It’s late and you’re asleep and I’ve spent the past three nights awake and unable to join you. Instead of sleeping, I’ve been thinking and have finally come to some realizations.
I can’t stay here anymore, Amelia; I’m suffocating in this town, living a stranger’s life. I haven’t been honest with things, been letting too many things move past me or over me or through me, and I’m done with that now. I’m through.
I don’t expect you to understand, because there are a lot of things I can’t explain. I could try to, but I think that it would come out all wrong, and in the end, you would understand me less than if I had said nothing. And I’ve hurt you enough as is.
Just know that there are worse things a war can do than shoot a man full of holes. I lost my way once in Belgium, somewhere in Bastogne in the woods outside of Foy, on a day like today. I think some part of me is still buried under the snow there, never to come home, and that part of me is the man you loved and the man who loved you back.
There’s no excuse for this, Amelia, I know that. I know that I should just go down the hall and wake you up and tell you what I’m writing – I owe you that and you deserve it – but I’m afraid that somewhere between here and there, I’d lose my nerve.
In the end, all I really mean to say is that I’m truly sorry for all this, Amelia. I hope if you understand anything, you understand that.
Sincerely, Floyd.
1.
The letters used to come from Kokomo every few weeks – every week, in fact, when Floyd was still at Toccoa. Each letter came in a small envelope made of smooth cream-colored paper that smelled faintly of violets and southern wildflowers. It was expensive stationery, Floyd knew that, knew that she had to have saved in order to send him such proper-looking letters, and he loved her for it. Inside would be pages of familiar handwriting – neat, with a kind of feminine simplicity that added tiny flourishes at the ends of all the words.
She told him of life back home – of how some things were moving forward and some things were standing still. He learned about one brother’s promotion and about another’s new truck; he heard about the turnout at the local fair and the rebuilding of an old schoolhouse which had burned down while he was still in training. For the most part she spoke of simple things, making idle conversation with herself as she wrote, and Floyd listened eagerly to every word she sent.
Every letter, no matter what its contents, always ended the same way, and Floyd used to read each paragraph with hesitation, afraid the next line would contain those familiar words, signaling the letter’s close:
My dear Floyd, she would write, you must know by now, but I must say it again – things here in Kokomo are not the same without you, and this place is not home to me when you are so far from it. I pray each day and know that God is looking after you and your men, and that he will send you back to me soon, so that we can find our way home together.
Love always, Amelia.
It’s been months since Floyd Talbert last received a letter from Kokomo and Miss Amelia Brown. Although this used to bother him – used to threaten to break his back and his heart – it hardly crosses his mind nowadays unless he is reminded. Which he rarely is.
If pressed for a reason, Floyd will tell you that it was Bastogne that did it – shell-shocked the very thought of her out of his mind, like so many other unwanted memories.
Beneath the exploding trees of winter, dug deep into the black earth, he had carried her last letter in the breast pocket of his uniform until the ink bled from sweat, and the pages were stained with blood and spent hope.
Floyd spent his days in Belgium fearing the sky, and mourned instead of slept. He changed, and Amelia was forgotten.
3.
The rooms of the hotel have high ceilings, some of which are inset with rosette panels of stained glass depicting mountains and trees and the faces of ever-blooming flowers. The walls are painted light blue – the color of robin eggs in spring – and are ornamented with trim and gold-leafed scrolls. Shelves are set into the walls behind glass, displaying figurines and antique clocks, all made of porcelain as pale as bone. “Don’t let the Captain see ‘em,” Joe Liebgott had joked upon their arrival. He gestured at an expensive-looking statuette and smirked. “Or else they’ll find their way home in Speirs’s footlocker.”
In a place like Austria – full of lush and comfortable beauty – Floyd finds it easier to sleep and to look forward to returning home, though he does not dwell on the kind of life that waits for him there. And although he tries not to think about it, he knows that there are things he will have to unlearn or learn again; things that must be forgotten or remembered or let go of.
Floyd shakes his head sharply and tries not to think about it.
