It is The Veteran

I saw tears start streaming down her cheeks again and her voice cracked a little.

"I...I guess I don't have to worry about that anymore."

It seemed like Alice needed a hug, so I gave her one.

"Well, that just makes it more important that you call me if you need something. You'll do that, won't you?"

Alice nodded, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose again.

"I'll remember that. I need to be getting Ricky's mom and dad's house now. They're having a wake for Ricky. Would you come with me? I'd feel better if you did and I know Dad would like to see you again."

I hadn't been to a wake before because my family didn't have wakes. I wasn't really sure how to act. There was a lot of food, and on a table were pictures of Ricky from the time he was born up to the picture of him in his dress uniform they always take in Basic Training. There was also a picture of the wedding party from when he and Alice got married.

It was a lot different from the funeral. At the funeral, everybody had been quiet or had talked in low tones. At the wake, people walked around talking to each other in their normal voices. There was a lot of talking about Ricky, what people remembered him doing as a kid, and how he been a good man to serve his country. Sometimes I even heard a few quiet chuckles.

I didn't know most of the people and they didn't know me, so I felt like a third foot until Alice's dad tapped me on the arm.

"Let's you and me go out on the porch and talk. There's too damned many people in here and most of 'em don't know what the hell they're talking about."

Once we were outside, Alice's dad smiled.

"Looks like the Army made a man out of you. That's good. You needed to find out what being a man feels like."

I said I didn't think I'd changed that much, but he just chuckled.

"I saw you flinch when they fired the salutes. You've changed, just like I did. People will see that, but they won't know why unless they've been where we've been and done what we had to do. They wouldn't believe us if we told 'em. That's why I keep all that to myself...that and I don't want to remember. It's good, sometimes, to talk about it with somebody who can understand though."

That's when I started to really like Alice's dad. Jack hadn't been in the military, much less in combat, so he wasn't really interested in anything I had to say. Alice's dad was.

"Alice said you were in the Army, but she never said you saw combat."

He looked down at the porch floor then.

"That's because I never told her much about that part. She thinks I was a supply clerk, but I wasn't. Got to Basic Training and they said we was all going to the infantry. They were right. After I finished what they called infantry training, they sent me to England to train some more with the 1st Infantry Division. It was late the night before D-Day they loaded us into ships with our rifles and other gear.

"When we got there, they loaded us into landing craft - I think it was about twenty of us in each boat- and then headed for Omaha Beach. Only problem was the boat hit a sandbar almost a hundred yards off the beach and couldn't take us the rest of the way in. When the ramp on that landing craft dropped the bullets started hitting and I was scared shitless. The first three men didn't even make it down the ramp before the machine guns got 'em.

"I decided there wasn't any way to go down that damned ramp without gettin' killed, so I jumped over the side. Landed in water up to my neck. Couldn't run in water that deep but it was also good because you weren't a very big target. I kept staying as low as I could until the water was shallow enough I could get down on my belly without drowning. Most of the men who made it to the beach got there that way. The rest were dead and floating in the water.

"Once we got on the beach, it was flat as a pancake with no cover except for a seawall about four hundred yards away and a few little depressions left from some artillery shells from our ships that landed there. Germans had the whole beach covered by overlapping fields of fire by machine guns and mortars. What you had to do was run a little bit until you came to one of those little depressions or a dead body and then hit the dirt until the machine guns passed that place by. Then, you'd get up and run like hell until you saw the bullets coming toward you and kicking up the sand and then dive for the dirt again.

"I was one of the lucky ones. I made it. Still don't know why. Almost three fourths didn't. I'd be running like hell and the guy on each side of me would go down - just a few feet from me and they went down. Most of 'em didn't get up and we were under orders not to stop and try to help 'em. Them medics were the only men who could do that. They tried, but half of them got killed too.

"We got to that seawall and hunkered down. Everything was fucked up like Hogan's goat. Everybody had lost their units. Most of the officers and platoon leaders were out there on the sand, so there was nobody in charge and we didn't move an inch. It wasn't until about three the Navy sent some destroyers in close enough to start shelling all those machinegun bunkers and artillery positions. Until then, you couldn't do anything except stay down. You raised up, you'd get shot.

