The Heart You Carry Home (34 page)

“It's
your
heart I'm worried about, Dad.”

King smiled. “I got your keys back from the hoplites last night.”

Becca took them gratefully and climbed into the battle-scarred car. Something was different. There was a strange object attached to the wheel. “Dad, what's this?”

King peered inside the car, saw the hose that his daughter was holding with bewilderment, and started laughing to himself. It wasn't funny. But Reno's ingenuity—oh, how he loved his friend. “Reno said your car needed fixing. And this was the fix. To make sure Ben drove sober.”

King could not read the expression on his daughter's face. Was it relief? Hurt? Plain surprise? Shouldn't he be able to tell? Becca lay back against the seat and closed her eyes. For a full minute, he let her sit and feel however she needed to feel. But the road pulled at him. The past few days were rushing up behind him, nipping his tires. “Becca?” he asked and she opened her eyes. “Do you think you can find your way back to the compound through that pass under the river?”

“You're going somewhere?” she asked, quick and helpless. “Does Elaine know you're leaving? Does Mom?”

“Elaine, I'll see before long. Your mother . . . I'm not sure we'll ever really make our peace.”

“But where are you
going?
”

“I've always wanted to see Canada. British Columbia, maybe. There's good riding up there, I hear.” There was a look in her eyes. It said,
Deserter
. But she had it all wrong. “I'm worried about my heart too, Becca. I've got a lot to think through. After all this . . .”

In fact, King did not want to think about it. He needed to ride, to let the wind sweep his many questions out of reach. The trouble wasn't simply that the heart had gone to another man. More difficult to understand was the CO's deception; he'd promised King a fair chance and then, without warning or explanation, he'd taken that chance away.
Leave no man behind.
It was the one promise you didn't break. And the CO had. He'd left King out, then he'd left them all—all the men who relied on him for guidance and strength. What would happen to them now? Could Bull really carry them?

Because maybe the competition wasn't about selecting a capable leader. Maybe Durga's heart wasn't as strong as the CO said, and the pain that he felt was about more than toxins flowing through his bloodstream. Maybe he was so desperate to ease this pain that he'd gone looking for one of his disciples to take it away. And if this was true, then King was forced to ask himself whether he could have been that man. He didn't know.

And, of course, there was one final question, the one that King needed to escape most of all. Now that the CO had broken his most fundamental vow, King had no choice but to wonder whether any part of Durga's story was true.

“I need the road, Becca.” King paused to see how this was going over. Becca's eyes blinked quick and anxious. “And maybe you need some time too. After what's happened.”

“You mean time away from Ben?”

“Or with him? I want to help you, Becca, but I don't know what's right for you.”

When he said this, she almost burst out laughing. What had she expected him to give her? Hadn't she known from the start that her father was a dead end? “But I need you to listen carefully,” he continued. “I'm done with this place. And before long, I will come home. I'll be there for you. Like I'm supposed to be.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because I'm your father and you are my daughter. Because that, right there, is the oath I'm making.”

In any other situation, between any other people, these words would not have sufficed. But King had never made a promise to her. And so his words weren't simply good enough. They were everything.

“Can I just see that tattoo once more before I go?” he asked.

Becca held up her wrist. There it was: KING.

He nodded, still looking perplexed by the finality of the thing. “I love you, Becca,” he said and touched her shoulder. “You are my child.”

They hugged once more. A real belly-to-belly hug, with her father giving her a heavy slap on the back. Then King climbed onto his own motorcycle, parked nearby, fitted the helmet over his head, and turned the key. A lion's roar cracked the quiet. King raised his hand in farewell. He pulled out onto the road and sped away.

