Chapter 25
Dave fretted and stewed all night long waiting to hear from Lyle. Early the next morning, Lyle rushed in to his hospital room. He held up a paper in his hand, “We got it. The DMV has her current address, and it is in the same area as the Lincoln Arms Apartment building,” he shouted.
Dave grabbed it and quickly rang for the nurse. When she came in, he said, “I need my clothes. I’m leaving this hospital as soon as I can get dressed.”
“You can’t leave now. You had surgery less than 48 hours ago. We can’t let you leave,” she protested.
“Legally, you can’t keep me here if I demand to be released. I am demanding you to get my clothes so I can leave,” he countered.
“I’ll get the doctor,” she fussed.
“Great, then he can sign my release papers,” Dave said.
Cindy and Lyle both tried to stop him, but he said, “I’m okay now. I can get medical treatment after I get Joan back. Until that happens, I won’t rest until I’ve found her. Help me get ready, please.”
Despite the doctor’s protests, Dave got dressed and left against medical advice. Lyle and Cindy drove him to the address the DMV had provided. When they got there, he saw an old blue VW beetle parked in the apartment building parking area. Lyle and Cindy offered to go with him, but Dave insisted on going in to see Joan alone. After getting out of the car, Dave said, “If I’m not back in 30 minutes, leave me here so I can talk to her. If I can’t find her, I’ll be back in a couple of minutes. Wish me luck,” Dave said before going into the apartment building.
Dave walked into the lobby. He checked the mailboxes and found one labeled George Adkinson. With a grim look of determination, Dave walked up the stairs and knocked loudly on the door. When the door opened, Joan stood in the doorway. He pushed past her into the room.
“Where is he?” he shouted.
“Who?” Joan asked.
“George! George Adkinson,” he snapped.
“How do you know about George? How did you find me? What are you doing here? You should be in the hospital,” she said frantically.
“I found you through your car registration. I’m here to talk to you and to shake some sense into that beautiful head of yours,” Dave said.
Joan led him over to sit on the sofa. Dave sat down and grabbed Joan’s arm and pulled her down on his lap.
“Dave, your shoulder! Be careful, I don’t want you to get hurt again,” she said, trying to lean away from his injured shoulder.
“You silly fool! Don’t you realize I love you too much to ever let you get away from me now? I don’t care what’s between you and George. I love you, and I’m going to do everything I can to make you love me, only me. I don’t care about your past. I love you just the way you are. I need you, Joan. Without you, my life is empty and meaningless. Nothing could ever make me turn away from you. I think I’ve loved you from the first night we met. I knew that night at the Sand Trap that you were lying to me about where you lived. I felt hurt and angry that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. Please, Joan, don’t lock me out of your life. I love you so much. I don’t care about your past, although I want you to share it with me, because it is a part of you. No secrets. Just love me and trust my love for you. I want you now and forever. I want to marry you and spend all of my life loving you. I’m offering you a present and a future, although I don’t know what my future will be. I may never be the star quarterback again. The fame and wealth may be gone, but I’ll always love you,” he said fiercely.
“Dave, I never cared about the fame or money. You are all I care about—your happiness and your health. I don’t care what kind of work you do. I don’t need lots of money to be happy. Whatever you do, I’ll be there to help you. You are all I need.”
“If that’s really true, then say you’ll marry me, because all I really want or need is you. Please tell me what has been bothering you all these years,” he ordered gently.
“I’m afraid, Dave,” she cried.
“Don’t be afraid. I’m here and I’ll always love you. Tell me, please,” he repeated. He pulled her down beside him and held her hand.
Slowly, quietly she began talking. “I don’t really know where to begin. At your parent’s house, I told you about my father and my time in foster homes. There was a lot more to the story that I left out. When I was 17, the foster home I was in was awful. I would have done almost anything to get away from my foster father and his roving hands, but that’s another story. I was barely sixteen when I met Larry. He transferred into my high school. I don’t know why, but we were drawn to each other. He’d had a hard life, too; and he was a loner, like me. He was kind and gentle, somewhat shy, and he made me feel special. For the first time since my father had died, someone cared about me. I was so happy. One night my foster father tried to rape me. I ran to the only person I knew who cared. We were both too young, but we decided to elope and get married. We thought everything would be ‘happily ever after’,” Joan said. Dave wiped tears from her face and waited for her to continue.
“We had practically no money, no one to help us, but we managed to get a small apartment and set up housekeeping. It was tiny, but it was all ours. Less than two months later, he got his draft notice. Two weeks later, he was gone. We struggled to make ends meet. Just before he left for boot camp, I learned I was pregnant. He was so happy about it. While he was gone, I continued working as a waitress. With his allotment checks and my salary, I was able to make it. A few months after he had been shipped out to Vietnam, I was informed by the Army that the hill he had been defending had been overrun by the Viet Kong, and he was missing in action and presumed to be dead,” Joan began to cry. Dave pulled her against his chest and gently stroked her hair.