He looked up at me then.

"If what they say on the news is right, I figure you had your share over there too."

I nodded.

"Yeah. It wasn't as bad as you had it because most of the time we were dug in in defensive positions, but the NVA hit us a lot, usually at night. Didn't seem to matter how many we shot, they'd just keep coming. Then, they'd just stop and fade back into the jungle. We'd send a patrol out to look the next morning, but there was nothing, no bodies, no gear, no nothing. A couple nights later, they'd be back and do the same thing."

He grinned at me then.

"You piss your pants? I did on Omaha."

I chuckled.

"Yeah...a couple times."

He smiled at me.

"You get hit?"

I shook my head.

"No, not really. The closest I came was when a chunk of hot shrapnel landed in the bunker I was in. I'd been taking a shower when the attack started so I didn't have time to put on any clothes. A mortar round landed in front of the bunker and a piece of shrapnel flew into the bunker and landed under my ass. Burned the shit out of my ass, but that was all. The Army gave me a purple heart, but I'm kind of ashamed to admit that. Too many guys got purple hearts who really deserved them."

He laughed.

"Reminds me of me. The 1st got sent to the Ardennes at Christmas after the Germans broke through our lines. Ground was froze solid but you could get low enough to not get hit by a bullet if you worked at it. Them damned Germans was firing artillery into the trees though so it didn't matter how low you were. Piece of a branch came down and stuck me in the ass. Just a big splinter really. Hurt like a bitch, but the medic pulled it out, slapped a field dressing on it and told me he had other guys to take care of. Two months later, I was pushing the Germans back across the Ruhr. Got a Purple Heart for gettin' a splinter in my ass. The guys in my platoon never let me live that one down."

He frowned then and shook his head.

"Lost Michael in the Ardennes - guy from New York City I'd been with since Basic. Still remember him sometimes. Sniper got him. I saw the sniper in the tree and got him with one round from my M1. First time I knew for sure it was my bullet that got one of the bastards. Found a picture of him and his wife and daughter in his pocket. Makes you think, you know. You just killed somebody's husband and dad."

Alice's dad didn't say anything for a while, and I knew why because I knew how he'd felt. My first one was a guy who'd gotten through the wire and was running toward my bunker. He was ready to toss a grenade in when I shot him. The grenade went off after he fell on it so there wasn't much left to search, but it bothered me for a long time. What I remembered most was his face in the light of the flares overhead. He was close enough I could see his face and he looked like he was all of fourteen. I'd killed a little kid.

It's the same when a guy you buddied up with gets it. You never forget how he looked and what he said and did before he died. The memory stays with you forever even though you try to keep it buried deep in the recesses of your mind.

After a while, he cleared his throat.

"So, what're you going to do now?"

I said I was working at the Ford dealership washing cars, but I hadn't thought about much beyond that. He smiled.

"Ever thought about bein' a carpenter? Work's hard but the money's good and you get a day off when it rains. The kid who was helping me quit and went to work at K-mart. Said building houses was too hard and the hours were too long. You think about it and let me know, OK?"

Working for Alice's dad was kind of like being in the Army again. I was learning how to do things I'd never even thought about before. I did most of the carrying at first, but once Bill let me put on a nail apron and pick up a hammer, I found out I liked the work. It was hard work like he'd said, but at the end of the day, I could look at a framed-out house and know I'd done a good job. That was pretty satisfying

Having Bill teach me was great. He wouldn't stand for any work that wasn't up to his standards and didn't have any reservations about telling me to "rip out that mess and do it like I showed you". He also had no problems telling me when I'd done something right.

That was kind of like Infantry Training had been. The instructors had all served at least one tour in Vietnam and were trying to teach us how to stay alive in combat instead of making us into men who looked good on a parade ground. They were rough on us if we screwed up, but that was because they knew what we'd be up against and in combat there are no second chances if you fuck up the first time.

The other thing that was pretty nice was when Alice came to the job site and brought us lunch. She was still working even though she was pregnant, and used her lunch hour to bring us a couple of burgers each or some fried chicken. She'd sit there and eat with us before she had to go back to work, and that gave me a chance to ask how she was doing and if she needed anything.

