No Man is an Island

“War is Hell, and Hell is other people.”

                As far as I can tell, that’s all he ever said on the matter, to anyone. Oh, I’m sure he got the question plenty, in his time. Early on, from friends and relatives who were just curious…and later from people who were either too stupid or too insensitive to know any better. And, of course, much later on from our children, Veronica and David, who were too young to know any better. Can’t say I blame them, really, and I’m pretty sure Vincent never did either. Most people, me included, are lucky enough to never know what it’s like to live through such a thing, but are still just human enough to wonder about it. I heard him answer the same question, again and again. It was dressed up a little differently each time, but it always boiled down to the same thing. And each year, no matter who was asking, he’d answer just the same. He’d give this strange little smile – I guess the best way I can put it is, if you’ll pardon my language, the perfect “shit-eating” grin, the look of a man who’s just had a joke pulled on him and is trying to be a good sport – he’d give that grin and say the same thing, every time. “War is Hell, and Hell is other people.” I don’t know if it was more of a personal joke to him or more of a personal mantra.

                When Vince came back from Vietnam in the fall of 1970, they gave him a purple heart, a medical discharge, and a handshake with the governor before booting him back into the real world. He was an honest man – been dead these last ten years, God rest his soul – and unlike thousands of other boys who slapped a band on their girl’s finger before they left, hoping to get lucky… Vince actually followed through, with me. We were married in the spring of ’71, and I was blessed with thirty years of knowing the best man I’d ever know.

                They say war changes people, and maybe that’s true. Lord knows I’ve heard all the stories you have, about the things that went on over there, about the boys who came home with something broke in their heads. Vince was never like that, though. I don’t know why. Maybe he was just made of tougher stuff, maybe it’s because he signed up for the war unlike the other boys who got drafted in ’69. Whatever the reason, Vince came out of ‘Nam better than most. Better than most, of course, doesn’t mean untouched. There were times when the war showed through, the things he lived through. Every so often we’d be walking down the street and he’d freeze up when we passed an Asian fellow. He didn’t make a scene or scream or anything like that. Most people looking at him, they wouldn’t even think anything was the matter; it was just a little thing I notice, the tiniest hitch in his step. I’d be holding his hand and just for a second – a tiny little second – his grip would tighten, and his palm would sweat. Then we’d go on, each of us pretending we hadn’t noticed each other noticing. That was the way it was, for a long time.

                He was the one who brought it up, and I think that was the only way it was ever going to happen. There was a quote he loved, from a Stephen King book – I’ve always detested the man, but Vincent couldn’t get enough of those horror tales – Something about a man’s heart being stonier. Maybe that’s true. I almost believe it. I’ve never considered myself an old fashioned woman… maybe a little conservative, but never old-fashioned. Still, I’d kept my tongue for almost thirty years, because I believe – still believe – that a man has the right to a secret or two. Women too… Lord knows I never told Vince about the miscarriage I had in ’82, a secret for which I’ll never forgive myself. I don’t know, I think men just hold these sorts of things deeper down, closer to their hearts, bottling them up until they blow out a heart valve. I think that was true for Vince.

                In the last year before he passed, Vince started having frequent bouts of insomnia. I don’t know why it took him twenty-nine years before it hit him… maybe he knew, somehow, that time was running out, maybe that’s why it came then. In those last months I’d wake up in the deep hours of the night to find him sitting there in bed with me, wide awake. Not reading, not getting up or walking around… Just sitting there in the dark, staring at nothing at all. First couple times that I caught him, I’d ask him what was the matter. Naturally, he’d just give me a smile and tell me that he probably just had too much coffee that afternoon, to go back to bed, to not worry about a thing, sweetie. And for a while there, we were both content to just let it slide on by, pretending I didn’t notice, didn’t know that it was the nightmares keeping him awake, the memories finally catching up with him. I let him have his secret, just like always.

