Lucy wasn’t sure what Milo Cornwallace might have meant by wanting to “see someone come home.” She wondered if he meant it in a general way, the way you might want to see anyone come home from being gone so long from their family. Maybe he was just as overwhelmed by the television news as she was. It was on everywhere—in people’s homes or behind the cash register at the 7-Eleven—showing the bloody mess of things over there. Even worse was the daily body count for American soldiers, South Vietnamese and Vietcong the news programs kept on the bottom of the television screen, ticking up every day.
Tick, tick, tick.
Or did Milo mean it in a more personal way? Did he know someone in Vietnam?
When Lucy had first found out her dad was going, the war had been a faraway event happening on televisions she mostly didn’t want to watch, and in conversations between adults she mostly didn’t want to listen to. None of her friends had older brothers or uncles, none of her own cousins were of the drafting age, and so, like a fire in another building, it was a horrible and sad thing that never really touched her life.
But now it had happened to her family. Lucy wondered if it had happened to Milo’s, too. And because Lucy’s mind was the way it was—always on high alert—she couldn’t let it go. Not Milo, and not the pictures she now knew were buried deep in her garden, which left her feeling slightly queasy. The unknown, to Lucy, was like a fanged creature that hid in her closet or under the bed with all the other monsters.
Which was spectacularly annoying. Because Lucy needed to focus on Dad while he considered their options for the future. And while it was true that Dad hadn’t asked her opinion, necessarily, hadn’t even talked to her about what he might do next, Lucy knew it was important to be available, to be right there should he need her.
She had accompanied Dad to the library on a couple of research trips and introduced him to Ms. Lula, who worked at the Berryessa branch of the San Jose Public Library during the summer months. At Lucy’s request, Ms. Lula had collected stacks of reference materials for Dad to ponder while giving Lucy the newest National Geographic magazine, and a scattering of books on subjects she thought Lucy might be interested in. Rocks and minerals, fictional accounts of survival stories, The Hobbit.
To add to her reference book pile, as though the prosthetist had known Lucy’s secret heart, Brady Fitzpatrick had left a fifty-two page manual behind that covered the history of prosthetics as well as modern-day uses and instructions. Appendage Prosthetics, it was called. Over the last couple of days, she’d memorized it, one of the most important sentences being:
A brief period of time between surgery and fitting the prosthesis is imperative if a functional stump, and thus use of a prosthetic device, is to be obtained.
Lucy had already known this, of course, having researched as much as she could. But it went on:
The surgeon and others on his hospital staff will do everything they can to ensure the best results, but ideal results require the wholehearted cooperation of the patient.
And Dad wasn’t cooperating. At least not about the arm. He’d tried. Lucy had spied on him through a crack in the bedroom door. But there were so many buckles and belts that it was hard for him to manage on his own, and so the one time she’d watched, he ended up throwing it across the room into the corner with a bang.
So even though Dad had told her he needed space to figure things out on his own, Lucy knew she needed to encourage Dad to follow Fitz’s guidelines in this particular instance. She would help him with the buckles and straps if he needed it. This wasn’t the same as following him around and putting toothpaste on his toothbrush. This was important. He would be impressed that she had read the entire manual and had an educated opinion on the subject. At least that she could count on.
Lucy found her opportunity for this discussion in the middle of the night.
She woke to the sound of the sliding glass door skipping along its lumpy track. She had no idea what time it was. The fingernail moon was framed perfectly in her window, so she figured sometime after one in the morning. After putting on her quilted robe, she tiptoed down the hallway into the empty living room—wondering where her father might have gone—thinking about carnivals, of all things. How she’d made the mistake of going on the Giant Swing three summers ago when a small carnival had set up just outside of Chicago. Dad had taken her as a special treat, so even though she found herself terrified of most every ride, she hadn’t let on.
But the Giant Swing had been the worst. Lucy honest to goodness felt as though the extreme up and down of that swing was going to kill her. Humans weren’t meant to experience such things. It was unnatural. And so she’d gripped her dad’s hand and prepared for a myocardial infarction.
When it was over, Dad reassured her she was perfectly healthy and that her heart could, and in fact would, withstand a lifetime of Giant Swings. But Lucy swore she would never attend another carnival and, therefore, would never again experience carnival feelings for the rest of her livelong days.
Then her dad went to Vietnam and it was like spending a year at a carnival on the Giant Swing. She’d thought it would be over when he came home.
It wasn’t.
Lucy looked outside. It was dim, the moon just a sliver of light in the sky, but she could see shadows. One in particular sitting underneath the large oak tree in the corner of the yard.
Dad. Still.
The crickets hushed when Lucy opened the screen door. But her dad didn’t move.