Alice was eight months along when she asked me if I'd walk her to her car after lunch one day. When we got to her car, she looked up and frowned.

"Matt, you told me if I ever needed anything, I could call you. Well, I need something."

I smiled.

"I remember. What do you need?"

Alice looked at the ground and her voice got softer.

"When I go to the hospital to have the baby, I need somebody to go with me. Dad says he's too old and Mom says she'd be worried and that would make it harder on me. I know it's a lot to ask, but would you go with me?"

Well, that set me back on my heels. I'd heard about what happens from a couple of guys in the Army who'd done it, and it seemed pretty intimate to me, more intimate than I thought was probably right since Alice and I weren't married.

"What does that mean - go with you?"

Alice put her hand on my arm.

"It means you'll take me to the hospital when the time comes and stay with me until the baby is born."

"You mean I'd just stay in the waiting room, don't you?"

Alice looked up and shook her head.

"No. I want you be with me in the labor room, and my doctor says I can have somebody with me in the delivery room too. Mom said I'd want somebody to be with me because it'll hurt a lot. I want you to be there to hold my hand."

"Alice, I don't know. I mean, you'll be...well, I don't know if you really want me to see you like that."

She smiled then.

"I can't think of anybody else Ricky would trust to help me besides you. I've thought about it a lot, and it's what I want."

When I went back to work, Alice's dad grinned.

"She asked you, didn't she?"

"Yeah."

"What'd you tell her?"

"I said I'd do it. I still don't know if I should, but I said I'd do it."

He smiled.

"That'll make her feel better. She's startin' to get a little scared as the time gets closer. She needs somebody she trusts to be with her."

Two weeks later, Alice and I went to an orientation of the maternity ward at the hospital. I learned where and how I had to wash my hands and put on a gown to go into the delivery room, and the nurse said if I feinted, they'd leave me laying on the floor until they made sure Alice and the baby were OK. It was two weeks and a day later when I got a call from Alice about ten at night.

"Matt, I've been having contractions all day. Now, they're a little over four minutes apart and they last almost a minute. My doctor said that's when I should go to the hospital. I have everything I'll need packed and ready to go."

I picked her up and drove to the hospital. They put Alice in a wheel chair and took her away while I gave them all her insurance information and explained why I wasn't the father but I was going to be there with her. They finally stopped filling out forms and then told me which room she was in.

When I got to the room, Alice was lying on the bed in one of those paper gowns you see on TV hospital scenes. She smiled.

"The nurse who checked me said it'll be a while yet, so if you want to go get some coffee or something, I'll be alright."

I shook my head.

"No, I told you I'd stay with you, so here's where I'll stay."

I was doing pretty good for a while. Alice and I would talk until another contraction hit her. At first, she'd just grimace and not say anything for a while, then grin and say, "Well, that one's finally over."

A nurse would come in about once an hour and tell me to leave so she could check Alice. After about five minutes, the nurse would come back out and tell me I could go in again. That went on until about four-thirty in the morning when Alice was starting to feel some real pain. I knew that because she started groaning when a contraction hit. About a quarter to five, Alice cried out, "Oh God, I think my water just broke." I went to the nurse's station and told the nurse she needed to check on Alice.

All hell broke loose when the nurse came out that time. The nurse told me to go wash my hands and put on a hospital gown. While I was doing that, she and another nurse put Alice on a gurnery and wheeled her into the delivery room. By the time I got there, Alice was lying on the table with her legs in the stirrups and the nurse was telling her to push.

Alice looked at me when I picked up her hand, started to say something, and then squeezed my hand until it hurt when she doubled up in pain and the nurse told her to push again. After several more contractions like that, the nurse said in a quiet voice, "Try not to push now, Honey", and picked up a pair of scissors. Alice lay there panting and squeezing my hand until the nurse put the scissors on the tray beside her and then said, "OK, Honey, give me a good strong push."

Alice gritted her teeth, squeezed my hand tighter, and pushed hard. The nurse did something between Alice's legs and then said, "Alice, give me one more and it'll all be over."

