Page 22 of All We Carry Home

“Yes, Violet is in New York seeing to her mother.” Something flickered in Eddie’s expression. “The twins are at the house and promised they’d keep out of trouble. Peter got caught stealing again and was suspended for the last two weeks of the school year.” He turned to the waiter. “Can we get a few beers?”

“Just water for me,” I said.

“Oh yeah. I forgot you don’t partake.”

I was the odd man out in the unit. A few others didn’t drink for religious reasons, but I had watched Father and William lean on their nightly whiskey to escape the emptiness of their days, and I’d decided long before I found my purpose in the Army that I wouldn’t follow suit. Especially when their nightly whiskey became two, then three.

Unease pricked the back of my neck at the tone of Eddie’s voice, the despair in his eyes. I’d seen the same shadow in my brother. And in some of the other men of the 42nd who had been deeply scarred.

“What about that job lead you mentioned when we chatted a few weeks back?” I asked. “At the paper mill?”

“Fell through.” He took the glass of beer from the waiter and drank a long swig. The silence stretched between us, and everything unsaid hung in the air. We’d shared these moments before. The anticipation before an attack. The waiting after a sniper fired one shot as we tried to locate the source. The quiet after the firing ceased, when we had to count our dead.

“Something will come along,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in my words. I’d heard this too many times from my soldiers as I’d kept in touch with them in the past year. We’d all been so glad to be home, to touch American soil again. To be the few who’d defied the odds and made it home on our own feet.

Back in Kötzting, Eddie had told me that I needed to move past the anticipation of a sniper attack or ambush. Something told me that despite his advice, he hadn’t quite rid himself of that reality either.

I wasn’t sure I ever would.

“You should come out and see Phantom,” I said, raising my glass of water. “Remind you of the good ol’ days in Germany.”

“I’d like that. I’d love to show Annie too. Think Eva would be okay with her coming?”

“I think so. Bring Peter and maybe he can muck out a few stalls to make up for the suspension. Might keep him out of trouble.”

“Ha,” Eddie huffed. “I wish.” He stared at his hands blankly. “I will bring them out. I do miss the horses—the calm and clarity they bring. I think we need that about now.”

He needed so much more, but at least I could start there.

Five

Eva

MAY 7

The smell of metal, gunpowder, and blood engulfed me. The floor of the 1930 Chevrolet sedan was hot, piled with dirt and grit from the dozens of states we’d driven through and left our mark on. I covered my ringing ears, the roar of gunfire nothing but white noise in the enclosed space. I pressed my forehead to the carpet as I wedged my six-year-old body between the seat and floorboards.

Bullet casings from the .45-caliber Thompsons rained down around me, each one hitting the carpet of the car and trailing a thin stream of smoke as I waited for death. The dozens that landed on my flesh left searing scars that would never fade.

The casings morphed into those of the .30-06 of an M1 Garand, the steady crack-crack-crack of eight rounds, and then the clink of the clip ejecting. They showered upon the ground—now the jungle dirt floor of my Army field hospital.

I woke with a jolt, the familiar bedroom of my childhood coming into focus around me in the early morning hour.

My heart pounded, my skin prickled with goose bumps and sweat. I kicked the covers aside, checking the wristwatch on my nightstand. Four o’clock in the morning.

Every day it was a nightmare of a similar variety. The voices might change, the setting might change. But death loomed. I was always helpless to stop it.

I ran a hand absently over the scars on my forearms. There was no use in trying to go back to sleep—and the prospect of working with Phantom and seeing Warren changed my focus instantly.

After a long shower, coffee, and donning my well-worn cowboy boots and slacks, I stepped out into the glow of the rising sun.

I collided with a tall figure outside my door. The man’s hand was lifted as if to knock, and instead, he caught me by my elbow and kept me from tripping off the small porch. He had a bundle of flowers in his other hand.

“Whoa, Eva,” he said smoothly.

“Keith Merrick?” My breath caught. “What in the world?”

I pulled from his grasp and straightened. A thousand memories shot through me. I hadn’t seen him in five years since I’d joined the nurse corps, not since that night I’d told him my deepest secret and he’d told me he wasn’t sure he could marry someone like me—someone whose name was so tainted.