I watched him stretch his legs up and down the hill, searching importantly this way and that.  The grass was still wet, and the morning clear, and cold.  He could only spare a fleeting glance our way before he went onward, pushing his boundaries as he always had.  He left our sight over the ridge.  The steam of our coffees warmed your red nose and you smiled.  A light rain fell.  My eyes closed to smell the rain and to hear it, and I felt your hand on my neck.  There was no greater comfort.  In you I found grace.  The weight of worry left me.  In those times of boots and coffee and cold morning air, and the boy on the hill with silent understanding, I knew who I was.  Were I to die and live this out only once more—one more cold morning with you being warm—then I’d be at peace. But then, having done so, I am.

Charlie stepped out into jeering calls.  Two kind eyes gripped his own and held them from the crowd.  They engulfed him.  They spoke to him of fear.  They told him to be careful and that she rather him run or stay inside or anything else.  But he couldn’t appease her now, and she was good to him so she didn’t call out in front of them.   She was good to him so she would stay, and watch.  So Charlie held his head high and continued past her gaze.  Young fists reached for the sky and called for blood.  Charlie’s toes flexed in his shoes, searching for the Earth. He called back on his ancestors to quell his bubbling stomach and set himself for honor in the middle of the circle where three young men, heavy in the shoulders and dark in the brow, awaited him hungrily.  They stepped apart as he got closer, surrounding him and bringing the bubbling in his belly to a boil.  ‘This is it,” he thought, “They’re going to kill me in the street.” And certainly, the darkness in their eyes suggested so.  The wind blew the leaves down the street and rustled the hair on Charlie’s forehead. It was brisk, and it drew his attention away from his fear.  He stood there a moment and listened.  The wind blew and blew and then it stopped.  Charlie’s stomach quelled. His toes stopped searching.  He clenched his fists and glared back at the looming bullies.  He no longer cared whether they killed him.  No longer cared whether he won or lost, or lived or died.  And he smiled.  It only mattered that he stood now and made the ghosts watching him, and the girl too, proud.  And the bullies saw his smile.

“Wait for me in America,” He had said.

The bell rang as the door made its way shut again.  The man’s suit was crease-free, and the man’s hair was cut well, though she thought him too thin. The man browsed the wall of cards for a long while before he made to conversation.

“Can you help me find something for my wife?”

“You’re in the right area. Top four rows are sentimental, and everything under those is humor.”

“Can’t you come help me?”

She grimaced, and strode over.  She stared at the wall of multi-colored cards. The man stared at her.

“You’re beautiful,” He said.

“We’ve been through this.  Pick a card or get out.”

She felt his hot breath on her ear. His hand felt the small of her back.

“Get out,” she said.

“Why are you so difficult?”

She refused to cry when the man finally left.  She had cried enough.  She locked the shop door and sat behind the counter watching people traverse by outside the glass.  Every face she searched as though it were his. She wondered at distance. At how big the World could be. At how far away he really was, and his words came to her:

“Wait for me in America. Start our life there and I will follow soon.  The War will be over, and we’ll be free and our children will never feel the walls of their house come down upon them again.  Wait for me in America.” 

And she cried.

They were short then, their prickles nonlethal annoyances, and mom was happy.  The sun shone through the window and warmed the little room. Mom and Dad never kept a television.  Just some books and a stereo they got for their wedding long before my history began.  Dad got the T.V. set when he got the news of his first mission. He was gonna do it, he was gonna wave to me from the Moon, and he wanted us to watch the launch.  You can imagine the money was good. I didn’t understand at the time.  Looking back, the new Chevy Corvette and the microwave and the new toys say a lot.  I didn’t get it then. How big it was.  Mom was still happy, and Dad was still home a lot.  Most of his training he did in the early morning, so that he could come home for dinner. We lived just off the base, and I thought we were a pretty normal family.  But as the launch date approached, Dad was gone more often.  That was the first time I recognized worry in my Mother’s face.  We watched the countdown together in the living room by the cacti.  Her eyes were locked on the screen. The explosion in the outer atmosphere was the first time I witnessed true grief in my life.  I didn’t get it then.  A month later, Mom cried and told me he was waving to me from the Moon. I still look up there every now and then but I can’t see him. Now the cacti are tall, because Mom takes good care of them.  I don’t come home much, reminds me too much of the moon. I just wish she’d move—she won’t—but she did get rid of the T.V. set.