Chapter 4 #4
Jackson nodded sagely. “You don’t let them, you hear me?
You stand up for your rights. I’m a lot longer in the tooth than you are and listening to them bellyache—the ones who never even showed up, never went to war, never did nothing to help anybody—just sitting there, whining about us getting these piddly little pensions?
Yeah, don’t let anybody knock you down for that, huh? ”
Wilden smiled at his spirited words. “Nobody has managed so far, at least not more than once.”
At that, the old man laughed, a big raucous rolling laugh that made him sound as if he hadn’t a care in the world, but still Vivian knew it would take a while for him to get over this. “I’ll come back and check on you tomorrow.” She glanced at Wilden and asked, “Are you staying?”
He hesitated, but the old man shooed him away. “No, he’s not. He’s got to get back to his grandmother.” He turned to Wilden and added, “For all you know, she’ll be next because John was planning on getting her house and selling it. That’s what they were talking about. It could be her next.”
Wilden frowned at that, then looked down at the dogs, as if not sure what to do. “I’m leaving Sarge with you, but I’ll take Dagger back to the house with me for tonight,” he shared.
“Dagger can stay here if need be,” Jackson stated, as he looked down at him. “I mean, he was part of my rescue. Ain’t no way that dog will be out on the street, and anybody who would put a good healthy dog to sleep for no reason, well, that should be criminal too.”
Vivian smiled. It was heartwarming to know that Dagger had two homes willing to take him, and to think he was at risk of being sent back to the shelter just hours ago. “I’m glad Dagger has a home one way or another because I really couldn’t let him get put to sleep,” she shared.
“What will you do now?” Wilden asked her.
“I’ll take my two and head home,” she replied, running a hand through her hair. “I have several surgeries tomorrow, so I need to get up bright and early.” She regretted saying it the moment it was out of her mouth, as both men apologized for keeping her up. As expected, Wilden spoke first.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”
“No, not at all,” she said, “and this is, indeed, good news that you found Jackson. We were so worried about you,” She leaned over and gave the old man a hug.
“Now, you take care of yourself tonight, do you hear me? I’ll come back tomorrow to confirm you’re still alive and kicking, so make sure that you are. ”
He smiled and cackled again, a laugh that had more rustiness to it than anybody deserved at that age. She stopped and asked him, “Do you have any family, anybody we can call to come?”
He shook his head. “No, I had a family way back when, but, during one of my tours, they up and left on me,” he shared. “Never seen hide nor hair of her or them. She divorced me through the mail,” he added, with a hard look at Wilden.
Wilden nodded. “Yeah, unfortunately that happens way too often, doesn’t it?”
“And, by the time I was out of the service, I was half the man I’d been before, so it was probably just as well.”
She shook her head. “I can’t imagine. That seems to be even more wrong.”
“It’s definitely wrong, but back then it happened to a lot of us,” Jackson stated. “I never did find anybody else to give a damn about my sorry hide.” He shrugged at that. “So, no, I got no family.”
“And would those two punks have known that?” Wilden asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be that hard to figure out, since nobody’s ever here, you know? I’m pretty much always alone,” he said. “So, they probably just assumed I didn’t have anybody.”
“Maybe,” she conceded, “but they certainly understood their target, didn’t they?” Turning to him, she asked, “Your wheelchair, is it here?”
“Yeah, if it’s okay,” he noted, glancing around. “I haven’t looked yet to see if they damaged it.”
“Let’s hope not,” she declared. “I presume that’s something you need to be mobile.”
“Yes, I absolutely need it.”
“In that case,” Wilden announced, already on his feet, “I’ll go take a look at it. If it’s not working, maybe I’ll drag your sorry ass to Nan’s house, and we’ll all stay together for tonight.”
“Oh, I’m not going to bother that nice lady,” Jackson said. “No way.”
Wilden snorted. “In this case, it would be a kindness because Nan will be worried about everything that’s happened too. She’s already told me to try to find you.”
He brightened up at that. “Did she? I always knew she was a sweet lady.”
He chuckled. “She is a sweet lady. She’s also been to hell and back with my father. So, if she can do anything to make amends for the pain that John caused so many people, she would be first in line to want to help.”