Shifty is there in the borrowed bedroom with him, sitting in front of him at the end of a neatly made bed, unbuttoning the cuffs of his uniform. His tie is already undone and hangs loosely around his neck, slightly skewed. Without looking up, he says in his gentle tone of voice: “You didn’t tell me about your girl.” It takes Floyd slightly off guard, making him shake his head a second time.
“I don’t have a girl, Shifty,” he says.
“But you used to.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” It feels strange to suddenly think about Amelia after all this time – to talk about her, especially to Shifty. Floyd shrugs. “But she’s forgotten about me,” he adds quietly.
A hand pushes Floyd’s shirt open to touch his bare chest; strong, powerful fingers crawl upwards against his skin to find his scars and a mouth follows, leaving tiny wet marks in its wake. When Shifty finally looks up, his open lips are pressed onto the spot where Smith’s bayonet had run Floyd through and Floyd feels the blood rush to the underside of his skin, prickling as it goes. He likes it when Shifty looks at him like this, his dark eyes burning with a gentle, hidden ferocity. “Have you forgotten about her?” he asks quietly, his words tickling Floyd’s ribcage as his breath hitches.
Floyd thinks about this for a moment, already knowing the answer. He tries to remember what it was like to have Amelia touch him and to touch back, to undo the buttons of her shirt and slide his hand inside to feel the smooth skin of her breasts, the round softness of her belly. He tries to recall the smell of her clothes and the perfume of her hair, but all he knows now is the man before him and the feeling of muscle and bone moving tightly beneath warm skin. The smell of soap and shaving cream, of cotton and linen mixed with wood, made sharp by a metal edge.
He looks down at Shifty’s face, his mouth still drifting across Floyd’s torso; he leans forward, pushing Shifty down onto the bed and allowing himself to be pulled after him. He urges a knee in between Shifty’s thighs and the shudder that follows comes from both of them.
“You wanna know the truth?” Floyd asks.
Shifty nods and Floyd moves his knee until Shifty’s thighs fall farther open, his hips rise to meet him. Shifty fumbles with both of their flies as Floyd bends down to taste the skin of his shoulder. He pushes his mouth along the line of Shifty’s neck and feels the pulse quicken there beneath his tongue.
“Tell me,” Shifty mumbles urgently and when they finally kiss, Shifty’s jaw works eagerly as his teeth claim.
“Truth is, sometimes,” Floyd confesses, “I can’t even remember her name.”
The corners of Shifty’s mouth tighten against Floyd’s lips as smiles around their kiss. His fingers touch Floyd’s wrist, guiding his fist to move around his cock in a quick and even rhythm.
“Forget about everything,” Shifty says and his words are whispered and urgent. “S’just you and me here on this side of the world,” he adds before asking Floyd to fuck him.
9.
To return home, Floyd rides a ship across the Atlantic. Miss Liberty is still standing in the Harbor when they reach the Hudson, waiting for him with her copper robes pooled at her feet and one arm raised triumphantly in greeting. Floyd smiles at her as the boat glides past into port; his knees are wobbly and unsteady when he finally plants his feet back onto American soil, but he doesn’t care, because he’s made it.
From the pier he heads north to the train station at Midtown, where he says most of his goodbyes, shaking hands with grim reluctance and a tight smile on his face. The men share last jokes and final cigarettes before boarding their trains, some headed south, others west.
He shares a train car with Johnny Martin, who spends most of the ride to Ohio smoking and rereading old letters sent to him by his wife. Instead of bothering him with small talk to break the silence, Floyd decides to leave him alone and, instead, watches from his window as the landscape changes.
New York disappears, giving way to smaller cities and towns – the suburbs rise and fall, tapering off into flat, open fields with farm houses and home-made fences. Floyd is half-asleep when the train grinds to a halt in Columbus and he has to say good bye to Johnny. What follows is more hand shaking and more nodding – more small, quiet words of shared reassurance.
A few hours later, Floyd finds his four brothers waiting for him at the terminal in Indianapolis, standing in a small semi-circle, talking to one another. They’re broad-shouldered working men with dark skin and simple clothes and as Floyd steps off the train with his bag thrown over his shoulder, they all cheer a loud greeting with their low, gravelly voices. They tell him he looks older and thinner but his smile is still the same and they’re glad to finally have him back. Meaty hands clap him on the shoulder and touch the buttons and bars and stripes of his uniform.
