Page 16 of Families and Other Enemies

Sophia paid him no heed. Perhaps she wasn’t really talking to them, or perhaps she knew they didn’t have an answer. “What is it with some people that they take something that should be good and easy, and all they want to do is break it?”

As her questions made his heart hurt, Ralph groaned and rubbed his chest, then with the air of a man making an announcement, he said, “I’m going to tell you a story.”

To distract Sophia from her frustration, Kellen supposed, and fondled the car keys in her pocket. She needed to get her bedroll, anyway, and maybe it was cheating, but she could pick up something to eat while she was gone.

“When I was a kid, eighteen years old, I joined the Marines, because I couldn’t get a job. Besides, I was the toughest, the strongest, the best fighter in my neighborhood. I thought I would be the best Marine ever. I was such an awesome tough shit. I got into battle—Kuwait, Desert Storm—and I was still a tough shit. Dodging bullets, throwing grenades, eating sand for breakfast and liking it.” Ralph looked up, saw Kellen, held her gaze. “Then my buddy, as tough a guy as me, got hit. Head blown off into my arms.”

Car keys forgotten, Kellen took her hand out of her pocket.

“It was my fault,” Ralph said. “I didn’t see the enemy until it was too late.”

No one spoke. No one breathed.

“I wanted to storm their position, make them pay for his death. But I couldn’t. His eyes...they stared at me. I dropped to my knees. He stared at me. I threw his head away, into the sand. His head rolled, and he stared at me. I crawled away.” Ralph returned his attention to Sophia, frozen in horror. His voice gentled. “I wasn’t as tough as I thought. I wasn’t tough at all. Everything I thought I was, was a lie, and I went crazy. Literally crazy. The Marines wanted a fighting man, not someone who cried and begged to go home. I came back to the States, I wandered the country, I did every drug, I drank every bottle, I begged, I stole.”

“That’s bad.” Sophia’s lower lip trembled for him.

“Worse than you know,” Ralph said. “I was married. I had a kid.”

Kellen should have been surprised. But this explained the way Ralph watched over Sophia without expecting anything in return—very parental.

“Oh.” The tenor of Sophia’s voice changed, grew strong with contempt. “That’s so much worse.”

“Yes. After I was discharged, I went home...for a little while. Couldn’t handle having a wife and a daughter and all that responsibility. So I abandoned them. Sometimes I forgot about them. Mostly I was ashamed for them to know I was alive. I told myself they were better off without me.”

Sophia snorted rudely.

Ralph kept talking. “Then one day, there was this little girl, about the age I thought my little girl would be. She was alone, crying on the curb, and I... I didn’t do much. Gave her some of my sandwich. Made sure she didn’t freeze. Sat with her until the cops came and got her. I think that was in Chicago. Really, I didn’t do much, but it made me feel better, you know? Like I wasn’t such a coward, such a loser. After that, I started helping if I could. People helped me, too. I went into drug rehab. Got clean. Got a job, thought about finding my wife and daughter, facing them, apologizing, being a man. But as soon as I thought about that, I got scared. I was back on the street, back on the liquor and the drugs.” He looked up, locked eyes with Sophia. “Don’t ever try cocaine, not even once. From the very first moment I tried it, I was a slave. I wasted my life and snorted fifty thousand dollars up my nose.”

“You think I would? Do that? After seeing my mom—I don’t even know her anymore! After listening to you? After seeing that?” Sophia gestured toward the corner where one of the homeless was holding a conversation with the trunk of a street tree. “No. I’m stronger than you.”

Ralph could have taken offense. He didn’t. “Good.”

“What happened?” Sophia asked.

“I went to prison for theft. Worked in some pretty lousy prison jobs. You don’t want to be incarcerated in Texas. They like to send you out to hoe the fence lines. Ninety-five degrees, a hundred percent humidity, fire ants, meanest mosquitos in the world.”

Something tickled Kellen’s neck, and she slapped at it. Probably it wasn’t really a bug, but all he had to do was mention mosquitos and she felt things crawling on her.

“I served in the kitchen when there weren’t any fences to hoe, so when I got out a couple of years later, I was clean, no drugs, and I knew how to cook. I started working in food banks. I wandered around the country, lived on the streets.” He gestured around at the alley. “It’s rough, but it’s home. And I helped people when I could. That’s the important thing. That’s what keeps me going, makes me not hate myself—offering a hand when I can.”

“But your daughter?” Sophia asked. “Did you talk to your daughter?”

“No.” Ralph moved his shoulders uncomfortably. “No. I can’t do that. She’s an adult. She’s got a job. She’s got a life. She doesn’t want to meet me. She doesn’t want to... No.”

“So you saw her?” Sophia insisted.

“What?” Ralph realized he’d fallen into a trap.

“You know she has a job and a life,” Sophia said, “so you tracked her down.”

“It’s not hard to do these days,” he said. “A few minutes at a computer, and I found her. She looks like her mother. She’s beautiful. She’s happy. I don’t want to change that.”

Sophia stared into his eyes. “You’re wrong. You need to talk to her. Every day, she’s got a hole in her gut because her father abandoned her, and he didn’t even care enough to check on her to see if she’s alive.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” Ralph was trying to dismiss Sophia.

Sophia was having none of it. “My father did that. When my mother went bad, he ran away. Packed up and left us kids with her. I loved him. He was my daddy.” Sophia’s voice rose. “And he abandoned us as if we didn’t matter at all.”

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