The Heart You Carry Home (19 page)

“You bet!” Cholene beamed.

“Be careful out there, okay?” said Vicky, and Becca understood that her new friends would not be joining her that evening.

“I'm sure things'll be fine,” she said, hoping that her voice masked her apprehension. The talk of people burning in ritual fires was more than a little worrisome, but nobody was going to mess with the bikers. She was probably safer in their company than she'd ever been. She zipped up the leather jacket.

“You just pull that off the rack?” Vicky asked. “It looks brand-spanking-new. It's nice with your short hair too—sorry we didn't get in a trim.”

“Oh, it's okay,” Becca said, her hand on the door. “And I'm still deciding about the jacket.”

“Yeah, leather's tough to break in,” Vicky agreed. “But once you do, it's like a second skin.”

“Have fun in Kleos!” Cholene called as Becca stepped into the night. “And when you get to a computer, make sure to write Vic here a good review on Yelp! She needs all the help she can get.”

T
HE HOT WHEELS GRILL
was a strip club minus the strippers. The waitress uniforms left little to the imagination, and the banquettes were predictably covered in purple velvet that was oddly similar to the velour on King's Gold Wing. They were also speckled with rough black patches that, if you were being generous about it, could be dried gum.

Reno slid into a booth at the back of the room and lit up a cigar. A waitress came to take his order and he asked for a chicken salad sandwich and a beer. His crew sat across the room, and Bull stood chatting up one of the waitresses, taking advantage of his relative youth among the bikers. He leaned against the jukebox, his hips thrust forward, redundantly broadcasting his intentions. Becca was nowhere to be seen.

Reno knew he was being juvenile, refusing to tell Becca what was in Kath's letter. At first, he just hadn't wanted to deal with it. But now his increasing proximity to Kleos filled him with dread. He needed to treat this situation like he would a Band-Aid: rip the protective cover off, get the pain of it over fast. Reno told plenty of war stories about his time in the service, but this was not one of them. Others were bloodier. Objectively speaking, they were more traumatic. But there wasn't a one-to-one correlation between the amount of violence in a story and the way it affected you. Telling
this
tale meant inviting in a complicated and unhappy set of emotions. He just didn't want to go there. And yet he had been, quite literally, speeding in that direction for the past five days.

Reno had not looked at Kath's letter once since the Love's parking lot. Now he pulled it from his jacket pocket and flattened it across the table.

Reno: Despite our differences, I know you've long strived to protect my brother. Well, now that burden is fully upon you. King believes in the CO like Jeanine believes in Jesus. This is not a joke for him, and it shouldn't be for us. The CO is crazy, even dangerous. So what happens when King goes through this ordeal, into which he's put every last hope, and realizes it's a sham? And the physical risk! I'm truly afraid for my brother, Reno.

Maybe it's foolish of me to think that Becca can make a difference. But since they reunited, I've noticed a change in King. Haven't you? She is the one part of him that hasn't been corrupted by the CO's nonsense. Maybe you can sneak her into Kleos, like the Trojan horse—or at least get her into my brother's head so she can show him how much goodness the outside world has to offer.

Now, as for Ben: Please take my girl as far from him as you possibly can. You say that Kleos is like the end of the earth? Well, that's where she needs to go if it will get her away from that man. I am heartbroken for her, Reno. Which is another reason why you cannot allow King to go through with this. Becca needs his support more than ever now. And he owes her. Bigtime.

I'm relying on you.

Katherine

When Reno first read Kath's letter, he'd thought only of King. If Kath believed that Becca could help protect his best friend, then Reno would bring the girl along. But that was before he'd gotten to know Becca. Now he felt an obligation to her too.

The day after they'd all left the cabin, Kath called Reno's cell to say that Ben had shown up, that he had no memory of hurting Becca, and that he was determined to find her. Kath wanted her niece to get an annulment. “Think how free Becca could be if she left that painful romance behind. She could be happy someday,” Kath insisted.

