The Return Read online

  “So you’re a city boy.”

  “I beg to differ,” I protested. “I’m from the suburbs.”

  Her lips turned up slightly at the corners, but I couldn’t read the intent behind it.

  “What I don’t understand is why you went to the Naval Academy. If you were such a brilliant student, I mean, and were accepted at Yale and Georgetown?”

  Brilliant? Did I actually use that word earlier?

  “I wanted to prove to myself that I could make it without my parents’ help. Financially, I mean.”

  “But didn’t you say they were rich?”

  Oh, yeah. I vaguely remember saying that, too.

  “Well-to-do, I should have said.”

  “So it was a pride thing?”

  “And service to our country.”

  She nodded slightly, her eyes never leaving mine. “Good.” Almost as an afterthought, she added, “There are a lot of active duty military in the area, as you probably know. Cherry Point, Camp Lejeune…many of them have spent time in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

  I nodded. “When I was posted overseas, I worked with doctors and nurses from every region of the country, in all sorts of specialties, and I learned a ton from them. While it lasted, anyway. And we did a lot of good, too. Most of our work was with locals—many of them had never been seen by a doctor before the hospital opened.”

  She seemed to consider my words. A chorus of crickets sounded in the silence before I heard her voice again.

  “I don’t know that I could have done what you did.”

  I tilted my head. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Experiencing the horrors of war every single day. And knowing there are some people who are beyond your power to help. I don’t think I would be able to handle something like that. Not in the long run, anyway.”

  As she spoke, I had the impression she was sharing something personal, though I’d heard the same thing from others before, in regard to both the military and medicine in general. “I’m sure you’ve seen some terrible things as a deputy.”

  “I have.”

  “And yet you still do it.”

  “Yes,” she said. “And sometimes I wonder how long I’ll be able to continue. There are times when I fantasize about opening a flower shop or something like that.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Who knows? Maybe one day I will.”

  Again, she grew quiet. Sensing her distraction, I broke her reverie with a lighthearted prompt.

  “Since you won’t give me a rundown of what’s new in town, at least tell me what your favorite place is?”

  “Oh…I don’t go out that much,” she demurred. “Except for the farmers’ market downtown. It’s open Saturday mornings. But if you’re trying to find some excellent honey, you’ll probably be out of luck.”

  “I’m sure my grandfather still has plenty.”

  “You don’t know for sure?”

  “There are a few jars in the cupboard, but I haven’t checked the honey shed yet. I’ve been too busy fixing up the place. I mean, a palace like this doesn’t just happen by accident.”

  This time she smiled, if a tad reluctantly. She nodded toward the dock. “Have you gone out in the boat yet?”

  I haven’t yet mentioned the boat, but suffice it to say that it was a lot like the house, only in worse condition. Even calling it a boat was somewhat generous, because it looked less like a boat than an outhouse and two vinyl recliners, all bolted to a floating platform. My grandfather built it using discarded oil drums and lumber of varying sizes—along with whatever else he could find—and when he wasn’t checking on the bees, he was always tinkering with it.

  “Not yet. I’m not sure the engine even works.”

  “I know it was working last summer, because Carl told me. It’s kind of a hard boat to miss and your grandfather loved to take it out. People take photos of it whenever they see it.”

  “It is a bit eccentric, isn’t it?”

  “It suited him, though.”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “It did.”

  She sighed and stood. “I really should be going. I’ve got some things to do at home. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Benson.”

  Mr. Benson? I had hoped we’d moved beyond that, but I guess not. She started down the steps, reaching the bottom in the same instant my brain finally kicked back into gear.

  “You don’t have to walk around the back and side of the house. You can go through to the front door if it’s easier.”

  “Thank you, but I’ll just retrace my steps. Have a good evening.”

  “You too. And it was nice meeting you, Natalie.”

  She raised an eyebrow before turning away; with a couple of quick steps, she vanished from sight. After a few beats, I heard a door slam in the driveway and her vehicle start up. All of which left me contemplating the intriguing Natalie Masterson. That she was beautiful, anyone would notice, but what I found interesting about her was how little she’d told me about herself.

  It’s been said that women are the mysterious sex, and even now, my first inclination is to laugh when a guy I’m talking to says he understands what makes women tick. I was flummoxed by the one-sided nature of the conversation. I’d told her a lot about myself but had learned almost nothing about her.

  I did, however, have a hunch that I would see her again, if only because I knew just where I might find her.

  Chapter 3

  In the morning I went for a run, something I hadn’t been consistent about since arriving in town. I would tell myself that I had more important things to do—like spreading mothballs to keep snakes away—but the simple truth is that I don’t always enjoy exercising. I know all the benefits—I’m a doctor, remember?—but unless I was chasing or dribbling a soccer ball, running always seemed kind of silly to me.

