The Rest of Brady and Laura's First Date Before He Kisses Her Good-bye, 1969

         Laura and Brady had sat in her aunt's living room on the flowered sofa that first night, kissing for a long time.  They hadn't talked much, just kissed, held each other, kissed again, then laid their heads against the sofa cushions, breathing hard.  Finally after a particularly steamy, tongue-touching, heart-racing kiss, Brady had pulled away, propped his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands over his face.
         "What's wrong?" she'd asked, and as soon as she'd asked, she'd known it was a stupid question.
         Facing her, he studied her, as if he was searching for an answer to an important question.  "We're in this house all alone and I want to do more than kiss you."
         "Brady, I--"
         "Yeah, I know.  You just met me.  You're not that kind of girl.  You're waiting for the right guy to come along."
         When he stood, she thought he was going to leave and walk right out of her life.  She thought he wanted a fun girl who didn't care about tomorrow.
         But then he'd held his hand out to her.  "Come on.  Let's go for a walk."
         "A walk?  It's dark!"
         "So it is, but there are street lights and porch lights.  Come on.  Get a sweater or jacket.  I need some fresh air and I don't want to leave you yet."
         She didn't want him to leave, either...not ever.  Was she absolutely crazy?  Where was her level-headedness now?  Where was good sense when she needed it?
         In her back pocket--and that was where it was going to stay.
         After she put on a sweater, they walked west on Third Avenue, toward houses with porch lamps where streetlights glowed between elm trees, sycamore branches and maples budding with spring leaves.  They held hands and she felt elevated somehow to the status of couple.  She'd never felt like half of a couple before, not even when she'd gone on dates with guys she knew better than Brady.  This was different.  He was different.
         As they turned left on Ogontz, she warned him about the uneven pavement.  After crossing an alley, they passed a house that was almost a mansion.  It took up the whole corner.  It looked like a California hacienda with its cream stucco, black wrought iron and balconies.
         Rounding the corner, they walked along the other side of the house.  Brady muttered, "I bet that place is something inside."
         "It was once.  I went to grade school with the little girl who lived there.  But her family sold it.  Now the church owns it and uses it for offices and classrooms."
         An Episcopal church sat across the street, a light illuminating its red door.
         As they progressed down Fourth Avenue, she pointed to a Cape Cod.  "I like that one."
         "Another classmate?"
         She nodded.  "It's much bigger than it looks.  It has giant bedrooms."
         When she glanced at Brady in the shadows, she could feel him looking at her.  She wouldn't be talking about bedrooms any more tonight.
         Most of the houses on the block did have lit porch lights but as they rounded the corner, strolled down Yale Street and crossed an alley, Brady encircled her waist with his arm.  They bumped hips as they walked and the night became even more magical.
         Finally approaching Brady's car, they stopped.  He took her into his arms, sheltered her between his body and a towering elm and kissed her until she was dizzy.
         Eventually he murmured, "I'd better go.  When can I see you again?  I'm going back to school tomorrow night."
         "I don't know.  I have church in the morning."
         "Do you go with your aunt?"
         "Oh no.  She'll sleep late."
         "How do you get there?"
         "I usually walk.  It's only about six blocks."
         "To St. Joe's."
         She nodded.
         "I'll pick you up," he decided.  "After church, I'll take you to my house.  You can meet my family."
         "Won't they mind if I intrude on your Sunday?"
         "No, they won't mind.  You can stay for dinner.  Mom cooks enough for an army."
         "Oh, Brady, I don't know.  You're just going to take me home--?"
         "Yeah, I am, unless you'd rather not meet my family."
         All day she'd seen nothing but confidence and self-assurance in this man, but now he looked a bit uncertain as he added, "Unless you'd rather I just go back to college and forget today ever happened."
         "No!  No, I don't want that.  I want to see you again.  I just don't want to feel like an intruder."
         "You won't."  He removed the daisy from her hair.  "I think you might want to replace this tomorrow.  This one looks as if it's had a long day."
         She laughed and it felt so good to laugh.
         He laughed, too, hugged her and then kissed her cheek.  "Go on inside.  I'll wait to leave until you close the door."
         But she didn't close the door.  She stood there and waved until his taillights were two red pinpricks she could hardly see.


