Touching Scars(4)

I had my closed my eyes, but I felt a tap on my thigh. When I opened them, I was looking at a little dusty, blonde haired boy that had to have been no older than five.

“Mister, are you a soldier?”

His innocent eyes soothed me. “Yes, I am.” I answered him in a quiet voice.

“Cool. I want to be a soldier when I get big.” Big blue eyes lit up his face.

“Well, that’s a good goal, but you make sure you go to school first.”

He paused and looked over at who I assumed must have been his mother walking towards us.

“Have you killed a bad guy before?”

Immediately the tenseness slammed in my gut and I shut my mouth before I said something stupid, like “go the fuck away, kid, or not as many as I should have.” Thankfully, his mother came and grabbed him, apologizing for bothering me as she led him away. I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees and ran a hand through my hair. Another thirty minutes passed without being bothered. When my next flight began to board, I settled into my seat for the seven hour leg.





In a small suburb of Houston, the cab pulled up to the curb of a brick ranch styled house. I pulled out forty dollars and got out. I grabbed my duffle and rucksack and walked up to the door. All of the homes on the street were very cookie cutter, with the same manicured lawns, flowers lining the walkways to the front doors, and a neatly trimmed bush under each window. I still didn’t understand why my dad chose to live in this neighborhood. The house was more than he needed, but I think he got it because it was a house my mom would have loved.

Mom passed away during my first tour in Iraq. They let me come home on emergency leave to attend her funeral and help my dad get his affairs in order. She had passed away from a sudden heart attack. Our entire community was shocked. She was a seemingly healthy woman. She exercised regularly and ate well. The doctors told us after they performed an autopsy that her heart had a defect that caused the lining of her aorta to be thin. It ruptured one night while my mom was watching Wheel of Fortune on the couch. It was so sudden that she bled out in less than a minute and couldn’t call for help. My dad was beside himself.

When my first tour was over, he had a ‘for sale’ sign in front of the house and he said he couldn’t live there anymore. He didn’t find comfort in the memories behind those walls. I didn’t blame him for feeling that way. The sadness crushed me every time I walked in the door. But now he was living here in Friendswood, Texas, in a house that was everything she would have loved. I’ve never called him out and asked why he chose this place, but I was certain it was because of Mom. I just wished that he was still in Bay City so his friends and church members could keep him company.

As I walked in the front door, I called out my dad’s name.

“Back here, Timber.”

He was outside, sitting on the back porch, drinking a beer and smoking a cigar. The past year his age had caught up with him. He used to tell me, “you’re only as young as you feel.” Well, I guess my mom’s death made him feel every bit of his sixty-three years. When I came into view, he stood up from his wooden rocking chair and greeted me with a tight hug and a slap on the back.

“Hey Dad, I’ve missed you,” I said while we were still embracing.

Pulling back to look at me, he smiled. I noticed that he had a few more age spots around his eyes than he did before I left. He was also thinner. His hands gripped my arms, and it almost felt as if he were trying to reassure himself that I was standing there, in one piece.

“Want a beer? I can go grab you one from the fridge,” he asked.

“Sure.”

He walked into the house and I took a seat on the brick flower planter that sat a few feet away from his chair. Glancing around the yard, I could tell that he probably spent most of his time outside. There was a tool shed in the back left corner that was shaped like a small barn house. He had a six foot wooden fence that went around the perimeter. The yard was immaculate, clearly his pride and joy.

When he came back out, he handed me my beer and took a seat. We both sat in silence as we drank and looked around the yard. I’m sure most would say that our reticence towards each other wasn’t normal of a father and a son that were seeing each other for the first time in a year. Never mind the fact that I spent that year in a dangerous war zone. But it’s what we did, and it’s how we worked now. I was close with my dad, but my mom was always the one who spoke for the both of us.

As the quiet stretched on, my dad finally looked over at me and said, “I’m glad you’re safe, and I’m sorry about your friends.” He shrugged. “One of your nurses at that German hospital told me about them.”