After our ceremony in the garden we were all emotionally drained. Dad went back into the house and brought out the half empty bottle of bourbon and an unopened one as well. We sat together on the shaded benches under arbors which in springtime would bloom with various flowers and in summer would smell of honeysuckle. Just now nothing was in season to bloom so there was only greenery but it was enough to lend an almost cathedral like atmosphere to the scene.

Michelle and I quietly decided Dad would not be alone tonight. Apparently our husbands had decided the same and had fallen into their own conversation with him. I caught a few things that decided distinctly military and figured since Michelle’s husband had served in the Air Force as a Para rescue or something like that they probably had a bit to talk about.

About that time I decide I really need a bathroom as a matter of some urgency and wouldn’t mind getting out of the dress either. It was beautiful but as evening approached what had been a warm day was rapidly chilling down and something a bit more substantial was going to be needed. As I came out of the downstairs bathroom feeling considerable relief, I hear a flush from upstairs and soon my sister’s footsteps going down the hallway to her old room. She stops for a moment, leaving the door open and I can hear her continue to my old room. I hear the handle turn and the door open and then a sharp inhalation and a quiet “Holy Shit!”

“Angel! Get up here!”

I run upstairs as quickly as I can and I see Michelle standing in front of the door to my old room. Hers is open and I can tell nothing has changed.

“What? How bad is it?”

She gives me this look I can’t really read and just says “You have to see it for yourself…” She opens the door and steps out of the way and I am stunned. I can’t manage to speak as I take it in. The bunk bed with its dull colors had been replaced by a simple yet beautiful canopy bed, like the one my sister had when she was younger but queen sized. It was covered with a quilt that held my attention for what seemed like ages.

Right in the center was a patch of pink satin, cut into the shape of a heart on a white square background of cotton. Other squares held embroidered scenes but one in particular held my attention, a scene of parents, obviously my own, but beside them stood two daughters, one obviously taller…

I can’t manage to look at that one for too long and my attention turns to the bed itself. As I look closer I notice the unmistakable signs of my father’s workmanship. I had thought I was cried out until I realize my vision is wavering and I feel my sister hug me gently from behind.

I just stare, transfixed. “He… She… They… I…”

She chuckles into my ear. “Yeah, that’s about how I reacted. Look around!”

I finally tear my eyes away from the bed and look around the room. The walls have been painted an eggshell white with floral borders hand painted at the top… violets I think. There is an antiqued looking vanity that looks wide enough for 3 with a huge mirror, bright lights around it. The floor is a blonde hardwood which I know is wood Dad had logged off the place. The area rug on which the bed rests is one I remember admiring in my grandmother’s bedroom.

I can’t even find any words… I just shake my head. Leaving the door open, I go out front and get the case Theo and I had packed. Michelle follows me, bringing a case she had apparently packed for herself and Beau. We both went to our rooms, changed out of our funeral dresses and I did my best to spike my hair back up a bit. Since I’ve got the black nails I decide I need to spike it up a bit and go for a set of black leggings with chinese dragons in red and orange chasing each other all over them and a pair of relatively tame(For me) Castana wedges in what looks like neon green python skin. Just for contrast I go with a fairly tame black and white jungle print peasant blouse and a light cardigan. I keep the jewelry the same, simple black and silver.

Michelle and I meet again out in the hallway and I watch her reaction to what I’m wearing. She looks, looks again and just shrugs.

“You know, I honestly don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who could dress like that and still look incredibly sexy and dangerous and… just beautiful. Just… wow…”

She has gone for classic black jeans and a Tshirt with Skechers and a light jacket.

“Well ya know… you dress Middle America… That doesn’t exactly work for me so I had to find my own thing. At some point so many things clash with each other it overwhelms the eye and people just don’t see me… You on the other hand are just who you are, a beautiful woman who has never allowed herself to really cut loose. It fits you.”

“Wow, I never thought of it that way. Come on, lets go get our men out of their formals and into something comfortable. Oh and there’s more bourbon in the car and a couple of cases of Coors out in the chiller in the car. I’ll get Beau to bring those in once he’s changed. I can’t believe they both wore full dress blues today… and I noticed they only wore rank and their purple hearts. I wonder if that means something?”