I'd never seen a new-born before and I didn't know what to think when the nurse said, "He's a little boy, Alice, and he's fine", and then lifted this tiny, red, gunky baby up and laid him on Alice's tummy. She clamped and cut the umbilical cord and then the second nurse took him away. I saw her cleaning him up and wrapping him in a blanket. When she brought him back to Alice, she smiled.

"Here he is Alice. You can hold him until your doctor checks you out, but then we'll take him back when you go to get cleaned up. We'll bring him back to you as soon as you're back in your room."

It was about then that Alice's doctor walked into the delivery room with a sheepish look on his face.

"Sorry I didn't make it, but I didn't think it would happen so fast since it's your first. You were in good hands though. Marge and Janey have delivered as many babies as I have."

He did whatever it was he did, and then I followed when the nurse wheeled Alice into another room. When they started taking off her gown, I didn't think it would be right to look, so I turned away. They cleaned her up and gave her a new gown, then took her to a different room. I followed along again.

When the nurses had Alice back in bed and covered up, they brought her baby to her. He looked a little more like a baby now. He was still pretty red and his head looked a little funny, but he wasn't wet and covered in gunk anymore. Alice kissed him on the forehead and then looked up at me.

"Matt, this is Little Ricky. Little Ricky, this is Matt."

The nurse looked at me then and smiled.

"You look like you're beat. Why don't you go home and get some rest? We'll take good care of your wife until you come back."

I must have been tired, because I was all the way to my car before it dawned on me that the nurse thought Alice was my wife. That felt really odd. I didn't think I'd treated her like she was, but I must have. I planned to set that nurse straight the next time I saw her. Alice was her own person and all I was doing was helping her though a time when she didn't have anybody else.

That made me think some more. Alice did have somebody else. She had a lot of somebody else's to help her. She had her mother and her father and a handful of aunts and uncles. Instead of any of them, she'd picked me and I couldn't understand why.

I went home, went to bed and slept until almost four. After a shower and a change of clothes, I went back to the hospital.

When I walked into the room, Alice was nursing Ricky. I took one look and turned around to leave. Instead of a paper gown, Alice was wearing a robe that was open to her waist and her right breast was out of the nursing bra she was wearing. Alice called softly for me to stay and patted the side of the bed.

"Matt, come sit with me while I nurse Little Ricky."

When I sat down, she smiled.

"Isn't he beautiful?"

I chuckled.

"I thought girls were beautiful. I didn't know boys were. Uh...shouldn't you cover up a little?"

Alice smiled again.

"I don't care if you look. I'm just nursing Little Ricky. There's nothing weird about that, is there?"

Well, there wasn't but there was. Little Ricky's head covered up most of her breast, but it was still her bare breast and I'd never even seen her in just a bra before.

"No, I guess not. It's just the first time I've seen anything like this."

She giggled.

"You're embarrassed, aren't you?"

"Yeah, a little I suppose."

"Well, you'll just have to get used to seeing it. I'm not going to hide from you when I nurse Little Ricky."

She stroked his pumping cheek, then looked up at me again.

"Matt, thank you for being with me. It meant a lot to me. I want you to keep coming to see me, and I want you to be the one who takes Little Ricky and me home. The doctor says that will probably be in two more days. Would you do that for me?"

I promised I would. We talked until the nurse came to get Little Ricky. She smiled at me and said I looked like a very proud papa, and then left before I could say anything. When I looked back at Alice, she just grinned.

The nurses all think you're Little Ricky's father. I didn't want to tell them you weren't."

I was pretty uncomfortable that Alice didn't tell the nurses the truth. I couldn't understand why she didn't want to but I couldn't ask her, not then. I decided to leave so I could think some more.

"Well, Alice, you still look tired, so I better leave now so you can rest. I'll have to work with your dad tomorrow, but I'll be back about seven."

The next day at work was really weird. Alice's dad kept looking at me and smiling. Since Alice couldn't bring our lunch, we went to a burger joint, and he kept smiling at me there and for the rest of the afternoon. By the end of the day, I was fed up with him and after we picked up our tools, I stopped him before he could get in the truck.