  But I did it. Six miles at a steady pace; when I finished, I did a hundred push-ups and sit-ups. After a quick shower and a bite to eat, I was ready to face the day. Of course, since I technically had no real responsibilities, I decided on another quick survey of the house to check if anything was missing. Which was something of an impossible task, since I hadn’t known what had been in the house when he’d left town, and I’d already cleaned out the place. In the closet, I spotted the shotgun again and found the shells; there was no other ammunition, which led me to believe there’d been no other weapons. In a box under the bed in the guest room, however, I discovered a wad of cash wrapped in a rubber band, beneath a thick envelope that held various documents and photographs of my grandmother’s—social security card, medical records concerning her epilepsy, things like that. It wasn’t a lot of money—enough for a couple of fancy dinners maybe—but definitely enough to entice someone who might want money for drugs or booze. Had someone been there, it would have been stolen, right? Which meant that the place had likely remained unoccupied.

  And yet the door had been broken…

  I shook my head. Either way, even if someone had been there, they were long gone by now, so I put it out of my mind and decided to hit the books on the back porch for a while. Unfortunately they weren’t exactly page-turners, and after a couple of hours, I’d had enough. On the plus side, no snakes appeared, which made me wonder whether Callie had known what she was talking about.

  I’ll admit that my mind wandered at times toward the lovely Natalie Masterson. She was an enigma, and I kept picturing the amused flicker I saw in her eyes as I related my slightly embellished history. But thinking about my conversation with Natalie also reminded me of the bees and the boat, which turned my thoughts to my grandfather, and it brought to mind my last visit here. At the time, I’d been a resident and while others were heading off to the Caribbean or Cancun for well-deserved respites, I made the drive from Baltimore to New Bern, seeking the comfort and abiding love that I had always sought from him as a child. He was his own cup of tea—the boat was a good example of his quirkiness—but he had limitless room in his heart for unsheltered souls. He was the kin
d of guy who’d feed whatever strays happened to drift onto his property; he’d set out a line of bowls near the barn, and various dogs from God knows where would begin showing up. He named the ones that stuck around after cars…As a kid, I played fetch with dogs named Cadillac, Edsel, or Ford, Chevy and Pinto. Oddly, he also named one Winnebago—it was a tiny thing, some sort of terrier—and when I asked him why, he winked and declared, “Look at the size of him!”

  In his working life, he’d been employed at the mill, turning logs into usable lumber. Like me, he finished his life with fewer fingers than when he started; unlike me, it didn’t cause his career to come crashing to an end. He used to tell me that unless a man has lost a finger on the job, it wasn’t a real job, which makes the idea that he raised my mother—a sophisticated, ambitious, cerebral woman if there ever was one—rather astounding. When I was younger, I used to suspect my mother had been adopted, but as I matured I eventually came to recognize that they shared an innate optimism and decency that informed everything they did.

  My grandfather hadn’t had an easy time after my grandmother had died. I don’t remember her at all, as I was still toddling around in diapers the only time we met. But I can recall my mom emphasizing that it was important to visit him, so that he wasn’t always alone. For my grandfather, there was only one woman; he’d loved once and for all, right up until an epileptic seizure took her life. There’s still a photograph of her on the wall of the bedroom, and after moving in, I couldn’t imagine taking it down, even though I never knew her. That she was my grandfather’s North Star was more than enough reason to keep it hanging exactly where it was

  But it was odd being at the house. It felt empty without my grandfather and wandering into the barn deepened the feeling of loss. It had the same cluttered atmosphere as the house I’d inherited. Inside were not only mothballs and a wide assortment of tools, but an old tractor, numerous engine parts, bags of sand, pickaxes, shovels, a rusting bicycle, an Army helmet, a cot and blanket that looked as though someone had actually slept there, and countless remnants of a lifetime of collecting things. I sometimes wondered whether my grandfather had ever thrown anything away, but close inspection revealed no trash, ancient magazines, newspapers, or debris that belonged in a garbage can; there were only items that he felt he might one day need for whatever project he was working on.

  On the night I received the call from the hospital, I wasn’t doing much of anything. There was no reason I couldn’t have visited him that week, or a month or even a year earlier. Or even, I knew, when I’d been at my very worst. He’d never been a man to judge, and even less likely when it came to the effects of war on a person. At twenty he’d been shipped to North Africa; in the years that followed he’d fought in Italy, France, and then Germany. He’d been wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, only to return to his unit not long after the Army crossed the Rhine. I knew nothing about any of it from him, since he never spoke about the war. My mom mentioned it, though, and a few days after my arrival here, I discovered the records, along with his Purple Heart and various service medals.

  According to my mom, he got interested in bees not long after he built the house. Back then, there’d been a farm up the road and my grandfather had worked there, before getting a job at the mill. The farmer had beehives but didn’t like tending to them. My grandfather was put on the task. Since he knew nothing about beekeeping, he checked out a book from the library and eventually learned the rest on his own. To him, they represented an almost perfect species, and he’d hold forth on the subject to anyone who would listen.

  I’m sure he would have told the doctors and nurses at the hospital in Easley about them if he’d had the chance. But he didn’t. As soon as I got the call, I booked a flight to Greenville, South Carolina, via Charlotte. There, I rented a car and sped down the highway; despite all that, I arrived nearly eighteen hours after I’d heard what happened. By then, he’d been in the ICU for more than three days. It had taken that long to learn my name; the stroke first left him unconscious, and then largely unable to speak. The entire right side of his body was paralyzed, the left side only slightly better. As soon as I entered the ICU, I took note of the readings on the various monitors and after scanning the chart, I knew he didn’t have much longer to live.

