Hope Street Part 28

My hearing's starting to come back.

His hearing? He'd been deaf? If so, how had he been able to talk to her on the phone?

Guy in the next bed is in really bad shape. I'm so lucky, Jo.

How lucky could he be if he'd had to spend months in a hospital, dizzy and deaf and horizontal? When would he be vertical? When would he get home?

He would get home in early September. She spent most of August searching for a first-floor apartment she and Bobby could afford, signing a lease and furnishing the place on pennies and ingenuity. Her housemates helped. She couldn't imagine how she would have coped without them, and she was rea.s.sured when Suzanne was able to find a college student arriving in September who could take over Joelle's room and her share of the expenses.

Anxiety unraveled Joelle's nerves as Bobby's arrival date drew near. Renee had urged her to buy some s.e.xy underwear for the occasion, but she was still breastfeeding Claudia, and while she'd lost her pregnancy weight, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were fat and the skin of her tummy was still loose and puckered. She hoped Bobby wouldn't be repulsed by the sight. She also hoped she wouldn't be repulsed by the sight of him. What if he was scarred? How could she be fretting about her bloated b.r.e.a.s.t.s and baggy tummy after what he'd been through?

How could she be worrying about appearances, at all? When he'd left her, nearly a year ago, he'd been her best friend. Now...she didn't know. He'd fought in a war and she'd become a mother. Would they even recognize each other?

The day before his homecoming, she drove his truck through a car wash and filled it with gas-he'd warned her never to let the needle drop too close to empty. At the grocery store, she splurged on a porterhouse steak and fresh strawberries and Suzanne bought her a bottle of red table wine because Joelle was still too young to buy that herself. The morning he was due, she made the bed with brand-new sheets, gave Claudia a bath and dressed her in her prettiest outfit-a pink dress and matching pink socks that Joelle's mother had sent from Ohio. Despite her swollen b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Joelle was able to fit into a sundress she'd sewn last year, a simple sheath hemmed several inches above her knees.

Swallowing her nerves, she drove to McGuire, the air force base adjacent to Fort Dix. A dozen soldiers were scheduled to arrive on the same plane, and an officer corralled Joelle and the other waiting relatives into a fenced-in area near the tarmac. The sun beat down on Claudia in her stroller, and Joelle lowered its canopy to protect her.

The other waiting relatives all seemed joyous. None of them appeared to be wrestling with dread the way she was. But then, the other young wives had probably been married for longer than a day before their husbands had left-and they probably were safe in the knowledge that their husbands loved them.

The plane landed on a distant runway, then taxied over. Someone wheeled a stairway to the door. A woman in uniform opened it and the soldiers emerged, clad in their dress uniforms, many of them with medal ribbons pinned to their shirts. Next to Claudia's stroller, a boy of about five waved an American flag. A few people snapped photographs.

The last soldier to emerge was Bobby. She absorbed the sight of him, framed by the plane's doorway. He was standing. His hair was longer than she'd expected, but she supposed he hadn't needed a buzz cut while he'd been in the hospital. He handed a pair of crutches to the soldier in front of him, who headed down the stairs, leaving Bobby to maneuver the descent alone, his hands gripping the railings for support. His left leg was strapped into a metal brace that resembled a medieval torture device. He extended that leg in front of him and hopped down the stairs on his right foot. At the bottom of the steps, he took back the crutches, said something to the soldier who'd been holding them and then gazed at the fence. At Joelle.

All the other soldiers ran once they spotted their loved ones. Bobby couldn't run. Joelle wished she could run to him, but the relatives had been ordered to stay behind the fence. So she only watched him as he made his laborious way across the asphalt.

As he neared, she searched his face. No obvious scars, but his appearance had changed. His eyes were darker, more wary. His easy smile was nowhere in evidence. Maybe he wasn't happy to see her.

He pa.s.sed through the gate and hobbled over to her. The bone slid in his neck as he swallowed. "Bobby," she murmured, then mustered her courage and rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

"Jo." He didn't kiss her back. His gaze was on the stroller. "Pick her up," he said.

She folded back the canopy, unstrapped Claudia and lifted her so Bobby could see her. He stared at her and his eyes grew misty. She stared right back, then reached out and tried to grab his nose.

He allowed himself a smile as he ducked his head, evading her pudgy little hand. "Hey, there," he whispered. "Hey, little girl. You know who I am?"

Claudia issued a cheerful gurgling sound.

"I'm your daddy," Bobby said. "I'm your dad." He bowed and brushed her cheek with his, then leaned back and met Joelle's eyes. His smile didn't completely disappear, thank G.o.d. He'd saved a little of it for her. "Let's get out of here," he said.

