Becoming the Storm
36 Visitation
THERE WAS A FIGURE in the doorway when I managed to get my eyes open and my nightmare to stop. At first, I thought it was him and my heart started racing. My hand clenched and I started to gather my strength. I’d get just one punch. He came closer, no longer backlit by the hall light.
“Brian,” he said.
“Papa Sly,” I started to breathe more easily and then panicked again. Was he here to finish the job? I’d let one of his daughters be killed and the other wounded. He’d have the right. He should just kill me.
“I hope you don’t mind the late visit,” he croaked. I realized he was crying. “I didn’t want people thinking I was crazy. My little Alexandra wanted to visit you.”
What? What the fuck? She’s alive? Who’s playing with my head?
“I know it was just a dream,” he said as he settled into the chair beside my bed. I rolled so I could face him. “But it was so clear.” He placed a box on the bed next to me. “Don’t open it. It’s not necessary. It’s all we have left of her. Her ashes.” Oh shit! I started crying and Sly reached over to take my hand as he wept, too. “I heard her voice. I know the difference between being awake and dreaming. I know it was a dream, but it was so powerful. She said, ‘Take me to visit Brian so I can tell him I love him.’ Maybe you can’t hear her. But I had to come.”
I put my hand on the box. All that was left of beautiful little Lexi came down to less than four pounds of ashes. Calcium phosphates. Potassium. Salts. I knew the chemical makeup. But I could hear her. Not literally, of course. I could just hear her the morning we went to the sorority. I’d seen her in her beautiful gown and told her how incredible she looked. She kissed my cheek and then rubbed the lipstick off. “I love you,” she’d said. “Thank you.”
We just sat there for a while, Sly and me. He kept his hand on mine on top of the box. I wondered how I could live with the loss, but how much worse it must be for the father to lose his baby. I don’t know how long we sat like that.
“Do you know how many men I’ve killed, Brian?” What the fuck??? “A lot. For a while I kept track. Then I stopped counting. I just woke up one morning and didn’t know how many people I’d killed. Men. And women. And children. I was sent to Vietnam in ’66. I was a scared kid, twenty years old. At least they trained me first. Every time I woke up, I was surprised I was still alive. I never intended to kill anyone innocent. But a woman rushing at you with a baby looks a lot like a Viet Cong with a bomb. I killed them,” Sly said. He sat there in silence. “Fourteen-year-olds. Maybe less. Too many of them tricked units and then set off explosives. We were sent in to kill them before they could get to us. I took some mother’s child… Some father’s precious daughter… I killed them. And this is my reward. This little box of ashes. If my Samantha didn’t need me so much, I’d kill myself. But she needs us. We have to go on. Put that in your kit, Brian. Some days we continue on because the ones we love need us. We have to bear our guilt and live with our failings. And grieve with each other.”
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