Heroes In Uniform (163 page)

Grif stepped in between Luke and Ellyn, and she stopped immediately, hands on hips.

“Grif, I can’t take this from you – I won’t.”

“Then I’ll pay you for feeding me and nursing me and changing my sheets and – ”

“You most certainly will not.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I did that out of ... out of friendship.”

“Fine, then I’m doing this out of
friendship
.” He met her eyes at the last word, and got another jolt from the emotional cocktail they’d concocted.

“Grif, it’s not the same.”

“You’re right. I come out too easy. I figure I’d’ve been in the hospital two, three days, and that’s about the cost of three dryers. In fact – Luke? How’re you at installing dishwashers?”

Luke’s voice was partly muffled by his position behind the dryer, but audible. “I could manage.”

“Don’t you dare, Grif! That’s completely out of the question. I won’t – ”

Grif wasn’t sure if his luck was good or bad when the back door opened to Ben and Meg.

“Grif! You’re back!” Ben said with such open joy that Grif felt his throat close. The boy wrapped both arms around his waist and hugged tight. “I knew you’d be back. I knew it was all a lie about you being the one to close up the fort and take the army away. I’ve missed you, Grif. You haven’t heard about our game last week, and the last kids finally did their presentations and I got an A from Mrs. Hammerschmidt for you coming to class, and Bobby got a B because he made Daniel do all the work, but me and him are friends again and – boy, there’s a lot to tell you.”

Unable to stop himself, Grif drew the boy closer with his hands on his shoulders. He’d written them a couple notes each in the ten days, but he hadn’t let himself see them. He had to start pulling back from their lives. He had to...

“Hi, Grif.”

He looked around to see Meg in the doorway. Wariness and hope warred on her small face. “Hi, Meg.”

He stretched out a hand to her before he knew he intended to. But she didn’t move.

“Can you stay for dinner, Grif?” Ben asked.

“Don’t be stupid, Ben,” Meg said before either adult could answer. “Can’t you see he’s going away again? Just like everybody in town said.”

He met Ellyn’s eyes. In the telltale sheen there, he saw pain. In a flash as bright and stunning as lightning, he knew the pain was for him as well as her children.

“Meg – ”

He reached for her, but she ducked away and ran past her mother through the kitchen and out of sight.

Ben had backed away from him and now looked up. “Are you, Grif? Are you going away again?”

“I’m going back to Fort Piney,” he said evenly. “And eventually, I’m going to close it down. Those are my orders.”

“But you could – ”

“Ben, don’t you have homework?” Ellyn asked, firm but even.

“But, Grif, you – ”

“Benjamin.”

The boy gave him one more look that Grif feared might bring him to his knees, then headed slowly in the same direction as Meg.

The silence was broken now only by the sounds of Luke working behind him. He didn’t look at Ellyn, afraid of what he’d see in her eyes, afraid of what that would do to him.

“Grif – ”

“I know. I shouldn’t have come. And I shouldn’t come back.”

“I would never tell you that. You’re welcome here anytime. Anytime you can stay for a while.”

Then Ellyn left, too.

Grif didn’t let himself think as he helped Luke with the final installation steps. Within minutes they were trying it out. And Ellyn finally had a dryer that worked.

They loaded up the old dryer and headed to the home ranch, where Grif had left his car – and had promised Marti he’d stop by. He’d called her as soon as the news about Piney closing was official, but he figured he owed her more than that.

“You coming in?” he asked Luke.

“Nah. I’ve got some work waiting.”

“Well, thanks, Luke.” He extended his hand. “I appreciate your help.”

The younger man studied him a moment before meeting his grip. “Glad to do it for Ellyn and the two kids. Maybe you’ll appreciate some advice, too – don’t be a horse’s ass.”

Grif wouldn’t have had anything to say to him even if Luke hadn’t turned and walked away then.

Braced for more of the same from his aunt, it was a relief when she merely grilled him about the closing of Fort Piney and his role in it. Only after an hour or so could he start steering the interrogation toward his ideas for Piney’s future. When he told her about the community meeting he planned, she gave his forearm a firm atta-boy pat.

