Chapter Thirty-Two
Thirty-Two
Frankie woke in a hospital bed. Her entire body hurt, especially her left arm, and a headache pounded behind her eyes. For a split second she couldn’t remember why she was here, and then…
The man on the bicycle. The bridge.
“Oh God.”
She heard voices and footsteps coming down the hallway.
Her father walked into the room, looking grim and ashamed. Angry. Next to him was a policeman with short gray hair; the brass buttons on his khaki uniform strained over a big gut and a thin dark tie tried to hide the gaps that showed his undershirt.
“Did I kill him?” Frankie asked, unable to raise her voice above a whisper.
“No,” the officer said. “But you came close. Kicked the shit out of his bicycle. Came close to killing yourself, too.”
“You were drunk, Frankie,” her father said. “You could have died.” His voice breaking, he added, “Can you imagine me having to tell your mother that? Another lost child?”
Frankie’s throat felt so tight she could barely swallow. She wished she had died. And then a terrible, terrible thought: Had she wanted to? Had she turned into the bridge wall, instead of away?
Dad looked at the policeman. “Can I take her home, Phil?”
The policeman nodded. “Yes. She’s being charged with DUI. You’ll be notified about her arraignment.”
Frankie swung her feet to the side of the bed, slowly stood; she felt dizzy.
Dad moved in close, steadied her as she limped out of the hospital, past her fellow nurses, who stared at her as she passed.
They must have known what she’d done, that she’d almost killed a man.
“The man I almost hit… you sure he’s okay? You’re not lying to me?”
“He’s fine, Frankie. Bill Brightman. Coronado High principal.”
Outside, the silver Mercedes gull-wing waited. Frankie refused her father’s help and made her own way into the passenger seat.
Dad put the key in the ignition and started the car. It roared to life but didn’t move.
After a long silence, he turned to her. “Do you want to die, Frankie? Your mother asked me that.”
“I shouldn’t have had that third drink,” she said. “I’ll do better. I promise.”
“Enough,” her father said sharply, and she saw it all on his face: the fear that he would lose her, the grief at their mutual loss, the anger that she couldn’t seem to be the daughter he wanted.
She stared at him, knowing he was right. She could have killed a man tonight. She could have killed herself. Maybe she’d meant to.
“I love you, Frankie,” he said in a sad voice. “I know we’ve had issues, but—”
“Dad—”
“You seem… broken.”
Frankie couldn’t meet his worried gaze. “I’ve been living this way for years,” she said. “Ever since my time in Florence.”
Enough.
Alone in her childhood bed, she lay awake, battling her need (addiction—had she ever thought of it in those terms before?) for a sleeping pill, and her overwhelming guilt, as well as this new and eviscerating fear that she had wanted to end her own life.
Who had she become?
A nothing woman, a ghost. No love, no child.
How could she survive? Each of the losses had derailed her, but this, now, the guilt and shame of last night, destroyed her.
She couldn’t live like this.
She needed help.
Who?
How?
You should talk to someone, get help, Henry had said to her; it felt like a lifetime ago, when she’d thought she’d hit rock bottom but hadn’t. I treat a few vets in my practice… Do you have nightmares, Frankie? Trouble sleeping?
Who else would understand the slow unraveling of her psyche since Vietnam, except her fellow veterans? She’d tried to get help before, once, long ago, and it hadn’t worked. That didn’t mean she should stop trying. The opposite was true, in fact.
She pushed the covers back and got out of bed. Weak on her feet, she went into her bathroom and took a hot shower and dried her hair, then dressed in jeans and a turtleneck.
She found her mother in the kitchen, looking tired. “Frances,” she said softly.
“Can I take your car?” Frankie asked.
Mom stared at her so intently Frankie felt uncomfortable, but whatever words her mom needed to hear, Frankie couldn’t say. No more promises. They both knew she shouldn’t be driving.
“The keys are in my bag. When will you be home?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you be home?”
“I will.” She moved forward and touched her mother’s thin shoulder, let her hand linger there.
A stronger woman would have offered words to accompany the touch, maybe an apology or a promise; she said nothing and went to the garage, climbed into the Cadillac.
She took the Coronado Bridge at a cautious speed and pulled up in front of the new VA medical center.
Frankie parked in the lot and sat there, afraid to move. Finally, she glanced at her black eyes in the rearview mirror. Digging a pair of big sunglasses out of her purse, she left the car and walked up into the building.
Inside, she went to the front desk, where a large woman in a floral-patterned polyester dress sat in front of an IBM Selectric, her scarlet nails clacking on the keys.
