RESILIENCE

Marah twists her son’s dog tags in her hand and collapses against Breck, who fights tears. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the soldiers say as they dismiss themselves. Breck holds his mother long after the official car drives away.

Breck helps Marah towards the house. Mitch follows. As they get to the front door, Breck sighs, “How do I tell Katie Nick’s never coming home?” They go inside.

Katie’s stomach lurches towards her throat and then down to her buckling knees. She waits until they are inside and then climbs out of the bushes. She runs to the gravesite, crying out loud. She clutches on to Bear’s tombstone. She holds her key chain tightly, rubbing her thumb across Nick’s class ring.

When Breck and Mitch are done searching the house, Breck tells Mitch, “You check the guard shed, I’ll try Pappy’s grave.”

As Breck jogs down to his father’s grave, he feels weak himself. It was an absolute that Nick would come home. This possibility never occurred to him. Nick gone! His stomach thrusts with the urge to vomit. Now, now the war is real to him. He tries to comfort himself – missing in action is not dead.

He is still a good way off when he sees Katie draped on the tombstone. He turns away to gain his own composure. Finally, he goes over to her. They don’t say a word. He sits down next to the tombstone. She curls up on his lap, leans against his big strong shoulders and she cries.

After Marah and Katie are safely asleep, Breck goes through the house to turn the lights off. When he reaches to turn the study light out, he sees the stack of letters Katie had written in the guard shed. On top he finds the letter addressed to Nick. Breck lays his head on his desk.

When the morning light streaks through Breck’s window, he rolls over in serious rebellion. He hadn’t gotten to bed until very late. Then he couldn’t sleep. He really needs sleep. It is Mitch who opens the door. “Breck, time to get up. Newspaper’s here, they’re interviewing Katie. I tried to stop them.”

Breck bolts up from bed and throws clothes on fast. He’s panicking. “Why? What does the newspaper want?”

“He’s a small town kid, big news, one of our own.”

“No. Katie and Mom don’t need this. Where are they?”

Mitch smiles a genuine smile. “At the grave. Katie is doing a memorial service, a sunrise service, and invited all the guys in bunkhouse two. One of the guys thought it was a great statement about Nick and called the paper. She was going to invite you and Marah, but wasn’t sure you would understand.”

Breck rolls his eyes as the two men dart down the steps and out the door. Breck buttons his shirt en route. They run all the way to the gravesite.

Thirty rugged cowboys sit cross-legged on the hillside, paying attention. Katie, in her ballerina dress, stands next to Bear’s gravestone and reads from a Bible. Actually, she just holds the Bible open and tries to remember what was said at Bear’s funeral. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, from a dirt ball he was made and now he’s a dirt ball again.” Sorrow-filled faces laugh.

“We will miss our comrade,” the weak voice adds.

Mitch turns to Breck with a half-crooked smile, “She’s special, and I think the John Wayne movies need to stop.” Breck laughs.

Breck’s eyes cast down and then open wide. Next to Katie’s feet is a little parade flag. She has broken the bottom part of the stick off halfway and then taped it to the top. The material of stars and stripes is in the middle instead of at the top. Nick’s dog tags are around it. She saw to it that Nick has a flag at half-mast.

Breck looks away.