Casualties (27 page)

He rang off and shoved the phone back in his pocket. Why did he feel so shitty all of a sudden? He should feel relieved. Three quick bursts on a horn sounded from the parking lot. Had to be Ruth. “Hold your horses,” he muttered as he stepped over to the urinal.

When they were under way again, he couldn't resurrect the tentative connection born in the previous day's rainstorm. For over an hour he rode elbow to elbow with her in the litter from road meals, the car echoing with aborted conversations, radio stations changed at will, the impatient snap of each atlas page as she flipped through it. He tried not to think about what he would do once they got to Chicago and he could get away from her. He had options. He could still go to New Jersey. But the more they drove, the decision to see Emily seemed as crazy as whatever Ruth might be doing. The idea that he could walk into his daughter's life after being gone for so many years was the kind of thing soap operas were made of. He felt like a fool. His leg began to hurt below the stump. This was the
second time in two days that he felt pain in the leg that wasn't there, as though he'd woken it just by leaving Nevada. The headaches were back too. He rubbed around the edge of the faker but nothing helped. He needed some aspirin. He needed a cigarette. The nicotine patches weren't enough.

“There, up ahead.” Ruth pointed. She gestured to a road sign rising from the side of the highway: something called the Motel 50 wedged in among a line of other motels and chain restaurants outside Omaha. Right next to it was a steakhouse. Casey sat up, taking in the neon pink letters and the outline of a T-bone. Fuck the cost. They were going to have a decent meal. He could give her that as a going-away present. And he could use a drink.

—

Ruth waited until Casey took his turn in the shower before dinner. When she heard water slap the tiles in the motel bathroom, she grabbed her purse and dug out her phone. It was nine o'clock on the East Coast; she could call Kevin's shop and leave a message. She'd tell him she was okay, that she'd be in touch soon. She could do that much.

She rapped on the bathroom door. “I'm going outside to make a call.”

“What?” Casey yelled over the shower.

“Never mind.”

“What?” he yelled again. But Ruth had already closed the motel room door behind her.

The smell of diesel mixed with French fry grease hung in the humid air, so dense she could imagine wringing it out. She headed for the car to get away from the stench, and from the drone of the highway that bordered the parking lot. Once in the driver's seat of the Jaguar, she took a breath. Then another. The smell in there was only slightly better.
Just call.
Ruth shoved her hair, still wet from the shower, behind her ears and then scrolled her contacts for the shop
number. She pressed send. One ring, two, then three. There was a click. Ruth opened her mouth when she heard her brother's low halting voice.

“Hello.”

She waited for the rest of the message but it didn't come. Instead she heard a breath, then another “Hello?”

“Kevin?” She heard the shake in her own voice, as if she were getting ready to cry, or run. “I didn't expect you to be there.”

Anyone else would have shot back with
Why did you call, then?
but Kevin only said, “I'm glad I am.” Then he paused. “How are you? Are you all right?”

Ruth fingered the glasses she'd put on even though it was dark. She was glad he couldn't see her. “I'm okay. I was calling to tell you not to worry.”

“A little late for that,” he said. Kevin's voice was gravelly with fatigue. Ruth braced herself for reproach, but all she heard was a sigh so deep it was as if he'd waited until this moment to take a full breath.

For a few seconds she was a nine-year-old again, gripping Kevin's hand as they watched their father's casket descend into the grave. He'd slipped his hand into hers as their mother waved good-bye for what turned out to be the last time. Then, when Jeff died, Kevin found her hand again. He gave one hand to her, one to Robbie. Kevin never knew what to say, but he somehow knew to reach for her hand and let her believe she was doing the holding. Now, listening to him sigh, she finally understood that he'd never stopped holding her hand. She'd been the one to let go. She closed her eyes against the tears gathering, burning.

“Are you coming home?” Not
where are you
, or
what are you doing
, all the questions she knew Neal would ask when she finally called him. Kevin had never thought of California as her real home. Neither had Robbie, apparently. In the end, he'd gone to the farm first, not to her.

Ruthie, come on. It's home.

Except that going there hadn't saved Robbie. Ruth pulled off her sunglasses and pinched the inside corners of her eyes with her free hand. Why hadn't they saved him? Kevin had had days with him, days. She'd had only a few hours.