  The bed seemed to dwarf him. I know it’s a cliché—that this is something that practically everyone says—but in his case, it was true. He’d lost a lot of weight since I’d seen him last, and the slack, lopsided expression on his face, even as he slept, nearly broke my heart. I took a seat near the bed and reached for his hand; it felt bony and brittle, birdlike, and I felt my throat lock up. All at once, I hated myself for not getting there sooner; I hated myself for staying away for so long. For a long time, the only movement I saw was the labored rise and fall of his chest.

  I talked to him, even though I wasn’t sure if he heard me. Quite a bit, if I remember correctly—making up for all the intervening years when I’d been too wrapped up in my own struggles to visit him. I told him about the explosion in Kandahar, and the trauma I experienced in the aftermath. I told him about Sandra—my most recent girlfriend—and our breakup. I told him that I was planning to begin another residency. And I thanked him, once again, for simply being there—as my real family, even if I’d taken him for granted at times—both before and after the death of my parents.

  One of the nurses informed me that since his arrival, the only words he’d spoken were my name and Pensacola, which was how they were finally able to track me down. They told me that he’d been able to open his eyes and had tried to speak on occasion, only to rasp out unintelligible sounds. Still other times, he’d stared at them in bewilderment, as though he hadn’t known where or even who he was.

  I was upset and worried, but also confused. Why was he here, in Easley, South Carolina? How had he gotten here? In all the time I’d known him, he’d never traveled as far west as Raleigh, and he’d come to Alexandria only once. After the war, and until just a few days earlier, I was fairly certain he hadn’t left the county in years. But Easley was a long way from New Bern. Six or seven hours on the interstate, maybe more, depending on traffic. At the time, my grandfather was ninety-one years old; where had he been going?

  I would have suspected Alzheimer’s, except for the fact that in his letters, he’d seemed as lucid and thoughtful as ever. He’d always been good at that—writing letters to me—and while I answered a few of them, I usually ended up phoning him after receiving one of his missives. It was easier for me, and I can be lazy about some things, like putting pen to paper; I’m not proud of it, but that’s who I am. On the phone he was as clearheaded as ever. Older, of course, and maybe taking a bit longer to find the word he wanted, but certainly nothing that would indicate dementia severe enough to prompt a journey to a place he’d never mentioned before.

  But staring at him as he lay unconscious made me wonder whether I was wrong about all of it. In the late-afternoon light, his skin took on a grayish pallor; by the evening, his breathing sounded painful. Though visiting hours were over, the staff at the hospital didn’t kick me out. I’m not sure why—perhaps because I was a physician, or because they could tell how much I cared for him. As nightfall came and went, I continued to sit with him, holding his hand and talking to him the entire time.

  By morning, I was exhausted. One of the nurses brought me coffee, reminding me despite my exhaustion that there are good people everywhere. My grandfather’s physician came by on his rounds; I could tell by his expression after checking my grandfather that he was thinking the same thing I was: The kind, old man was entering the final stages of his life. Maybe hours left, maybe a day, but not much more than that.

  It was around noon on that last day that my grandfather shifted slightly in his bed, his eyes fluttering halfway open. As he attempted to focus, I noticed the same confusion the nurses had described, and I leaned closer to his bed, squeezing his hand.

  “Hey, Grandpa, I’m here. Can you hear me?”


  He turned his head, only a little, but as much as he could.

  “It’s me, Trevor. You’re in the hospital.”

  He blinked slowly. “Tre…vor.”

  “Yeah, Grandpa, it’s me. I came as soon as I heard. Where were you going?”

  I felt him squeeze my hand.

  “Help…care…and…”

  “Of course,” I said. “They’re taking good care of you.”

  “If…you…can…”

  Each word croaked out between ragged breaths.

  “Collapsed…”

  “Yes, Grandpa. You had a stroke.” As I said it, I wondered if he’d been more ill than I suspected; in that same instant, I recalled that his wife had had epilepsy.

  “Sick.”

  “You’ll be okay,” I lied. “And we’ll go take care of the bees and take the boat out, okay? Just you and me. It’ll be like old times.”

  “Like…Rose…”

  I squeezed his hand again, hating his confusion, hating that he didn’t know what had happened to him. “Your beautiful bride.”

  “Find…family…”

  I didn’t have the heart to remind him that his wife and daughter had long since passed away, that I was the only family he had left.

  “You’ll see Rose soon,” I promised. “I know how much she loved you. And how much you loved her. She’ll be waiting for you.”

  “Go…to…hell…”

  I froze, wondering if I’d heard him right. If he was attempting some kind of joke, it was one that would be out of character for him. “It’s okay, I’m here,” I repeated.

  “And…run…away.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” I said. “I’m staying right here. I love you,” I said, bringing his wizened hand to my face. His expression softened.

  “Love…you…”

  I could feel the wellspring of tears beginning to form and tried to keep them at bay. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known.”