Family Secrets

  FAMILY SECRETS

  Zina Abbott

  Family Secrets by Zina Abbott

  Copyright © 2014 Robyn Echols aka Zina Abbott

  Cover Design Livia Reasoner

  Fire Star Press

  www.firestarpress.com

  All rights reserved.

  Family Secrets is a work of fiction. Although several of the Vietnam War incidences were based on the actual experiences of a Vietnam War veteran, all names, characters, places and incidences either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Prologue – Mike

  As he looked out his airplane window, nothing he had ever seen looked more beautiful to Mike than the first sight of the SEATAC airport in Washington. After spending his year in Vietnam, this was his first close-up sight of mainland United States in its non-tropical glory. He’d made it home from war alive and in one piece. He could hardly wait to get his boots on the ground. He was no longer in-country; he was home.

  He was almost in one piece, he reminded himself. Mike rolled his left shoulder to relieve the ache in the healing “through and through” bullet wound to his upper arm. He reached down to scratch the itch on his right thigh where another bullet from the same engagement had grazed his leg. He still didn’t breathe too deeply because of the pain in the right side of his chest from the bullet that had smacked into his flak jacket. At the thought of it, he reached up and touched the section of his fatigues that covered the bruise which was still the size of a grapefruit, circling with his fingertips the tender skin that this morning still had a lot of gray and purple, but had started to turn yellow.

  Yes, he was beat up a little, but that was okay. He didn’t end up like so many men who, after making it through most of the war, were killed the last month they were there. After he was wounded, when they were ready to release him back to duty, he was so close to his DEROS, his day of expected return from overseas, that his CO decided to send him to be processed out early rather than return him to the platoon for four days.

  It was when he and the men who had departed from Nam with him left the airport and climbed into the buses that would take them to Fort Lewis that Mike first saw the anti-war protestors and their signs. With the others, his face set in stone, Mike watched as the groups of people, some dressed like hippies, most in regular, everyday clothes, stepped toward the bus as it passed them, waving their signs and shaking their clenched fists or their fingers formed like the letter V.

  The peace symbol, thought Mike with a smirk. They didn’t look very peaceful to him. The faces Mike saw wore expressions of anger or disgust. Mike was grateful that, thanks to the roar of the bus engine and the closed windows, he couldn’t hear what they were shouting.

  Even though he had put his life on the line to serve his country and save the world from communism, there was no hero’s welcome here.

  Mike knew that the sentiment in the United States had turned against the war the year he was gone, but he hadn’t realized it was this bad. As the bus left the groups of protestors behind, Mike sat facing straight forward and focused his eyes on a spot above the driver’s rearview mirror. He let his mind process what he had just seen. Only after they were away from the city did he return his attention to the scenes outside the bus windows.

  It took the Army only a couple of days to process him out once he arrived at Fort Lewis. They asked him what uniform he wanted all his patches and pins on for going home. He gave them his dress blues because that was the only thing he had left that wasn’t almost in tatters.

  Mike was subjected to the usual physical and a blood test. He knew he was okay on that score.

  Mike remembered when, within days of arriving in-country, his company commanding officer lined up the new arrivals and gave them a stern lecture about the evils of visiting the local whores in Qui Nhon, or anywhere else in Nam. In addition to the clap and the usual sexually transmitted diseases they had in the United States, Indochina had some peculiar to the region which were particularly nasty and incurable. The CO warned the men that they all would be tested before they were allowed to return to U.S. soil. If they tested positive, they would spend the rest of their lives assigned to suicide squads in Vietnam. They would never be allowed to return to civilian life in the United States.

  Then he ordered a private who had been standing by his side to step forward and unzip his pants. The soldier did as ordered, and walked down the line, showing the men his penis. There was a hole in it crossways, like someone had laid it on a workbench and taken a drill to it. The display was intended to shock and impress upon the men the importance of the CO’s warning.

  It had made a believer out of Mike, not that he had ever been inclined to seek women for casual sex. While in Nam, Mike had steered clear of the city’s temptations. What little leave he was granted there, he had spent lounging with his buddies at the beach.

  Mike stoically sat through the re-enlistment orientation where the Army tried to persuade them to re-up for a second tour. No matter what they promised him, Mike had no intention of going back.

  The last thing was to visit the Paymaster. There, they figured what money was owed to Mike, including his unused leave pay. He also went through them to reserve and pay for his plane ticket to Sacramento.

  Then, outfitted in his dress blues that were decked out with the patches the Army had sewn on and medals that told the story of his involvement in the Army, Mike boarded the bus for the ride back to SEATAC. He was on his way home to civilian life.

  Mike’s mother threw her arms around him when he arrived at the Sacramento airport. He hugged her in return, but felt guilty that he could not return her depth of feeling. He loved his mother. That was not the issue. He just still felt hollow inside. It was hard to allow himself to feel close to anyone. Too often this past year, men he had grown close to had been taken from him in death, oftentimes right before his eyes. Mike felt relief when his father greeted him with only a handshake. Maybe it was because his dad had also seen combat and knew what it was like.