“Yeah, but this isn’t on her, so we’re not laying it on her,” Jackson declared. “You go find that wheelchair, and I’ll be just fine.”
Wilden didn’t look so sure.
Vivian wasn’t so sure either. She could clearly see through the whole facade Jackson wore. But, at Wilden’s insistence, she said her goodbyes and headed home. Both men were in her thoughts all night.
Wilden walked back into Nan’s house, tired, worn out, with Dagger at his side. The dog was happy still, but tired and a little confused at the constant changes in his world, but seemingly okay to follow instructions. Wilden called out to his grandma, and she called back.
He was happy to see that she’d gotten into bed on her own, and, as he made his way into the bedroom to talk to her, Dagger immediately hopped up and settled on the bed beside her.
“Oh no, no, no, you’re not getting up here,” she said, laughing happily.
“Seems to me he already did.”
She shuffled ever-so-slightly, and Wilden turned on the lamp beside her. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine,” she replied, with a wave of her hand. “You sent me a text, but it was very confusing. Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s good. Sorry about that text, but I was a little busy.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Yeah, we found Jackson Russell.”
Her face lit up. “Oh, my goodness, oh my,” she exclaimed. “That is the best news ever.” And then she stopped and asked, “Wait, was he alive?”
“Yes, Nan, he’s alive,” he confirmed. He sat down on the side of the bed and explained what he knew.
Her face fell when she realized what was going on and the role her son had played in it.
She whispered, “Oh, good God. How could he do such terrible things?” She hung her head.
“How much more could that man have done? He’s my son.
… He was my son,” she murmured, “but he’d become a man I didn’t recognize. ”
“No, not anything I recognize either,” Wilden said. “But the good news is, he’s gone, so his participation isn’t an issue we have to deal with right now. But, for poor Jackson, it was a pretty-tough ordeal.”
“Yes, that poor man,” she muttered, then frowned. “You shouldn’t have left him alone. You should have brought him here.”
He smiled at her, knowing full well she would say that, long before she did. “I did suggest that, but he was pretty adamant that we weren’t to disturb you at this hour.”
She shook her head. “At this hour, any of us old folks are wide awake for the bulk of the night anyway. He won’t sleep either.”
“He might though,” Wilden countered. “Jackson’s pretty …
tired, and the shock from the harsh treatment he got has been rough on him.
I found his wheelchair for him, and it was fine, so at least he’s got his wheels again.
So he has mobility at his place, and he already had the house renovated as he needs it for him to live independently.
Yet it is a mess. I cleared a path and left Sarge with him, but that’s all I could do tonight. ”
She frowned and nodded. “Yes, that’s something I still need to do here.”
“And we’ll deal with it,” he stated. “I promise. Obviously I didn’t expect this evening to go quite the way it did, and I’m hoping things will calm down soon, so we can start renovating your house.”
She looked over at him, her gaze intent. “Somehow I don’t think things will calm down until this ugly business my son started is dead and buried along with him. Did you contact the police?”
“At our insistence, Jackson did finally contact the police, and they will come out tomorrow and talk to him, considering that he was too tired to deal with it tonight. So I’ll go back and talk to them too, as soon as I can,” he added.
“Of course you will,” she stated warmly. “I can’t imagine what we all would have done without you.”
He snorted at that. “Here we are, still cleaning up Dad’s messes.”
She stared at him for a long moment and winced. “Unfortunately I’m afraid that’ll last for a while.”
“It better not,” he muttered, “because he’s hurt all kinds of people we know about already. It’ll be worse if we just find more victims. Speaking of which, Vivian mentioned another missing veteran.”
Nan frowned. “Oh no. Not another one.”
Wilden nodded. “Mark Lindstrom. Do you know him?”
Nan shook her head.
Wilden sighed. “Well, Vivian heard he was missing, and his daughter is a client of Vivian’s, so I called her to see what she could tell me.
In a nutshell, basically the cops couldn’t do anything, and she keeps going by his house, hoping he’ll be there, but he hasn’t surfaced.
She is so worried but can’t afford a PI, so she was happy to hear that I would look for him too.
