"What? Luke—"
"Pull it the fuck over!"
She quickly put on her turn signal and slipped as carefully as she could out of traffic and onto the shoulder.
"Turn it off."
Her fingers shook as she turned the key in the ignition.
"You don't have any fucking idea what I'm talking about, do you?" he said. "Fine. You've been in Rwanda. You've seen people suffer. But did you kill anyone, huh?" He grabbed her arm, tugging her toward him. "Huh? Did you? Did you watch your buddies get blown away? Watch their legs fly off? Feel one of their bloody, unattached hands whack you in the face?"
She shook her head. She felt sick. Her arm hurt where he was squeezing it.
"Well, then, let me tell you, girl. You were in the Garden of Eden compared to where I was." He let go of her and sat back in the seat, pointing ahead of them on the road. "Let's go," he said.
But she couldn't move. She was crying, hugging herself, her arms across her chest. She raised one hand, touched him tentatively on his forearm. "Luke, I don't want to start out like this. This is supposed to be a happy time, seeing each other after so long, finally getting to live together."
His face was red, and he slumped down in the seat. "I'm sorry," he said, but he didn't look at her. He pulled his arm from under her hand to scratch his head. "You've got to expect this. You can't expect me to come home after what's happened and be like I was when I left."
He looked at her now, and she thought she detected a trace of the man she'd known for so long.
"It helped me while I was in 'Nam and at Fort Myer to know I had you back home," he said. "To know we'd gotten married, that I had a wife. That I could come home and we could start a family and maybe be normal." He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "That's all I want now, Rachel. To have a normal life. I used to think that sounded boring. Now it sounds better than anything else."
"We'll have it." She leaned toward him, kissed him. His eyes glistened, and she felt the old, welcome love lift her up. She put her arms around him. "People will admire us for our normality," she said.
He smiled at that, an old Luke smile. "Take me to Pennsylvania Dutch country, Rachel," he said. "Take me home."
* * *
There were moments in the next few weeks when she caught glimpses of the boy she'd grown up with, the boy she'd loved as a brother, as a friend, as a man and a lover, but they were too few to ease her mind, and too weak to counterbalance the changes that were far more apparent in him. He had nightmares. He awakened nearly every night, sweat soaking the sheets, and she felt guilty that she had not paid the extra money it would have cost them for an air-conditioned apartment. She bought a window unit for the bedroom, but still the nightmares continued, the damp, alarming awakenings, and she knew it was nothing as simple as the heat that was disturbing him. Sometimes he was crying when he woke up in the middle of the night, sometimes he was yelling, words Rachel couldn’t understand. Once their landlord called to complain about the noise, and Rachel knew that normality was a long way off.
He was rough when he made love. She'd had no other lover, ever, and she had treasured the tenderness he'd always shown her as they'd learned to give each other pleasure. Now, though, he was fast, plowing into her as if he were angry with her. Sometimes she felt as if he hated her. She began to wonder if he'd come to hate women in general. He referred to women on the street as '"bitches" or "cows." He told her about the prostitutes in Vietnam, or the women the soldiers would rape. He told her those things without judgment, and she couldn’t be sure if he condoned them. He might even have been speaking about himself as one of those men, but she was too afraid of the answer to ask him.
He had weapons, and that was something else she couldn't ask him about. Had he bought them? Stolen them? She awakened in the middle of one air-conditioned night to find him sitting in the living room, dressed in his uniform, cleaning his rifle. He had the rifle, some grenades, a knife. He bought books on weapons, read them at meals. She was afraid of what was happening to him and to their young marriage, but she was not afraid of Luke himself. Occasionally, he scared her when he yelled at her or grabbed her roughly, but she had known him too long, too intimately, to truly fear him. Even when she saw him lovingly working on his rifle, she only tiptoed back to bed, confused and worried but not concerned for her physical safety. Slowly, though, the love she had felt for him over the years was turning to pity.
He needed help. That was clear, but he refused to seek it. She called the military counselor at Fort Myer, who said they'd had no problems with Luke down there. He gave her the name of a psychiatrist in Lancaster and encouraged her to get Luke to see the man, but Luke's resistance was strong. He had no problems, he said.
The one person Rachel needed right then was Michael. Not for herself—she would put her own need for him aside. She needed him for Luke. Together they could help him. The three of them had been there for one another all their lives. As September neared she toyed with the idea of somehow getting in touch with him. Maybe he could get to a phone. Maybe he could even come home. Surely this situation was akin to a family emergency. Luke needed his old friend. And she needed Michael to see what was going on, to tell her she was not going crazy. She could no longer judge what was appropriate behavior and what was not. She wouldn’t recognize normality if she saw it.
But she held back from trying to get word to Michael and was quickly swept up into her new teaching job. Luke himself was unemployed, although he looked for work almost daily. He had his own degree in teaching, but it was September and schools weren't hiring.
During Rachel's first week at Spring Willow, Luke appeared at the school twice. Once she didn't even know he was there. She learned later that he had simply roamed through the halls dressed in camouflage, saluting anyone, child or adult, who crossed his path. The second time, he came to her classroom and loudly offered to tell her students about life in battle. The children were wide-eyed at the sight of a real soldier in their midst. The boys were wild with questions; the girls—with the notable exception of Lily Wright—were shy in their awe.