A
LL MORNING, BEN
and Becca ferried the vets and the Hands of God women out of Kleos by way of the mining tunnel. Bull and the hoplites paid them little attention. They were involved in an elaborate series of mourning rituals, and the vets who called Kleos home were too exhausted and grief-stricken to do anything but follow along. Ben wondered what would happen once the processions and ceremonies were over and the CO's remains had been buried. Given the commander's charisma and his unchallenged control over the community, it was difficult to imagine that Kleos's inhabitants would simply accept their new leader. Could they really believe in Durga so much? Could their allegiance truly be to the goddess instead of the man? But Ben had also seen the power of belief in action. When you truly believed in something—when you needed it desperately—you could go to extraordinary lengths. Ben did not share the same beliefs as the vets of Kleos, but he knew something of their sacrifices. He could still feel his own, throbbing beneath the bandage on his chest.

By noon everyone had assembled on the road, though they all seemed oddly reluctant to get going. Ben stood in front of the smashed-in post office watching Jacob pick his way carefully through the rubble.

“I know you saved him.”

Ben started. He hadn't noticed Becca standing there.

“You saved my dad too. You saved . . .”

Us,
he thought. Please say
us
.

“. . . Elaine and Reno a lot of heartache. And me too,” she finished.

Ben frowned. She seemed to be talking about a group of people—an entire family, in fact—that excluded him. He wondered if the savior was always destined to remain separate from the saved.

“We going soon?” Lucy said, coming over. She yelled for Jacob and he scampered over to them, calling shotgun. “You don't get to do that,” she said sternly. “This is Becca's car and she decides who rides where.”

“As long as I get to drive, he can sit on the roof for all I care,” Becca said.

“Lucy and I will sit in the back,” Ben said and swiped his hand through the boy's hair.

They headed east, caravan-style: the vets, Elaine and Reno on his bike, the Death Star, and the Hands of God van. A couple of the vets who'd come in with King elected to stay at Kleos, but most were leaving. Whether it was because they'd lost the competition or because they didn't want to live under Bull's new leadership, Ben didn't know. Maybe, like him, they just wanted to be home.

As Becca drove, Ben drifted off. He dreamed that the four of them were on a family road trip. He saw himself teaching them how to fly-fish. He imagined them sitting on the bank of a glittering lake beneath tall western pines. He dreamed that he was stretched out on a sleeping bag across from Jacob, teaching the child how to scratch out “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on the fiddle. He did not dream about Coleman or Majid or Ali's Alley. He would later on, but in those brief hours, snug in the Death Star's back seat, he was peaceful.

For the next two nights, the vets camped out at KOAs while the rest of the caravan slept nearby at motels. Both nights, Elaine pushed her way up to the desk and announced that Becca would be sleeping in her room. “We girls need each other,” she'd told Ben, kindly but without apology. Ben longed to have Becca close to him, to bring her into his bed. He did not want to let her out of his sight. But the two of them had fought a kind of war, and you couldn't just return from battle pretending that nothing had changed.

On the second night of their trip home, he sat with Reno and Becca at a decrepit picnic table outside the Waffle House beside their motel. Darkness was elbowing its way in, but nobody suggested moving. They were deep in conversation about the CO's war stories, lingering over the fate of Willy Owen.

“KIA,” Reno said. “But I don't know how.” He'd been surprised that the CO failed to carry Willy's body out of the jungle. “It was totally uncharacteristic. The CO always put his men first. And those two were especially thick.”

Ben knew why the CO had not done his damnedest to save Willy, but he didn't think it was his place to share. As deranged as the commander had been, the man's secrets deserved to be protected.

“The inevitable product of love, battle, and abandonment is guilt,” the CO had said during their drug-infused conversation. “And guilt is heavy. You drag it behind you, just like Achilles dragged Hector's corpse through the dirt. It's not body parts you're dragging around with you in those dreams, Ben. It's your guilt. I don't need some army shrink to tell me that. I've lived it.”

Now Ben looked over at Becca. He had to squint to make out her face clearly, even though she was right beside him. He'd felt so guilty for leaving her that he had dragged his shame all the way to Iraq, through his missions, and back home again. With the first tour, it had been different. He hadn't left anything behind. His mother was sorrowful, sure, but she was happy with a new husband. His father was dead. He had no other attachments. But then, suddenly, he had a person to love, not just an inanimate object that produced a bunch of beautiful sounds, but a living person who filled him with joy as not even the most beautiful music could. And he'd left her behind.