Laura and Kat in York Hospital's Chapel During Brady's Surgery, 2007

         The minutes ticked by slowly for Laura in the Open Heart waiting room the next morning while Brady was in the O.R.  Last night the surgeon had told them the procedure would take about four hours.  Earlier they'd been given a tour of the Open Heart Intensive Care Unit.  After the operation, Brady's surgeon would be meeting with them.  She'd already poured herself enough coffee to keep her buzzing for a week.
         Glancing over at Pat, she noticed Brady's sister was reading another self-help book.  Instead of watching the TV that was blaring a morning show's offerings, Sean had the ear buds from his iPod stuck in his ears.  She would have expected Kat to be drowning herself in music, too, but her daughter wasn't.  She simply sat, staring straight ahead, lost in thoughts she didn't share.
         Laura had spoken to Brady's brothers the evening before.  Matt and his family lived in California.  Ryan, who was divorced now, made his home in Oklahoma.  Both wanted to be kept informed and would fly in at the drop of a hat if she said it was necessary.  In theory, the brothers were still close.  They got together for Christmas and talked on the phone.  But in actuality, their relationships were based on their childhood, not who they were now.
         Laura fingered the rosary in her pocket.  Standing, she said, "I'm going to go to the chapel."
         To her surprise, Kat asked, "Can I go along?"
         "Sure."
         Sean mumbled, "I'll stay here with Aunt Pat."
         Studying her son, Laura thought he looked bleary-eyed and pale this morning.  But like her, he'd probably tossed and turned most of the night.
         She had to believe Brady was going to recover.  When she'd committed her life to him, she'd dreamt of living to a ripe old age, holding his hand as they took walks together, still debating politics whenever they watched the news.  Although her life was busy, it had always revolved around her husband.  They were soulmates even though parts of Brady's soul had always been off-limits.  She'd gone into marriage with that knowledge, hoping time would heal.  But time had heaped up more wounds and now she wasn't sure how his recovery process from surgery would affect either of them.
         Hooking her arm around Kat's shoulders, she guided her toward the door and down the hall to the elevators.
         The chapel on the first floor was small--only two rows of six chairs sat facing a banner hung on the wall exhibiting the star of David, the Caduceus and a cross.  A kneeler in front of the banner held a prayer request book.  Laura slipped into one of the chairs and waited for her daughter to sit beside her.  No one else sought refuge in the chapel for the moment and Laura was grateful for that because she wanted Kat to feel free to talk to her.
         She took out her rosary.  It had been a gift from her mother for her First Communion--aqua glass beads with a silver crucifix.  Laura always felt closer to her mother when she held them.  Most of those days and nights with her aunt, especially after her parents had been killed, she'd fallen asleep with these beads in her hand, longing for a life that had been torn away from her, longing for parents to care about her again.  She hadn't felt really cared about until Brady had come along.
         Taking a quick glance at Kat, she saw her daughter's eyes were shiny.  Her own were damp.  Should she acknowledge what they both must be feeling?  That she was terrified she'd lose Brady and so was Kat?
         Laura blessed herself and held the crucifix in her hand reciting the "Apostles Creed" in her head.
         "Daddy looked so...so pale," Kat murmured, almost too low for Laura to hear.  But she did hear.  In spite of what she'd said about not wanting to see her dad in CICU, Kat had asked to visit him before surgery, and Laura had let her.
         "I know he did, honey.  He's very ill.  But hopefully the surgery will fix everything."
         "Can it?  Can it fix him?  He told me everything would be okay.  It would be like it was before.  But Joan Dougherty's dad had a heart attack and then he had another one a year later and died.  Is that what's going to happen to Daddy?"