“Something went wrong with the Army paperwork. The allotment checks stopped coming. I called and called, but never got an answer. I started working two jobs and took on extra shifts to earn enough money to live. As the pregnancy progressed, it became harder to work. I was so emotionally upset. I stopped sleeping or eating regular meals. Time just passed by me. I was in some kind of emotional fog. I wasn’t really living; I merely existed from one meaningless day to the next one. Days blended together and I moved through life like a robot,” Joan continued.
Dave shifted her weight and pulled her down to sit beside him on the sofa. He held her close to his body and encouraged her to continue.
“One night at the truck stop, I felt dizzy and hot. I guess I passed out. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. It was all white, and I was nearly dead. It was some kind of massive infection. Because I was so malnourished and so exhausted physically, I nearly died. After a week, I came to and learned that I had miscarried. The doctor said if I had taken better care of myself and come to see him sooner, the baby probably wouldn’t have died. Without meaning to, I had killed my baby. I don’t really know how I survived the raw guilt of that, but I did. The allotment checks began coming in. With the back checks, I moved to Austin and completed accounting and computer classes. I met a girl at school, and we shared an apartment for nearly two years.” Dave wiped her tears away and kissed her cheek.
“It was about six months months later; I got a telegram saying Larry had been liberated from a primitive, brutal POW camp in the jungle. When he was shipped to the states, he was put into a VA Hospital in Dallas. I visited with him there as much as I could. They kept him in the hospital for several months. One day, the Army chaplain called and said they would be releasing him in two weeks. My roommate had just gotten married, so I got ready to welcome him back.”
“They delivered him to my apartment door and left him there with me. Dave, I recognized him from the hospital, but, in every way, he was a stranger to me. I don’t just mean his appearance, although he looked like a 50 year old man. He was sullen and withdrawn. I never heard him laugh, and I rarely saw him smile. He never talked to me abo
ut anything, although he did usually answer when spoken to. I tried to reach him, to show him I loved him, but he shrank back from any contact. I was never able to reach him emotionally or physically,” Joan paused and sighed. “Often at night, he would wake up shouting, sweat pouring from him. His eyes were wild as if he were seeing some unseen terror. Sometimes after the dream, he would lie quietly in my arms, but even that stopped. I really tried. I lived with him, but I wasn’t part of his world anymore,” Joan continued.
“That sounds like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Dave said.
“I learned about that later,” Joan agreed. “One day I came home and found all the gas jets turned on. I called an ambulance, and they were able to revive him. He started seeing a psychiatrist and was put on medication. I didn’t find out until much later, but he stopped going for his counseling sessions, and he stopped taking his medicine. I only learned that afterwards.” Joan began trembling violently. Dave held her close, gently kissing her and rocking her until the shaking subsided.
Joan struggled to regain control of her voice and then continued, “One evening I came home from work to find police at my door. From what they said, Larry had suffered a severe flashback to his POW days. He had been secretly gathering together guns and ammunition, and he had gone out hunting ‘the enemy’. He didn’t know what he was doing. The Larry I married was a happy, gentle, loving man. He would never do anything to hurt other people, but he went down to the University of Texas campus, climbed up to the top of a bell tower, and opened fire on anyone who walked into his area. Before he finally shot himself, he had killed ten people and wounded fifteen others. Overnight, I became famous, or rather infamous. The TV reporters hounded me. They staked out my apartment and shoved cameras and microphones in my face whenever I went outside. I was the woman whose husband had shot all those people. The way the press hounded me, it seemed like I was responsible for all the deaths and tragedy. Everywhere I went people pointed at me, stared and whispered about me. I got terrible, angry sick phone calls. I got death threats. I’d never felt such anger and hatred. Finally, I couldn’t’ take it anymore. One day, I just packed my bags and left everything behind. I changed back to my maiden name, and I’ve been running away from the shame of my past ever since. I kept all the pain and fear inside. My greatest fear was that I would be discovered and the hate would start again. That’s why I was so terrified when I saw the reporters.”
Dave held her close and whispered, “My precious love, how I wish I had known this a long time ago. I could have helped you bear this terrible burden.” When her crying subsided, Joan looked up at him. She searched his eyes, but only saw love and concern in them.