Someone lugged Bobby's duffel to the truck. Someone else folded the stroller and put it in the flatbed while Joelle strapped Claudia into her baby carrier. The truck's front seat would be crowded with all three of them crammed in-especially since Bobby had his crutches and couldn't bend his leg. She supposed that was what a family was: everyone crowded together.

The drive back to the apartment pa.s.sed in silence, and Joelle's nerves frayed until they were nothing but ragged threads. When she glanced at Bobby, she saw him gazing out the window, his face blank. Maybe viewing New Jersey's suburban sprawl was a shock to him after Vietnam and more than two months in a hospital. Or maybe she and Bobby just didn't know how to talk to each other anymore.

His expression remained inscrutable as she led him into the apartment. It wasn't grand, but she'd knocked herself out to make it as pretty as she could on a budget of zero. She'd picked daisies growing along a roadway and stuck them in an empty c.o.ke bottle to create a centerpiece for the coffee table in the living room. She'd sewn curtains for the windows and throw pillows for the couch. She'd bought a small black-and-white TV with a rabbit-ear antenna at the St. Vincent de Paul store. She'd set up a corner of the bedroom as a nursery area, squeezing in Claudia's crib and the changing table she'd created out of an old kitchen table and a colorful plastic pad. When Claudia had been born, the women at the house had bought her a mobile of b.u.t.terflies, which Joelle had fastened to the crib railing so the colorful b.u.t.terflies floated above her when she slept.

Bobby thumped around the apartment on his crutches, saying nothing.

"Is it all right?" she asked. "For what we could afford, I-"

"It's fine," he said.

They ate their steak dinner. Bobby didn't want any wine, so Joelle skipped it, as well. He watched TV while she got Claudia ready for bed. Once she had the baby down for the night, she joined Bobby on the couch. "Can you tell me about your leg?" she asked.

He forced a grim smile. "They had to use some bolts to pin the bones together. I'll have another surgery to remove those once it's healed."

"But it will heal." She asked more than said it.

"That's what they tell me."

"And your hearing?"

"It's back."

"Anything else?"

His gaze was haggard as he glanced her way. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay." She dared to touch his wrist. "If you change your mind, I'm here, Bobby."

He didn't move his arm away, but he didn't twist his hand to capture hers, either. They sat for another hour, her fingers resting on the back of his wrist, and watched The Mod Squad. Then he went off to the tiny bathroom to shower, insisting he didn't need any help.

While he was in the bathroom, she undressed, setting aside her boring underwear and putting on the prettiest nightgown she owned, thin white cotton with flowers embroidered on the front and the shadows of her body visible through the fabric. She turned down the blanket and brushed her hair a hundred strokes and prayed that she and Bobby would connect in bed, even if they hadn't connected on the couch. Their wedding night had been so wonderful. She wanted that closeness again. She wanted Bobby back.

He crutched into the bedroom, clad in sweatpants and a clean T-shirt-olive drab, army issue. His hair was wet, and the spicy scent of his shampoo nearly overpowered the sweet perfume of baby powder that filled the air. He made his way to the bed, dropped his crutches on the floor beside him and unstrapped his brace. Then he lay down.

Joelle hurried into the bathroom. It was humid and smelled of soap and toothpaste, of Bobby. She washed, inserted the diaphragm the midwife had urged her to buy-"People say you can't get pregnant when you're nursing, but that's not true," she'd warned-and returned to the bedroom. He'd turned off the lamp on his side of the bed and pulled the covers up to his waist. If he'd noticed the pretty new sheets, he didn't mention them.

She climbed into bed next to him, switched off her bedside lamp and waited. Nearly a year had pa.s.sed since they'd been together. Nearly a year since they'd been intimate. Maybe he'd visited prost.i.tutes in Vietnam-soldiers did that-and he'd realized that he longed for a more experienced woman. Joelle knew next to nothing about lovemaking, and even after bathing she smelled like baby's milk, and Bobby had been around the world and he'd probably been with all kinds of s.e.xy, worldly women who could satisfy him so much better than Joelle could.

Still, she was his wife.

He made no move toward her. She wondered whether he was in pain, whether his leg just didn't work well enough. Drawing again on every ounce of courage she possessed, she rose and leaned over him. Even in the dark, she could see his face. She touched her lips to his.

He kissed her back, gently, softly. He lifted his hand to her cheek, dug his fingers into her hair and closed his eyes. A shudder pa.s.sed through him, and she felt him withdraw. Even before he let his hand drop, she realized she'd lost him.

"Bobby-"

"Don't," he whispered. She heard his sigh, and the steady rhythm of Claudia's breathing as she slept across the room. "I don't know where I am yet. I need..."

"Time?" she said helpfully.

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"I'm sorry."

"No, Bobby-don't be sorry. It's okay. Really."

He said nothing more, but shifted on the mattress, retreating.