         Kat's voice was trembling now and Laura wrapped an arm around her.  "Your dad is a fighter.  If we all help him, we can convince him to do what he has to do to stay healthy.  He has to eat right, exercise, and maybe slow down a bit."
         "What if he doesn't want to do all that?"
         Laura almost smiled.  Kat knew her dad very well.  "We'll just have to convince him we want him around another fifty years or more."  Laura reached out and brushed a tear from Kat's cheek.  As she did,
the charms on her bracelet softly jangled against each other.
         "Maybe we could do things together that would be good for Daddy."  Kat fingered one of the charms on Laura's bracelet.  It was a tiny bicycle.  "I remember when he gave you this one.  We took our bikes to the Gettysburg Battlefield to ride.  When we were eating our picnic lunch, he pulled out a little box that had this in it."
         Laura thought back to that time when Kat was eight and Sean twelve.  The year before, Brady had started his own robotics company and invested their savings in it--savings from his salary as well as profits from the flower shop his mother had left to her.  While he was in the service, Laura had gone from clerk to manager at Blossoms.  A few years later his dad had had a stroke and his mother had hardly come into the shop at all.  After Brady's dad died, Anna Malone had worked beside Laura once again, still letting her manage the store.  Not long after, a heart attack had taken Anna from them.  When the will was read, Laura had been amazed that her mother-in-law had left the shop to her.
         She missed Anna dearly.  Making Blossoms successful was Laura's way of keeping alive her mother-in-law's memory.  Still, Brady had told her more than once she could sell it if she wanted to.  But she'd kept it, managed it, overseen everything all these years.  At times it had been tough working and being available for her kids and husband, too.  At times she and Brady hardly saw each other.  When Brady went out on a limb to form his own company, he'd spent so many nights and weekends at his office that Laura wondered if he was having an affair.
         One night he'd missed a concert they were supposed to attend.  The next day, he'd brought home bicycles for all of them.  He'd also given her the charm and promised that night was just for the two of them.
         Still fingering the little bicycle charm, Kat remembered, "When dad had to go back to work at night, you used to ride around the neighborhood with me and Sean.  I liked our old neighborhood when houses were closer together and kids played in their yards, and you and Dad didn't have to drive me to my friends.  I could walk."
         Like Kat, she'd appreciated their first house in the east end.  It had been a split level with three bedrooms and a pretty yard with neighbors who'd watched over their house when they were away.  Now they had a state-of-the-art security system.
         The peacefulness of the chapel began to seep into Laura until Kat cleared her throat.  She began, "When we got home from the hospital yesterday..."  She trailed off, hesitated, then went on.  "I read the article about Dad."
         "What did you think?"
         With a shrug, Kat stared straight ahead.  "I guess I wonder if it's all true."
         What could she say?  That war was hell?  That what might be a crime in their town wasn't in a jungle when rules of engagement were taken into account?
         "Kat, honey, look at me."
         When her daughter turned to face her, Laura told her the truth.  "Your dad was in a war.  He was fighting for his life and for the guys with him.  After he's recovered, you can ask him whatever questions you have if you want to, then make up your own mind about what happened."
         Kat's eyes widened a little as if she was surprised her mother was treating her like an adult.  Maybe she needed to do that more often.
         Her daughter pointed to the beads in Laura's hand.  "I haven't said the rosary in a long time."
         "Do you want to say it with me?"
         Kat nodded.
         Laura thought about Brady in surgery, cringed at what he was going through, then took a deep breath and prayed the rosary with Kat...hoping God was listening...hoping their prayers mattered...hoping that Brady would come out of this whole.



