The Bracelet

Now Sean stretched out his legs and slouched against the cushion. “Tell me something about Dad you’ve never told me. Not about now, but—” he pointed to her bracelet “—tell me what he was like when he was in college. He wasn’t that much older than me.”

“He was twenty-one when I met him.”

“Did he always want to make robots?”

She smiled. As an engineer, Brady had been ahead of his time. “Yep. When he took me to meet his parents, he showed me his workroom. Uncle Matt and Uncle Ryan had an HO train set up year-round.”

“They would have still been in high school.”

“Right. Your dad did all the electrical work on the trains, but on his side of the room there were electronics kits.”

“What about Aunt Pat? Did she have a space in the workroom?”

Laura laughed at the thought of Pat playing with trains or experimenting like Brady. “No. She wanted no part of it. She liked it when her brothers were busy down there because they weren’t annoying her.”

“That sounds like Aunt Pat.” Sean was quiet for a couple of seconds, then murmured, “When you talked earlier about the way you and Dad met and all, he seemed so different from the way he is now. Was he?”

How much should she tell Sean?

Maybe that was the problem. She and Brady had always filtered everything they’d told the kids, instead of just laying it all out. At eighteen, Sean could vote, he could enlist, he could fight in a war. When should parents stop protecting children from heavy truths that would color the rest of their lives if they understood them?

“When I met your dad…”

Her voice trembled and tears blurred her eyes, but she blinked them away. “He wasn’t like anyone else I’d ever met. The first time I looked into those blue eyes, I wanted to stay there. When he took my wrist and dragged me from the demonstration, I felt safe being with him. He knew where we were going even if I didn’t. It was so odd, really, because I’d learned not to depend on anyone. I’d learned I had to make my own way.”

“You were only twenty.”

She nodded. “Losing my parents made me feel so alone. Even though my aunt Marcia took me in, I still felt…abandoned. Your dad changed that. He opened this great big window for me. He let in light and love and warmth. He had this amazing sense of humor and he knew how to relax. We’d sit for hours—”

“Making out?” Sean asked with a smile.

Her cheeks warmed. “Just being together. Before he left, we took walks in the park and fed the squirrels. We flew kites. We went to a party with his friends.”

“Before he left?”

“Before he went to basic training at Fort Dix. Before he got sent to Hawaii. Before he went to Vietnam.”

If she told Sean about that night with Brady’s friends, he’d learn an important truth about his dad.

Six weeks into her dates with Brady—he’d come home every weekend—they’d gone to a party at Jack Crawford’s. His apartment was small, on the second floor of a row house on West Princess Street. Jack had gotten a medical deferment because of a heart murmur and sold shoes at Thom McCann.

When Brady had introduced her to Jack, his buddy had said in an aside, “I guess we have to watch our language tonight.”

Laura had worn a lime-green A-line dress, not sure what kind of party they were attending. She’d tied up half her hair with narrow lime-and-fuchsia grosgrain ribbons. Pretending to appear worldly, she’d remarked offhandedly to Jack, “I’ve heard all kinds of language. Don’t worry about me.”

When Brady had draped his arm around her shoulders, she’d felt trembly and weak-kneed, as she always did when they were close. Although they made out every time they saw each other, they hadn’t gone any further than that, not because they weren’t eager to, but because Brady had said more than once that he respected her dreams, understanding that they had to learn to trust each other—that they’d know when they were ready.

Would they? Was she putting them both through weekends of frustration because she was afraid she’d get hurt? Because the wrong decision could mean an unhappy turn in her life? Because the war was standing between her and Brady and they both understood that?

That night she wanted to forget about it all, and she suspected Brady did, too.

Two more friends—Tom and Luis—showed up. They seemed surprised that she was there, but Brady made no excuses for her presence, just introduced her to Luis, who went to Penn State, and to Tom, who was earning a degree at Shippensburg.