The pinch between Marti’s brows had eased and she was actually starting to look intrigued when the back door opened. Without coming in, Luke Chandler addressed Grif with his usual directness.

“Ellyn needs you. Meg’s locked herself in her room. Won’t come out.”

* * *

Ellyn knew it was Grif, not Luke returning, even before she could see him, recognizing something in the rhythm of his movement despite his taking the stairs two at a time.

He gave her a brief, hard hug. “Are you okay?”

She answered in the same low voice he’d used. “I’m fine. Meg’s just so upset – ”

“Do you want me to break the door in, are you worried she’ll hurt herself?”

“No, no, I can’t believe she’d... But if it comes to that I can take the door off the hinges. But I think it would be better if she came out on her own steam.”

The muscles around his mouth shifted as if under other circumstances he might have smiled. “Like the circuit breaker. Nothing for me to do because you have it all taken care of.”

“Not hardly. She won’t talk to me at all.”

He glanced toward the closed door down the hallway. “Ben?”

“He was tired. He’s taking a nap.” She saw no need to tell him that Ben had cried himself into a deep sleep. “Maybe if you tried to talk to her?”

His expression stiffened an instant, then slowly relaxed to an unreadable neutral. He didn’t meet her eyes as he stepped across the landing to the locked door. He stood there a moment with his head down. When he raised it, he also raised his hand and knocked briskly.

“Meg?” His voice was steady and normal.

“Why are
you
here?”

“Because I’m worried about you. Your Mom – ”

“Why? You’re not my father.”

He winced. His voice gave none of that away. “No, I’m not. But I’m still worried about you. Remember what we talked about up at Leaping Star’s overlook?”

“It doesn’t matter what I remember, because it was all a lie.”

“It wasn’t a lie. I love you, Meg.”

“Why should I believe you? All the things you said that day – you said you’d always be around for us. But you
lied
!”

“I didn’t lie to you, Meg. I told you I would have to leave. I told you I was here just for a while. That I’d have to go back when my leave was over.”

“But that was before you started working at Fort Piney. You could be here, you just don’t want to be. So you
lied
. You could be here if you loved us like you said you did, but you
don’t
!”

“Meg – ”

“Go away. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Okay, then you can listen.”

“No! No, I’m not going to listen to you. Why did you even bother to come back when you’re just going to go away again? Everyone goes away. Everyone ...” That trailed off into a sob.

“Sometimes people don’t have choices about going away, Meg. Remember what we talked about on the overlook, how your Dad – ”

“My Dad had a choice! And now you’re just like him. I heard him arguing with Mom about a divorce the night he left.” Ellyn covered her mouth with her hand to keep from crying out in recognition of the extra burden Meg had carried all these months. “He said he was going to find something better. Something better than – ” Another sob broke the next word, but Meg defiantly repeated it in a near shout. “ –
us
. So go ahead and do the same. We don’t need you. I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody. I’m strong!”

He backed away from the door slowly.

“Grif – ”

“This is why, Ellyn. This is ... I never wanted to hurt her – any of you. You warned me, and I knew better, but I was too – ” She stepped toward him, reaching, but he held out a hand to ward her off. “No. Take care of your daughter.”

* * *

Ellyn brushed her hand across the top of the headstone where her husband was buried.

In the numbing shock when Dale’s death followed so closing on the heels of his leaving, Ellyn had gladly agreed to Marti’s suggestion that he be buried here on Far Hills Ranch in the plot that held four generations of Suslands as well as ranchhands. Marti had said it would be easier for her and the kids to visit his grave this way.

She hadn’t been here since the day of the funeral – not even when the headstone was erected – and she didn’t think either of her children had, either.

Maybe they would after last night’s long, tear-filled but cleansing talk among the three of them.

Meg had finally opened her door, the timing of it making Ellyn suspect she’d watched Grif drive away, then unlocked the door and fell into her mother’s arms in a gale of tears, exclaiming that she’d driven Grif away just as she’d driven her father away – and to his death. Ben emerged from his room, sleepy and rumpled and looking entirely too young and vulnerable to cope with these revelations.

And then she found out Ben had known about Dale leaving all the time, too.

