Karen Smith - The Bracelet

While Luis and Tom moved the coffee table into the middle of the room, Brady lifted the cushions from the sofa and positioned them around it. Luis took out three packs of Lucky Strikes and tossed then onto the coffee table next to the game. “My contribution.”

Brady produced a bottle of Burgundy from a paper sack he’d carried in and set it on the counter in the narrow kitchen. Laura had never been to a party like this, with a lava lamp glowing blue-green on top of the TV console, smoke filling the room and scents of wine and whiskey wafting up from juice glasses. She tucked her legs under her on the cushion and felt really grown up for the first time. While Luis strummed his guitar, Tom and Brady talked about the courses they’d enrolled in, the ones they’d hated and the ones they’d liked. Jack told funny stories about how picky some of the customers at the shoe store were. The guys reminisced about their high-school days.

At a lull in the conversation, Brady leaned close to her. “I might have met you in high school if you’d stayed in Catholic school.”

“My aunt didn’t intend to pay anything extra to send me there.”

When they started the game, Brady rolled the dice and moved his marker. The square said All had to take a drink. They did. The talking and playing went on as the sun set and traffic noises outside the open windows became quieter.

After she’d downed two glasses of wine, Laura switched to soda. Jack, Luis and Tom started mixing more ginger ale into their bourbon. But she noticed Brady wasn’t diluting his. At some point, pink-elephant cards from the game forgotten, Jack flipped on a transistor radio and they listened to the Saturday-night countdown. The Beatles’ “Get Back” pounded through the room.

By midnight, Laura realized Brady and his friends had talked about absolutely everything except the thousand-pound gorilla in the room. None of them had mentioned the war. None of them had mentioned friends who hadn’t come home. None of them had mentioned that Brady, Tom and Luis would be drafted into service for their country after they graduated. It was almost one in the morning when Luis and Tom left. As Brady stood, he wasn’t quite steady on his feet.

“If you two would like some privacy, you can have my bedroom. I can bunk on the couch,” Jack told them.

Since Laura had worked at the Bon Ton until five, she and Brady hadn’t had any time alone. Tomorrow his family was going to have dinner with his uncle, then he’d be leaving to return to school. She wouldn’t see him again until next weekend.

“Why don’t we take him up on his offer for a little while,” Brady suggested. “I shouldn’t drive yet. We can leave when my head clears.”

She wasn’t sure what her aunt would say if she came home in the wee hours of the morning, but right now she didn’t care. Being with Brady was more important than anything else.

“All right. Let’s stay,” she agreed.

Ten minutes later, they were lying on top of Jack’s cotton spread, breathing in sweaty socks, Aqua Velva and smoke that had drifted in from the living room. The room was black except for the glare of the street lamps battling against the rolled-down shades.

Brady lay on his side, his muscled arm resting across her waist. He kissed her longingly, deeply, passionately.

Afterward, he brushed his thumb along her hairline. “So what did you think of everybody?”

Still reeling from the effects of his kiss, she didn’t filter her thoughts. “You have good friends, but I’m not sure you should have brought me along tonight.”

“Why not?”

They’d kicked off their shoes, and Brady’s stockinged foot rested against her nylon-clad one. “Because none of you talked about what was on your minds.”

“Sure we did. We talked for hours.”

Their body heat, Brady’s face so close to hers, his scent and pure maleness tempted her to kiss him instead of talking to him. But she spoke her mind anyway. “You didn’t talk about the draft, or about you and Luis and Tom going to basic training in a few weeks. Or about your friends who are there now and what’s happening.”

Brady shifted away from her, rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “Damn it, Laura, not everything’s about the war. What did you think we should do? Analyze the last news report? Talk about how we’re giving up real life for the next two years? Share notes on why our mothers cry because they don’t want us to go? What good would any of that do?”

Brady had never been angry with her, never shut her out, never turned away. She suspected what was at the bottom of it all.

Although his long, hard body was tense and rigid, she turned into his shoulder, laid her head against his arm, hugged him as best she could. “I know sometimes when you get really quiet, you’re thinking about it,” she said softly. “I imagine when you’re lying in bed at night, you can’t get to sleep because pictures are going through your head—pictures from TV and stories you’ve heard. You don’t have to hide what you’re thinking or feeling from me, Brady.”

His body was so still, so stiff, she couldn’t even feel him breathing. She wished there was a little more light in the room and fewer shadows. She wished she could see him.

Finally she felt his breath. It was fast and shallow. She raised her hand to his face, and he suddenly turned away from her. But not before she felt the wetness. Not before she realized there had been tears on his cheeks.

She held on tighter. “Tell me,” she whispered into his neck.

He just shook his head and mumbled, “I had too much to drink.”

She guessed why that was so. “Nothing you say is going to change the way I feel about you.”

His shirt was damp from their combined body heat. Still staring at the wall instead of at her, he kept his voice so low she had to strain to hear.

“In the daytime, I think about our reasons for being in Vietnam and I know I have to do my part. I think about how proud my parents will be when they see me in a uniform. I think about learning skills I don’t have now. I think about toughening up so I can really face the world when I get back. But at night—At night I think about Bill’s leg being blown off. I think about the guys who haven’t come home. I think about the swamps and a strange country, living in God-knows-what conditions.” Without warning, he faced her. “Most of all at night, I think about dying. Since I met you, I think about that a lot and I get so damn scared.”

He wasn’t touching her and she realized he expected her to move away, either to turn away in disgust or to leave him with his misery. She wasn’t about to do either.

Winding her arms around his neck, she felt her own voice break when she admitted, “I’m scared, too.”

As they held each other, she knew that what had just happened between them was more intimate than making love.

“Mom. Mom?” Sean asked. His voice seemed to come from very far away.

She focused once again on her son. “Yes, honey. I was remembering.”

“Remembering what? What Dad was like?”

“I often wonder if children ever really know their parents,” she admitted with a sad smile. “I mean, we’re people, too, and we had lives before you were born. Believe it or not, we had the same struggles you do.”

“Not Dad. He never had to struggle with anything.” Sean’s voice was almost bitter.

If only you knew, she mused, and then realized maybe it was time Sean did know. Not everything. Lots of things Brady needed to tell him. But she could reveal bits and pieces that Brady would never tell him. Brady was a proud man. Brady wanted his son to always see him as strong, maybe even as invincible. Her, too, for that matter. But she knew better. She knew he was human just as she was, with flaws and needs, wants and desires that sometimes got them into trouble and other times made life worth living.