Page 18 of Walking Wounded

Luke’s fingers tighten on his pen. “If?”

“Not everyone lives that long,” Will says, and studies his pancakes as he cuts them into smaller and smaller bites with the edge of his fork.

Loss, Luke reads in his voice. The man has lost someone. His wife. At his age, probably siblings, friends. Co-workers.

But those are all people he would have lost to time, and illness, and their long years on the earth.

He glances around the room, spots a sequence of framed photos on the mantle. “May I?” he asks, rising, indicating the pictures with his hand.

Will stares at him a long moment, syrup dripping off his fork, and finally says, “Sure,” in a low, tight voice.

Luke steps in close to the fireplace – lingering smell of wood smoke, heap of pale ashes on the grate – and drops his head over the photos. Some are colored and new, staged portraits like his mother used to make him sit for when he was younger: the Maddox family all arranged, Matt, Sandy, and the two daughters. There’s one of Matt and Will, taken recently, Will seated, hands propped on his cane. One of Matt and Sandy, arms around one another. One of the two girls when they were babies. And a faded sepia-toned photo in a heavy silver frame that catches Luke’s eye: a scene snatched out of time. A girl in a belted white dress, her hair pinned up and curled artfully over her ears. A man on either side of her, both young, smiling, handsome, their smiles easy.

Luke knows before he asks, but he asks anyway. “Is this you over here?” Because there can be no denying the broad shoulders, and large square hands, and lock of nearly-black hair falling over the young man’s forehead. It’s Matt Maddox from the old school photos that circulated when he ran. No, it’s Will Maddox, from before Matt was even a gleam in his eye.

Will doesn’t answer so Luke takes the frame off the mantle and returns to the chair, tilts it toward the man. “This is you, right? When was this taken?”

Will has gone bone-white, the wrinkles around his eyes throwing harsh dark shadows down his cheeks.Oh shit, Luke thinks.

“Will? Mr. Maddox?”

“That’s me,” Will croaks. He looks away from the photo, hands curling tight on his silverware.

Silence slips between them; the sunlight shifts on the carpet, like it’s making room for the ghost that pauses and lingers by the hearth. Luke has messed up, he knows. And they haven’t even touched the protestor incident. So somehow he has to press onward, even if it feels like someone is now watching them from the corner of the room.

“Who else is in the picture?” he asks, quietly.

He doesn’t think Will is going to answer. But he says, “That’s my wife, Leena. And that’s – that’s Finn. My friend.”

~*~

Will lapses into what can only be called a stupor. Luke fears he’s gone catatonic, so he searches out Sandy, frantic.

She stands with arms raised above her head on a hot pink yoga mat in the middle of her living room, following the instructor on the TV. She turns to face him as he barrels into the room, expression serene, but brows tucking when she catches sight of his face.

“Everything alright?”

“No, I think I killed your father-in-law,” he blurts. His palms are damp with fear-sweat and he can smell the anxiety lifting off his skin.

To his shock – and maybe horror – she laughs. “What?”

“He’s just…” He waves a hand in front of his face, as usual, at a loss for words. Give him a pencil or a word processor, and he can talk your ear off. But face-to-face? He’s a total idiot. “There was this old photo – and I shouldn’t have – but I asked about it – and he got all…” Another wave, totally hopeless.

Sandy lowers her arms and faces him fully, a knowing light coming into her eyes. “Oh. The old one, with him, and Leena, and Finn?”

“Yeah.” He can’t catch his breath.

Sandy nods, expression sage and patient. “It’s okay.” She steps past him. “He gets like this sometimes.”

Helpless, he follows.

Will still sits with his gnarled hands clenched over his cane, his head bent forward at an angle that looks painful.

“Mr. Will,” Sandy greets, softly, setting her hand on top of his head. “Did you go away in your head again. Come on back now.” All Southern honey and gentleness. “Come back to us. That’s right. Come on.” She strokes his hair and Will’s eyelids flutter. His head lifts and he’s back.

Luke exhales in a rush, exhausted from the panic. “Shit,” he whispers.

Sandy looks at him with a patient smile. “He likes to have his hair stroked,” she says, and that ought to hit Luke in a weird way, but it doesn’t, so great is his relief.

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