The three of them sat on the landing at the top of the stairs, crying and talking and crying some more, as the secrets came out one by one and turned to dust.

Then they’d talked about Grif. She’d tried to explain what she could of what he faced, hoping they’d understand a little.

Instead they’d given her insights, recounting revelations he’d made to them about his years growing up with a father absent in all ways but the physical.

Closer to midnight than dinnertime, they ate soup in their pajamas around the table, and then they had ice cream with whipped cream on top, and she tucked each of her children in bed as she used to when they were babies.

They all slept in so late that she drove them to school after lunch. And then she came here.

“It’s okay, Dale. I know you cared. Not the way I wanted you to, but you cared the way you could. And I want you to know we’re all okay now. I’m sorry ... I’m sorry we hurt each other. I’m sorry we disappointed each other. I’m sorry you’re not going to have another chance the way I do.”

She touched her fingertips to her lips, then brushed them against the letters of his name carved in the stone.

“I will always love you because we created Meg and Ben together. Thank you for them.”

No tears dropped, though her eyes were full. She felt lighter somehow. And
right
.

Farther along, she kissed her fingertips and pressed them to the center of another name. “We miss you, Amy.”

She moved away and found the other headstone she’d been seeking, the one in the large grouping of interconnected Suslands, reaching back four generations. She placed a spray of blazing star and long-leaf phlox on the grave, then stepped back, one hand cupping the other.

“I don’t suppose you remember me. I would have been just a baby the last time you were at the ranch. I’m Ellyn. Ellyn Neal Sinclair. I love your son. He needs your help. And I need your help, so I can help him.”

* * *

Marti was waiting for her when she got back to Ridge House. Ellyn poured herself a cup from the fresh pot of coffee Marti had made while she waited, just as Ellyn would have done at the home ranch or at Kendra’s.

“Looks like you can use the caffeine,” Marti commented as Ellyn sat beside her at the table.

“I can. The kids and I were up late – talking.” She’d answered the question behind Marti’s statement, now she answered the question in her eyes. “It was good. We’ll be okay now.”

“And Grif?”

Her eyes teared up so suddenly she had no hope of stopping two from spilling over. “I don’t know.”

“I thought when the boy came home ...
You turn away from my people, so your blood will have no home.”
Marti covered Ellyn’s hand in the warmth of mutual comfort, and heaved a sorrowful sigh. “The past isn’t always what we think it is.”

Ellyn waited for more, but when Marti spoke again, it was in her usual brisk tone.

“I have something for you, Ellyn.” Marti took an envelope from her sweater pocket. She stared down at it, making no move to hand it over. “Going through all the old family papers for the special section, at the home ranch and in the archives in Sheridan, got me thinking about more recent history.”

She breathed in sharply. “This is my sister Nancy’s last letter to me, before she died. I flew out there. I was with her when she died, but she couldn’t say much. When I came home to Far Hills after the funeral, this letter was waiting for me.”

Now she did hold it out, but Ellyn shook her head wordlessly.

“Go ahead,” Marti urged. “You read it. Then I’ll leave it to you to decide what – if anything – you want to do with it.”

“I can’t. This is private ... personal.”

She’d asked for help, but this ...

“It’s family,” Marti said, placing the envelope in Ellyn’s limp hands, then curling her fingers around it. “You read it.”

Ellyn didn’t know how long after Marti left she sat there, with the aging envelope awkwardly held by fingers that felt nerveless. A shudder passed through her, then she walked down the hallway to her bedroom.

She hesitated in front of the bed, then turned away. The old sliding rocker in the corner was strangely absent of folded clothes waiting to be put away. Taking that as an omen, she sat there and extracted the sheets covered by handwriting in blue ballpoint.

Dearest, littlest sister Marti,

Remember how I used to call you that when you were little and you hated it because you wanted to be so grown up? And now you are grown up. So grown up. And now Amy is the littlest and you’re the older sister.

It’s almost morning, and still sleep won’t come. Or I won’t let it come. Everything is a balancing act now. How much pain I can bear, how much time I will lose by killing the pain. And there is so much still to do. So much I can’t do. Can only ask others to do for me.