A Soldier's Heart

“He’s coming along.”

He nodded. “Can’t talk about a patient. I know. I guess I wouldn’t want you talking about me to someone else. Still, I have an interest. It’s been a long time, but I remember what it was like when I came home from the war.”

“Really? Which war?” She signaled him to slow down gradually.

“Which war, she says.” He snorted. “The big war, young lady. World War II.”

“I didn’t realize.” She helped him off the bike. “You must have lied about your age to get in, because you’re way too young for that. Ready to work on the resistance bands, or do you want to rest a minute?”

“Lied about my age? No such thing, but I thought I’d never turn eighteen. I was mad to get out there with my buddies.” He picked up the resistance bands.

One thing she could say about Frank—he never balked at anything she asked him to do, taking each new task as a fresh challenge. Luke could benefit from a little of his attitude.

“Was it difficult when you came back?” she asked casually. Maybe she couldn’t talk about Luke to him, but there was no reason she couldn’t try to gain some insight.

He grunted. “I’ll say it was hard. Mind, I wasn’t injured, like your young fellow, but I’d been in a POW camp for nine months—seemed more like nine years, so I wasn’t in great shape. Funny how that is. You come back, and it’s just what you dreamed about all that time, but it’s strange, as well.”

“Strange how?” She adjusted his stance, making sure he was using his back correctly.

He frowned, as if trying to find the right words. “I guess it seemed to me nothing should have changed, but when I came back, life had moved on without me. The worst part was just getting out around people again.” He chuckled. “Couldn’t remember names to save me, even folks like my brother-in-law and my old boss at the gas station.”

Luke seemed to remember names, but he had that same reluctance to be around people. No, reluctance wasn’t a strong enough word. Aversion, maybe. “How did you get over it?”

“My wife, bless her.” His eyes filled with tears suddenly, but he was smiling. “She went everywhere with me, holding on to my arm like walking with me was the proudest thing she’d ever done. She figured out about the names without me telling her and she’d always say the name if we ran into somebody. And cover for me if I jumped at a backfire or something like that. The good Lord knows I couldn’t have done it without her.”

She patted his shoulder. “She loved you. She loved doing it.”

He nodded. “That’s what your young man needs, too. Folks that love him and will help him along, even if he doesn’t act like he wants their help.”

His words echoed in her heart as she took the bands from his hands. “Good job. That’s it for today. Don’t go moving any more storm windows, all right?”

He smiled, his cheeks as pink and round as a baby’s. “If a man can’t do the things he’s always done, he feels like less of a man.”

“I guess so.” Once again, his words resounded. That was what Luke was feeling, knowing he couldn’t do the things he’d always done, maybe even afraid to figure out what he could do now. “But I don’t want to see you in here with a broken leg next.”

“I’ll behave. I promise.”

“See that you do.” Impulsively she gave him a hug. “I wish I could get the two of you together. You’d be good for him.”

He nodded, obviously knowing who they’d been talking about the whole time. “You figure out a way to do it, and I’ll be there. It’s the least I can do, you know?”

She nodded, her throat tight. It was the least she could do, as well, and she wouldn’t give up on Luke, no matter what.

If Luke hadn’t felt so guilty for putting Mary Kate on the spot with her kid with those medals, he wouldn’t allow her to wheel him down a new ramp into his backyard. Come to think of it, maybe this was her idea of payback. He blinked as she pushed him into the May sunshine.

“Okay, I’ve been out. I’m ready to go back in now.”

Mary Kate set the chair’s brake. “You try it, and I’ll put a stick in your wheel. If you stay in that house any longer, you’re going to turn into a mole.”

He frowned at the ramp that led from the back porch to ground level. “Are you sure this ramp is covered?”

“It’s taken care of,” she said shortly, crossing the grass to look at the flower bed his mother had planted along the porch.

He glanced across the yard, feeling as if he were really seeing it for the first time in a long time. The old apple tree still stood in the corner. He’d had a swing hung from a low branch once, and then later a tree house that had probably damaged a limb or two.