THE MORNING AFTER her first night at Kath’s, Becca woke up with her stomach clenched tight. One more day before her dad left—put the pedal to the metal, burned rubber. Why did she feel so nervous? She peeked out the window to find the porch looking like the aftermath of a college party: crumpled beer cans and cigarette butts everywhere.
Downstairs, she made coffee, grabbed a biscuit, and went outside. The air was wet, and a thick fog hung over the valley. As a kid, Becca had desperately wanted to move out here and live with Kath, but her aunt had never invited her. Later, in high school, she’d asked why Kath and her late husband had never had kids. “A lot of people have kids because they think they have to,” her aunt said, “but that only leads to trouble for everybody. I’m not the parenting kind.”
“Just like King,” Becca offered.
“Maybe,” her aunt answered. “Maybe not.”
King was no parent, Becca had thought back then. But in the past few days, she’d begun to reconsider that assumption. If only he’d hang around a bit longer now, realize that his only daughter was in need of some TLC. But this was a dangerous road to walk. She should not expect more from her father.
“Well, if it isn’t the lovely Rebecca.” Bull materialized at the cabin door holding a can of Bud Light.
“It’s Becca,” she said.
Bull took a sip of his beer and pulled up a chair. For a moment, they sat in silence enjoying the view. The valley was beautiful, the Arkansas Grand Canyon an enormous basin of green tufts. Like heads of broccoli, Kath used to say. And the sun shining down over the top—that’s the melted butter.
“We keep you up last night?” Bull asked.
“Yes.” She wanted to piss him off so that he’d leave. But he only smiled. Some of her frustration dissolved. “You weren’t in the army with my dad, were you?”
“Do I look that old?” Bull shook his head. “First Gulf War.”
It wasn’t like King to befriend younger vets. “Where’d you meet?” she asked.
“At the Rolling Thunder Rally in DC, about five years ago now. I was having a real hard time.” Bull kicked his legs up on the porch railing, settled back into reverie. “I figured if a guardian angel didn’t swoop down soon and save my ass, it was goodbye, Bull. But then your dad and the CO appeared. Now, I’m not a superstitious man, but what are the chances? Three hundred thousand people at that rally and they find me—a guy who so badly needed to be found? They took me out to Utah, got me straightened out.”
Utah. Was that where King had been all this time?
Bull drummed his fingers on the top of his beer can. “Guys have a lot of opinions about the CO. Reno thinks his whole salvation thing is a load of crap. But I can’t help it. I’m a believer. Hey, look there.” Bull pointed at a hawk winging across the sky.
Becca had not heard her father mention a commanding officer. “A believer in what?”
“That there’s a way out. That us vets can be free. It’s a shame, though, you know? No matter how enlightened you are, the Agent O gets you in the end.”
So a friend of theirs was sick. That’s where they were going, and why.
Bull sat up straight, suddenly and inexplicably enraged. “Those motherfuckers in Washington. Just shrugging their shoulders like, What did I do? Like even though we bathed in that toxic shit, they’re not responsible. Like they don’t owe us.” Bull glared at Becca as though she, specifically, owed him. Becca wanted to point out that Bull had never served in Vietnam and therefore had not been exposed to Agent Orange. But that was a technicality, at least to Bull. Also, as a child, Becca had watched her father fly from kind to cruel faster than a sports car going from zero to sixty. She’d never grown used to this behavior, and when she saw it happening with Ben—lethargy running to rage and back again, not to mention the drinking—she didn’t want to believe it. Ben had promised her—sworn to her—that he would never, ever turn into King.
“What if I don’t know you when you come back?” she’d asked on the morning of his deployment. But Ben reminded her that this was his second tour. “I’ve done this once already. And I came back fine,” he said, pulling her close. “Fine enough for you to fall in love with me.”
But he’d been wrong. After the second tour, he wasn’t fine. The wedding had been the eye of an emotional storm. The days on either end of the event were beautiful and brilliant. But afterward, especially, things turned bad. Ben had gotten drunk and crashed his truck; he’d destroyed his father’s fiddle. He’d broken everything.
“Everybody judges us,” Bull said, dragging Becca away from her own misfortune and into the glare of his own. “And the kids your age are the worst. Everybody’s entitled. Nobody appreciates what they’re given.”
“Not me.”
Bull chuckled. “Right. You’re different.”
“I am, actually,” she said. “Nobody else in my family went to college. I worked hard for that. I know nothing’ll be handed to me on a platter.”
“Last night, King said you’d gotten into one of those fancy schools up north—they gave you some money to boot. But you didn’t go.”
She wasn’t sure why she’d confessed this to King; it had kind of just spilled out one day. He’d seemed a little disappointed in her decision, though she couldn’t imagine why.
“What’s that got to do with entitlement?”
“Not that part, Rebecca. The appreciating-opportunities part.”
“It made more sense to stay close to home,” she said.
“You want to appreciate the freedom I fought for? The freedom your daddy fought for? Then don’t be afraid to confront your fears. The CO taught me that. Too bad you can’t meet him. You could learn a lot.”
“You don’t know me, Bull, so I’d appreciate you not judging my decisions.”
“College girl thinks she knows so much.” And then, as though the whole conversation had never happened: “It’s grub time.” Bull downed the rest of his Bud Light and licked his lips.