Chapter Twenty-Seven Sassy
twenty-seven SASSY
Everything Sassy had believed about her life was a lie.
Oh, there was so much she needed to talk with Joey about, but even if she could manage to get her thoughts onto paper, where would she send a letter? There had been no news of him. Deep down, Sassy knew the silence didn’t mean much. The entire country was in flames, and with the Vietcong descending on U.S. bases and South Vietnamese villages, word about one specific soldier wasn’t going to arrive quickly.
She refused to accept the possibility that Joey had been killed. That was unthinkable. Joey was just missing. He would be found. She needed him to be found.
She couldn’t tell Joey anything. Not yet.
And now she couldn’t talk with Marion, either.
After the reading of the will, Marion stayed with her father. Tom drove Sassy back to the apartment building, and neither of them had spoken throughout the drive. She imagined Tom was as confused as she was. When they got to 105 Isabella, she asked him to come inside; she couldn’t bear to be alone. He followed her into the elevator and stood silently at her side as they rode to the fifth floor. In her apartment, she went, out of habit, to make tea, and he walked around the living room, studying her paintings. When she brought out the tea, he was gazing through the balcony door.
She placed the tray on the coffee table then sat. She’d brought a few cookies as well, but she didn’t imagine either of them had much of an appetite. Still saying nothing, Tom joined her on the red couch.
“I miss him so much,” she said quietly, starting the conversation. “I want to go see him or have lunch with him at the office like we used to. I want to hug him, and I want to help him stop drinking, but I’ll never get a chance to do any of that.”
Tom kept his eyes on the table in front of them and said nothing. That was all right. She didn’t really want to hear anything.
“I don’t have my mom, I don’t have Joey, and now I don’t have my dad. It’s just me, and I’m not ready for that.” She faced him, studying his profile. “It’s not fair.”
Now she wanted him to talk.
“You’re right. It’s not.” He sipped his tea. “Sassy, this might not be what you want to hear, but I’m kind of pragmatic when it comes to things like this. I lost my parents years ago, and I remember how scary that felt. Like I was floundering without a life preserver. But Sassy, you are your own person. You always have been. You’re strong and independent, and that’s not going to stop. So the way I look at it, technically you don’t need them. You can stand on your own. You want them, but you’re in control of yourself, so it’s not a need.”
“Feels like it,” she sniffed.
“Of course it does.” He placed a comforting hand on her back, giving her exactly the amount of connection she needed in that moment. “I’m sorry you’re hurting, Sass. If I could do anything in the world to help you, I would.”
He was such a good man. She didn’t deserve him.
“He called me Sassy,” she said.
“What?”
“In the will. That was the only time he ever called me Sassy.” She exhaled. “Today messed everything up in my head. I’m so confused.”
She leaned back in the couch and stared up at the ceiling. She needed to get her thoughts in order. Right now, none of them were lining up.
She rolled her head toward him. “Are you angry? You know what I mean. About today.”
He thought about it. “Not angry. Surprised, yes. Not angry.”
“I am.” At least she thought that’s what she felt. No, she felt betrayed , she realized, but anger was an easier emotion to manage. “All my life, I got used to people looking up to him, calling him a hero. They all wanted to be on his good side.”
Tom shrugged. “Honestly, a lot of that had to do with him being an outstanding businessman. And he gave back to them, remember. He was always donating to causes and making company speeches when they invited him to come. He did a lot. Maybe too much, now that I think of it. Maybe he was overcompensating.”
“He didn’t overcompensate with me,” she grumbled. “Pretty much left me in the wind.”
He nodded sympathetically.
“Will it hurt the business, do you think? I mean, if the press hears about what he did? Or his clients?”
“I don’t see why they’d hear about it. It was your dad’s choice.” His eyes held hers, willing her to understand. “As far as I’m concerned, the only people who will ever know the truth were in that room today.”
That helped ease the cramp in her gut, but something still bothered her. “Is it cool that I’m angry? Marion says all my feelings are valid, but, I mean, he just died. Seems like I shouldn’t have feelings like that.”
He raised his brow. “I don’t know, Sassy. Do you feel justified in that anger?”
“I feel like I’ve been lied to all my life. So yeah. But I’m also ashamed. I’ve seen that medal on the wall since I was tiny. I believed my dad was better than all the other dads, and I am afraid that maybe I behaved that way sometimes.”
He picked up a cookie. She watched him eat, then she had a sip of tea.
“That’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?” she thought out loud. “Me thinking he was so great for being a war hero, and me being against anything to do with wars. I guess he was right all along about me being a hypocrite.” She paused. “I’m mostly embarrassed, I think. To be honest, after learning all that, I don’t have any idea how to talk to Marion. She’s my best friend, and it’s like we switched places.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Last week, my dad was a hero. Now he’s dead, and it’s her dad who’s a hero. Mine’s just a liar.”
“Hold up,” he said, lifting his hand. “I’m not sure you can say your dad was a liar. He never claimed to be a hero. It sounded to me like Hank Moore volunteered the information he had, and your dad merely let it happen. So technically it’s not a lie.”
She side-eyed him. “You think so? I’m not buying it. Omission is still lying.”
“That’s up to interpretation, I guess. But Sass, it’s not right for you to paint him as nothing but a liar. I bet a lot of men lied about different things over there for a lot of different reasons. Think about who he was the rest of the time. Your dad was a good man, and he loved you like crazy. Even before I knew you, he was always talking about you.”
She wished she had known that.
“Tell me honestly, Sassy. If you’d known he wasn’t a famous war hero, would you have loved him any less?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why worry about it? Everyone has secrets. He did what he could.”
“He let you believe it, too. How does that make you feel?”
Tom’s gaze dropped to the floor, and his jaw flexed. “I’m okay. Like I said, I’m surprised. But it doesn’t matter to me if he was a hero or not.”
“Do you wish he’d told you?”
“He had his reasons.”
Her heart twisted. He was trying to be strong for her, but it must be killing him as well.
“He thought you were terrific,” she said gently. “I never heard him talk about having a business partner, so you must have really impressed him. And the way he spoke with you, it felt like he saw you as an equal.”
The curl in his smile twitched. “I’m glad. I enjoyed working with him, and I liked having him as a friend. That’s how I’m going to remember him. He was a good man, Sass.”
It felt good to let someone else win for a change. Especially when it was Tom. If she could do as he suggested and remember her father as the man she’d loved all her life, without worrying about the rest, she’d be stronger for it.
“I wonder what Joey’s going to say.” She left off the question about if he would ever come home to hear about it.
Tom did, too. “I guess we’ll find out when he’s back.”