Some tears a person has to cry for themselves. When she was able to talk again, she read the last page aloud. "If anyone ever finds this and I am not here," her father had written, "please know I wrote this down because I was not brave enough to take it to the police while I was alive. The police in this county belong to him. I do not know who to trust, but my Delia is brave.
My Delia is braver than her old father. And if she finds this, she will know what to do. And Delia, baby, if you are reading this, I love you. I love your brother. Take care of each other and know that your old man died trying to leave this world a little cleaner than he found it.
Daddy." Delia folded the pages. She set them on the Bible. She closed her eyes. "Wade."
"Ma'am." "What do we do?" "Miss Brennan, tomorrow night Carl Weathers is coming to Roz's with a written statement about everything he knows. Doc has a friend at the Bureau for already standing by and Donny Ray's 7 days run out Monday at sundown. We are going to let him come.
We are going to be ready. You are going to be safe. Your brother is going to be safe. And when this is done, Donny Ray Brennan is going to prison for the rest of his life for what he did to your father and that girl in Cedar Rapids." Ezra said quiet, "I want to be there."
Wade turned to him. "Son." "Don't son me, Gunny. I am a Marine. This is my family.
I want to be there. I will be there. You can put me in a corner. You can put me behind a counter. But I will be there."
Wade looked at him a long moment and then he nodded. "Corporal, you will be there." Doc Hollister came by the house Thursday night. He had his medic bag. He had a notebook.
He had the kind eyes of a man who had patched up boys younger than Ezra in three different deserts. "Marine, sir, yeah." "Corpsman." They shook hands. Doc sat down at the kitchen table.
He spread a pharmacy bag, four prescription bottles. "Corporal, I took the liberty of pulling up your VA chart. I hope you will forgive me." "How did you pull up my chart?" "Son, I have been doing this for 40 years.
You do not want to know how. You want to know what I learned. All right. You are on three medications that are fighting each other. You are on a fourth medication at twice the dose you should be at.
Your sleep is bad because two of these pills are keeping you awake at 3:00 in the morning and one of them is keeping you from dreaming at all, which is worse. I am not going to tell you to change anything without talking to your doctor. But tomorrow morning I'm going to drive you to my friend in Cedar Rapids who runs the Veterans Clinic there. He will spend 2 hours with you. He will listen.
He will fix what I cannot fix from a notebook. Is that a deal?" Ezra stared at him. "Why are you doing this?" Doc smiled a small smile.
"Because you are a Marine, son, and because once upon a time, a long time ago, a 20-year-old corpsman named Doc Hollister got pulled out of a burning Humvee by a Gunny Sergeant with lake water eyes. And I have spent 40 years trying to pay that back. And tonight you are the way I pay it back. Is that a deal?" Ezra closed his eyes.
"Yes, Corpsman, that is a deal." That evening Delia cooked dinner. She made pot roast, potatoes, green beans from a jar she had canned in August, biscuits. She set three places at the table. Wade ate two plates.
He did not apologize for it. Ezra ate more than he had eaten in a year. He told a story about his platoon sergeant in Kandahar, a dumb funny story about a goat, and he laughed when he told it and Delia heard a sound she had not heard since 2011. Her brother's laugh. She turned toward the sink and held a dish towel to her face so they would not see her cry.
Wade saw anyway. He did not say anything. Some tears a person has to cry in private. After dinner, Wade helped her with the dishes. Just stood next to her at the sink drying.
Two old hands and two younger hands working quiet. "Wade." "Ma'am." "I read some of your wife's Bible last night." "I know.
I saw the marker was moved." "She wrote in the margins." "She did." "Next to the part in Romans about all things working together for good she wrote even this, 'Lord, even this.'" Wade stopped drying. "She wrote that the day our son died."
"I'm sorry, Wade." He was quiet. "Ma'am, I have carried my son's death for 40 years like a stone around my neck. I have blamed God for it. I have blamed myself for it.
I have never once in 40 years been able to say those three words the way my Mary said them." "Which three?" "Even this, Lord." He set the dish towel down. "But I am starting to think I might learn how."
Monday came in gray. The farmer had been right. The wind had turned overnight. The sky was the color of old pewter. A thin rain started just before dawn and did not know whether it wanted to be rain or sleet.
Delia was up at 4:30. She had not slept. She sat at the kitchen table in her robe and she drank three cups of coffee and she read the same passage from Mary Caldwell's Bible four times. "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." She did not feel brave.
She felt tired. But she got up at 5:15 and she got dressed in her waitress uniform like any other Monday and she went upstairs and kissed her brother on the forehead while he was sleeping and she whispered, "Ez, I love you. Whatever happens today, I love you." Ezra's eyes opened. "D."
"Yeah." "I love you, too." "You remember the plan?" "I remember." "You remember to do exactly what Wade says."
"I remember." "Ez, if something happens to me today, don't Ez, don't, D. We are coming home together tonight, both of us. That is the plan. That is the only plan there is."
She looked at him a long moment, then she nodded. She kissed him again. She went downstairs. She put on her coat. She opened the front door.
Doc Hollister was on the porch in a brown barn coat drinking coffee from a thermos. "Morning, ma'am." "Morning, Doc." "Your chariot awaits." She walked with him out to the truck.