"You have to leave, Luke," Rachel told him.
"But they want to talk with me, don't you, kids?" he said, and he was right. Frightened or fascinated, they were captivated by the presence of the handsome soldier.
"We'll have you come back when there's more time," she bargained. "Right now we're in the middle of a lesson."
She finally got him to leave with that ruse, but she knew this couldn't continue. She put in a call to the psychiatrist, setting up an appointment for Luke for the following Thursday. She didn't know how she would get him there, but she knew there was no alternative. Clearly, he had to go.
The following day, a Friday, Jacob Holt called her into his office. The principal was ordinarily a kind man whom she had liked very much during her interview. He had become principal the year after she'd left Spring Willow Elementary as a student, so he'd been there for quite a while by then. She was not aware of how stern he could be, but she didn't blame him at all for his concern. She shared it.
"If your husband comes on school grounds again," he said, "I'll have to call the police."
She couldn’t bear the thought of humiliating Luke by having him carted away by the police. It was unthinkable. Surely things weren't that bad. "It won't happen again," she said. It was Friday; she had the entire weekend to work on Luke, to persuade him to take the appointment she'd made for him the following week. "I promise you he won't show up here again."
Luke wasn’t home when she arrived at the apartment that afternoon. She was afraid he was at the local bar where he'd been spending too many afternoons lately. She got the mail from the mailbox—one letter, the handwriting unmistakable. Michael. She didn’t even go up to the apartment before sitting down on the steps to read it.
Dear Rachel,
I'm writing to tell you that Katy and I were married on Saturday. I know that must be a shock to you; I'm still a little shocked
myself. I love you very much—too much—and I will always cherish the time we had here together, but you and I both know nothing can ever come of it. I will be honest with you and only you—I am marrying Katy to forget you. She is staying on here with me for a while. Quarters are tight as you know, but we'll manage. I hope one day you and I can sit together and reminisce about Rwanda without any sadness or regret. And I hope you and Luke are finding your happily-ever-after. I love you, Rachel.
Michael
The letter burned her fingers. She set it on her knees and stared into space, aching with loneliness. Something made her turn her head to the right, and she spotted Luke walking up the street toward the apartment. Quickly she folded the letter and crammed it into her purse.
He was not drunk, but he had been drinking, and he wanted to make love. Or have sex. It no longer seemed like lovemaking to her, and all she could picture when he was inside her and she was enduring him, nothing more, was Michael touching Katy, kissing her, loving her. She cried when Luke fell into a sex-and-alcohol-induced sleep next to her. She wept loudly, knowing he would not wake up. She felt hatred toward him.
* * *
Saturday, she carefully planned her approach. "I made an appointment for us with the therapist in Lancaster," she said." We need help." Maybe if she made it sound as if she didn't think it was Luke who had the problem, he would go.
"You have to work," he said.
"I'd get a substitute."
"Don't bother," he said. "I'm not going. That's not the way I do things. No one in my family's ever gone to a shrink, and I'm not going to be the first one."
"No one in your family has ever been through what you've been through," she countered.
"I'm fine."
She studied her hands. "The principal called me in yesterday to tell me you can't come on school grounds any longer. All right? I could lose my job."
"I thought you wanted me to come talk to your kids about what it was like in 'Nam."
"Maybe later in the year," she lied. "Right now we have to placate Mr. Holt. Okay, Luke? Promise me you won't show up at school again?"
"If I could find a fucking job I'd be okay."
"I know."
They talked about his job search. He was still looking for a few hours each morning, but the time he started drinking seemed to be getting earlier each day. She didn’t dare confront him with that worry, and she tried to keep off his back for the rest of the day. It was easy. Her thoughts were still consumed by Michael's letter.
On Sunday she broached the subject of counseling again. She needed his commitment to go with her.
"For me," she said. "Please do it for me. I need to go. I'm having trouble adjusting to…things. For my sake, please come with me."
That tack seemed to work. He finally agreed, and she knew that Luke still cared about her and still wanted things to work out between them. She relaxed after he made the agreement, and they enjoyed that afternoon in a way they'd enjoyed nothing in a long time. They put air in the tires of their old bicycles and rode out into the countryside. They had a picnic on Winter Hill.
When they arrived home, she took a long bath while he went to the grocery store. At least she thought he was at the store. She was getting out of the tub when she realized he would have had to go into her purse to get the car keys, and she was trembling as she opened the bathroom door.
He was sitting in their bedroom, waiting for her, the letter balled up in his fist. She had a towel wrapped around herself, and she pulled it tighter.
"What happened with you and Michael in Rwanda?" he asked.
She started for the closet and her robe, but he was up instantly, grabbing her arm, twisting it behind her until she cried out.
"What happened?" he growled, his face close to hers.
"Nothing!" She tried to wrench her arm free, but he held it fast, forcing her to the edge of the bed.
"This letter doesn't sound like nothing. He says he loves you, the fucking bastard."
