Part 18 (1/2)

As Charlie headed upstairs, thunder rolled in the distance. Vince had turned on CNN to get the latest on the war but she never watched past the headlines. All she needed to know was that the terrorists hadn't killed anyone else today.

As far as the details of the conflict went, well, back in the 1940s, she'd had enough details of war to last her a lifetime.

People died in war. That was the most important detail, and one that the news seemed to gloss over today. War wasn't this clean, tidy affair that CNN was seemingly reporting. It was filled with death and destruction. It was bombs falling and shards of metal screaming through the air and smoke and blood and fear and grown men screaming with pain.

It was waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of a Marine who was barely old enough to go into a nightclub shouting about getting to cover. It was about finding him panicked and completely disoriented underneath the bed.

All because they were having a thunderstorm in a city thousands of miles from the front lines.

Charlie now turned around and went back down the stairs. The book she was reading was out on the kitchen table, and she picked it up as she went past. Thunder rolled again, louder this time as she went into the den.

Vince looked up and saw her there. He knew why she'd come back downstairs and his smile was still a little embarra.s.sed. After all these years. ”I'm okay,” he said.

”I know.” Charlie sat down next to him on the couch and squeezed his knee. He took her hand in his and, bringing it up to his lips, he kissed her as he watched the sports news.

He was okay.

She was the one who would remember forever that on July 17, 1964, Vince had finally been able to sit through a thunderstorm without getting tense. Sure, he'd always tried to hide it, and he did a good job, too. But for all those years after the war, he'd never been able to fool her.

And forget about the storms that crashed overhead in the middle of the night. For years, Vince had woken up disoriented and confused. She'd gotten into the habit of turning on the light at the first little rumble of distant thunder.

Sixty years later, and he still woke up and stayed up until the storm was through.

She gently disengaged her ringers from his and reached over and turned on the lamp that sat on the end table. It made the room just a little bit brighter. ”Mind if read?”

” 'Course not.”

Sixty years.

Charlie settled on the couch so that her shoulder touched Vince's as she opened her book and pretended to focus on the story.

Nearly sixty years of holding on to him, of holding his hand, without making it obvious that that was what she was doing.

Charlie prayed every day that the fighting in this new war didn't escalate, that sixty years from today wouldn't find countless old women still worried about all those formerly young men who had served this country at such a personal cost. Of course, nowadays the young women were going, too. Who would hold their hands sixty years from now?

What a price to pay for freedom. All those years of life, irrevocably shaped by the sights and sounds of war.

And although the years flew by, some memories simply never faded.

That was as true for her as it was for Vince.

Charlie remembered that first time as if it were yesterday.

She'd sat up in the dark of the tiny extra bedroom in the house she shared with Edna Fletcher, awakened from a restless sleep by the sound of shouting.

”Not here! Not here! G.o.d d.a.m.n it, go back! Goa” For the love of G.o.d, don't you understand? You won't clear the G.o.dd.a.m.n reef!”

It was Vince.

Lightning flickered behind the curtains and thunder crashed again, deafeningly loud. The hot spell they'd been having for the past few days had brought them an electrical storm, despite the fact that it was only January.

”Noooooooooooo!” Vince shouted so loud and so long, Charlotte was out of the bed and down the hall almost before she knew it, running for his room. ”They're drowning! Don't you see?”

She grabbed the light switch and cranked, but the power had gone out.

”Vince?” Lightning illuminated the empty bed. She tried to look around the room, but the flash faded too quickly. ”Vince, where are you?”

Thunder cracked again, shaking the house.

”Get down! Dear G.o.d, keep your head down! They're throwing everything at us that they can!”

Charlotte crouched next to the bed and peered into the darkness underneath. Lightning flared and there was Vince, his eyes wild in his gaunt face, his dark hair a mess.

He grabbed her, and she shrieked as he pulled her onto the floor and yanked her underneath the bed with him. As the thunder roared, he rolled on top of her.

As thin as he'd seemed as she'd cared for him this past week, he was bigger than she was. In fact, from this perspective, he didn't feel frail at all. On the contrary, he was quite solid and heavy. And unquestionably male.

”Stop,” she said, even though part of her had been starving for years for this very type of physical intimacy, for a body to cling to, to hold close, for someone else's strong arm tightly wrapped around her. ”Get off me!”

But he didn't move. He tucked his head down close to hers. ”Stay down!”

He was covering her from an imaginary barrage of sh.e.l.ls, she realized. He was trying to protect her. This wasn't even remotely about s.e.x.

”Vincent, it's just a thunderstorm.” His ear was right by her mouth so she spoke as quietly and calmly as she possibly could, considering that her heart was racing.

She'd jumped from bed so quickly, she'd neglected to put on her robe. And she was lying there now, on the floor beneath him, in only her thin flannel nightie, which had ridden way up as he'd pulled her under the bed. She could feel his bare legs, warm against hers.

”Jesus G.o.d, Ray, keep your f.u.c.king head down!” His voice broke. His language should have shocked her, but it wasn't half as shocking as the raw pain and horror in his voice. ”Oh, G.o.d, why didn't you keep your head down? Medic! I need a medic! Where the f.u.c.k is the medic?”

Charlotte did the only thing she could do. She put her arms around him and held him as tightly as he was holding her.

”Vince,” she said. ”Vincent. Listen to me. It's Charlotte Fletcher. Not Ray, Charlotte. We're safe. We're in Was.h.i.+ngton, and this is just a thunderstorm.”

”Charlotte?” Edna called.

”Under the bed, Mother,” Charlotte called. ”Get candles! Bring as many candles up as you possibly can! Please hurry!”

”Where's Ray?” Vince asked. He was breathing hard, as if he'd run for miles. Or as if he were trying desperately not to cry.

”I don't know,” she told him. ”But I do know he's not here. Not now. You're here, Vince, and I'm here, and Mother Fletcher just went downstairs to fetch some light. You're in our house in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., and we're all safe. No one's shooting at us.”

Light came into the room. Charlotte couldn't see the door from her vantage point under the bed, but she suspected Edna had simply grabbed the candlesticks from the dining room sideboard and set them here on the oak dresser.

”I'll get more,” Edna said.

The light was faint and it flickered, but it cut through the darkness.

”Open your eyes,” Charlotte commanded Vince.

He did, but she still wasn't sure if he could really see her yet. Lightning flashed again, but it was less jarring with the candles already lighting the walls.