But Reno was reluctant to write Ben off. He himself had come a long way since the early days after the war. Even King, with all of his troubles, had made changes over the years. So second chances were fair and right. Shouldn't Ben have the same opportunities and the same support? And Reno didn't believe Becca's claims about being through with her husband. She was wounded, sure. But sometimes,
only
the wounded could help each other. Reno knew that in the wrong hands—say, the CO's hands—this philosophy was dangerous. But there was truth in it if you didn't fancy yourself some kind of Colonel Kurtz demigod.

Reno was not going to lose King to the CO's insanity. If Becca's father locked himself up in Kleos—or if he gave up hope entirely—then Reno, like Becca, would be entirely alone.

Back outside Hot Wheels, Reno walked away from the highway and the rumble of heavy trucks. It was noble of Kath to want to protect her niece. But he had to follow his gut with this one. He pulled out his phone and called Ben.

Becca had never been inside a casino before; the one in Shiprock was like the lobby of a not-quite-luxury hotel fused with a video arcade. Everything looked tacky-fancy, from the bronze-colored carpets to the chandeliers dripping with faux crystal. Against the background cacophony of chimes and buzzers, slot-machine patrons stood zombie-eyed before screens, their bodies jerking reflexively like they were on drugs.

“Can you believe they don't serve drinks on the floor?” Reno appeared beside Becca. “What kind of casino doesn't serve drinks on the floor?”

“I guess you'll just have to power through sober,” she said and walked away. Reno was still keeping her in the dark, so what reason did she have to be nice?

She spotted King at a slot machine in the corner. It was a touchscreen with panels of cartoonish icons—apples, diamonds, and cherries. Instead of inserting quarters, her father kept swiping a plastic card, like he was paying for groceries. He was on autopilot for failure, losing round after round. Yet he wore a hopeful expression, a boyish look that brightened every time he sat back to watch the symbols flicker across the screen.

“You like watching your old man lose?” he asked.

“Better luck next time?” Becca offered.

“Listen. I'm sorry about what happened at the gas station in Kansas—and back at Kath's. It's just that—”

“Don't worry about it.” Becca sat down at the slot machine beside King's and swiveled to face him. Hearing his apology and seeing how sincere he looked, she dared to believe that the standoff between them was over. She wanted to somehow confirm this fact, to cement it. She had one card to play, so she laid it down. “Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.

“You're not pregnant?” King sat back, alarmed.

“No!”

“Well, I don't know what
secret
means.” He looked confused, but in an endearing sort of way. He looked like such a
dad
.

“A few months ago, my college running coach got a call from the University of Oregon.”

“I take it that's good?”

“U of O has the best running team in the country. People who run for them get sponsorships. They go to the Olympics.”

“And they want you?”

She nodded.

“So you're going to transfer schools?”

“In the fall.”

King scratched at his beard. “And Ben's okay with the two of you picking up and moving to Oregon?”

Becca's stomach dropped. She had not anticipated this question from her father, and, hearing it, she realized she had made a mistake. “I never told him,” she said quietly. “Not that it matters now.”

King was silent.

“Come on, Dad. You saw what he was like at your house. Ben and I are done.”

King's mouth tightened, like a screw turned too many times. “You married this young man without telling him that you planned to uproot your lives?” His hands gripped the slot machine, the knuckles turning white. “When you marry somebody, Becca, it's not just about you anymore. It's about the two of you. There's no place for selfishness in a marriage.”

King was right, but he didn't know that she had tried. She'd wanted to share the news with Ben in person—not through a screen. Not on a video chat. And when he finally came home, there hadn't been a good time. First, there'd been his post-tour protocol at the base, then his official release from active duty. Then they'd dived into late-game wedding preparations. For two weeks they ran on black coffee and adrenaline. And then they got married. During all this, including the week of blissful calm that followed the wedding, Becca refused to do or say anything that might disturb Ben. They needed this time together. Needed it so badly. And didn't they have the whole summer to talk things over?