Tom, who defied longer men’s hairstyles by wearing a crew cut, held out a box. “It’s a game called Pass-Out. We can talk and play and drink, all at the same time.”

While Luis and Tom moved the coffee table into the middle of the room, Brady lifted the cushions from the sofa and positioned them around it. Luis took out three packs of Lucky Strikes and tossed then onto the coffee table next to the game. “My contribution.”

Brady produced a bottle of Burgundy from a paper sack he’d carried in and set it on the counter in the narrow kitchen. Laura had never been to a party like this, with a lava lamp glowing blue-green on top of the TV console, smoke filling the room and scents of wine and whiskey wafting up from juice glasses. She tucked her legs under her on the cushion and felt really grown up for the first time. While Luis strummed his guitar, Tom and Brady talked about the courses they’d enrolled in, the ones they’d hated and the ones they’d liked. Jack told funny stories about how picky some of the customers at the shoe store were. The guys reminisced about their high-school days.

At a lull in the conversation, Brady leaned close to her. “I might have met you in high school if you’d stayed in Catholic school.”

“My aunt didn’t intend to pay anything extra to send me there.”

When they started the game, Brady rolled the dice and moved his marker. The square said All had to take a drink. They did. The talking and playing went on as the sun set and traffic noises outside the open windows became quieter.

After she’d downed two glasses of wine, Laura switched to soda. Jack, Luis and Tom started mixing more ginger ale into their bourbon. But she noticed Brady wasn’t diluting his. At some point, pink-elephant cards from the game forgotten, Jack flipped on a transistor radio and they listened to the Saturday-night countdown. The Beatles’ “Get Back” pounded through the room.

By midnight, Laura realized Brady and his friends had talked about absolutely everything except the thousand-pound gorilla in the room. None of them had mentioned the war. None of them had mentioned friends who hadn’t come home. None of them had mentioned that Brady, Tom and Luis would be drafted into service for their country after they graduated. It was almost one in the morning when Luis and Tom left. As Brady stood, he wasn’t quite steady on his feet.

“If you two would like some privacy, you can have my bedroom. I can bunk on the couch,” Jack told them.

Since Laura had worked at the Bon Ton until five, she and Brady hadn’t had any time alone. Tomorrow his family was going to have dinner with his uncle, then he’d be leaving to return to school. She wouldn’t see him again until next weekend.

“Why don’t we take him up on his offer for a little while,” Brady suggested. “I shouldn’t drive yet. We can leave when my head clears.”

She wasn’t sure what her aunt would say if she came home in the wee hours of the morning, but right now she didn’t care. Being with Brady was more important than anything else.

“All right. Let’s stay,” she agreed.

Ten minutes later, they were lying on top of Jack’s cotton spread, breathing in sweaty socks, Aqua Velva and smoke that had drifted in from the living room. The room was black except for the glare of the street lamps battling against the rolled-down shades.

Brady lay on his side, his muscled arm resting across her waist. He kissed her longingly, deeply, passionately.

Afterward, he brushed his thumb along her hairline. “So what did you think of everybody?”

Still reeling from the effects of his kiss, she didn’t filter her thoughts. “You have good friends, but I’m not sure you should have brought me along tonight.”

“Why not?”

They’d kicked off their shoes, and Brady’s stockinged foot rested against her nylon-clad one. “Because none of you talked about what was on your minds.”

“Sure we did. We talked for hours.”

Their body heat, Brady’s face so close to hers, his scent and pure maleness tempted her to kiss him instead of talking to him. But she spoke her mind anyway. “You didn’t talk about the draft, or about you and Luis and Tom going to basic training in a few weeks. Or about your friends who are there now and what’s happening.”

Brady shifted away from her, rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “Damn it, Laura, not everything’s about the war. What did you think we should do? Analyze the last news report? Talk about how we’re giving up real life for the next two years? Share notes on why our mothers cry because they don’t want us to go? What good would any of that do?”

Brady had never been angry with her, never shut her out, never turned away. She suspected what was at the bottom of it all.