They all talk loudly, each vying for his attention, when one eventually turns to him with a strange seriousness in his expression. “There’s someone else here to see you, Floyd,” he says, and the others go quiet. His brother gestures over his shoulder when Floyd’s brow furrows.
“She’s waiting in the truck,” he adds.
5.
The sun is setting over Zell Am See. Shadows shift across the bedroom as the sun begins to disappear behind the hills that overlook the lake. The fading evening light slips across the sheets, moving in and out of the walls’ beveled corners; it slides across the sweat-slick surface of Shifty’s back as Floyd digs his fingers deep into the muscle of his hips and tastes the salt on Shifty’s skin.
“You and me,” Shifty whispers hoarsely, his breath ragged and broken, his forehead pressed against the smooth wood of the tall headboard. His hand is in between his legs, tugging roughly as his own erection as Floyd hips pound out a wet, heavy rhythm against the back of his thighs. “S’just you and me here, Floyd,” he says again.
Floyd hears this over the tiny growl caught in his throat and believes it. Pushing harder, he drags his tongue along the bent curve of Shifty’s spine and waits for the rest of the world to fall away.
10.
The six of them pile into Dale’s truck for the ride back to Kokomo – three in the front, three in the back – and Floyd, for once, is glad that he’s the slightest of his brothers, since it gives him a little more room to breathe in the backseat. He’s used to wearing his uniform in such warm weather, but the close quarters make him uncomfortable in it. Amelia is beside him pressed tightly against his side, her face turned away from him as she stares distantly out the open window.
A strand of her hair comes loose and Floyd watches silently as it flutters in the wind, brushing against her cheek. Beyond her, the hills roll and the road signs pass, the one smeared upon the other in greens and yellows. He moves carefully to tuck the stray tendril behind her ear and the motion awakes some distant fondness for her inside of him, like dust stirring from untouched sheets.
“I didn’t think that you’d come.”
Amelia smiles, a sadness in her eyes. “Of course I would, Floyd.”
Reflexively, without thinking, he says: “You stopped writing.”
It takes a while for Amelia to formulate an answer to that, and Floyd can see each word form in her mind and her mouth before it passes her lips cautiously. “I was afraid of what you’d write back,” she says slowly. “I didn’t want to know what you’d seen.”
These words, despite all of Amelia’s gentleness, cause a quick and sudden frustration to flare up in Floyd. It’s the result of too many nights on the line waiting for letters that never came, too many days spent wondering what he had done wrong – what he had become – to drive his sweetheart to fall so suddenly silent after two years of diligent writing. He suddenly wants to tell her about Landsberg and Market Garden, wants to grab her by both shoulders and shake the very truth of his past into her to watch the slow and horrible realization of what he has gone through spread across her face. He wants her to know about Shifty and Austria and the things they did in a room in Germany, about how he burned all her letters in a Belgian church because he couldn’t stand to have them any more and would have rather carried around the bodies of the dead than the weight of her abandonment.
However, instead of saying any of this, Floyd bites the inside of his cheek, hard enough to break the tender skin. He takes a tempered breath to keep himself from reeling into anger. “Amelia,” he says and her name is like an accusation. His mouth fills with the taste of rust and metal. “It’s not possible for you to know what I’ve seen.”
She opens her mouth to answer, hurt crawling into her eyes, but before she can speak someone else is saying, “that’s all behind you now, Floyd.” It’s one of his brothers, looking over his shoulder at the both of them from the front seat, and Floyd is suddenly aware of how they have all been watching and listening, all waiting to intervene. He can feel how wary they are of him, how little of his frustration they are capable of understanding. The soft pads of Amelia’s fingers brush the back of his hand.
“This...” she says quietly, hesitantly. “This is your life.”
She moves towards him to offer a kiss as an apology and instead of fighting it, Floyd accepts it. He lets it wash over him, as sweet and harmless as summer rain. Outside the moving truck, the Indiana landscape is bathed in a golden hopefulness that he imagines he can taste on Amelia’s lips.