Laura's Visit to Mrs. Treedy's Rooming House, 1969

         After Mass, the address Laura's aunt had given her led her to a stretch of East Philadelphia Street lined with row houses.  Stunned by her aunt's attitude, out in the open now after so many years of being hidden, Laura had tried to get a few hours of sleep before church.  She'd known it was time to leave Aunt Marcia.  She just hadn't been sure her paycheck would cover everything it needed to cover when she did.
         Finding the number she was looking for, she mounted rickety steps.  The scent of fried onions and sour milk emanated from the rusty screen door.  Her skin crawled as she canvassed the narrow building that needed a good coat of paint and a few new shingles, maybe more than a few.  She heard clatters coming from inside, and she knocked when she couldn't find a bell.
         The woman who came to the door was overweight and slovenly.  Her dye-bottle red hair was coarse and recalcitrant and stood out all over as if she'd teased and sprayed it throughout the morning.  Although Laura never put much store in outward appearances, the woman's housedress was stained with something down the front and her floppy ostrich-feathered slippers, her heavy make-up and hooded watchful eyes urged Laura to run in another direction--any direction.
         "Whatcha doin' bothering somebody on a Sunday morning?" the woman asked belligerently.
         Although she was rattled, Laura didn't turn away.  She needed to move, and what she could afford was limited.  "My aunt gave me this address.  Are you Mrs. Treedy?"
         "Yeah, I'm her."  She rubbed her double-jowled chin.  "Your aunt Marcia Watson?"
         Laura nodded.  "She said you might have a room to rent."
         The corner of Mrs. Treedy's lip quirked up as she appraised Laura.  "You look like the type who wouldn't be late with the rent.  Come on.  I'll show you the room."
         Laura hesitated, not knowing if she wanted to step inside this house.  However, Mrs. Treedy was already ambling away from her expecting her to follow.
         When Laura opened the screen, she felt the rough edge of the handle cut her finger.  Digging into her purse, she found a lace-trimmed white handkerchief and wrapped it around the cut.
         The linoleum in the hall leading past a closed door was broken and mottled.  The sour and fried smells became stronger as Mrs. Treedy rounded the stairway and motioned Laura to follow.  "Don't make no noise.  Some of my roomers are still sleeping."
         On the second floor, the scent of cigar smoke was strong.  Faded pink and cream cabbage-rose wallpaper appeared to be stained with water spots.  The molding strips along the hall were absent.
         Suddenly one of the doors opened.  A tall grey-haired man with a thin narrow nose and a pointed chin stood there in his thready flannel bathrobe.
         "Mornin'," he said with an avid assessment of Laura that made her skin crawl.  "You livin' here now?" he asked with interest.
         "Just...looking," she managed, wondering why she thought she was grown up, wondering why she thought she could handle anything.
         "It's a roof over your head if you need a roof over your head," he said with a leer.  He pointed to a door across the hall.  "I'm headin' over to the shower."  He addressed Mrs. Treedy.  "Is she going to look at one of the rooms on the third floor?  Brownie would love that.  He'd like some company up there."
         That did it.  That absolutely did it.  "I'd have a room up on the third floor with a man?"  Laura felt hot and sick and clammy.
         "Yeah, but you'd have to come down here and use this bathroom, "the man informed her helpfully.
         "Women stay here, too," Mrs. Treedy said defensively.  "I've got two on this floor.  But I can't pay no mind to male or female when I rent out rooms.  I just rent them."
         The tall man was still studying Laura as if she were a dessert he wanted to eat and she knew she had to find somewhere else to stay, definitely not here.  She'd be asking for trouble.
         "I won't need to see that room," she told Mrs. Treedy and hurried away from the two of them, clattered down the steps, practically ran down the hall, and pushed out the door.
         The almost-summer air was clean and fresh and she took in lungfulls of it as the lump in her throat started easing some.  She'd get a Sunday paper and start circling the rooms for rent.  Anything had to be better than Mrs. Treedy's rooming house.  Absolutely anything.