The CO was a warning for Ben. The man had done so much to unlatch himself from his guilt. He'd turned to drugs and goddesses and ancient warriors. He'd held confessionals for his men, urging them—forcing them—to confront their shameful stories. He knew that to release the pain, you had to face up to it. No matter how ugly and shameful it was, you had to turn around and look that story in the eye. The CO had tried to do this himself, but he had not succeeded. So he'd dragged that story behind him until he couldn't drag it any longer.

No, Ben would not end up like the CO. But he now understood that you could not sever the rope. You had to use the rope to raise that sack up from the dust. And sitting beside him right now was the one person he wanted to lift.

Just as he realized this, like it had been preordained by some higher power, the entire table was bathed in glorious yellow light from the Waffle House sign.

“Ugh, it's hideous!” Becca made a show of shielding her eyes, but Ben jumped up, ecstatic from his revelation. If he could just explain to her what had only now happened, he was sure all transgressions could be forgiven.

“Whoa, boy, you got ants in your pants?” Reno said.

Becca jumped up after him. “What's going on?”

Ben grabbed her hand and pulled her across the grass, across the asphalt, and down to the road. He felt her stumbling to keep up, but he needed them to be alone. Finally, he stopped at the roadside, in a pocket of darkness. He opened his mouth, but she preempted him.

“Why didn't you tell me about your dad?” she demanded.

Ben cleared his throat. A couple of cars sped by and disappeared. “I don't—”

“You're not allowed to say ‘I don't know.'”

Ben swallowed and looked down into her face. “I didn't tell you about my dad because I didn't want to expose you to that part of me.”

“But you did, Ben. You exposed me.”

“I know, Chicken.”

“You hurt me,” she said. “Over and over. Long before that night. Everything you didn't say while you were gone—all that silence hurt me. But when you came back, the things you said to me—called me—that hurt more. Nobody who really loves a person should—” Her voice quavered. “Should ever . . .”

“I know.” He cupped her shoulders gently with his hands. She was so small compared to him.

And now there was something she needed to ask him, but every time the words climbed up her throat, they slid back down. She took a deep breath. “How could you not have known”—she paused—“what you did to me?”

“I don't—” he started, but he managed to stop himself. “All I've ever wanted to do is protect you. I've been so deluded, Becca. So fucked up. I feel like I don't exist anywhere. And then I see you and I think,
Becca knows where I am. She can get to me and bring me back.
But that's not fair. It's not your responsibility to fix me.”

“No,” she said. “It's not.” Her voice was barely a whisper and it was almost drowned out by the passing cars. “And the thing is . . . I've got a scholarship.” She did not meet his eyes as she said this. Instead, she stared at the road. “To the University of Oregon. To be on their team. It's the best—”

“It's a shot at sponsors, the Olympics. God, I know.” He took her hands. “Chicken, that's incredible. Hey, would you look at me?” He squeezed her hands, ran his thumbs over her knuckles. “You,” he said, holding her eyes, “are going to be a star.”

She wiped forcefully at her face. Why was she crying? he wondered. A fear began to well up inside him. Was this her goodbye? They were so much closer to Oregon than Tennessee. Tomorrow morning he could wake up to find her gone.

“At first, I told them I needed to defer,” she said. “Until after my husband got out of the army.”

Ben's relief was almost too much.
Defer. Husband.
These words meant their future remained intact.

“But that was a few months ago. I've changed my mind now. I'm going to start in September.”

He felt a wave rush up inside of him. He felt like he was going to be swept away. He couldn't breathe.
Husband,
he thought.
Husband.
The word floated before him like a life preserver that was just out of reach. “As soon as we're back, I'm going to see the doctor at the base,” he said.