Floyd keeps his eyes open as Amelia kisses his again, more longingly this time. Her eyelids flutter when he parts his lips, and Floyd wonders if she can taste the blood inside his mouth.
4.
Their first time was in Berchtesgaden, in one of the upper rooms of the hotel Major Winters had commandeered before Easy took the Eagle’s Nest. The set-up there had been so lavish and palatial, that even Austria with all of its stained glass and sculpted trim could not compare to the opulent gold-framed mirrors and dark-stained wood of Bavaria.
It had been Shifty’s idea to leave the party, and he suggested it to Floyd during the loud, drunken clamber of VE-Day celebrations as the other men cheered and swore and stole heavy swigs from one another’s drinks. A slow smile crawled onto Shifty’s face, his cheeks flushed with wine and desire, as he leaned forward – dangerously close in the crowded room – and said: “Tonight, Floyd.” His lazy accent was slurred at the edges by too much to drink. “Tonight we can do whatever we want. And I want to celebrate with you.”
One of Shifty’s hands tugged roughly at the unbuttoned collar of Floyd’s uniform, wet eyes wandering up and down his body before rising to meet Floyd’s gaze steadily. “With you,” he said again, more forcefully this time and Floyd understood.
The sounds of glass and revelry and alcohol dissipated behind them with every passing doorway as Floyd led them through the empty hallways of the third floor. The polished brass numbers over the doorframes crawled steadily upwards – even on the right, odd on the left. This part of the building smelled of disuse – stale like old paper and unaired sheets. This surprised Floyd, considering the fact that they’d only been there a day; he wondered how long ago the Germans had left and how much longer it would be before they returned to pillaged pantries and misused beds.
The room they chose was dark and undisturbed, the crimson curtains drawn shut. An elaborate chandelier glowed to life as Floyd switched on the lights and a dim yellowness filled the room, illuminating a canopied bed hung with rich green cloth. Strong arms wrapped around his chest, pulling him backwards towards the bed. Shifty’s lips smiled against the back of his neck.
“Happy VE-Day, Tab,” he said. The sheets were cool beneath Floyd as Shifty urged him to lie back before crawling slowly on top of him. There was a recognition – a knowingness – in Shifty’s eyes that surprised Floyd, making him shiver with expectation.
“You’ve done this before,” he whispered roughly.
Shifty didn’t answer, just looked away with a slight smile and pressed the hard heel of his palm against the crotch of Floyd’s trousers, moving his hand in tight, sharp circles. A faint blush rose in Shifty’s cheeks as he touched him and Floyd whimpered, drunk on the taste of dry champagne and vintage wine that lingered on Shifty’s breath. He had never imagined himself capable of wanting such a thing – never knew that the dark longing he saw in Shifty’s eyes existed somewhere inside him as well – but there it was, wiling him to go further, making him arch off to bed to push into Shifty’s hands, which pulled at his slacks to expose the winged parts of his hips.
Despite all his eagerness, however, the sex they had that evening was careful and difficult for Floyd – full of starts and stops and second guesses, just like the first time with anything. Shifty had showed him what to do, told him how he could be gentle and how he could be rough, but still Floyd had felt uncertain and awkward, making it difficult for him to concentrate.
In the end, Shifty had to use his mouth on Floyd to make him come, and when he did, Floyd whimpered apologies through gritted teeth, saying over and over again, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He touched Shifty afterwards when his apologies ran out, his hands urging and insistent as Shifty pushed his own fingers inside himself.
“S’alright, Floyd,” he murmured, his hair hanging messily in his eyes. The corner of his mouth curled upwards into a sneer as Floyd tightened his fingers around him.
“Harder,” Shifty then said, in a different tone of voice. “Harder,” and began to shudder.
When it was all over and done and Shifty’s breath had begun to even and slow against his neck, Floyd thought about what they had done and how it had felt. He thought about how Shifty had known what to do – Shifty with his steady, certain hands. And Floyd believed in that moment that no matter how much he wanted otherwise, he’d never figure it out – never understand their bodies and how they fit together – drunk or sober or otherwise.
He was wrong.
11.