"He means as a friend, Luke. He—"
Luke smacked her across the side of her face with the back of his hand, and she fell to her elbows on the mattress.
"Tell me," he said. His hand rested hard on her chest, inches from her throat. She could feel her heart pounding, squeezed between the mattress and his palm.
"Luke, honestly, there isn't anything to tell. We were close friends when we went—you know that, you know all three of us have been very close all our lives—so that's all it was. We got to be even better friends, but that's all—"
"You fucked him."
"No, I didn’t. We didn’t. I never touched him."
"Lying bitch." Luke held her down with one hand and undid his belt with the other. "I'm gonna fuck that coward right out of you," he said. He pushed the towel above her hips and wedged himself between her legs. Her flesh resisted him for a brief second before he forced his way into her. She choked with the pain, digging her nails into his shoulders with each dry, wrenching movement of his body; and she was relieved when he came quickly.
He was sobbing, holding on to her, and she was surprised by her own reaction. She wept for him, no longer afraid. She clutched him to her, stroking his hair. Somewhere inside him was the boy who had been her best friend. He was still in there. He had to be. What had happened to him was not his fault. With help, the old Luke would reappear. Thursday. Her hopes were pinned on Thursday.
"It'll be all right," she whispered to him, but her voice seemed to snap him back to his anger.
He leaped up from the bed. "What will be all right?" he asked, a look of suspicion on his face that sent a cold chill up her arms. Suddenly she knew she had to get away from him.
She stood up slowly, beginning to dress as she spoke. "Everything," she said, reaching in her dresser drawer for her underwear. "Thursday we'll go to the counselor and—"
"And you'll lie to him like you're lying to me. You have to tell the truth in those places, Rachel. You have to tell what really happened with you and my onetime best friend."
She pulled on her jeans and T-shirt before speaking again. "I'm going to my parents for the night," she said carefully, pulling a small overnight case from the top shelf of the closet.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I think we need to be apart tonight. We're both upset, and I think it would be good if—"
Luke picked up the crumpled letter from the floor, flattened it on the bed, and began to read. "'I love you very much,'" he read, "'too much'…I am marrying pig-faced Katy to forget you." He looked up at Rachel, the rage reddening his cheeks once again, and she quickly threw her makeup bag into the overnight case and closed it up. "Does that sound like an innocent man to you?" he asked. "You expect me to believe that he was in love with you for a full year and didn't touch you? I'm going to kill that bastard, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to blow his fucking dick off and then put a bullet in his brain."
She left the room, and he didn't try to stop her. But she heard him call down the hallway, "And then I'm coming after you, Rachel!"
She was sick in the car, retching, but her stomach was empty and nothing came up. In the rearview mirror she could see the red welt on her cheek where he'd hit her, and her arm and shoulder ached from being twisted. She took a minute to rummage through her overnight case for some concealer, which she spread liberally on her cheek.
When she reached her parents' house, she told them only that she and Luke had had a fight and she wanted time away from him. Her mother tried to counsel her about sticking by her husband, working it out instead of running away, but Rachel barely listened.
In the morning she spent twenty minutes working to conceal the bruise on her cheek. She'd heard about women whose husbands beat them up, but she never thought she would be one of them. Those men were brutes, though, not like Luke. On the dresser in her old bedroom was Luke's high school picture. Where had that beautiful, clear-eyed boy gone? Could he ever come back?
The eighteen seven-year-olds i
n her classroom were full of themselves that morning. Her seasoned colleagues had warned her about Mondays. The kids were wild, wound up from the weekend, and it took her a good half hour to get them settled down and working. Even then, little blond Lily Wright was up every few minutes, sharpening her pencil, asking to use the rest room, trying to engage her classmates in conversation. On the other side of the room sat her dark-haired twin, Jenny, working quietly. She would probably be Rachel's best student. She had to remind herself these two were related. After Lily got out of her seat for the fourth time, wandering over to the pencil sharpener with her already sharp pencil, Rachel called her over to her desk.
The girl stood in front of her with innocent eyes.
"It's hard for you to sit still sometimes, Lily, isn't it?" Rachel asked.
"I don't know what you mean," the girl said.
Rachel sighed. She glanced at the clock. Ten-thirty. In a half hour, she could take a break. She'd call Luke, make sure he was all right.
"There are rules in this classroom, Lily," she said. "I think it's especially hard for you to stay in your seat, and I understand that, but you still have to stay there. It's a rule."
"But I need to sharpen my pencil."
Rachel looked past the little girl, through the window and out to the street, and what she saw struck horror in her heart. Luke was crossing the street toward the school. He was dressed in camouflage, which only made him stand out more than he would have otherwise, and his rifle was strapped to his shoulder. He was clutching something small close to his chest, and her first panicky thought was that he was carrying one of his prized grenades.
She stood up suddenly, startling Lily, who jumped away from her as if expecting to be hit.
Was he planning to hurt her? Scare her? Just talk to her? Or was this simply another of his unscheduled visits to the school, the visit that would cause Jacob Holt to call the police? She hoped the principal couldn't see Luke's approach from his office window.