I haven’t found any leads yet, but I’ll keep at it. ”
Nan patted his hand. “You are such a good man. I’m so proud of you.”
“Oh,” Wilden began, “do you have any idea who may have shot Dad and why?”
“The why you can certainly understand,” she declared.
“He believed he had every right to anything anyone had, and that’s just who he was.
I’m not too bothered about looking too intently for his killer.
They did us and everybody else a big favor as far as I’m concerned, as much as I hate to think that, much less admit it out loud.
” She shuddered. “He was just a bad seed, and it took me far too long to see it, but I finally did.”
They talked a little bit more, and then he got up to leave. He smiled at her. “Now, you need to get some sleep.”
“You should bring Jackson over tomorrow,” she declared.
“He’s a little abrasive,” he warned her.
“I can be a bit abrasive myself at times,” she stated, “but I still want to see the man.”
“We can arrange a visit for you with Jackson—after we get some of this stuff behind us first, okay? I can take you over to see him,” he pointed out. “You’re a little more mobile than he is, and he may not want to travel anywhere just yet.”
She brightened at that. “I would love to get out.”
He paused in the act of walking to the door, then turned around to her and suggested, “If you want to go out for lunch or anything, I’m up for it, almost anytime.”
She looked at him in surprise, and then she beamed with a great big smile. “It’s been a long time since I had anybody to even go out with, and I would absolutely love to go out for lunch.”
He nodded. “We have a lot of time to make up for, Nan.”
“No,” she countered. “I have a lot to make up to you.”
He shook his head. “No, no, no, we aren’t going there.
” He approached her bed again and took her hand in his.
“Look, Grandma. I think we both had some issues we needed to work through, and, with him gone now, I suggest that we focus not on the past but on whatever time we have left,” he suggested.
“I don’t blame you for anything that has to do with him, even though I know you’ll blame yourself. ”
“I do,” she confirmed.
He sighed. “And I don’t want you to take any of that blame regarding me. I’m okay, and I did just fine when I left. I just … grew up a little faster and maybe a little harder than I would have otherwise, but it was all good. Going into the military was the best thing for me.”
She searched his face, even in the dim light.
He felt her gaze assessing the truth of his words, and he smiled at her. “Honestly.”
She relaxed slightly. “I’m glad to hear that.” A sheen of tears were in her eyes. “I have held that in my heart for a long time,” she murmured, her tears making her voice thicken, “and I just didn’t know how to tell you how sorry I am for the way it all happened.”
“It’s fine,” he stated. “I’m just sorry that you suffered so much with him. That could not have been easy.”
“No,” she agreed, “especially the final awakening. I was slow to see what he truly was and didn’t want to believe it. How do you accept how awful your own child has become? I didn’t want to see it, and I paid dearly, but I was grateful you weren’t here to endure that abuse.”
“I wouldn’t have stayed,” he said. “We would have been constantly fighting, and I would have left because it was his house, not mine.”
“It wasn’t his either.”
“But it was yours, and you wanted him home.” Her tears spilled, and he knew that it hurt her to be reminded of this, but she really needed to hear it.
“Of course you wanted him home, and I don’t blame you for that.
He was your son, and I didn’t know back then just how rotten to the core he was.
I had a good idea, but that was a young man talking.
I didn’t have proof. I just had instincts. ”
“And your instincts were always sound,” she noted, “because you were right, and I was wrong. He was rotten, and, as you know, I paid for it.”
“But,” he reminded her, “you’re fine now. He is dead and gone, and, while we’ll still be cleaning up his messes for a while, hopefully one day we’ll be clear of it.”
She smiled. “You are more generous than I might have been in your situation.”
He smiled at her, shaking his head. “No, I’m so grateful that you raised me.
Seeing what he was like, I’m even more thankful.
Having him as a hands-on father would have been tough.
Imagine how different I would be if he had controlled me as a child?
You did a wonderful job raising me, and I’ll always be grateful.
” He patted her hand. “Now sleep. Tomorrow will be another exciting day. Since I arrived, it’s been nonstop activity. ”
She chuckled. “Yeah, you have certainly livened up the place, whether you meant to or not.”