When people want to know about the war, Floyd tells them that Holland was pleasant and that Belgium was snowy and unforgettable. England was wet, France cold, and Austria lush and beautiful. He distills his memories down into fundamental truths that lie through omission and simplicity. He whittles the war down into small emotions and palatable adjectives for his brothers and Amelia and strangers to swallow. They listen with wide eyes and intent expressions and nod at all the appropriate places.
Floyd makes it a point not to talk about Germany and what they found in the woods there – how it had smelt and what it had tasted like in the back of his throat.
No one bothers to ask.
2.
It’s only five in the afternoon, and Floyd is already up fifteen dollars and a pack of cigarettes.
He wins another hand and starts to deal as Babe bows out and goes off to troll smokes off one of the younger privates. Johnny, Bull, Luz, and Grant – the cards fan out from Floyd’s hands as he deals, round and round, five cards each. The men toss crumpled dollar bills into the center of the table; the stakes are friendly.
Luz begins to catcall as he picks up his hand and thumbs the cards apart. “Watch out, gentlemen,” he says around the unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. “I think Lady Luck’s playing for Kokomo tonight.”
“Goddamn.” Bull shakes his head slowly as he picks up his cards one by one and passes his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. “M’getting whupped so bad, they’re feeling it back home.”
Johnny groans in agreement from his seat, rolls his eyes and folds without even trying. “What you so happy about?” he asks grumpily and nods towards Grant, who is shuffling his cards lazily, slumped low in his chair. A slow grin spreads onto his face as he prods the dwindling pile of quarters and bills in front of him. He says nothing, but meets Bull’s bet.
“He’s down five bucks, but I owe the bastard twenty,” Floyd says, tossing another dollar into the pot. He’s got a full house, high card jack, and from the looks on the faces around the table, it seems like another hand is in the bag. Luz winces, but raises him fifty cents, and Bull follows Babe’s example by forfeiting his seat to a replacement from Dog Company, young and clean-shaven and eager to lose his money to Easy men.
Life as an occupation force has come as a welcome change after so much time on the front line, and Floyd is glad, along with the rest of the men, to have earned this little bit of paradise here in Austria. PT in the morning, formations and training in the afternoon, evenings full of cards and company and lazy cigarettes. They have a lake to look out onto, a summer sun to warm them, and women with large blonde curls to pass the time with.
Hot showers, hot food, real beds – the lot.
Babe Heffron comes up from behind and claps a hand on Floyd’s back as he leans forward over his shoulder to survey his hand. Wolf whistling, he steals a couple of Floyd’s cigarettes, popping them both between his lips as he searches for his lighter. “You know what they say, Tab,” Babe says, passing a smoke to him once it’s lit. “Lucky at cards, unlucky in love.”
“Oh no,” Luz says from across the table with his brow furrowed with an exaggerated disdain. “Not our man Talbert. Easy’s got a real stallion on its hands, ain’t that right, Floyd? He’s got a sweetheart waiting for him back home, and local ladies lining up and down the block to meet him.” The other men hoot and holler, offer up some colorful commentary.
“Got a head so full of Olgas and Grettas, I don’t know how the man’s got anything left in him to fight the war,” Johnny adds and laughs.
A knot that was not there a minute ago suddenly tightens in Floyd’s stomach. It takes him off-guard and knocks the wind out of him, so much so that he coughs uneasily on a lungful of smoke. Oddly enough, Floyd loses his hand, and the next, and the one after that.
Eventually, he decides to quit while he’s still ahead, and the gets up from his seat saying, “I’m done”. The other men try to talk him out of it in the hopes of winning back their losses, but Floyd says “no thanks, fellas,” and forfeits his remaining cash to Grant, who winks a thank you to him across the table. Perconte offers to take his seat and Luz approves vocally as Floyd makes his way towards the door.
“I was looking forward to getting my hands on your money, Frank,” Luz declares loudly.
When Floyd finally makes it to the doorway, he finds Shifty Powers there waiting for him, hands shoved deep into his pockets, leaning with his head back against the wall. There’s a smile on his face, warm and slightly triumphant.
“Your luck changin’?” Shifty asks quietly.
