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The empty apartment feels suddenly unfamiliar. She closes her eyes for a moment to allow it to return to its usual self. But nothing is usual with Richie in the hospital, perhaps in pain. So many more wounded soldiers daily, so many more wives and parents saying, At least he’s alive. It’s how she feels too. But is that how Richie sees it? So much that he loves lost to him: dancing, running, even driving. And will he ever be able to have sex with a lover? What does being alive mean to someone who has seen too much dying for any one life?

Richie never had it in him to kill. She’s always believed this. At age nine he owned a water pistol that he used against his make-believe enemies. One day at recess, he shot the water pistol in a boy’s face, which blurred the boy’s glasses. Richie said the boy went blind and demonstrated how the boy groped desperately for something to wipe the lenses. The next day Richie tossed the pistol, claimed that it no longer worked.

Melvin will be home, but when she isn’t sure. She could phone Maisie or Ben to keep her company. Or she could have a drink or light up a joint or both, except it would feel like a cop-out. In one of his letters, Richie wrote that Johnny drinking scotch and watching a Yankee game did nothing for him. She wants to do something for him, but what? Maisie told her that Orthodox Jewish people tear their clothing to express grief for the deceased. Yet how to express her sorrow feels beyond her.

UUU

She’s awake when Melvin gets home and tearfully tells him about Richie. Though it’s two in the morning, he heats water for tea and garnishes it with a large dollop of scotch from a bottle they keep under the sink for emergencies. Then admonishes her not to get lost in worst scenarios, that some of the best medical treatments are discovered during war, and that, unlike here, the sick and wounded receive amazing care in the military. He says Richie won’t die. How does he know? If Richie’s made it to Germany, he’s going to survive, he assures her.

Snatches of dawn light fracture the gunmetal sky as she sits down to write Richie a letter. It’s filled with Melvin’s assertions about military treatment, along with much advice from her about needing to believe in his ability to heal. Though she intends to write him every day, his trembling hand will no longer allow him to reply. In honor of Richie, she’ll attend tomorrow night’s antiwar demonstration in Manhattan, though what he’d think about that she isn’t sure.

Police spotlights illuminate Sixth Avenue. It’s dark and cold as Josie enters one of the crowded streets near the hotel where Nixon is scheduled to address a ballroom filled with millionaires. Thousands of people are crowding the area shouting slogans, blowing whistles, or banging drums. Someone throws a rock, smashing a bank window; others see this as permission, and soon rocks and cans are taking aim at any window in sight. The police are let loose. Protesters flee every which way. Culprit or not, escape is all.

Out of breath from running, she finds a doorway in which to stop a minute with two others. Their rest is cut short by police rushing in their direction. Before she can bolt, a hand collars her jacket. A club thwacks her shoulder, her ribs, the small of her back. Pain radiates up her neck like a flash fire. When she turns to see her assailant, the club catches her nose, and blood gushes. For a second, the young cop’s hard button eyes glint with fear. She drops to her knees, presses her face against her thighs, arms crossed over her head. Seconds pass. No more blows. She needs to move before someone comes to arrest her. She crawls to another building and sits in the hallway as blood from her nose stains her jeans, shoes, socks. Her jaw is sore. After a minute or two, she hoists herself upright, squeezes the bridge of her nose to stem the bleed, and as fast as she can, makes her way toward home.

Still afraid, though no one is following her, she hurries. She’s attended too many demonstrations to count but never before been beaten. Is this an omen for her, for the movement, for something more she can’t quite get her head around? Violence doesn’t recede; it escalates. When Nina was beaten at a demonstration, she was so outraged: How dare they touch her? How could they? Unlike Nina, she feels vulnerable, frightened.

As she reaches Central Park West, her breathing steadies some. The nosebleed has stopped. The streetlights glisten like a thousand sparklers. The cars pass as if in a silent movie. Is this what the aftermath of trauma is like? Is this what Richie felt? But her wounds will heal.

Only the whooshing in her ears is close, a sound that reminds her of the empty beach where her father took her on her tenth birthday. It was late autumn and a chilly twilight. She loved sitting on the sand listening to him describe how everything in his childhood smelled of the sea, sweet and salty, obliterating street fumes. Only then did she realize how much he missed the old country, nostalgia suddenly stamped on his face.

Pushing open the heavy front door of the building, she heads for the stairs. Hanging on to the railing, her legs two pieces of clay, she climbs each flight slowly. The hallways are devoid of the usual TV voices. It must be late. Her keys are on a string around her neck, but her finger presses the bell, willing Melvin to open the door. Her bloody self a badge of honor. How adolescent is that?

“Shit, Josie, baby, what happened?” But he’s not waiting for answers. He’s pulling her into the bathroom, running water, dipping towels. There’s ice in a bowl brought in from the kitchen. She sits on the toilet seat letting him pat and dry and even opening her mouth for him to inspect her teeth. He tells her what to do and she obeys. “Hold the ice here.” “Put the towel there.” “Don’t move.” His breath tickling her face; his hands fiddling with her hair trying to pin it on top of her head. There are easier ways, but she says nothing, and he continues to do what needs to be done. She watches as he draws a bath. “Very hot,” he tells her, “good for you.” She watches as he peels off her clothes, which fall in a bloody heap. He’s caring for her the way a doctor would, concerned, attentive, but no kisses or hugs.