                Then one night – must have been maybe a month before his passing – I woke up to find him sitting there again. This time, though, he’d turned on the reading light on his side of the bed, and he was holding something in his hands, what looked like an envelope. It was sealed, and he didn’t look like he was going to open it. He just sat there, kind of running his callused fingers along the edges, as if he could read the contents just by feeling the envelope. He was staring off at nothing, but somehow… I knew it was a different nothing. A nothing from long ago, maybe. Before I could say anything at all, he said, without looking at me, “You’ve never asked me.”

                On any other night, I might have been confused. Any couple married long enough has a kind of telepathy going on, I really believe that – but I don’t know if even the strongest bonds could make sense of such an odd, out of context statement. That night, though, somehow, I knew what he was talking about. I’ll never be able to explain it right, even to myself. Maybe I had just woken from a dream about such a thing, maybe my mind was just in the right place going to sleep. In whatever case, I somehow know, immediately, what he had said, and why he said it. So I say, “No. I’ve never asked.”

                He nodded, as though he’d expected me to know. “Why?”

                I thought about it for a second. Before then, not asking had always just been a thing I did without thinking about it. I finally said, “I’ve heard enough people ask you, Vince, to know you never wanted to give an answer.”

                Those eyes began to gloss over a little bit, and a shy smile came to his face. “That’ because it was never the right person asking the question.” He handed the sealed envelope out to me. I took it without a second thought, held it, running my fingers along it just the way that he had. “It’s all there,” he said, softly, “I wrote it out, I.. I don’t know if I could actually say it out loud…” Vince stopped, stifling a sob. I touched his arm ever so lightly, and the warmth of my hand seemed to settle him a bit. “I’ve done things.. Oh God help me, Marie, I’ve done things you wouldn’t want to imagine. It… It wasn’t all about fighting the good fight, over there, not like when you signed up. Over there, it was like the world got flipped on its ass, and all you could do was hold on for dear life.”

                Tears came, for a while, and I didn’t say anything. We sat there on the bed, him weeping and me just staying quiet. If there was ever a thing I really understood about my husband, it was that he was a man who detested sympathy. All I could give him, to be there for him, was empathy. It seemed enough for him. After a while, he stopped crying, and brought himself back from whatever terrible edge he’d been perching on.

                “You can read it now,” Vince said, when he’d gotten himself under control, and the sober, somber shell that he’d carried his whole life returned, “You can read it later. You can wait until after I’m gone…”

                “Don’t talk like that,” I started, but he cut me off with a wave.

                “I’m not saying it’s going to be soon. I’m just saying it’s going to happen. I’m almost six years older than you, Marie. I know it’s not much, but I’m getting up there. I want to start getting my affairs in order, just in case.”

                He went on, after I didn’t answer: “I know you must wonder. You’ve been an absolute doll all these years, letting that dead horse well enough alone. Even so… you can’t expect me to believe that you’re just perfectly fine with the fact that there’s a whole chunk of my life – a whole part about who I am – just missing?”

                I only had one question that needed answering, and it wasn’t any of the ones he thought. “Do you want me to open this? Do you want me to know, Vince?”

                “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head, “I just know you deserve to be happy.”

                Well I just took that envelope and tore it right down the middle, then turned it and tore the pieces down the middle, and kept on tearing until there was nothing but confetti. Vince’s jaw dropped like it had popped right out of the hinge. I took his face with my hands and gave him the biggest kiss we’d shared since our wedding day, all those years ago. I let it go on until it couldn’t go on any longer, and when I broke away, I looked him dead in the eyes and told him, “I’m happier than any woman has the right to be.”

                He gave me such a smile. I couldn’t tell you how good it felt, not if I had a hundred years and a million words. He kissed me again, I kissed him back. It went on like that, down that road where kissing leads. For the first time in almost twelve years and the last time before his passing, Vincent and I made love. The horrors of war lay behind us, the sadness of loss waited just ahead, but in that moment it didn’t matter. All that mattered was us, in that fleeting but eternal moment, both now and forever.