Floyd nods. “For the worse,” he mumbles quietly before passing Shifty his cigarette. His eyes linger on Shifty’s mouth as he takes a long, thankful drag before exhaling grey smoke out of the edge of his smile.
“C’mon then,” Shifty says, nodding over his shoulder and down the hall. He has a playful suggestiveness in his eyes that Floyd has come to recognize. “I reckon we can find a way to change it back ‘fore night’s through.”
13.
Whenever they make love, Amelia turns off the lamp on the bedside table and keeps her eyes closed as Floyd moves on top of her. She refuses to touch his scars, to acknowledge them in the darkness as they replay intimacies once shared in the past.
One night as they sit up reading, Floyd takes hold of her hand and pushes her fingers beneath his shirt to touch one of the stretches of smooth, glassy skin. She flinches and pulls away and tells him to never do it again.
Something in her voice makes Floyd wince visibly. All of her averted eyes and skirting touches have begun to make him feel like his wounds are something to be ashamed of.
Slowly – but surely – he begins to hate her for it.
6.
The order to report to Speirs’s office comes from a messenger in the morning, just as second platoon is getting ready to head out for PT. There are voices talking to one another inside when Floyd knocks on the frosted glass door, and when the order comes from the other side to enter, Floyd finds Captain Speirs inside. Lieutenant Welsh is there with him, leaning against a row of cabinets and taking small sips from a cup of coffee. Floyd stands at ease in front of the both of them, hand clasped behind his back.
“As you know, Sergeant, tomorrow is D-Day plus 365,” Speirs begins. He’s in ‘official mode’ at the moment – Floyd can tell – so his voice is sharp and terse with a kind of fanatical efficiency. There is a determined distance in his eyes that makes Floyd straighten his spine and tighten his facial expression. “What you may not know is that General Taylor has issued an infantry-wide lottery allowing each company to send one solider home, regardless of points. I have called you here today to inform you of Easy Company’s plan of action for the anniversary.”
“Yes, sir,” Floyd says. In the periphery of his vision, he can see Lieutenant Welsh listening intently, his attention oscillating back and forth between Floyd’s face and Captain Speirs’s.
“We will holding the lottery, as suggested by the General, tomorrow morning after formations, and you will be providing me with the helmet from which to draw the winning ballot.” Floyd nods. “However,” Speirs adds slowly, “there will only be one ballot in the helmet, Sergeant, and it will be soldier number 13066266.”
“Yes, sir.” Floyd can feel Welsh staring at him, searching for something, but he’s not sure what.
“Repeat it back to me, solider,” Speirs says, testing Floyd’s attention.
“13066266, sir.”
Speirs nods. “That’s Sergeant Powers’ number,” he says deliberately. His voice dips upwards slightly at the end of the sentence, making it feel like a question that Floyd has to answer. Speirs studies Floyd’s face carefully for a minute, looking for a reaction or an indication of something. “Just so you know,” he adds nonchalantly, and Floyd feels the muscles around his cheeks twitch involuntarily for a moment. The realization that Shifty is leaving comes sluggishly, reluctantly.
Shifty is going home.
“Yes, sir, Sergeant Powers, sir,” Floyd says. He looks away and out the window behind Speirs’s desk to see the men doing jumping jacks in the courtyard under Grant’s supervision. Floyd can feel the words slowly sinking in – painfully, like a sting of a splinter. As he stands there under the scrutiny of Speirs and Welsh, Floyd can feel his resolve breaking down, making his posture wither. He sets his mouth into a thin, tight line. “Very good, sir,” and nods.
There is a moment’s pause – a collectively held breath – before Speirs dismisses him. “That’ll be all, Sergeant,” he says and salutes.
Before Floyd can reach the door, Welsh stops him, saying once: “Tab?” Floyd pauses and turns, his hand on the door handle. “This doesn’t leave this room.”
“Understood, sir,” Floyd says, his voice shaken. Welsh takes a few steps away from the window towards Floyd, and sets his coffee down on the corner of Speirs’s desk. He has a sympathetic look in his eye, which only makes Floyd feel worse.
