and went inside.
Of a moment, Lewis found herself riding a quick surge of memory. Like the best VR, it was almost reality—sights, smells, the feel of the air. . . .
The night her father died, Lewis had been in the hospital with her father’s mother. Granny had, after Grampa passed away, slipped slowly and quietly into senility. One day, she seemed fine; the next, she was talking about men coming out of the walls of her house to chase her around the bedroom. It was sad—Granny had been a strong, smart woman who had raised two sons and a daughter, while working as an accountant, and run her household like a drill sergeant, which Grampa had been, but had given up when he’d retired.
Her doctor wanted to do tests to confirm what everybody already knew, that she had Alzheimer’s and she had been successfully hiding it from her family. Nobody was happy about it.
The room had been unbearably hot. It had been August, in Richmond, the summer days almost tropical and the nights cloyingly warm and muggy, but even so, Granny had been cold, and they had cranked the heat up so that it was eighty-five degrees in the private room. The family had been taking turns going to sit with her—her mother, Rachel, two of her cousins—and on that night, it had been Rachel’s turn.
The room was hot. Granny was in and out of reality. One moment, able to talk about what she’d read in the newspaper and comment on it intelligently, the next moment, wondering how a cat had gotten into the room and onto her bed.
Lewis, just turned eighteen, was herself something of a wreck. Her father’s court-martial had gone as expected—he was guilty, never any question of whether he had taken his side arm and shot Private Benjamin Thomas Little in the head with it, killing him instantly. Her father was waiting for his sentence, and everybody knew it was going to be life or something just short of it, depending on how much the judges sympathized with Sergeant Lewis because two of them also had daughters.
Benny, the bastard. He had been her boyfriend, from the base, doing his first tour, a private. Tall, handsome, funny, and she had thought she loved him. Two, three more dates, she would have given him what he wanted.
But he couldn’t wait. He had refused to take no for an answer when they’d been kissing in the backseat of his car, and had held her down and forced himself into her.
When she’d gotten home, her shirt torn and her face streaked with tears, her father had taken one look, grabbed his gun, driven to the barracks, and shot Benny dead.
So there she was, cooking in a hospital room with the heat turned up in the middle of a hot August night, listening to her poor old grandmother ramble on about a cat that wasn’t there, and feeling like shit because it was her fault that her father was going to spend the rest of his life in a federal prison. Things didn’t seem as if they could get any worse.
Until her mother showed up at Granny’s room with the news.
Rachel’s father had just killed himself. A different pistol, but the same results as Benny . . .
The hurried slamming of the ambulance door brought Lewis back to the present. The driver lit the lights and the vehicle squealed out of the mini-mart’s parking lot, the siren kicking in as it reached the street.
Lewis topped off the tank of her car, feeling disconnected from the act. She had blamed herself for her father’s death for a long time, but as the years went by, she had shifted much of that blame to the Army. Benny had been a soldier—why hadn’t he been taught that forcing himself on a woman was wrong? Why hadn’t the Army looked at what her father had done as something any father would have done? Made allowances for a man who was only dealing justice to a criminal? Had she gone to the MPs, they would have thrown Benny into the stockade, and in a just world, it would have been Benny who went to prison young and came out an old man.
Yes, she had gone into the Army—her
Of a moment, Lewis found herself riding a quick surge of memory. Like the best VR, it was almost reality—sights, smells, the feel of the air. . . .
The night her father died, Lewis had been in the hospital with her father’s mother. Granny had, after Grampa passed away, slipped slowly and quietly into senility. One day, she seemed fine; the next, she was talking about men coming out of the walls of her house to chase her around the bedroom. It was sad—Granny had been a strong, smart woman who had raised two sons and a daughter, while working as an accountant, and run her household like a drill sergeant, which Grampa had been, but had given up when he’d retired.
Her doctor wanted to do tests to confirm what everybody already knew, that she had Alzheimer’s and she had been successfully hiding it from her family. Nobody was happy about it.
The room had been unbearably hot. It had been August, in Richmond, the summer days almost tropical and the nights cloyingly warm and muggy, but even so, Granny had been cold, and they had cranked the heat up so that it was eighty-five degrees in the private room. The family had been taking turns going to sit with her—her mother, Rachel, two of her cousins—and on that night, it had been Rachel’s turn.
The room was hot. Granny was in and out of reality. One moment, able to talk about what she’d read in the newspaper and comment on it intelligently, the next moment, wondering how a cat had gotten into the room and onto her bed.
Lewis, just turned eighteen, was herself something of a wreck. Her father’s court-martial had gone as expected—he was guilty, never any question of whether he had taken his side arm and shot Private Benjamin Thomas Little in the head with it, killing him instantly. Her father was waiting for his sentence, and everybody knew it was going to be life or something just short of it, depending on how much the judges sympathized with Sergeant Lewis because two of them also had daughters.
Benny, the bastard. He had been her boyfriend, from the base, doing his first tour, a private. Tall, handsome, funny, and she had thought she loved him. Two, three more dates, she would have given him what he wanted.
But he couldn’t wait. He had refused to take no for an answer when they’d been kissing in the backseat of his car, and had held her down and forced himself into her.
When she’d gotten home, her shirt torn and her face streaked with tears, her father had taken one look, grabbed his gun, driven to the barracks, and shot Benny dead.
So there she was, cooking in a hospital room with the heat turned up in the middle of a hot August night, listening to her poor old grandmother ramble on about a cat that wasn’t there, and feeling like shit because it was her fault that her father was going to spend the rest of his life in a federal prison. Things didn’t seem as if they could get any worse.
Until her mother showed up at Granny’s room with the news.
Rachel’s father had just killed himself. A different pistol, but the same results as Benny . . .
The hurried slamming of the ambulance door brought Lewis back to the present. The driver lit the lights and the vehicle squealed out of the mini-mart’s parking lot, the siren kicking in as it reached the street.
Lewis topped off the tank of her car, feeling disconnected from the act. She had blamed herself for her father’s death for a long time, but as the years went by, she had shifted much of that blame to the Army. Benny had been a soldier—why hadn’t he been taught that forcing himself on a woman was wrong? Why hadn’t the Army looked at what her father had done as something any father would have done? Made allowances for a man who was only dealing justice to a criminal? Had she gone to the MPs, they would have thrown Benny into the stockade, and in a just world, it would have been Benny who went to prison young and came out an old man.
Yes, she had gone into the Army—her
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