He missed the woman, missed her more than blue could cover. He longed for the contours of her face among the shadows of palms. He imagined the girl she used to be. How he loved that girl. Once she had found a speckled egg in the woods and believed she could hatch it with the warmth of her body. Believed there was life inside. Believed, night after night, cradling it under her arm, that a creature was sleeping inside, growing, yellow eyes half-open. And when the egg burst one night and spilled its sour soup, it did not spoil her heart for other eggs waiting out there in the woods.
The story reminded him of his own boyhood. Knotted shoelaces and love of snakes and candy. Lemonade on a Saturday. Block letters, pulled-off scabs, bitten-off honeysuckle tubers. Straight pew in a small church, the boredom of mid-sermon. Cow manure, bee pollen, acrobatics of blown dandelion seeds, underside of toadstools, knuckle blood, frog eyes blinking. The only war he knew then was the one he waged against bees, throwing rocks at their hives just to feel the ecstasy of adrenaline as he ran away through Johnson grass, chilly with sweet terror. Tolerable grief. A lizard kept in a jar that died of his fumbling boy-care. Love so elementary it could be drawn on a tablet with the blunt edge of a pencil.
Ambrose didn’t see the boy coming toward him. When he finally looked up, there he was, in a pair of tow-cloth pants that were dirty at the knees, blond hair uncombed, right hand bandaged, left hand clutching a folded piece of paper, which he handed over silently. Ambrose had never seen what his name looked like as she wrote it, and he lingered over the pleasure of the sight. One of the legs of the A was longer than the other, hobbled like a veteran, but the letters that came behind it were perfect and full. His eyes traveled over the rest of the letter, forgetting their shape now as he was pulled headfirst into their meaning. He drew in his breath. The plan was insane, and yet so tempting his hands shook, and in this state of weakness the memory saw its moment and attacked him full on.
Seth was tied to the post. Hair damp with sweat. The sun straight up overhead. Grave dug in the near distance.
Ambrose shook his head. No.
Yes, said the sergeant. You’re the one who let him leave.
No, sir, I can’t. I can’t.
Time slowing down, warping, wandering. Seth shivered against the post. A body born from a winter march, pants loose on the waist, vocal cords standing out in his throat. Someone tied a handkerchief over his eyes.
Wooden coffin. Smell of smoke. Blue, blue, blue. Sunlight moved in waves. Snort of a mule. Shadow of the handkerchief, fluttering like a bird. First thump of a red drum.
The provost marshal read the charges. Hot sun, baked ground. Bored dog yawning in the shade. Camp pastor, who always smelled of spring water, holding a Bible and murmuring into Seth’s ear what Ambrose imagined was a tale of God’s forgiveness and loss, that deserters were not yellow in heaven but blue, color of divine and eternal circling, and do you, Seth Holden, have anything to confess?
Handkerchief slipping a bit when he cocked his head, uniform hanging on him like a sack. Ambrose could only stare at him in the space of time allotted, could feel his love for the shy boy, crafted and real and wild, the texture of a nest. That’s all he had left from this war. No nerves to calm his shaking hands. No fire left in his belly. No God to hear his prayers. Take away the love and he would have been translucent, a ghost.
Seth’s body straightened as the pastor stepped away. A gesture made toward bravery that only looked like it was: a boy trying to act the man. How old could he be? Sixteen? Seventeen?
The sergeant’s voice was in his ear. Shoot him.
I can’t, sir.
Yes, you can.
He put the gun to his shoulder.
He’s my friend, sir.
The sergeant lifted his own gun, placed it just behind Ambrose’s ear.
Shoot him, or I’ll shoot you.
The sergeant cocked the trigger. Seth’s head weaved back and forth as though following the flight of a feather.
Ambrose had to calm his mind. Calm it. Blue of the sky, blue of an angel’s wings on a cold day in heaven, blue of a streak down the Roman nose of a Sioux Indian. War-paint blue, ceramic blue, Zouave blue, rainbow blue. Blue as a fishing hole, blue as a smile in December, blue as a bruise, as a robin’s egg as an Easter ribbon as the center of heaven as a voice in the dark as eternal reckoning—NO! Ambrose screamed as the gun went off.
Iris’s note fell out of his hand. The wind took it in the direction of the sea.
Wendell looked stunned. “No?”
“No! No no no no no!”