“You can’t let him know that you know,” Welsh says apologetically.
Clenching his jaw, Floyd nods again. “Of course, sir,” he says and then opens the door to walk out into the hallway.
14.
Floyd comes home early one November afternoon and finds Amelia in the kitchen, washing a colander full of green beans and whispering reminders to herself. He slides a hand around the cinched waist of her dress and she smiles as kisses her once on the temple, smelling powder and violets in her hair. She is wearing pale yellow, the same exact color she had on the day Floyd touched down in Indiana. Her hair is pulled up and away from her face, exposing the back of her neck. He touches her there and feels Amelia shiver beneath his fingers. She does not pull away.
“Your hands are cold,” she says happily, reaching for the tap to turn on the water for another rinse. Floyd moves along the kitchen counter and rings his hands together, the joints of his fingers slightly stiff and unresponsive.
“S’cold outside,” he explains, and Amelia smiles.
“It’s supposed to snow soon, darlin’. The man on the news says it’s going to come early this year and won’t let up till near February. Can you believe it?”
“I think it’ll be real bad when it comes. Tonight,” Floyd says. “It’s gonna come tonight.”
“How can you tell?” Amelia asks, without turning to look at him. A piano is playing a soft, tinkling melody on the radio on the windowsill and Floyd watches as Amelia’s hips swing lazily back and forth in time. Her bare feet shuffle on the linoleum floor.
“I can taste it,” Floyd tells her.
What he doesn’t tell her is what exactly that taste is – like war and ozone, metallic and overwhelming and unforgettable. He’s known the snow’s been coming for days now, and the thought of the first frost, the first snow, the onslaught of winter, has made him restless and anxious. His bones ache and his old scars have begun to itch.
Without thinking, Floyd begins to pull on his bottom lip with his thumb and forefinger – a nervous habit he picked up outside Carentan.
At the kitchen sink, Amelia begins to hum.
7.
That evening, Floyd pulls Shifty aside after dinner as the other men are finding their ways back to the barracks from the canteen. It’s midsummer, so the light has just only begun to fade as Floyd pushes the both of them into the long, deep shadow cast by one of the tents. They kiss now with the familiarity of old lovers, hands wandering across jaws and shoulders and the smalls of backs; their fingers are now well-acquainted with the feeling of each other’s uniforms and the scratch of day-old stubble – the smoothness of a fresh shave.
“What’s gotten into you?” Shifty asks breathlessly, apparently pleased with all of the sudden and eager attention Floyd is giving him.
“Nothing,” Floyd says, smiling, and then changes his mind and says, “You, mostly.”
Voices suddenly pass dangerously close by, threatening discovery, and the two men freeze. Floyd’s hand moves quickly to cover Shifty’s mouth, muffling whatever he says next. They stand there, pressed firmly against one another in their stolen patch of darkness, until the sounds of people move off and drift away into the evening.
Shifty nips at the tips of Floyd’s fingers when he finally pulls them away from his mouth. “Tomorrow’s the anniversary of D-Day,” he drawls suggestively. “S’practically a holiday, Floyd, I think we should celebrate.”
“You always want to celebrate,” Floyd murmurs against his cheek and, ignoring the heavy feeling growing in his stomach, pulls away to drink in the sweet mischief of Shifty’s expression – still warm and boyish after seeing so much time in combat.
You should be glad he’s getting away from all this, Floyd tells himself. Gratefully, he falls to his knees in front of Shifty and enjoys the feeling of Shifty’s fingers tangled in his hair for the last time.
15.
Dear Shifty-
I’m not sure what hospital you’re at anymore, so I’m sending this home to Virginia, where I know it’ll reach you eventually. Sooner, I hope, rather than later.
I’m writing to let you know that I’m leaving Amelia and my life here in Kokomo. I returned in August to find so many things waiting here for me, right where I left them. I got my job back, my truck back, and my girl. You’d imagine things have turned out just fine, but they haven’t.
As horrible as it sounds, I miss the war. I miss Easy and Austria. The people here ask about my time away, but I can tell by the looks on their faces that they don’t really want to know. They just want to forget and move on, but that’s not possible for me, and they can’t understand that.