“I have no idea. The closest I ever came to the military has been meeting the vets who live in the rough. They… don’t talk much. I try to do what I can but Theo seems to be the only one who can really get through to them.”

By this time we’re stepping out of the backdoor and into the garden again. The sun is just on the horizon and the sky is blood red, shading to deep purple. The men are still deep in conversation and I can hear them getting serious for a moment before they all three sit up, raise filled glasses and hold them up. Theo sees me and motions Michelle and I over.

He takes a moment to pour us both a glass and hands it to us. It seems like a very solemn moment as I watch my Dad raise his glass, the others raising and clinking as we join in.

He says in the carefully precise speech of someone who is beginning to get seriously drunk “Absent Companions” which Theo and Beau repeat. I suddenly realize what is going on and nudge Michelle so we echo only slightly behind them. Then they all pour a little from their glass onto the ground before draining them. Michelle and I do the same.

“And now” my dad intones “Lets follow your ladies example and get comfortable, shall we gentlemen?”

I catch Theo’s eyes with mine and motion to Dad. He gives me a “Don’t worry” look and makes his way upstairs to change. I know he has already had enough to get 2 normal men so drunk they can’t walk but all 3 of the men seem to be cut from sterner cloth than that as you can barley even tell. Theo still isn’t comfortable with his dress leg so he is a bit unstable on the stairs but he makes it just fine.

“Last door on the right babe!” I yell up to him and can tell from his footsteps that he has stopped in the doorway for just a moment. He continues and in just a few moments I hear him hitting the bathroom on the way down. I can tell from the sound he has changed to the articulated leg that he finds so much more comfortable. I give him a kiss and another glass and motion him toward the garden.

I know he has questions but he’s not alone in that. I go back upstairs and knock gently on my parent…. Well I guess now, my Dad’s… room.

“You decent Dad?”

“Decent enough, come on in.”

I open the door and walk in. He is sitting on his bed in his skivvies. I never have quite understood why he wears those strange things… They are like briefs but they have legs on them down to like midthigh and are skintight. His Tshirt is beside him on the bed and I can see the ravages the past years have worked on him. He has the Zipper scar on his chest, so likely open heart surgery. Looks like he has two new knees to judge from the scarring there.

He notices me looking and runs down the catalog, sort of matter of fact. He points to his chest “Quadruple bypass, right after I did… What I did…” His hand moves on to his knees “New knees finally… and a new hip.”

He points to me.

“Um, looks like you’ve got a couple new things too…” He looks a bit embarrassed. “Another way you take after your mom. I can’t believe how much like her you are, its like you’re a younger her but with everything turned up to 11, ya know?”

“Cmon Dad, lets get some clothes on you and then get you wrapped around a bit more in the way of good bourbon.” I root through his dresser and toss him what looks like a warm and comfortable set of black fleece sweats and a fresh Tshirt. Moments later, he is limping down the stairs after me.

“How old is the hip? 3 or 4 months? You know you should still be using a cane right?”

He just grunts and walks over to his empty glass, filling it and making his way into the garden with an effort not to show the pain, bottle hanging from his other hand.

I follow, lost in thought. I have no idea what to say to him, how to even think about what apparently both of my parents had done with my room. That my mother had saved the remnants of the dress my father literally whipped off of me and patched them into a quilt, that my father had plainly spent a great deal of time and effort turning the personless space that had been my room into what it now was?

How and when and of course why and many other thoughts ran through my mind. I have to ask, I have to know… I can’t help wondering if I’m doing good or just twisting the dagger but that? I’ve had far too much alcohol so far tonight to leave this one alone, and then I think I’d better record this… I’m not likely to remember much tomorrow. I slip in an earpiece and sync it with one of my little gadgets, making sure I’m getting full aural surround reconstruction in the outdoor environment. That will give me a visual reconstruction of things through the sound recording.

I arrive just in time to hear Theo stick his… erm… foot in his mouth.

“I haven’t said it right sir, because apparently I’ve-“

My father’s growl cuts him off “Don’t ever call me that, EllTee(He spits it out like an insult). I fucking worked for a living! What the hell did you do, drive your idiotmobile over some stupid IED and get a bunch of working pukes killed?”