Phone conversation from Fort Dix--1969

         "Did you get my package?" he'd asked.
         "I did.  You didn't have to send me a present."
         "I didn't want you to forget about me."  He was teasing her but there was truth in what he'd said, too.
         "How could I forget?  I have your letters.  I always take your latest one to work with me and reread it over my lunch hour."
         "I read your letters more than once, too," he admitted.  "They help me feel closer to you."
         Turning her wrist back and forth, she let the three charms glitter under the floor light.  The jeweler had attached the envelope charm over her lunch hour today.  "I miss you, Brady.  I never knew I could miss anybody this much."
         "I miss you, too."  His words were husky and low as if he didn't want anyone to overhear him.  Or maybe, he was as moved as she was by simply hearing his voice.  "We should have gotten married," he suddenly added.
         "We wouldn't have had enough time.  You know how the church is."
         "We could have just gone to a J.P.  At least we would have been legal."
         "We don't need a piece of paper, Brady.  We showed each other how much we love each other."  During their last night together, they hadn't slept.  They hadn't wanted to miss a minute of being together, lying naked in bed, freely exploring each other's bodies.  They could always catch up on sleep, but they'd never catch up on moments lost to them when they could be talking or loving.
         "That night keeps me going," he said, his voice gruff.  "When things get tough here, I think about you."
         Brady had told her that in his letters and so much more.  Yet hearing him say it now meant so much to her.  Her throat was too tight to reply.
         "In your last letter," he went on, "you said Jack called and asked if you wanted to go to the movies with him.  Are you going to go?"
         Clearing her throat, she answered, "He's just asking as a friend, Brady.  He knows I miss you.  He calls me about once a week since you've been gone.  Do you not want me to go?"
         "I trust you, Laura."
         "But you don't trust Jack?"
         "I want to, but me being here and you being there gives me a few reasons to be jealous.  He's a guy.  You're a beautiful woman."
         "Don't you know I could never look at another man the way I look at you...feel the way I do about you?  Believe me, there's nothing to be jealous of.  But if you'd rather, I can go to the movies with Mary Ann."
         "Your friend from high school?"
         "Yes.  She has her own car.  She asked me if I wanted to drive down to Wildwood some weekend.  I've never been to the beach and I'd love to go."
         "You should go, and...if you want to go to the movies with Jack, you should do that, too."
         "Are you sure?  If I go, it's just because I want us all to remain friends.  When you come home, you'll still have connections...you'll still know what your friends are doing."
         "Yeah, I guess that's true.  I don't want to let the friendships slip away just because I'm not there.  Let's face it, guys don't write letters to other guys."
         She laughed.  "Do you want me to tell Jack to write to you?"
         "Nah.  It would probably take him four weeks to put it together and I'll be gone from here by then."
         They both went quiet until she asked, "Do you have any idea where you'll be stationed?"
         "Not yet."
         "If the Vietnamization policy shifting the fighting to the South Vietnamese army is in effect, maybe Nixon will pull troops out and you won't have to go."
         "We can pray that happens."
         "I've been going to Mass some mornings before work."
         They were silent for a few moments until she asked, "Do you know yet if you'll have time to come home after basic training?"
         "Not for sure."
         Suddenly she heard voices in the background on Brady's end.
         "Laura, I have to go."
         "I'm so glad you called."  She wasn't ready for their conversation to be cut off.  Gripping the phone, she said fervently, "I love you, Brady."
         "I love you, too."
         Over the years Laura had played that conversation in her head many times.  Now when she saw her husband smile, the first real smile since surgery, she thought maybe he had, too.