But you know, Shifty. You know what it’s like to look up into the sky and fear the snow. It’s been snowing here for three days straight already and I can’t sleep, can only think about the past, and I think the only way I’ll make it through is to go. Southwest maybe, where the air is dry. I don’t know.
Truth is, I don’t belong here or anywhere without war. I lost too much of myself along the way and now there’s no going back for me. But you gave me some hope, Shifty, for a while and I’m thankful for that. It breaks my heart to know that I will not hear from you again, but I can’t wait here in the snow for your reply.
So please. Don’t write back, because whatever you send won’t find me.
Yours truly – Floyd Talbert, E Company.
After signing his name, Floyd re-reads his letter to Shifty and feels a tightness in his chest that steals his breath. He pulls out an envelope and addresses it, writing only the word ‘Kokomo’ as its sender.
Outside, the snow has deepened and the houses and streets have disappeared beneath a pristine whiteness that bleeds upwards into the clouds.
Inside, Floyd Talbert begins to cry.
8.
Floyd finds Shifty standing alone at the edge of the lake with his bag sitting at his feet, leaning against his leg. He is looking off into the distance, turning something over and over carefully in his hands. When Floyd approaches, the light catches its surface and it glints brightly between his fingers.
“You all ready to go?” Floyd asks and Shifty jumps slightly, dropping whatever it is that he’s holding. Floyd retrieves it for him from the dirt – a small silver pin in the shape of a deployed parachute, flanked by outspread wings. Shifty nods and watches Floyd as he re-pins the jumpwings onto the breast of Shifty’s uniform.
“I just said goodbye to Major Winters.” Shifty pauses and looks away, as if remembering the interaction; his voice is subdued and slightly sad. “He’s a good man.” They stand there for a while, together in silence, before Shifty eventually says, “Look, I know I’ve already said goodbye to you Floyd, but what I really should say is thank you.”
Floyd shakes his head. “For what?”
“I could say a lot of things.” Shifty tilts his head slightly, squinting from the light that falls across his face. “But all of the words would seem small.” He shrugs. “Just everything, I suppose. A lot of things.”
The brasswork of Shifty’s uniform glows in the light and his skin is smooth and scrubbed clean, making him look younger. Silently, he leans forward to close the small space between him and Floyd, and Shifty’s kiss is just like everything else about him – soft and tireless, gentle and familiar.
This time, his kiss is also final.
In it, lie hidden apologies for everything undeserved that has happened to them – apologies for things that were far beyond any of their control. For letters that stopped coming after Holland and all of the nights when neither of them could sleep; for the war and for everything that will come inevitably after it, when the men will have face something more difficult than combat – the task of remembering old lives.
“These things – this war. They ain’t never gonna be done with me.” Shifty mumbles into Floyd’s mouth, the words cradled by his tender Virginia accent. “I reckon I won’t ever be able to let ‘em go.”
Floyd closes his eyes and kisses Shifty back. Silently, he swears the same for himself.
19.
Floyd leaves behind his uniform, but unpins the silver jumpwings from its breast with a kind of nostalgic reverie; these he pockets along with Gordon’s Purple Heart, wrapping both of them up in a handkerchief which he sticks into his front pocket. It’s so early when he heads out, that Kokomo is still draped with the blue darkness of a winter predawn, and Floyd has to turn on the headlights as he drives to the bus stop in the flurrying snow. A small suitcase packed with some of his belongings sits in the passenger seat as his companion. On top of it lies a single letter, which he drops into a metal mailbox once he reaches the station.
In a few hours, he knows Amelia will wake to find the sheets beside her cold, and after wandering the house in her dressing gown, she will come across the letter he has taped to the kitchen icebox, with her name written plainly on the envelope. He wonders, after she has read the words he has set down for her, whether she will cry or mourn his loss or grow old with bitterness and anger in her heart.
When the police chief or the grocer asks after him, he can imagine her graciously ignoring their question or politely changing the subject. And when the postman comes down the path with letters from Virginia, Floyd knows that Amelia will smile sadly and send the them back unopened, explaining softly as she closes the front door that Floyd Talbert died in the war.