She rolled away from him and squeezed her eyes shut to keep from crying.

THE NEXT DAY, BOBBY and Joelle drove to a used-car lot and traded in his beloved truck for a five-year-old Chevy Nova with eighty thousand miles on it. It had an automatic transmission, so he'd be able to drive it without a functioning left leg. Joelle had never been enamored of the truck, but Bobby's wistfulness was obvious as he signed the paperwork and handed the truck's keys over to the salesman.

Once he had a vehicle he could drive, he concentrated on organizing his life. Three days a week, he would attend physical therapy sessions at the V. A. hospital. The other two days, Claudia stayed home with him. He carried her around in a pouch Joelle had fashioned from an old knapsack, and together they ran errands and visited the playground. Bobby rigged a device out of pieces of an old bicycle's handlebar that enabled him to push Claudia's stroller with his chest while he propelled himself along on his crutches.

Joelle was impressed by his determination and focus, and pleased that he was no longer smoking. "Did they make you quit at the hospital?" she asked when he'd been home for nearly a week and she hadn't seen him light up once.

"I quit for Claudia," he said. He didn't elaborate, and Joelle didn't press him. Whatever the reason, she was glad he'd kicked the habit.

He might have demonstrated good judgment about the smoking, and he was without question a devoted father. But still, a wide emptiness gaped between him and Joelle. He loved perching Claudia on his lap and letting her tug on his fingers, which would cause her to squeal with joy. He never gave his hand to Joelle to hold, though. Sometimes he smiled at her, sometimes he patted her shoulder as he maneuvered around her in the apartment's cramped, dark kitchen and once, while playing one of his Doors alb.u.ms on the portable record player she'd found at a garage sale, he'd smiled at her and crooned, "'Come on, baby, light my fire'" along with Jim Morrison.

But when he climbed into bed, clad in sweatpants and a T-shirt...Nothing. He wouldn't reach for her. He wouldn't talk to her. He wouldn't touch her.

One night in late September, Suzanne invited them over to the house for dinner, claiming everyone missed Claudia and wanted to meet Bobby. He was a good sport about it, even though Joelle guessed an evening spent with a group of women wasn't his idea of fun. Suzanne made lasagna, thank G.o.d, and not one of her lentil-and-bean ca.s.seroles. Everyone but Bobby drank wine. Joelle wondered whether he was declining alcohol because of the painkillers he still occasionally took. That she didn't know-that her husband wouldn't discuss with her why he refused to drink wine-only proved that their marriage was a farce.

She drank enough for both of them, figuring she could indulge since he'd be driving them home. Bobby bore up well as her old housemates peppered him with friendly questions. The student who had taken over Joelle's room when she'd moved out tried to explain to him why the Vietnam War was a bad thing, but he was more knowledgeable about the subject than she was, and he didn't need her lecture. "I got drafted," he explained. "Don't blame me."

After dinner, he and Claudia settled in the living room with a few of the women. Someone turned on the stereo and strains of Joni Mitch.e.l.l seeped into the air. Joelle suppressed a chuckle. Joni Mitch.e.l.l was such girlie music. Listening to her sweet, trilling soprano as she sang about heartache and romances gone sour was probably torture to Bobby.

Suzanne asked Joelle to keep her company in the kitchen while she cleaned up. Joelle refilled her gla.s.s with wine and gathered some plates from the table.

"I think everyone here has a crush on him," Suzanne said. "He's really cute."

"I know." He no longer appeared as drawn as he had the day he'd limped off the plane. His hair continued to grow in, black and thick with waves and he smiled a little more often. He'd always had a strong physique, but propelling himself around on crutches had built up the muscles in his arms and shoulders. As for the rest of his body, she couldn't say. She hadn't seen him undressed since the night they'd gotten married, close to a year ago. He'd been thin when he'd hobbled down the steps from the plane at McGuire; she suspected he'd gained a few pounds since he'd gotten home, which he'd desperately needed.

"You, on the other hand, look like h.e.l.l," Suzanne said as she squirted dishwashing soap into the deep-basin sink.

"Thanks." Joelle smiled feebly. "I'm just tired, Suzanne. Between work and the baby and taking care of Bobby-"

"Does he want you taking care of him? For a guy recovering from some serious injuries, he seems to be doing pretty well."

"He is. But..." Joelle shrugged and drained her winegla.s.s, then busied herself wrapping the leftover garlic bread in aluminum foil.

Suzanne eyed her sharply. "But what?"

Joelle adored Suzanne. The woman had been the big sister she'd never had, the surrogate mother she'd needed over the past year. Yet how could she tell her the truth-that her husband didn't desire her anymore? That their marriage had never been real, that they'd entered into it with the understanding that they could divorce each other once Bobby's military service was done? That he'd married her only because she'd been in trouble and desperate to keep her baby, not because he loved her?