“Don’t you realize you can’t run away from your past, because you are still carrying the memories and pain with you? Let me carry some of that. You were not to blame for any of the things that happened to you. You and Larry and all the other veterans of that war were victims of that war, just like Jesse. It was not your fault that your baby died. You did all you were capable of doing. I know you well enough to know that you would never intentionally harm anyone, especially a baby. Now that you’ve told me about this, you must accept it for what it is—the past. Let go of the guilt, the pain and the fear. It’s time for you to bury the pain and guilt of the past so we can go on and build a new life together,” he soothed her as she cried.
“Now, come, Joan, dry your eyes. Say you’ll marry me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” Dave said.
“I didn’t think you loved me. You always pulled back. When you told me you were already in love with someone, but she was involved with another man, I knew I had to leave you so you could be with her,” Joan confessed.
“Silly, that was you. I wanted you to tell me the truth. It took every ounce of self-control to let you go once I kissed you and felt you pressed against my body. I wanted you, I needed you so much I ached, but I wanted all of you. It drove me crazy thinking of you leaving me to go home to George. I felt jealous enough to want to kill him. My only hope was that if you really loved George, you wouldn’t have returned my kisses the way you did. What is there between you and George?” he asked tensely.
“I can’t believe you knew about George and didn’t ask me about him. He’s been very useful to me the last few years,” she answered.
“Please don’t make me suffer any longer. Please, Joan, tell me that you don’t love him. I want to marry you. I want to be the only man in your life, the only one to love you and protect you. I want to marry you and have you with me always,” he moaned brokenly.
“No one’s ever been jealous because of me. It is flattering, in a way, but I can’t let you go on thinking the worst. You are totally wrong about George. George is not a real person. He is my pseudonym, the name I use for my writing. I submit my articles under his name. Most publishers think he’s real. I even have a bank account under his name. I’ve used a pen name to keep people from connecting my writing to my past.”
“What about your answering machine? It said you and George were busy and one of you would return the call when you were free?” he asked.
“Well, since George isn’t real, I always called back. That was easier than explaining it over and over. I guess you could call me George. There has never been any man in my life except Larry and you. After I gave you my phone number, I stopped using the recording. How did you call me before that?” Joan asked. She looked over at Dave and waited for him to answer her question.
“Actually, I was calling George. After I read the articles you told me about in Sunset Magazine, I saw his name, but I couldn’t find yours, I called the magazine and conned them into giving me George’s number. I hoped to find out what his connection was to you. When your voice came on the answer machine recording, I assumed that you lived together. It nearly killed me thinking of you going home to George each time we parted. I was already deeply in love with you. I decided I had to find a way to win your love. That was the real reason for the article and our trip to Florida. I needed time to be near you to win your love. Now that I’ve read the beautiful article you wrote, I may even let you submit it. The trip was perfect, but I was trapped in my own words. ‘Strictly business,’ I came to hate those words. I had promised to keep it on a business level, but every time I felt you near me, I wanted to make love to you. A few times, I know it nearly got out of control. Pulling away from you that night in the spa was the hardest thing I ever did. When I heard you crying afterwards, I was afraid I had scared you away. I had to keep you physically at a distance after that, because I didn’t trust myself to be able to stop. Please tell me, did I succeed in winning your love?” he whispered.
“It looks like you got a package deal. George and me, and yes we both love you,” she said with a deep chuckle.
“You’re the prettiest package deal in the world. Well, I guess I should get down on one knee for this.” When he struggled to move, Joan pulled him back down beside her. “George and Joan, will you marry me and make me the happiest man alive?” he asked. Joan looked in his eyes and saw love reflected in them.
She put her arms around his neck and kissed him and asked with a teasing expression, “What about the woman you told me you loved and wanted to marry?” Joan asked.
“I’ve just asked her to marry me, but she still hasn’t said yes,” he answered.
“Well, I know I love you and want to marry you. Will I do?” she asked.
“Yes, my darling Joan, you’ll do very well. I love you so much. Please take me home and never leave me again. There’s a lifetime of sunsets to watch together, starting from today and on until forever,” he whispered against her forehead. “Joan, please take me home, to our house. I’m feeling shaky and am beginning to hurt a lot. Just bring what you need for now. Will you come and stay with me now? I’d love to have you take care of me and my shoulder. I’ll get someone to get this stuff moved out of here and to my h
ouse or storage. I just need you near me. Please, say you’ll come home with me now,” Dave begged.
“I’ll go wherever you want me to go, Dave. You are all I care about. Let me grab a suitcase. I have until the end of the month to clean out the apartment. Let’s get you home and back in bed or maybe you should you go back to the hospital,” Joan said anxiously.
“Home with you, that’s where I want to be. I’m sorry I’m so banged up, I want to take care of you for a change,” Dave said.