But maybe she'd been expecting everything to fall apart. Maybe she'd kept the University of Oregon as her contingency plan. She didn't want to think of it this way, because that would mean she'd never really believed in Ben. It would mean that there was nobody on the planet that she had ever, in her whole life, been able to trust.

“Don't lecture me about selfishness,” Becca spat. “For six years, you pretended I didn't exist. Then you come back and disrupt everything, but the second you decide I'm too much trouble, you push me away.” The amusement-park clamor of the slot machines was overpowering and Becca had to raise her voice to compete. “You don't have the right to judge me. You don't even know me.”

Becca rubbed her eyes, disoriented by the flashing lights. When she looked around a few seconds later, she didn't see her father anywhere. She rammed her fist against the video console. She was about to hit the thing again when Elaine sat down beside her. “So,” she said. “What was that about?”

Becca looked away, afraid she'd start to cry. All of a sudden, like a punch in the stomach, she wanted her mother. “Did you ever wish you hadn't left your husband?” she asked.

“Not for a second. He was the worst of everything. And there was no fixing him.”

Becca pictured Ben clutching the neck of the fiddle he'd just destroyed, completely ignorant of the fact that only moments before, he'd laid into her the same way. She remembered how empty his eyes had looked, like all the essential stuff had been sucked out of them. “Ben can't be fixed either.”

“In my experience, honey, there are the men who hurt you and there are the men who try to hurt you. They are not the same breed.”

“Ben knew he could hurt me. He knew it was possible. And he didn't do anything to stop it from happening. He drank and sulked. He barely gave his meds a try before dumping them. He gave up on me.”

“He's been back only about two months, right?”

“So I'm just impatient? Are you saying that I should just stick this out for however long it takes him to admit that he's sick?
If
he ever admits it?”

“I think you need to decide what's more important to you, Becca, being with him and accepting the struggle, or being without him and riding free.”

“Why do those have to be the only options? I want different options.” Becca fought back the tears.

She felt Elaine shift toward her, her perfume like an invisible fog. A few strands of frosted hair brushed Becca's cheek. “Your father just mentioned something about a running scholarship. So why not get on with that? Leave this whole life behind and never look back.” Becca looked up at Elaine, questioning. “I'm not telling you to do that. I'm just reminding you that you can.”

Can
, Becca thought,
and should
. King had left. Then Jeanine left. Why couldn't she also leave? Run straight out of this life and into another one. Wasn't that what she was doing anyway, at this very moment?
Momentum, rhythm, stride.
She was already enacting the plan.

Becca left the casino and picked Reno's Harley out of the pack. It looked a little sad among the larger, flashier vehicles. But Reno's bike was sturdy enough, Becca knew, having now sat on it for over one thousand miles.

Reno's saddlebags were not locked and Becca found his jacket folded up inside. Covering the back was an enormous embroidered map of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. A defiant bald eagle was shackled by a chain to the landmass. Beneath it all ran the words
Leave No Man Behind
. King had once told his young daughter that many American soldiers went missing in Vietnam, and the army had never tried to find them.
They were abandoned by their country,
King had said.
Some of them are probably still out there.
It seemed to her now that this was the legacy of the war—of all wars. In the aftermath, back at home especially, it was every man for himself.

Becca found Kath's letter in the jacket pocket. She read it eagerly, trying—but largely failing—to parse the meaning. King was in some kind of danger, and Kath believed that Becca could protect him. Part of her wanted to run from her father as she had run from Ben. But then she'd be letting him off easy. Her father owed her and she was going to make him see that. She was going to demonstrate, beyond a doubt, that he was in her debt. It was backward, she knew—sticking her neck out for the debtor in order to collect what she was owed. But it made sense. A heart sense and a gut sense.