  At home, Mike took off the uniform and put it on a wooden suit hanger. After he was settled back into his room, he found his mother and handed her his neatly-hung uniform.

  “Here, Mother, do something with this, will you please? I don’t want it in my closet.”

  Flustered, she asked, “What do you want me to do with it?”

  “I don’t care,” Mike replied with a shrug. “Strip everything off of it and give it to Goodwill. Some soldier who needs to replace his dress blues but doesn’t have the money to buy a new uniform will consider it a real find.”

  “I really think you should keep this, Mike. You may decide later you want it.”

  “No, Mother,” Mike shook his head in frustration, “I won’t want it later. Please! Just get rid of it.”

  “What about all these patches and medals on it? I don’t have any idea what they mean. If you had joined the Navy, I would know. But, since you went into the Army…”

  With relief, Mike watched his mother shake her head as if willing herself to not continue the old argument now that he was home. He watched her study his uniform, trying to figure out the significance of what she saw.

  “What’s the meaning of this collar button that looks like a castle?”

  “That’s for being an engineer.”

  He watched her finger the silver pin with the parachute banked on both sides by wings and the pin with the linked awards for rifle and bayonet. She probably guessed what they represented. Her fingers also gl
ided down The Spec-4 patches that were on his sleeves. As he watched her, Mike thought about how he never regained the E-5 stripe he lost. She ran her finger over his Vietnam Conflict ribbon that sported two bronze stars and a banner giving his year of service over there.

  “What’s this red patch with the white squiggly square and the sword for?”

  “That was for the engineer group I was assigned to over there.” Mike said, struggling to be patient.

  “And this one, shaped like a shield with vertical yellow, blue and red stripes and a sword in the middle?”

  “That’s my Vietnam Combat patch, to remind me I served there in wartime.”

  As if I would ever forget.

  “This one is interesting, Mike. What’s the meaning of this gold pin with the lizard that says “Never Daunted”?”

  “That’s for the 84th Engineers Construction Battalion that I was assigned to in Nam. It’s a chameleon, not a lizard. The battalion was first formed back in the thirties as a camouflage unit, which is why they chose the chameleon as their mascot. The words come from a speech some South Korean premier made about the battalion’s service in the Korean War. He described them as ‘never daunted’. The battalion adopted that as their motto.”

  “That’s a wonderful story,” chirped Mike’s mother as her eyes roamed over his uniform trying to absorb what everything meant as it applied to her son. Then, with regret, she said, “I suppose I could take everything off and donate the uniform so someone else who needs it more now can have it. But, what do you want me to do with all your pins and patches?”

  “You can throw them away for all I care.”

  “Michael! You can’t mean that!”

  Ignoring the balance of his six year obligation as an inactive, Mike turned away from the look of dismay on his mother’s face and walked out of the room.

  “Just get rid of them, Mother. I’m finished with the Army. The war is over for me.”

  Chapter 1 - Jennie

  “I hate history.”

  Jennie Graves Howell shoved the reference book away from her and slumped forward until she rested her forehead on her folded arms. The cool Formica of the library study table with its faux oak wood pattern felt good against the bare skin of her forearms. She closed her eyes and focused for a moment on her warm breath bouncing off the tabletop and back into her face. She was tired and ready to take a nap. Unfortunately, a nap was out of the question. With dinner to help with, Garrett to take care of, and hours of more homework ahead of her, she knew she would be lucky if she had a chance to sleep before midnight.

  Jennie had not realized that going back to school full-time would be so hard. So much had happened since she graduated from high school four years earlier. There was her marriage to Gerald and the birth of their son, Garrett. And now Gerald was in Afghanistan again. Only this time, just prior to his deployment, he had told her he did not love her, had never really loved her and wanted to talk about ending their marriage when he returned.

  That was what had prompted her to go back to college and start again the classes she had dropped out of her first semester at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. Once she met Gerald and fell in love, education followed by a degree in a field with good income-producing potential had ceased to be a concern to her. Now, getting a degree with good income-producing potential was of vital importance. She was so grateful her parents agreed with her and had invited her and Garrett to move back home while Gerald was overseas so she could attend Cosumnes River College.

  Jennie straightened up and leaned against the hard wooden chair back to stretch her spine. She shook her head at the thought of the mid-term paper due in only seven more days. She scratched her scalp under the French braid of frizzy light-brown hair. Once again, she thought about how she had inherited her mother’s blue eyes, but not her mother’s beautiful wavy blonde hair. Instead, most of the time, her hair looked like she had just stuck her finger in an electrical socket. At least she was thankful for her skin, which, as her family often told her, has a “healthy glow” to it. Lately, she didn’t feel there was anything healthy or glowing about her skin or anything else about her.