You wouldn’t be able to tell it if you don’t know him as intimately as I do, but I can tell as clear as day that there is barely controlled rage in Theo’s voice as he manages to remain outwardly calm.

“I never drove one of those things, Senior Chief. I pulled my team out of an unbelievable clusterfuck but the Taliban took my leg as the price or I’d be with them right now. None of the “Working pukes” as you choose to call them died, although Petty Officer Ortiz did lose a finger. Not his trigger finger so he’s still out there. I’m stuck home with this” he bangs on his leg, producing a metallic clunk. He falls silent and I know he’s fallen into his memory hole again.

Before I can say anything my dad breaks the silence. “Petty Officer First actually. I, um, had a little problem with some intel weenies and they kinda busted me down for a bit and stuck me in a radio shack cause I’d managed to run afoul of a little Vietnamese man with a bamboo pole who did a number on my knees.”

Theo breaks in “And then you and your other two teammates carried the worst injured guy like 30 miles out of Cambodia before they’d evac you. I know the story, Beau knows it. Most of us know it. Its one of those underground legends of the community. I am well aware of who my father in law is,” his inflection hardens “Sir.”

“Well shit, um, sorry I guess and I still don’t like it but what the hell was a Navy EllTee doing out in the ass end of I’m presuming not Afghanistan?”

“Classified.”

“What was your unit?”

“Classified. I can’t tell you anything at all really, it is all classified pretty highly… technically I’ve said way too much already but you got under my skin.”

I have to break in at this point, I can see this conversation going to uncomfortable places and I have a whole other list of uncomfortable places to go tonight.

“Dad, I saw my room. I know mom’s sewing and painting, I know your woodwork. I don’t get it? How could you change so much and when cause its obviously been this way a while. How could you not reach out somehow, find me? Why did I have to survive on the streets dad? Why? Why couldn’t you come bring me home? Why couldn’t you even get in touch with Michelle?” at this point I’m shout-crying and I trail off into just crying.

Dad is choking on his words, but he manages to get them out. “We tried. We looked in every way we could think of. We hired detectives, put up posters… we even reported you as a runaway. You just vanished and then as soon as your sister graduated high school she vanished too. We were so lost. I was sure you had been killed or worse and I had to accept that Michelle didn’t want anything to do with me.”

He stops to take a deep drink. “After I had my heart attack and bypass I couldn’t work so I kinda rehabbed myself by rebuilding your room and your bed… I reused as much of the wood as I could… I was grieving and your mother was too… She made that quilt and did the painting … The things we never did for you while we had you here.”

He takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment and lets out a gusty sigh fraught with pain.

“The things we should have done for you… We knew, you told us so many times when you were little… And then when you went to school you stopped talking about it. What we never really realized until after you were gone was that you had stopped talking about anything. You talked when we made you talk, you were very polite… but looking back I know that was when you shut out the rest of the world to survive.”

“Your mom used to find your sister’s clothes hidden in your room and wash them, put them back where they belonged. We still thought it was just something you’d get over. We tried so hard to make your world a little more normal, that’s why we decided letting them skip you over Junior High entirely and put you on the GATE track was a bad thing. You were already 2 years younger than your classmates. We thought it would just make things worse.”

“Then you stopped going to school and even got yourself kicked out of reform school and you just wouldn’t stop dressing… you hid from us but we knew…”

He trailed off, draining his glass again as the rest of us sipped in silence. It has gotten quite dark by now but I can see little glints of reflections, tears rolling down his face.

I’d been crying silently the whole time myself, as absorbed in my own pain and memories as in his words.

“Why dad? Why did you beat me… beat us? Michelle might not have physical scars as bad as mine but then I was never blamed for being raped! I don’t understand… What the hell can a 10 year old possibly do that would be any sort of reason for being knocked across the tractor bay? How could you think that was the right thing to do?”

I’m sob-hiccuping by this point and I can’t stop. I feel Theo holding me and pressing my forgotten drink into my hand. Without thinking I toss the entire contents back, almost gagging at the welcome burn.