“Ma’am?” Frankie said.
The receptionist paused in her typing, but didn’t move her hands away from the keyboard, then looked up. “You in trouble, darlin’? Is your husband… angry?”
Apparently the sunglasses weren’t much of a camouflage.
“I’ve heard that you offer therapy for Vietnam vets.”
“There’s a rap session at ten. Why?”
“Where is it?”
The woman frowned, pulled a pencil out of her big hair, tapped it on the desk. “Down that hall. Second door to the left. But it’s only for Vietnam vets.”
“Thanks.” Frankie walked down the hall, past several men sitting on molded plastic chairs.
At Room 107, she saw a flyer taped to the textured, frosted glass panel in the top half of the door: VIETNAM VETERANS, SHARE YOUR STORIES WITH EACH OTHER.
RAPPING HELPS! She took a seat, waiting, staring at the clock.
Her whole body ached and her head hurt and she felt sick to her stomach, but she didn’t move.
Her left wrist throbbed. She looked down, saw a bruise blooming on her pale skin.
The door in front of her opened at 9:55. A few men walked into the room.
She paused, tried to calm herself, and then she got up, opened the door onto a small, windowless room, in which folding chairs had been set up in a circle.
Several of the chairs were occupied by men, most of them Frankie’s age or younger, with long, untended hair, big sideburns, and mustaches.
A few older, grizzled-looking guys sat with crossed arms.
More men stood over by a table, eating donuts and pouring coffee from a tall silver urn.
Frankie had expected to be the only woman, but she still felt uncomfortable as, one by one, the men turned to look at her.
A man approached her. He wore a checkered shirt and cowboy jeans held up by a huge-buckled belt. His long, layered hair flipped back from a center part. A huge mustache covered most of his upper lip.
“Can I help you, foxy lady?” he said, smiling.
“I’m here for the Vietnam veterans rap therapy group.”
“It’s groovy that you want to understand your man, but this is for veterans only.”
“I am a vet.”
“Of Vietnam.”
“I am a Vietnam vet.”
“Oh. I… uh… there were no women in ’Nam.”
“Wrong. ANC nurse. Two tours. The Thirty-Sixth and Seventy-First Evac Hospitals. If you never saw a woman, you were lucky. It meant you didn’t end up in a hospital.”
He frowned. “Oh. Well. You should talk to other chicks about… whatever. I mean, you didn’t see combat. The men would clam up with a woman in the room.”
“Are you telling me I can’t stay? I have nightmares. And I’m… scared. You won’t help me?”
“You don’t belong here, ma’am. This is for vets who saw action in ’Nam.”
Frankie walked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
She strode down the hallway, saw a GET HELP HERE poster, and ripped it off the wall and stomped on it.
M*A*S*H was a hit TV show this year; how could people still think there had been no women in Vietnam? Especially veterans, for God’s sake?
Outside, she let out a howl of rage that she couldn’t have held back if she’d wanted to—and she didn’t want to. It felt good to finally scream.
Frankie had nowhere to go. No one to talk to. She knew something was deeply, terribly wrong with her, but not how to fix it.
She could call Barb and Ethel, but it was pathetic how often she’d called on them already. And when they heard about the affair with Rye and driving drunk into the Coronado Bridge, they would judge her as harshly as she judged herself.
Still, she had to do something.
She could go to the man she’d almost killed and beg for forgiveness.
She found a pay phone and asked the operator for the address for Mr. Bill Brightman.
He lived on Coronado, in a small house in the middle of the island. The perfectly tended yard was outlined by bright-red flowers and a white picket fence. A house someone loved.
She parked by his mailbox, sat outside for a long time, unable to get out of the car, unable to drive away. When she closed her eyes, she saw the accident again and again, in slow motion, saw his pale, terrified face in her headlights.
The door opened. A middle-aged man with sunken cheeks and black hair stepped out of the house, wearing a brown suit. He was holding a folded-up newspaper in one hand and a battered leather briefcase in the other.
Frankie opened her car door, stepped out.
He looked at her, frowned slightly.
She opened the white picket gate, dared to step onto his property, slowly took off her sunglasses to reveal her black eyes.
“I’m Frances McGrath,” she said quietly.
“The driver who almost hit you.” She felt tears burn her eyes and wiped them away impatiently.
This wasn’t about her pain or guilt or shame. It was about his. “I am so sorry.”
“Bring me my mail,” he said, lighting up a cigarette.