  It was only the first week of October, but her history instructor said he did not want to get too close to the holidays before the class completed their first major project of the year. The pressure of the due date bore down on Jennie. She knew she should be grateful for the early deadline. She knew when The Bedazzled Boutique started gearing up for Black Friday and the Christmas season, her job there would get busier. It would mean more money for her. It would also mean more hours, more work-related stress, and less time for school and family.

  The biggest problem was she had waited too long to do most of the more time-consuming research. More precisely, she had put off going to the local Golden Oaks branch of the greater Sacramento library system. Now, she was paying the price.

  The chuckle from the older woman at the other end of the study table prompted her to sit up straight.

  “I remember feeling that way about history back in the day. Now, I wish I had majored in history when I went to college.”

  Jennie looked across the table at her neighbor, Donna Moore, whose smiling face was framed by short, gray hair topped by a pink and white crocheted beret. They had nodded and smiled in welcome at each other when Mrs. Moore had joined Jennie at the table. Immediately after, to discourage her neighbor from striking up a conversation with her, Jennie, feeling pressed for time, had ducked her head into the oversized illustrated history book she was reading.

  They were the only ones using the table designed for six, for which Jennie was grateful. There were enough books and papers surrounding the two laptop computers—Jennie’s and Mrs. Moore’s—that there would have been little room for anyone else. Mrs. Moore definitely was not at the library to leisurely read a novel.

  Jennie knew that Donna Moore lived with her husband two houses away from Jennie’s family. Up until the previous spring, Jennie used to see Mrs. Moore, short and slightly overweight, at the bank, dressed in power suits and heels, working at a desk behind a glassed-in partition. Through her parents, Jennie had learned that Mrs. Moore and her husband had retired. Now when Jennie saw her neighbor, she was dressed in casual pants and sweater vests over knit tops.

  According to Jennie’s mother, Mrs. Moore had started a new business doing research. She did seem to always be going places and keeping busy. As Jennie thought about Mrs. Moore’s response to her complaint about history, she realized she must have missed something in her mother’s description of Mrs. Moore’s new venture. She could not for the life of her remember what kind of research her neighbor did. Was it scientific, or some type of legal or technical research?

  Bored with reading and taking notes, Jennie suddenly developed an intense curiosity about why Mrs. Moore was at the library. Why did she now wish she had majored in history?

  “It’s nice to see you, Mrs. Moore. I apologize for being so engrossed in wading through this book that I failed to be sociable.”

  “I don’t see you here very often,” Mrs. Moore smiled. “Are you working on a term paper?”

  “Yes. This is my mid-term for United States history,” Jennie sighed. Then, forcing a smile, she asked, “What were you saying about wishing you had majored in history? Other than being a teacher, I’m not sure what a person would do with a history major. I thought Mom said you started a new research business.”

  “Your mother is correct. That is why I spend so much time here amidst the history books.”

  Completely baffled and not wanting to appear stupid, Jennie decided to use a circular route to ask her question.

  “I usually do most of my research for assignments online since they seem to have the latest information on many topics. Unfortunately, my instructor, Mr. Martin, wants us to get most of our sources from non-digital library materials. I need to use at least four actual bound paper and ink library books from two different library systems. I would expect criteria like that in an English c
lass, but history? I much prefer to search the internet.”

  “I often find what I want online, too. But there is no substitute for the resources of a good library. I’m fairly familiar with this library. What time period in history? Maybe I can help you find the books that will be most helpful,” offered the older woman.

  “We’re studying the Colonial era through the Civil War this semester. Of course, for my project, I would have to choose the events leading up to the Civil War. We haven’t even covered it in class, yet.”

  “Ah, yes,” nodded Mrs. Moore. “That was an interesting period of time. I find myself looking at documents from those decades quite often.”

  Jennie blinked. “Interesting” was not the word she would have chosen to describe what she was reading. She had spent most of the afternoon trying to stay awake. But, she did not want to be rude to her neighbor by saying so. Instead, she looked over at the books that surrounded Mrs. Moore.

  “It looks like you’re studying history, too,” Jennie said. “Are you taking a college class?”

  “No, no.” Donna Moore shook her head. “This is for my business. It brings me to the library quite often. And, it is because I enjoy my work that I now enjoy history.”

  Jennie gave up trying to figure it out.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Moore, but I’m not exactly sure what kind of research work you do.”

  “I’m a genealogical researcher. People pay me to search for records about their family members, mostly those who are no longer with us.”

  “Oh,” said Jennie, unsure how to respond. Once again, she did not want to insult Mrs. Moore by letting her know how unexcited she felt about the description of her business. Why would anyone want to learn about people who were dead? “I guess I still don’t understand what genealogy is, or what it has to do with history.”

  “Genealogy is searching out the basic information about family lines. The word ‘genea’ is Latin for ‘family’. In fact, most people refer to what I do as ‘family history,’ because it often involves more than just names, dates and places.”