Beau vanishes at the sound of the doorbell from inside and reappears a moment later with a huge stack of pizza boxes and takeout cartons. He has found the light switch so we can actually see. In the darkness with the lights strung along the arbors and walkways it looks even more like an enchanted cathedral.

His strong Bayou drawl seems to shift reality just a little.

“I didn’t know what any of yawl might want so I just kinda got a good spread.” We all root through the containers and boxes until we find something that strikes our fancy. I’ve got a spring roll and some Shrimp Lo Mein and Michelle and I are both dipping chopsticks into each others containers… she has some sort of sweet-sour chicken that is blowtorch hot.

Thankfully Beau brought out some beer too so there’s a bit of something to quench the fire. Years ago I wouldn’t drink Coors because I knew the Coors family was very anti-LGBT but since they sold out to Molton I don’t have a problem and I have to admit it is drinkable beer.

Theo reaches over with some thing in his hand… some kind of Pasty maybe? and offers me a bite. I take a tentative nibble and juice dribbles down my chin a little but its so heavenly… its almost like pizza except it isn’t a pizza and it has this awesome kind of salty taste that just hits exactly the right spot and I moan with pleasure.

I grab it from him and take another bite, stuffing it into my sister’s face as well. I can see the foodgasm look and she copies my moan, closing her eyes and chewing slowly. I sheepishly offer the remains back to Theo but he just laughs and holds up another.

I hear my dad’s clipped southwestern accent. “Well boys, looks like I owe you both a 20. I never thought I’d see the day.”

Michelle beats me to it. “What?”

“Well your dad said you both detested sardines so I ordered Calzones with sardines.” Beau chuckles. “The old man here bet us a 20 each you would taste em and spit em out”

I have to think about the notion that I just enjoyed eating a hairy fish for a second before deciding that it just doesn’t bother me anymore. Michelle looks at me and we both laugh.

“Well apparently that’s one of those things you should have fed us before you told us what it was cause that is…. Like a flavor I’ve somehow been missing!”

Dad laughs at me and said “Yeah well some little smarty looked on the pizza and pipes up with ‘Daddy, why hairy fish on pizza?’ so that one was blown from the start.”

Its another of those things I don’t remember and Michelle sees it instantly, that wistful desire to actually remember things that far back.

“You were about 3 sis. Gino went back into the kitchen and comes out with a small pizza with no sardines on it, puts it in front of you and me and goes ‘No hairy fish for the two young ladies then.’ They didn’t say anything that time but Gino never came back out to talk to us again and there were always endless garlic twists.”

“Thanks sis… you know there’s gonna be a lot of stuff I ask you about cause of the whole memory thing” We hug for a moment.

Dad manages to mutter around a rib he’s gnawing at. “Memory thing? What memory thing?”

“I never said anything to you or Mom about it. Michelle figured it out on her own. Basically that little trip down the highway on my forehead screwed something up so although I didn’t lose any skills or knowledge, I really can’t remember anything from before then. I knew who people close to me were… and I knew three other things. I was a girl, I liked boys, and I absolutely had to hide both of those things from everyone. As far as my memories are concerned, with the exception of a few flashes, there isn’t anything from before I was 8. Its like in a lot of ways I’m mentally 8 years younger than I really am.”

He glares at Michelle, who looks down with a bit of guilt. “So when did you figure this out young lady and why didn’t you tell us? You know we had her tested for literally everything they could think of and the only thing they caught was dyslexia because she drew geometric figures backward and couldn’t even tell it, even insisted they were identical when shown the mirror image she’d drawn and what they gave her to draw. They said she was too well compensated for them to have caught it any other way. That might have helped them figure something out, I don’t know… but I would like to have known it at least!”

He seems to think about what he said for a moment and then says “Shit, I’ve done it again. Not about fixing your gender, about figuring out why you couldn’t seem to understand how to interact with other people. I don’t think any of us really understood that you were so bright you really had nothing to say to them that you considered worthwhile… and we definitely didn’t understand that you had closed down emotionally the way you had.”

“I’m impressed dad, it seems like you’ve really given this some thought.”

He snorts “Given it some thought, she says!”

