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I think back to her questioning my motivations for coming, how she didn’t look the least bit surprised when I admitted my connections to the army. But if she already knew, then why not just call me out on it? Why not confront me? It occurs to me then that maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe her questions were a test.
“In your article,” she says, “you accused Zach of enlisting as a publicity stunt.”
Yes, I think. Definitely a test.
I twist on my chair and give her my answer. “I didn’t accuse him. I questioned his motivations. Zach enlisted the same year President Obama began pulling out of Iraq, and to fight in a war that a solid majority of Americans didn’t want us fighting. I was only trying to figure out why then, why, if his motivations to serve were as pure as he claimed they were, it took him so long to enlist.”
“You compared him to a Kardashian.”
“True, but then I concluded that his motivations were completely unselfish, and that everything about him was very un-Kardashian-like. I believe I called him the real deal, but only because my editor restricted my use of the word heroic to three.”
“I’m not criticizing you, dear, I’m complimenting you. As the daughter of a three-star general, it would have been far easier for you to praise the pants off my son, but you didn’t let him off that easy. Yourself, either. I imagine your connections with the army made it difficult for you to come here today, no?”
A flutter of guilt where my father is concerned worms its way under my skin. Handing the Armstrongs proof about Ricky might have been the right thing to do, but my father will certainly not see it that way. His loyalty is to his country and the army first, and I’m pretty certain he will see my coming here, to the home of the family who has accused him, loudly and publicly, of misconduct, as a betrayal.
But as for me, my biggest loyalty is to my conscience. My conscience compelled me here. Objectively I know I should be loyal to my father, and that he will never understand, but the conscience isn’t objective. I had to come. I had to do the right thing. Zach Armstrong gave up everything for his country, including his life. I had to tell his surviving family what I found.
“I see,” she says, taking in my expression. “I’m sure once Gabe calms down, he’ll see what this visit is costing you, too.”
I look beyond her and across the yard, over swaying leaves and bobbing blooms, back up toward the house. Under the ruffled kitchen valance, Gabe is posed like a statue—legs wide, arms folded across his chest, big form taking up a good part of the window. I can’t make out his expression from this far, but I’d bet my every last penny it’s not pleasant.
“Anger can be like a buoy,” Jean says, following my gaze. “Sometimes it feels like the only thing holding your head above water, but you have to let go of it at some point. Otherwise, you’ll never make it back to shore.” She turns back to me, smiles. “He’ll get there.”
I don’t answer, mostly because I’m not entirely sure I agree. After what I’ve seen of Gabe thus far—his stubborn suspicion, his firecracker temper—I think he might not let go of that life vest anytime soon. But instead of saying any of this, I pose the question that’s been piling up on my tongue for the past twenty minutes. “Why did you bring me here? Why didn’t you just let me get in my car and leave?”
“We’ve not had the best experience with the media, as I’m sure you know, and the journalists we’ve interfaced with have been far too overzealous to be pleasant. No offense.”
Why do I feel as if she’s on a fishing expedition? As if I’m trying to dodge a hook I can’t quite see?
“No offense taken,” I say. “Journalists can be pretty hard-core.”
“But not you.”
“I already told you. I’m not a journalist.”
“But you were. And to use your own term on you, you were the real deal.” She cocks her head and studies me in a way that makes the breath freeze in my throat, my muscles tense for the head-on collision I can’t see but can sense coming. “That Chelsea woman really did a number on you, didn’t she?”
My breath leaves me in a loud whoosh, and I blink away a sudden burning in the corners of my eyes. I wish I’d grabbed my sunglasses from the center console of my car to hide behind, to protect me from Jean’s superhuman scrutiny. It’s an uncomfortable thing, being seen so clearly by a virtual stranger, one who seems to know the skeleton I’ve tucked away in the back of my closet, knows that much like her son, I cling to my guilt like a life buoy, too. Beating myself up for what happened feels so much easier than actually forgiving myself, or asking for others’ forgiveness.
“Yes,” I say, looking away. “She did.”
“I want to tell the world about Zach. I want to tell his story. And I want you to help me.”
And there it is, I think, the hook. Jean got me so distracted, so flustered and discombobulated with her Chelsea questions that I didn’t even feel it slide into my side. Or maybe it’s more than that. Maybe after stumbling on Ricky, my curiosity has come alive. Maybe Jean’s hook simply doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.
“Why me?”
Jean smiles, not unkindly. “Because of all the things we’ve already talked about. Your connections with the army. Your experience with Chelsea. Both those things will make you very careful with your words, with how you choose to frame Zach’s story.”
“I haven’t agreed to frame any story.”
“What if I told you I plan to find Ricky?”
“I would say I have absolutely no doubt you will. But that doesn’t change my answer.”
“Actually, dear, you haven’t told me your answer.”
I open my mouth to say no. Helping Jean write Zach’s story isn’t just sticking a toe into the early-spring sunshine. It’s stepping into the sun at high noon, without clothes or blankets to keep me warm, without SPF or shades to protect myself from the sun’s harsh glare.
And yet I find myself considering the possibilities.
Because all those things that made me want to become a journalist are still there, have always been there, lurking just under the surface. Discipline and determination and temerity and a curiosity that, as evidenced by the very fact that I’m still sitting here, on a chair in Jean’s sunny backyard, just won’t stop.
But do I have the courage to try again, to trust myself not to make the same mistake I made with Chelsea all over again this time around, with Jean? That my words will not do someone harm?
Then again, they wouldn’t be my words, would they? They’d be Jean’s.
So how could any words poison her or her family, when essentially what she’s asking is for me to help her write hers? How would helping Jean be any different from what I’m doing now, with health care? The content would be all hers. I would just be curating it.
Jean reaches across the ferns, wraps her bony fingers around mine. “At least tell me you’ll think about it, will you?”
Before I can stop myself, before I know that I even intended to speak, I find myself saying to Jean, “I will.”
Part Two: Wicked Lies
10
On Saturday, I steer my car across the border into Maryland, and the tax brackets rise like floodwaters all around me. The houses grow progressively bigger, their lots stretch wider and deeper, their lawns become greener and lusher. Minivans and hatchbacks give way to eight-cylinder SUVs and expensive German sports cars. They weave in and out of afternoon traffic on their way to the gym or the driving range or the mall, zipping around runners and pedestrians with diamond rings the size of marbles.
It’s here, at the tail end of a quiet residential street in Bethesda, that I find my brother Mike’s ten-thousand-square-foot monstrosity of stone and shingles. I ease to a stop behind my sister-in-law’s navy Range Rover, pluck the gift from the passenger’s seat and head up the herringbone walkway to the bleached oak double doors.
I punch the bell, and from somewhere inside a dog barks, a baby screams and my brother yells at both of them to quiet down. And then a door opens to reveal my niece, Rose, wearing a bright pink princess dress covered in what I sincerely hope is tomato sauce.
“Abbyyyyyyy! You came!” She pounces on me, wrapping herself around my right thigh like a monkey. Their dog, Ginger, comes sliding around the corner, and I brace for her attack to my other leg.
“Of course I came, goofball. I wouldn’t miss your third birthday party for the world.”
She looks up with wide and impossibly green eyes. “No, I’m four!”
“Silly me. I guess that’s why I got you a present, isn’t it?”
“But you already got me a present.”
Admittedly, I might have gone a little overboard with the giant pink-and-purple castle playhouse I paid the toy store to install in her backyard this past week, but I adore this child, would throw myself in front of a bus for her, hope if I ever have a daughter of my own she will be exactly like my adorable niece.
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