Sean and Valerie at Her Party, 2007

         Leaning low over the pool table, Sean made a shot and missed, his attention not entirely focused on what he was doing.  He'd never intended to blow up at his dad.  He'd never intended to bring up college today.  But for a change, his father had seemed to realize how much harder and longer he'd had to work than a regular kid.  And he'd mistakenly thought maybe, just maybe, his parents would understand he didn't want to be trapped into someplace he didn't want to be.
         Thank goodness his dad hadn't had chest pain or something.  Geez, if he'd had more symptoms...another heart attack...
         Searching for a distraction, Sean's gaze fell--not for the first time tonight--on the hostess of the party, Valerie Johanssen.  She was hot with her long silvery-blond hair streaming down her back.  Her green eyes had been curious when their gazes connected earlier.  She didn't seem to be sticking close to any one guy, but circulating, having something to say to the twenty-five or so kids in her basement.  He'd caught her glancing at him more than once.
         She didn't know he'd needed a tutor to get through some
classes.  She didn't know his family.  She didn't know what his father had done.  Nobody here did.  Or if they did, they didn't associate it with him.
         Deciding to make a move, Sean propped the cue stick in its holder on the wall and as nonchalant as he could be, he crossed the rec room and stood as if deciding which group to join.
         When she made eye contact, he nodded, feeling as if someone had punched him in the stomach.  She smiled, and he lost every coherent thought in his head.
         Finally he managed to say, "Great party."
         Valerie turned the can of soda in her hand.  "Thanks.  The kids don't seem to mind my mom being upstairs."
         Sean glanced around the room as she did, noticing kids around the food table, sitting on the floor talking, on the couches, dancing to the music in the background.
         The silence between them became awkward.
         Valerie asked, "You go to school with Gary and Boyd?"
         His friends had already come and gone, probably headed off to
another party with a keg of beer.  "Yep.  But a few more days, then we're out."
         "I've got another year.  I can't wait to go to college.  Where are you going?"
         There was something about Valerie Johannsen that encouraged him to be truthful.  In saying the truth, maybe he'd find the courage to follow the course he wanted.  "I was accepted at St. Francis, but..."  Should he really be honest with her?
         What did it matter?  If he never saw her again, so what.
         So what?  He'd miss out on something special.  He knew it in his gut.
         "But?" she prompted.
         "I don't want to go that route.  I want to specialize in graphic design, maybe get a two-year degree and then start real work.  I'm tired of school."
         After a moment, she nodded.  "That makes sense these days.  I have cousins who couldn't get jobs after earning degrees.  What matters now is the profession you choose and if it's in demand."
         "Exactly."
         That awkwardness was back again.  Sean took a chance and asked, "Do you want to dance?"  It was hard to act as if her answer didn't matter, but he attempted a neutral expression.     

Brady's Turning Point--Alternative

        On the patio at three a.m. Brady sat in a lawn chair, a flashlight beside his foot, staring unseeingly into the black night.  His shirt was damp from the sweat he'd worked up on his walk through the woods.  The trail was groomed, the path unmistakable with the flashlight's beam.  For some reason he'd needed to cut through the tress and brush...he'd needed to feel surrounded by night more primitively than he would have been on the street with gas postlamps lighting his way.
        Propping his elbows on his knees, he dropped his head into his hands.  He was going to lose Sean and Laura if he didn't do something.
        Apparently for years Laura had bottled up her feelings.  They'd eaten at her.  Although she'd remained loyal, patient and loving, the resentment had eroded the bond between them that had once been so durable.
        He'd always tried to look forward, not back.  He'd always tried to be strong so she could lean on him.  Yet somehow in that strength, there had been so much weakness.  The break-down of his family had been caused by the walls he'd erected to keep his pain and guilt contained.
        The pain and guilt from his Nam memories had lain moldy, corruptive, and decaying in the pit of his soul.  They'd tainted everything he did, said, and was, though he'd tried to deny it.  When Jason died, his grief had added another layer to the quagmire.
        That quagmire had kept him from loving Sean as he should.  It had kept him from giving Laura what she needed most--a depth of love that could only come from revelation and vulnerability.
        Through the years, he'd known if he spoke again of his guilt and remorse after their session with John, he would have been too vulnerable.  The idea of going to the parents' group with Laura after Jason died had been anathema--because he'd known sharing his grief would lead him back to Nam.  As he'd gotten older, he'd learned loss compounded loss, and guilt compounded guilt.
         When he was a child, he'd known God was there.  Not because the nuns taught him so, but because he simply knew.  Even as a teenager when questions poked at rote truths, he'd gone to the ocean or the mountains or even church sometimes and felt a Presence.
         For years now, there had been no Presence.  Or else he'd merely hidden from it.  He longed to feel it again.  He longed to find direction.  He longed to be connected...really connected...to his family.
         One question echoed in his heart.  What do I have to do?