"It's an adjustment," she finally said, because she had to say something.

"There are marriage counselors," Suzanne reminded her. "And don't tell me you can't afford them. I bet the army provides free counseling. You're not the only couple separated by the war and having adjustment problems." Suzanne shook the water from her hands and clamped them on Joelle's shoulders. "Talk to someone, Joelle. Get this worked out. If you love him, it's worth the fight."

Suzanne's words echoed inside Joelle as she and Bobby drove back to their apartment in the dark New Jersey night. Claudia lay strapped into her seat between them, pulling on one of her bare feet and making gurgling noises. "Bobby," Joelle called across the seat to him.

His gaze remained on the road. His profile could have been carved from granite it was so still.

"Maybe...maybe we ought to see a counselor."

In the glow from an oncoming car's headlights, she noticed a muscle ticking in his jaw. "I don't need a shrink."

"Not a shrink, Bobby-"

"You think I'm a head case?"

"No." She put more force into her voice. "I didn't mean you should see someone. I meant us. I was thinking of a marriage counselor."

He shot her a look, then turned back to the road. He said nothing.

Was he insulted? Hurt? She knew he wasn't given to deep introspection. She wasn't big on that, either-but their marriage was a disaster. Either they had to fix it or they had to quit.

His silence convinced her he'd just as soon quit.

It's worth the fight, Suzanne had said. If only Joelle had some idea about the right tactics. She wasn't the soldier in this car. She was nineteen years old, a mother, living in the amorphous center of suburban New Jersey because that was where an army base happened to be, not because it was her home. She was married to a man who had proposed to her with the promise that they could get out of this marriage if they wanted, no hard feelings.

"Do you want us to be married?" she asked, hoping he didn't hear the quiver in her voice. She was trying to be strong, tough, fighting for the man who was her husband.

He shot her another look. "Do we really have to have this discussion?" he asked. "You've been drinking wine all night."

"I'm not drunk. And all I'm asking-" is for you to love me.

Claudia chose that moment to start crying. Her outburst gave Bobby an excuse not to respond to Joelle. He winced at Claudia's wailing and steered in to the parking lot of their apartment complex. Joelle rubbed Claudia's belly, hoping to soothe her. But Claudia continued to howl all the way to their a.s.signed parking s.p.a.ce outside the door of their building.

Bobby shut off the engine and Joelle unstrapped Claudia. She took the baby onto her shoulder and rocked her. "Something happened to you in Vietnam-"

"No kidding," he muttered.

"And now, I just...You said we could split up when you got back. Is that what you want?"

"Joelle." He practically had to shout to be audible over Claudia's shrieks. "Why are we screaming at each other in the car?"

"Because you won't say what's going on with you!" She felt as frantic and frustrated as Claudia. "You never talk to me, Bobby. You never tell me what you' re going through, what you're thinking. You won't even tell me what you went through over there."

"I don't want to talk about that."

"Yeah, I've figured that out. You don't want to talk about anything that matters. I'm your wife, Bobby-at least, I am right now. And you won't even-I mean, when you were wounded...You don't act like a husband. You don't..." She was too embarra.s.sed to ask him why he wouldn't kiss her, gather her into his arms, make love to her the way he had on that lumpy motel bed a year ago. "You don't do what a husband does," she finished feebly. "I can't help wondering if maybe, when you were wounded..."

"Were my b.a.l.l.s blown off?" His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly she was afraid he might crush the plastic. "No."

Then the problem was her. He just didn't want her.

Too hurt to respond, she shoved open her door and swung out of the car. Getting out of the car took Bobby longer; his leg didn't move well and he had to retrieve his crutches from the floor of the backseat. Joelle didn't wait for him. She stormed into the building, silently howling along with Claudia.

Inside their apartment, she marched straight to the bedroom, to Claudia's changing table. The baby's diaper was full of p.o.o.p, and once Joelle had her cleaned up and snapped into a sleeper, she subsided. A few minutes of nursing, and she fell into a peaceful slumber.

Joelle didn't feel peaceful. She couldn't imagine falling asleep. But it was nearly eleven, and she wasn't going to stay awake and chat amiably with Bobby, who had remained in the living room the whole time she was dealing with Claudia. She shut herself up in the bathroom, washed, changed into a nightgown and bundled under the covers, even though the room was too warm for a blanket. The sheets smelled of fabric softener. She laundered them every week, despite the fact that not enough life existed in their bed to warrant that much laundering.

After a while, Bobby joined her. As always, he wore sweatpants and a T-shirt. As always, he remained on his side of the bed. He might as well have been in Ohio, for all the distance between them. He might as well have been in Vietnam.