Lucy’s heart was pounding entirely too fast as she walked across the grass. The shadowy lump under the oak tree was, of course, her father. She leaned down and touched Dad’s shoulder just to make sure he was okay.
He startled and sat up. “What are you doing?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
After a moment in which Lucy feared he’d shoo her back inside, Dad patted the spot next to him on one of Uncle G’s old beach blankets. She lay beside him and willed herself to look up at the partial constellations she could see through the leaves of the oak. Something she had refused to do since Dad had left. His leaving would forever be connected to the stars.
His arm was warm against hers. She was relieved his stump was on the other side, and felt sick about her relief.
“All the men on base would gather in the mess to hear me read your letters. Did I tell you that?”
“You didn’t.”
“Maybe I didn’t want it to go to your head.” Lucy could hear the smile in his voice.
“Did you get all thirty-seven of them?” she asked.
“Each and every one.”
“I took a few turns delivering meatballs for Papo Angelo so I could contribute to the postage.”
“How did young Joey feel about that, you taking over his job?”
“He didn’t mind. He’s a good kid. He even gave me three dollars from his birthday money to help out and wouldn’t let me pay him back.”
Dad chuckled, a sound Lucy wished she could capture in a bottle and set on her windowsill with her stones. After a little while, Dad said, “Did I ever tell you about the summer I turned thirteen?”
“Was that the summer you worked in Great-Uncle Lando’s orchards?”
“That was the summer I decided to be an orchardist, just like the men in my family going back to the old country. Pears and apples.”
Lucy hadn’t known her dad wanted to grow trees like Great-Uncle Lando and Big Papo before him. She’d only been told how hard Dad had worked to save up for school, and from such an early age. Saving even the pennies he’d find in the street.
“Big Papo used to say that sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, he’d lie in the very middle of his fields, so much like Italy. He told me that when things get tough, you have to remind yourself of what you’ve already built.”
Big Papo and Nona had come over from Calabria in 1917, their tiny village so poor, they’d lived in a one-room house with dirt floors. They had a cousin who had settled in Connecticut, but Big Papo dreamed of the land he’d heard about on the other side of the country, the Santa Clara Valley with its orchards and land so much like home. He would build a life there, and his children wouldn’t be hungry.
“I remember the night he said that. It was warm, just like tonight, and he was sipping anisette out of a flask. He gave me a taste, and I thought I’d set my lungs on fire.”
Lucy lay there quiet, thinking of the piece of her dad that had come from Big Papo. Like a star in a constellation. How she had a piece of Big Papo, too, through Dad, even though he’d died before she was born.
Dad went on. “Big Papo couldn’t read, so he insisted his children be educated. By the time my generation came along, it wasn’t enough to just be educated. We were expected to do more. What he said was, Chi ha più giudizio, più ne n’adoperi. Basically, From those who are given more, more is expected. More is expected of us, Lucy. And so we will keep moving forward. I will find a different job, and we will put this behind us.”
Lucy was overcome with relief. This was the first real conversation they’d had since Dad came home eleven days ago. He sounded more like himself. It made her feel brave, like she could talk to him the way she always had.
“Why won’t you wear your arm?”
Dad stiffened beside her.
“Have you read the research?” Lucy went on.
“Of course I have.”
“Then you know it’s harder to start using the arm if you form habits without it. And people who lose limbs and wear a prosthetic are more successful in their healing and their lives. I read that in the manual Fitz left behind,” she said, certain that Dad would be impressed with her knowledge. The way he always had been.
Dad leaned toward her and pushed himself up with the help of his left leg. It was awkward, unnatural. “Lucy, this isn’t your concern.”
“Of course it is! You’re my dad. We’re a team.”
“Not in this,” Dad said, sharp as Papo Angelo’s meat slicer. Then he softened. “We don’t treat you like a child, Lucy. But that’s what you are. This is a grown-up problem.”
And there Lucy went, swinging up, up, up on the Giant Swing, her stomach in her throat, the solid ground of her life growing small beneath her. They had always been a team. In everything. It was the only thing they’d ever been. Now, suddenly, they weren’t.
Lucy reached toward where her pocket should be, to count her stones, but it was the middle of the night, so her stones were back on the windowsill.
“You should get some sleep,” Dad said. He scooted away from Lucy and leaned against the tree trunk. “I’ll be in shortly.”
Lucy slowly walked back toward the house and climbed beneath her clean lavender sheet. She looked out the window at the darkness beyond, reminding herself of what Mrs. Peacock had told her about homeostasis. That a person under conflicting stresses and motivations has to find a way to maintain a stable condition. Dad was just trying to find his way.
I’ll always come back to you.
Dad had promised. And Dad never went back on his promises.