older than I remembered.
Of course it did.
Fifty-six years had passed.
But underneath the weakness was the same soft Missouri accent.
I had heard that voice through gunfire and rain.
I had heard it telling frightened soldiers jokes when there was nothing funny left in the world.
I would have recognized it anywhere.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"Not safe."
"Are you hurt?"
A faint chuckle came through the receiver.
"Still a nurse."
"Edward, answer me."
"Some things never change."
I looked at Mercer.
He was watching me with an expression I couldn't read.
"Why did you tell me not to trust the colonel?"
Edward went silent.
Then he said, "Because I don't know which colonel is standing beside you."
I exhaled slowly.
"Daniel Mercer."
Another silence.
"Thomas Mercer's boy?"
"Yes."
Edward made a small sound.
"Then perhaps he's the one person you can trust."
"Edward, you frightened me."
"I know."
"Where are you?"
He gave me an address in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
It was a small motel beside an abandoned service station.
"Come alone," he said.
"Absolutely not."
"Quinn—"
"I'm eighty-one, Edward, not stupid."
He laughed.
Then he coughed for so long that I nearly called for help.
"Please," he whispered when he could breathe again.
"There's something I need to give you."
"Then we'll come."
"Who's we?"
I looked at Mercer.
"Somebody whose father you once helped carry out of a burning helicopter."
Edward didn't answer immediately.
Then his voice broke.
"Tommy made it home?"
I closed my eyes.
"Yes, Edward."
"Did he have a good life?"
"He had a son."
Edward began to cry.
It was a small sound.
Almost apologetic.
"I always wondered."
The call ended.
For several seconds, I remained seated with the phone pressed against my ear.
Then Mercer gently touched my shoulder.
"Captain?"
I looked up.
"He's alive."
Mercer drew in a sharp breath.
"Edward Holloway?"
"Yes."
"Are you certain?"
I looked at the photograph on the wall.
"I knew him when he was nineteen."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Daniel, a woman can forget where she put her glasses."
I slipped my phone into my purse.
"But she doesn't forget the voice of a man she watched disappear into a war."
Mercer immediately began making arrangements.
He wanted military police.
He wanted medical personnel.
He wanted to notify the installation commander.
I refused all three.
Not because I believed secrecy was noble.
I had learned during the war that secrecy could become a convenient excuse for cruelty.
But Edward had survived fifty-six years without revealing himself.
If he was frightened enough to call me from a motel, there was a reason.
And I intended to hear that reason before twenty people in uniforms surrounded him.
Mercer finally agreed to accompany me with one driver.
Private Parker asked permission to come.
I looked at her.
"Why?"
She straightened.
"Because I should have stood up when Sergeant Reese started bothering you."
I shook my head.
"Being afraid doesn't make you a coward."
"I know, ma'am."
"Then why do you want to come?"
"Because I don't want to be afraid the next time."
That answer pleased me.
Mercer considered her request.
Then he nodded.
"Get your things."
We left the dining hall through a side entrance.
As we crossed the parking lot, I noticed Sergeant Reese standing beside a black pickup truck.
He watched us without moving.
There was something desperate in his eyes.
I nearly stopped to speak to him.
But Mercer opened the vehicle door, and I climbed inside.
We drove south beneath a gray October sky.
The trees along the highway were beginning to lose their leaves.
I watched the countryside pass, remembering another journey through another landscape.
Vietnam had been green in a way Tennessee never could be.
Green rice fields.
Green jungle.
Green hills disappearing into rain.
There were days when I hated that color.
It meant danger could be hiding anywhere.
But there were also mornings when the sunlight came through the clouds and made the world look untouched.
Those moments had kept many of us alive.
"Captain?" Mercer asked from the front seat.
"Yes?"
"Did my father ever tell you about the night he was wounded?"
"He told me you were a difficult baby."
Mercer laughed.
"That's not what I meant."
"I know."
I looked out the window.
"Your father was struck by shrapnel while helping evacuate two wounded men."
"He told us you carried him."
"I helped carry him."
"That's not the story he told."
"Most soldiers improve their stories as they get older."
Mercer smiled.
Then he became serious.
"He said you refused to leave the evacuation site, even when the commanding officer ordered you to go."
I nodded.
"That happened."
"Why?"
"Because I could still hear someone calling for help."
"Edward?"
"At the time, I thought so."
Mercer turned in his seat.
"Who was it?"
I hesitated.
"I don't know."
The truth tasted bitter.
For fifty-six years, I had told myself that I had saved everyone I could.
That was the version that allowed me to sleep.
But there had been one voice in the darkness.
A voice I had never been able to forget.
We reached the motel twenty minutes later.
It had a faded red sign and six rooms facing a cracked parking lot.
Room Four was at the far end.
Mercer asked the driver to remain by the vehicle.
Parker stayed close behind me.
I walked to the door.
My knees ached.
My heartbeat was loud enough to hear.
I knocked three times.
Nothing.
Then a lock clicked.
The door opened a few inches.
An elderly Black man stood inside.
His back was bent.
A silver-handled cane rested against his leg.
And beside his left eye was a familiar white scar.
For one extraordinary moment, I saw the young soldier he had been.
The boy who shared candy with homesick men.
The boy who wrote letters for soldiers who couldn't find the words.
The boy who once told me that if he survived the war, he would buy his mother a house with a front porch.
"Hello, Captain," he whispered.
My eyes filled.
"Edward."
His mouth trembled.
"I'm sorry."
I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him.
He held me carefully, as though I might break.
We were two old people standing in the doorway of a cheap motel.
But for a few seconds, time disappeared.
Then Edward pulled back.
His expression changed when he saw Mercer.
"You look just like your father."
Mercer swallowed.
"Sergeant Holloway."
Edward shook his head.
"Don't salute me, son."
"Why not?"
"Because officially, I'm dead."
He stepped aside.
Inside the room, a black medical case sat on the bed.
The metal corners were dented.
The handle was wrapped with old cloth.
I recognized it immediately.
My breath caught.
Edward followed my gaze.
"I kept my promise, Quinn."
He lifted the case.
Then he said something that made Colonel Mercer reach for his phone.
"The twenty-fourth man didn't die in that helicopter."
Edward looked directly into my eyes.
May you like
"He was murdered three days later."
And beneath the black medical case, I saw a photograph of a man wearing the same brass crest as Sergeant Reese.