“Little girl we’ve been trying to figure you out from day one. I’m no closer now than I was then, and I doubt I ever will be. I never figured your Mom or sister out either. I swear women are a different species…”

The men share a look and a laugh. My sister and I just look at each other and say in unison “Men are weird…” and giggle.

It’s a nice moment in the middle of all this, one that lasts too briefly.

“I still don’t get why, dad? If you knew all this and actually cared then why?”

He takes another bite of… something unidentifiable and chews for a moment, takes a swig of beer.

“Your mother and I tried to figure that out over these past years and to be honest, I don’t have a why for you, for either of you… The therapists said we were simply perpetuating the cycle of abuse we’d been raised in. Maybe that’s the truth of it. I just don’t know. I do know that your mother never forgave herself and I… I’m so far beyond redemption I can’t even see their garbage dump from here.”

He drains his beer and grabs a slice of pizza.

“I can’t ask either of you girls to forgive me, I don’t deserve forgiveness. I would like to try to… make it up to you isn’t right because that isn’t possible… I guess just to try to heal some of what I have destroyed.”

Before I can say anything Theo speaks up. “Look, I get where you’re coming from, I really do. I was a child of abuse myself and Angel knows I have problems with my temper sometimes. The PTSD doesn’t exactly help with that one…”

He pauses for a swig of beer. “But you did not destroy your daughter, no matter how hard you tried. You took steel and beat it into titanium. Beautiful and fragile looking but it’d take more than anything you or anyone else has to even dent her. You need to come see what she has built, what she does for a whole community… You need to understand that you gave your daughter exactly the right name. She is an Angel, as sure as we’re sitting here now.”

“If you’re going to be back in your daughter’s life, you have to understand where her priority… her heart, her soul if you will lies. Come back with us tomorrow?”

“But I thought you lived in the street, I wanted to offer you a place to live… I don’t understand…” He sounded lost, haunted even.

“Dad, remember what granddad used to talk about when he was a young man, hobo jungle stew, all that stuff? Its not what you think, really it isn’t. I can’t live with you Dad, as much as the notion of living in a real house again and just being normal sounds like some kind of dream… Even with what you’ve done to my old room…”

I take a second and a sip to gather my thoughts.

“People need me and I can’t leave them. I know you understand that. I have yet to meet a vet who doesn’t. You just have to come, maybe even stay a day or two. Still got your camping gear? Its not exactly the bush but you’ll want a mattress and maybe some other gear. Don’t worry about a tent though, we’re set that way.”

“I… I… um… Yes, absolutely. I heard what those two young ladies said when you captured me…” He gives me this look like I used to see him look at mom. He falls silent for a moment and quaffs a deep draft of the bourbon he’d poured while we talked.

“Yes, I want to come stay with you for a few days, more if you’ll have me. Phyllis said she’d watch the house for me if I needed some time and I think I’ll take her up on that.” His eyes light up for a moment with amusement. “Oh yeah and you might want to meet her daughter!”

It takes a minute to hit me. “OHMYGODSHEDIDIT!!!!!!!!” I’m up and dancing literally, my drink slopping over the side of my glass but I don’t care because the only person I’d ever trusted as a child with myself.. has obviously transitioned and been accepted by her mom!

It takes me a moment to calm down from my moment of drunken joy for my childhood friend and I finally collapse back onto Theo’s lap to see Dad chuckling at me.

“She hated not being at the memorial service, especially knowing you were coming… but final exams trump pretty much everything so-“

I break in excitedly “So she went for Med school!?!?”

He gets this indecipherable look on his face.

“Well yeah she’s doing Med school… but she went for an extremely unorthodox track. She has already knocked out a degree in Paleoarchological epidemiology and another in Statistical analysis of ancient civilizations with an eye toward situational ethics vs overall actuarial result. She has basically forced the scientific community to admit that as distasteful as it might be, survival cannibalism does yield a slightly higher survival rate in extreme starvation situations, even accounting for the obvious disease vector issues.”

He takes another sip and laughs. “She went on to prove that the resulting populations were more robust and able to survive extremity of various sorts, including disease, more readily than those who had not been through such events. That was her first Master’s thesis… They had to grant it because her research was comprehensive and conclusive.”

