Chapter 6 - The Long Road Back
We left Andrews at four in the morning.
The rain had stopped, leaving the asphalt black and shiny like oiled slate under the streetlights. The fog had come up off the river, thick and yellow, hanging two feet above the grass in the ditches.
Vance was still in the front seat. He had three paper cups of coffee from the guardhouse sitting in the plastic tray between the seats. He handed one back to me without turning around.
It was cheap coffee—tasted of chicory and styrofoam—but it was hot, and it made my hands stop shaking for the first time in five hours.
"Where are we going, General?" I asked.
"Back to St. Michaels," Vance said.
I set the cup down. "Sir?"
"The President is coming to the naval station at Annapolis at noon," Vance said, looking out at the foggy trees rushing past. "He wants you at the podium. But first, we have to collect your gear from your father's house."
"My gear is in my truck, sir. In the woodpile."
"Your flight bag is in your truck, Major," Vance said. "Your dress uniform—the one with the silver oak leaves and the navy commendation medal—is in the cedar closet in your father's guest room. The one your sister Amanda had sent over from your quarters three days ago so you'd have it for the party."
I remembered then.
Amanda had called me two weeks ago, her voice high and breathless: I'm taking your mess dress to Dad's house, Evie. Just in case he actually lets us put the flag on the wall for twenty minutes.
I had forgotten about it. I had forgotten about the blue wool jacket with the velvet cuffs and the small, silver chain that held the cape together at the throat.
"I don't need the dress uniform, sir," I said. "The service greens will do."
"The service greens are covered in hydraulic oil and salt water, Major," Vance said flatly. "And the President doesn't like his officers looking like they just got pulled out of a drain. Even if they did."
We pulled into the drive at St. Michaels just as the sun was starting to push through the fog—not bright, just a pale, greasy grey that turned the water on the bay into the color of wet lead.
The eleven German cars were gone.
The gravel drive was crisscrossed with deep tire tracks where people had backed out in a hurry when the three state police cruisers had blocked the gate at nine o'clock.
The house was dark except for the single lantern over the side door.
When the Suburban stopped on the gravel, Mrs. Gable opened the kitchen door before Vance had even killed the engine.
She was wearing an old wool cardigan over her apron, her grey hair pulled back into a tight hairnet that made her forehead look large and shiny in the porch light. She had a brown paper package in her arms, tied with white twine from the butcher shop.
I got out of the truck.
My leg was stiff as an iron rod now; I had to swing it out wide to clear the doorframe, my boot landing on the gravel with a heavy, flat crunch.
"Evelyn," Mrs. Gable whispered, her eyes wide as she looked past me at the three antennas on the roof of the SUV. "Oh, Evelyn."
"Is he awake?" I asked.
"He hasn't been to bed," she said. She lowered her voice, coming down the two wooden steps into the rain. "He's been sitting in the library since midnight. With the door locked."
She held out the package.
"What's this?"
"Your dress uniform," she said. "Amanda came back at two. She ironed the shirt herself. In the pantry."
She looked at my face, her old fingers reaching out to touch the dark, yellow line of grease under my jaw.
"He said terrible things to you, child," she whispered.
"He said what he thought, Mrs. Gable," I said. "He always does."
"No," she said, her mouth setting into a thin, hard line I had never seen on her face before. "He said what he wished was true. That's different."
She pushed the package into my hands. It was heavy, smelling of lavender water and clean cotton.
"Go around the back," she said. "The side gate's open. Don't go through the library. He's got the bourbon bottle out again."
"I have to get my truck, Mrs. Gable," I said.
"Your truck won't start," a voice said from the shadows of the tractor shed.
Daniel walked out into the pale light.
He wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore. He had an old army fatigue shirt on—one that had belonged to our uncle who died in Germany in seventy-eight—over his silk shirt. His tie was undone, dangling like a black lace from his open collar.
He was holding a rusty pair of jumper cables in his right hand.
"The battery died around three," Daniel said, his voice flat, exhausted. "I tried to start it for you so it'd be warm when you came back."
I looked at my brother.
In thirty-eight years, I had never seen Daniel hold a tool heavier than a silver letter opener. His hands were smooth, white, with neat fingernails that looked as if they were buffed every Tuesday by someone who came to his office.
"Why?" I asked.
Daniel set the jumper cables down on the fender of the tractor. He didn't look at me; he looked down at his shoes—expensive brown loafers that were now caked with the dark, wet clay of our father's lawn.
"He called the firm last night," Daniel said softly. "At one in the morning."
"Who?"
"Dad. He called the chairman. He wanted to know if they could cancel the sub-contract with the navy."
"Why?"
"Because he thought... he thought if they canceled the contract, it would show the Pentagon that he wasn't... that he wasn't mixed up in what happened to your plane."
Daniel looked up then. His eyes were small, red-rimmed, full of that strange, hollow water that comes after a man has spent six hours realizing that the person he’s been following for forty years is just a small man in an expensive coat.
"The chairman told him to go to bed, Evie," Daniel whispered. "He told Dad that if he called again, they'd pull his pension from the board."
He looked at the package in my arms.
"Amanda's inside," he said. "She's got her medical bag. She said if you didn't let her clean that hip before you went to Washington, she was going to call the Base Commander and tell him you had gangrene."
May you like
A small, dry sound came out of my throat—not a laugh, but the beginning of one.
"Tell her I'll be in the kitchen," I said.
