A Quiet Cadence by Mark Treanor

Author:Mark Treanor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

I sat in the dirt trying to write a letter home. Writing had been difficult for weeks. Once in a while I’d write some details to Spence, but I didn’t want to tell Mom and Dad most of what I was seeing or doing. They’d worry even more than they already did, and they couldn’t possibly relate to what I was feeling or how I thought now. I wasn’t the Boy Scout or student-council-baskets-for-the-poor rep they’d known a year ago. That kid had disappeared, and I didn’t know if he’d ever be back, even if I searched for him.

Sometimes I’d go several days without writing, too exhausted or terrified or horrified to try. When I did write, I mostly just commented on what they’d said in their letters to me. Even that was getting tough. Dad told me about ball games and movies, and Mom wrote about picnics and relatives and all kinds of stuff. But I’d forgotten how to care about such things. The World was too far away. I still craved the connection of their letters, but little they wrote about seemed real any more. My reality was dead or maimed Marines, a dead kid and his grandfather, bloody and bullet-riddled in front of their home. An old man I’d wanted to kill. I sure as hell wasn’t going to write about any of that. John saved me from my chore. He came over to ask if I wanted to join him at mass.

“Come on, Mick,” he said. “It’ll do you good.”

I shrugged. “I guess so. I’m not sure what to pray for anymore.”

John smiled ruefully. “I’ve got a list.”

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