“I’m glad for her… She has always been able to think on levels I don’t even grasp so I’m not surprised she’s running rings around the academic establishment. On an intellectual level the only thing we really shared was physics and mathematics… but she just thinks differently than I do… Wait, you said her first?”

He makes this airy gesture which basically tells me he has no clue.

“Yeah the second was about some sort of stochastic analysis of standing wave forms in population growth patterns. She proved that there were several predictable progress points in any population regardless of other factors. I don’t even begin to have a clue but that’s the one she was arguing today…”

I’m kind of off in my own little world until Theo kisses me gently. I usually close my eyes when he kisses me because I just want to focus on the feelings but this time I’m looking at dad… He is watching and I see something I didn’t expect.

Of course what I expected was some sort of negative reaction and that is not what I see… My dad actually leans back into his bench, takes a sip of his drink and smiles when he notices me looking.

Suddenly I am just overcome.with emotion and begin to cry again. Theo is understandably confused and is stroking me, kissing the tears from my eyes and glaring at my dad… I have to yank myself out of it cause I can see another Alpha snarl coming on from the way he tenses so subtly.

I capture his face in my hands, force him to look at my eyes. God his eyes…. That jade green that enraptures me…And that right now has a flinty edge. His dark skin against my pale hands such a contrast… in so many ways we are so different and in so many ways we are the same.

I whisper into his mouth as I kiss him again.

“T, he’s smiling. Chill down man…”

He looks back over, a quick flick of the eyes which Dad catches and not only smiles more broadly but raises his drink!

Theo responds by kissing me deeply, passionately. I am swept away for a moment by the combination of drink and his touch and his kiss… but after a few moments(I have no idea how long) he releases me. I glance over at my dad and notice he isn’t even watching me, he is watching Beau kiss my sister so passionately that I know she felt very much as I just had.

What catches my attention is that he is holding a half full glass and I can tell it is trembling in his hand. I can see the tears just about to leak from his eyes and him blinking furiously… I know the signs.

I nudge Michelle with my leg and exchange a glance with her. She instantly catches my meaning and murmurs to Beau something I can’t hear but within a few seconds both of us are on the bench, on either side of our father, hugging him and crying as the tears spill down his face and he sobs, his chest heaving in great wracking jerky breaths.

We both just hold him and cry with him until he has gasped himself to a sort of peace, enough to finish off his drink and set it down, holding us both tightly against him. Our men have absented themselves.

“Girls” he begins,”I needed that. Thank you.”

By this time I have retrieved 2 more glasses . Dad starts to speak and I hold my fingers against his lips, running into the house, grabbing another tumbler, the bottle of rum and a quick pee on the way.

I settle back into the bench on my father’s left, leaning against him and half hugging him. He squeezes me back and holds the tumbler as I fill it with dark sludgy rum. Sis returns immediately after, having clearly run for a pee herself. I’m guessing dad watered the peonies…

“Ok, now that we’ve all dealt with the necessary, your men can come
out of the bushes… “He waits for a moment and Theo shows himself first, behind the peony dad had presumably just peed on… My assumption is confirmed as he subtly shakes his foot. I feel a little bad for being glad it’s the flesh and blood one… Not out of any hatred for my husband but because the various articulations on his good prosthetic are kinda finicky and I’m the one who maintains it mostly…

There’s this look between them, sort of some link… it’s a thing I see with a lot of the heavily damaged vets.

“You moved, EllTee. Why?”

He looked a little embarrassed and then spoke up proudly.

“Your daughter cleans my prosthetic and keeps it in good repair sir. I’d rather risk discovery and have to wash my actual foot than cause her to have to do anything at all right now. She and you, all of us actually, even the two of us who never met her… we are here to help you memorialize the woman you so obviously loved…” He grabs a tumbler and fills it with rum.

Beau has silently materialized(At least so far as my sister and I are concerned) but the other two obviously know he is here because Theo pours another tumbler of rum and hands it to Beau. Before I know it, the tumblers of bourbon have been drained and replaced with dark rum.

I’ll have to reproduce the rest from recordings because that’s pretty much where my memory stops.

Somehow that whole thing became the glue that helped us build something greater.

To Be continued…