Page 52 of All We Thought We Knew
“I guess I just wish I knew why Dad is the way he is, you know?”
“Someday you need to ask him. His answer might surprise you.”
His words reminded me of my conversation with Mama aboutthe shoebox she insisted I look through. I told Nash about it, adding, “I’m not sure I can handle the revelation of family secrets right now. I’m barely hanging on as it is.”
“It sounds like it’s important to your mom. She wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t.”
I heaved a sigh. “I know you’re probably right, but—” I paused, trying to articulate the angst and confusion churning inside me. “I think I’m afraid. What if these secrets take me to an even darker place?”
Nash’s hand tightened on mine. “If you want, I’ll go through the box first, see what’s in it, and then you can decide from there.”
I didn’t think I had any tears left in me, but here they came again. “Why are you so good to me? I don’t deserve your kindness after the way I’ve treated you.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t,” he said, dodging when I pretended to slug his shoulder. “But that’s what friends are for.”
Nash had always been Mark’s friend. That he considered me his friend now warmed me to my very core.
I bit my lip. “Would you want to look through the box now? I know it’s late, but I can’t promise I’ll have the courage to do it tomorrow.”
“Let’s do this.”
I tiptoed upstairs, not wanting to disturb Mama and Dad. No light came from the crack beneath their door. As I slid the box out from under my bed, I took a deep breath and blew it out.
“I don’t know what secrets you hold,” I whispered into the chilly air, “but please, be something good. I can’t take any more bad news.”
I returned to the living room. Nash had turned on the lamp, but he was nowhere to be seen. I’d just settled on the sofa when he came in from the kitchen, holding two mugs of hot chocolate with his one hand.
Doggone it. More tears sprang to my eyes.
“Thanks,” I said, accepting one of the mugs. “I can’t remember the last time I had hot cocoa. The weather in California is usually so pleasant, it’s not something you think about making.”
He sat next to me. “Where did you live?”
I stirred the chocolate, my mind going back to the day I left Tullahoma, determined never to return. “I spent the first four or five months in LA. Then I met a group of people who were headed to San Francisco, so I tagged along. That’s where I met Clay.” I glanced at Nash. “He’s my boyfriend.” But even as I said the word, I realized I hadn’t missed him at all. Hadn’t thought about him, really. I’d given Clay my parents’ telephone number, but he had yet to call to check on me or ask how Mama was doing.
“Clay has a following. A family, they call themselves. He’s their father, their mentor, their teacher, their preacher. I became part of them. We moved around a lot. Sometimes we lived in houses, but mostly we camped in parks or up in the hills.”
Nash stared at the cup in his hand. “Did you like that kind of life?”
The answer to that question was complicated. “I think Ineededthat kind of life. I couldn’t deal with all of this,” I said, indicating the room, the house, my family. “I had to escape.”
After a long moment, Nash nodded. “I understand wanting to escape. That’s why I went to Vietnam.”
If he had made that statement just yesterday, I would have lit into him about how ludicrous it was to believe going to war was an escape from anything. But I didn’t argue with him now. I’m not sure why, but I suddenly got what he was saying. I may not agree with his thinking, but I realized Nash and I had something in common I hadn’t recognized before.
“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we? Going off in all directions, only to come back to what we were trying to get away from in the first place.”
We sipped our cocoa in silence until Nash set his empty cup onthe coffee table next to the shoebox. He opened the lid and took out the old Bible.
“Dad wasn’t pleased when he found me with that the other day.” I set my empty mug next to his. “Maybe it’s really valuable or something.”
Nash carefully thumbed through the delicate, yellowed pages. “Looks like it’s written in German.”
“Or maybe Russian.”
He closed it and set it aside, then reached for the first of the two bundles of letters. After untying one of the ribbons, he scanned the envelopes.
“They’re all addressed to Ava Delaney.” He squinted at the smaller handwriting in the top-left corner of the first one. “These came from someone in the military in Hawaii. The postmark is from 1941.”