“Why didn't you call me when he showed up in Gershom?” Ruth asked. The words tore out of her even though Kevin didn't deserve them. She knew there was no one in the world who could answer all the
why
s that boiled inside her, Kevin least of all.

Ruth heard a few ragged breaths, then the mewling of a cat in the background. Her brother was alone in the night with his pain; she was only hurting him more. She shouldn't have called.

“Never mind, Kev, it's—”

“I should've,” her brother said, his voice so low she could barely hear him. “Gram was all over him to call you, have you come east, but he asked us not to. He wanted to surprise you.” A long pause followed, and then Ruth heard her brother gulp back a sob. Ruth's grief rose to meet his and she understood then why she had not called her family. She could not hold on to her grief in the face of theirs. She would have to yield.

“I can't . . . I can't do this now.” She looked up toward the motel room door. Casey would be out soon. She didn't want him to see her like this.

She tried to think of something that would move Kevin and her to safer ground. “Why are you working so late?”

“Well . . .” He hesitated, cleared his throat. “Been spending more time with Gram during the day. Have to catch up here. Not sleeping much anyway, so might as well.”

Ruth went rigid in her seat. “Is she sick?

Kevin hesitated as if reluctant to explain. “Not in the way you'd think, I guess. She's eating herself up with worry, doesn't like being alone. She wants me there in case you call. You know her. She wants
to come get you and bring you back here where she can take care of you.”

“The days are gone when Big Ruth can make things better,” Ruth said.

“Maybe you should give her a chance. She keeps saying she knows what it's like to . . . to lose a child.”

Ruth struggled against the urge to shout. “But Dad lived to be a man! He didn't
choose
to die. He had cancer. There wasn't anything she could have done to save him.” Ruth's throat went dry, but her eyes began to fill again. Then she saw the door of the motel room open. Casey was wearing one of his Hawaiian shirts, his damp hair slicked back. He peered out into the haze of night, fluorescence, and fumes.

Ruth slipped her glasses back on and tried to swallow. “I've got to go, Kev. I'll call again. I just need a little more time. Tell Big Ruth I love her and that I'm all right. Promise me, okay?”

“Ruth, wait . . .”

“Kevin, please, I promise I'll call. I just can't talk anymore right now.” But she couldn't hang up on him. She needed him to let her go.

Her brother seemed to be struggling for the right words. “Robbie was . . . It's not your fault. We know that it isn't your fault.”

You need to believe that. You need me to believe it. But I don't.
The image of Kevin as a boy returned. She could almost feel his hand slipping into hers. She wondered if she could ever again face the love he was trying to give her or the love that was making her grandmother stand guard at the telephone.

“I love you, Kev,” she managed to say. “I'll call you soon. I promise.” Ruth disconnected the phone and looked up to see if Casey was still looking for her. He was leaning in the doorway, half in shadow, half in the motel room light. She couldn't make out his features but she could tell by the direction of his gaze that he'd spotted her. He was hungry, she knew that, but she couldn't eat a thing now. She
should tell him to go over to that steak place by himself, but then she'd be alone in the motel room with the echo of Kevin's voice in her ears.

She took a breath. Then another. She pushed open the car door, stood up, and called to Casey.

“I'm coming.”

—

Casey never asked Ruth who she'd been talking to on the phone. It was none of his business. The steak the waitress plunked down in front of him was definitely his business, though. He glanced across the oak table at her, sitting beneath a mural of cattle thundering across the plain, cowboys with kerchiefs over their noses, and horses galloping under them. The smell of sizzling meat rose from his plate. Just what he needed.

“Want a bite?” he asked Ruth.

“Another drink.” She pushed her empty glass toward the edge of the table and looked around for the waitress.

“Try some of this, it's better than that damn chicken salad or whatever it was that you ordered.” He sliced off a chunk of his T-bone and put it on her plate, next to the sandwich she'd barely touched.

Ruth shook her head and caught the waitress as she was passing. “Another vodka martini, please.”

“Jameson's for me,” said Casey, smiling up at the woman. Then he switched back to Ruth. “At least eat some potatoes.”