His hand steady on her arm, he eases her into the water, then sits on the rim of the tub. No crying, not while he’s ministering to her.

“Chipped bottom tooth, soft tissue damage in the nose, not broken. Check out how the jaw feels tomorrow. Anyway, it’s going to be fine, Josie, you’ll see, a blip as time passes.” In his voice she hears years of reassuring injured friends.

In bed, she takes a deep breath, which surely hurts. Is that why he isn’t trying to hold her?

Her eyes open on the morning light. She didn’t hear the alarm. It’s a little before eight. Her body aches as a beaten body does. The bed is empty. Melvin left earlier than usual. Why is that? she wonders. Then sees the envelope next to her pillow; its faint pencil marks read, “From Lowell.” The sealed envelope is as light as air, but whatever is inside will be much heavier.

The motel facade looks as grim as the gray sky. As she searches for room number twenty-four among the look-alike doors, her heart’s hammering reaches a dangerous level. Yesterday’s beating has left her dogged by anxiety and with a shattered sense of immortality. Pulling herself together to come here was no picnic. Her back sends pain signals with each step, but she had to come. It’s today or who knows when.

She taps lightly on motel door twenty-four.

Miles lets her in. His frizzy reddish hair and moustache startle her, and his eyes behind smoky-gray granny glasses are unreadable. He seems altered, older, sterner, his boyhood only a memory.

After a long hug during which they hold each other tightly, she doesn’t trust herself to speak. She sits in a vinyl chair. He perches on the side of the bed. It’s a small square room with a dresser, a TV, blinds snapped shut, and drapes that can be drawn to keep out the light. A black canvas gym bag sits on the floor, no doubt everything he owns inside it.

“Were you careful coming here?” he asks.

“Absolutely.”

“Good.”

“I need to tell you this first. Your father . . . he’s in the hospital, very ill.”

“Jesus Christ. How can I visit him? It would be a perfect trap.” His tone pleading.

“I understand. No one wants you caught.” She doesn’t say he’ll regret the decision. Not seeing her father before he died left her forever sorrowful.

“Did you visit him?” he asks.

“Not yet. Your brothers and your mother did.”

“Do you have any more information about his condition?”

“I don’t. Celia just said he’s very weak.”

“How’s my mom?” he asks.

“Celia knows the whole deal about you. I connected her with an attorney.”

“Such a burden,” he murmurs more to himself.

“She can’t touch, see, or hear you; that’s her burden.”

He says nothing.

“Richie was wounded and is in a German hospital.” Her throat tightens.

“Shit. That’s awful. At his farewell party, he couldn’t wait for the night to end so his new life could begin.” He shakes his head.

The family party she missed to attend her first DC demonstration, the one where she met Melvin. She now remembers telling herself again and again then that it was no big deal to miss a family gathering. Was she rationalizing or denying? What’s the difference?

“What happened to your face?” He peers over his glasses.

In the mirror this morning, she saw what he sees now: a yellow-green stain below her puffy eye, swelling around her nose and upper lip. What he can’t see is how each thwack of the club replays in her head. What no one speaks about, including her, is the rising fear of attending actions. “Yesterday at a Nixon demo, the cops charged. It’s getting nastier out there every day.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.” It’s clear he has no wish to be drawn into the streets.

“How are you, I mean, really?” she asks.

He looks at her for a long moment. “I’m as fine as I can be.”

“That’s no answer.”

“Josie, it’ll have to do. There’s little I can tell you that you haven’t probably already thought about. Hold on to the fact that I’m not sorry but don’t want to be caught.”

“You hold on to the fact that you are important to me and I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

“I know that,” he says quietly.

“I collected two hundred dollars from friends. Use the money to go to Canada.”

He takes the money eagerly. “I will. After the next action, which is already planned.”

“You can’t mean that. It’s too dangerous. They’re looking for you, watching every draft board in the country.”

“There are ways around all of it.” He looks past her.

“It’s too close to the last action . . . If you delay . . .”

“Another few thousand records destroyed, lives saved, what’s more important than that?” His tone serious.

“How can you be certain they won’t be waiting for you? You’ve been identified. You’re known.”

“It’s been worked out. Trust me.”

She’s not one to be superstitious, but Christ, another action is more than daring; it’s reckless. “What good is it to anyone if you’re in prison?”

“The only way now to stop the war is to cause damage to the state.”

“Damaging government property isn’t the same as damaging the state,” she says, parroting Melvin.

“If they’re taken down one after another, the war will be denied cannon fodder.”

“You’re not indispensable. It can happen without you.”

“Actually, it can’t. Every person is necessary.”

“Your group isn’t going to end the war by itself.” God, she sounds like Johnny.

“Someday history will record the effect we made. The results are only temporarily invisible. That’s why we must keep up the pressure.” His voice reverent, annoyingly preachy. “The government’s policies are doomed. They can’t win. In some secret room, they probably admit the truth to each other. One day, the architects of this war will be nailed for the criminals they are, you’ll see. And, yeah, when I’m ready, Canada will be the easiest, cheapest place to go.”

She finds herself silenced by his torrent of words. But nothing he says can promise he’ll be okay. She loves Miles, but she doesn’t love the bombings. It’s too late to say so.

He begins stuffing the money and a few pieces of clothing into his bag, leaving her to wonder if she’ll see him again.