T. Parker: Full Measure

Then there was movement on the ridge above what had been Big Gorge. Patrick saw headlights, and, to his surprise, two vehicles. One was a passenger car and the other a minivan, neither suited for this. Patrick watched them swerve and slide, their headlights raking left and right. His first thought was that they were trying to outrun the storm and had gotten very lost. Then he recognized the car as it eased to a stop.

The lights went off and Iris Cash jumped out and hustled around to the trunk and threw it open. Natalie and Mary Ann spilled out and they all took up shovels. Iris slammed the trunk shut and the three women, buried in rain gear and using their shovels as staffs, came sidestepping down the hill toward them. The van picked its way along the high road and stopped well short of Iris’s car. Evelyn Anders and her husband clambered out, shovels at the ready, and followed Iris down the slope.

Patrick said nothing as a white crew cab pickup came across the ridge from the opposite direction. He recognized the logo on the door. The driver motored along at some speed, keeping the truck flush to the road with smooth corrections of the wheel. A moment later Lew Boardman climbed out and looked down and pulled a shovel from the truck bed. Two more men piled out and they found shovels, too. A moment later they were bracing themselves down the slope. “Well,” said Caroline. “Archie’s God might have totally forgotten us, but our friends and neighbors haven’t.”

Patrick, in some amazement, watched the little platoon moving toward them. When he dropped to the ground it was solid enough to stand on and when he looked up at Iris he could see her clearly. The rain lessened and he heard the faint cadence of her breathing as she hurried slipping and sliding down the slope toward him.

Just after sunrise Patrick was readying his boat at the Glorietta Bay launch. I’d Rather Be was an aged fourteen-foot aluminum skiff with a dependable Honda engine and an outdated Lowrance fish finder. His hours were complete, his license issued, his insurance current. He could guide two anglers. Salimony had kicked in five hundred and twenty dollars toward the boat and Messina four hundred and forty more — self-imposed fines for the rumble in Iris’s home. They’d helped him shake her down and rebuild the Honda and now she was sound.

The late March morning was cold, with wispy white clouds circling in from the northwest. Rain tonight, he thought, and a shiver wavered down his back. He was nervous enough as it was this morning. He checked the radio and the life preservers, the lunches, and the electric motor. Checked them again. The seat pads were new and had set him back nearly a hundred dollars, but he’d saved five times that by refinishing the casting decks himself. I’d Rather Be reminded Patrick of his older dog, Jack — youth gone but still some good years left ahead. Like Jack, I’d Rather Be was optimistic and can-do.

He sat in the captain’s chair and strung up the extra rods with fresh leader and flies. Ted was more present with water, boats, and fish. Patrick tried hard to let only the good memories squeeze in, and sometimes this worked. Sometimes he believed that he had done right by Ted. He told himself that he had helped Ted accomplish his one big thing, the thing he would be remembered for, and that Ted had made the world a small fraction better by this final act. Patrick also told himself that helping Ted be remembered for acting on his own was the best small dignity Patrick could give him. But sometimes he didn’t believe any of that at all. Sometimes he felt that he had never known or loved his brother fully. And became his murderer. And let Ted take the blame, thereby acquitting himself. At night his dreams broke him down and in his waking hours Patrick put himself back together.

Sangin still ran through everything he did, just more quietly. He flinched less, saw fewer ghosts, remembered less ugliness. But the only time he was really free of Sangin was when he was fishing or with Iris, or lost in thoughts of his boyhood, which, having ended at age seventeen, now seemed magical and important.

Sangin and Ted. Ted and Sangin.

The difference is Sangin meant nothing to you and Ted meant everything. Family was why you served. Family past and family present and maybe family future. And your own small glory: be a man. Get some.

His phone throbbed in his pocket and he braced himself for a last-minute cancellation.

“You’re working I trust,” said his father.

“Yep.”

“Rain tomorrow. A piddling half-inch.”

“Did you blade that one track on the north side?”

“Pat, listen to this. I woke up way before the sun this morning, like I always do. I got coffee, checked the plumbing, and the computer news. Soon as there was light I went out to the groves and did the standard drive through. You will not believe what I found there, Pat. You will not.”

Patrick checked his watch. “You better tell me soon because my sports just got here.”

“ Life. I saw life in the trees that the good lord and his mud bath left us with. Of course, that’s only half of the trees I had before, but I’m pleased to still own that half, free and clear. Green on most of them, Pat, budding out and more to come! We can make it through this year cashing out the last of the investments, just barely. Then we pray for no late frost or high winds in early fall — neither of which would surprise me, given my reputation upstairs. And now the Farm Credit Bank will loan against my forty acres of life, believe me. My trees are going to get us through. Your mother, of course, is pleased. Got up early and dressed herself this morning very carefully, like she used to. She’s starting to seem like... Caroline again. I’ve won, Patrick. I have won! ”

And his father was starting to seem like Archie again, too, thought Patrick. The months of darkness were beginning to admit light. “I’m off to work, Pop.”

“You and Iris on for dinner Saturday?”

“We’ll be there.”

“Fresh fish would be nice. Catch a big one for your mother and brother.”

The two men came down the dock bedecked in new fly-fishing gear — boots and waders and belts and vests — none of which they would even need on the boat. But what was wrong with that? Patrick guessed each at roughly twice his age. They walked fast, talking and laughing as good friends do. Patrick saw the glimmer of the rods in the new sunlight and identified their high-end makers by color and sheen. The reels were shiny new and the lines were rigged for river trout.

First timers, he thought, just like me. Love is what you do.

He offered his hand and welcomed aboard the first customers of his life.

Many thanks to Fallbrook, my adopted hometown, for bringing me so much of this story without my even asking.

Thanks to Lance Corporal Tristen Chunn, who fought with the Third Battalion, Fifth Regiment of the Marines in Sangin, Afghanistan, and lived to tell about it.

And to Staff Sergeant Scott Meily, who did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine, and was especially thoughtful and articulate about combat and its consequences.

Of great help to me were Barbara Giberson and Sandra Jensen of the Camp Pendleton libraries. They had not only some fantastic resource books, but some very pointed and poignant stories of their own. Thanks for showing me around Pendleton.

Special thanks to author, Kit-Bacon-Gressitt for making the introductions.

Gail Chatfield and John Maki run the terrific Veterans’ Writing Group of San Diego. Thanks for having me to your meetings. Keep your fingers to the keyboards, servicemen and — women. We need your stories.