“Afraid you'll have to rescue me again?” She was looking toward him, but he couldn't see her eyes through the damn sunglasses she insisted on wearing even in here.

“Neither one of us wants that.” Casey popped the chunk of meat into his mouth and chewed. The waitress delivered both drinks and Ruth began to sip hers.

“Tell me what happened to your leg,” she said.

He'd been wondering when she'd get around to asking that. He
reached for his water glass and guzzled enough to move the meat down his throat. When he put the glass down, Ruth was still waiting. He leaned back in the booth.

“Not much of a story. I left it behind in Kuwait in ninety-one.”

Ruth stopped midsip. She put down her glass. “Were you in the Marines?”

“Army. One of the hundreds of thousands of bodies parked in the desert to protect all that oil under the sand.”

“But I thought there weren't any—many—casualties.”

“You mean not on our side.”

Ruth looked down at her martini. Casey decided to keep talking.

“Yeah, one of the big success stories of all time, unless you happen to be one of the few who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The kicker is most of our casualties were friendly fire.” Casey stuck out his left leg and knocked on the plastic socket, the sound muffled by his jeans. “This happened when we came across some unexploded ordnance dropped by our guys.”

Casey paused and tipped his drink up to his lips. He liked the way the whiskey stung a little and numbed his mouth before settling in with slow, spreading warmth.

“What happened?”

“I'm riding shotgun in a vehicle and we run over the thing. Truck's destroyed, everyone catches shrapnel. One minute I've got a leg. The next, it's just a slab of meat bleeding out in the desert.”

Casey picked up his fork and knife again. He glanced across the table. Ruth's lips were frozen in a grimace that could have been sympathy or disgust.

“Sorry,” he said, popping another bite into his mouth.

“No, you're not,” she said.

She was right. He wasn't. He'd been thinking about it a long time and now it wanted out. “Look, Ruth, it's a fucking waste. No matter how you look at war, that one, this one, and probably the next, it's all a fucking machine set up to make a few people rich, or guard
their property, or both. What's a leg when their billions are at stake? What's a life?”

The words were out of Casey's mouth before he could stop them. He dropped his fork and looked straight at Ruth. She didn't look away but he saw her fingers tremble against the glass in front of her.

“I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean that Robbie . . .”

“Was a waste?”

Casey couldn't speak.

“Why did you join the Army?” Her hands were still shaking, but she lifted the glass and nearly drained it. He wished she would take off the sunglasses so he could look her in the eye.

“Wasn't my choice. It was either that or jail.”

Ruth's eyebrows rose above the rim of the sunglasses. “And you a good Catholic boy?” Her voice sounded strained, but determined to push the conversation forward or just away from Robbie. Casey pushed his plate away and pulled his drink closer. He wasn't hungry anymore.

“I wasn't a model student,” he said, trying for a smile. He was lying again. He had been a good student. He'd just been a better friend, until one night when he failed to be any kind of friend at all.

Ruth did not say anything; she just set down her glass and stared at the table.

“Look, you want anything else?”

Ruth tapped the rim of her empty glass.

“Okay. Another one for the road and then we head back.” She nodded. Casey signaled the waitress and, stood up. “'Scuse me. Nature calls.”

—

Ruth did not look at Casey when he got up to head to the bathroom. She sensed his pause at the edge of the table to be sure of his footing. She heard his first few imbalanced steps across the wooden floor before they were swallowed by the noise of clinking
forks, beery laughs, and cheerful waitresses. A waste, he'd said. His leg, Robbie, both wasted.

A cash register dinged through the noise around her.
Cha-ching.
“They want me. Guess I'm good enough for once,” Robbie had said the day he told her he'd enlisted. “Besides, there's a war on—but you know all that, right? Cha-ching.” He'd rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, accusing her the way Casey had without knowing it. Ruth grabbed her water glass. It was empty. Her eyes fell on Casey's plate and the greasy scraps of steak he'd left.
A piece of meat in the desert.
She shook her head to clear it but then remembered something Robbie had written in his journal about the desert, about blood and oil, how he should have been driving, not someone else, how it should have been him.
i can still smell it i will always smell it.