Chapter 8: The Morning of the Parade
Tommy Pritchard arrived at eight forty-five in a dark green truck with Tennessee plates and a small American flag decal in the rear window.
He was seventy-nine years old, built like he had been cut from something that didn't give easily, with a white beard trimmed close and hands that were still steady.
He got out of the truck and stood for a moment looking at Vela's house like a man making sure he was in the right place.
Heath met him at the end of the walk.
"Mr.
Pritchard?"
"Pitch," he said.
"Nobody's called me Mr.
Pritchard in forty years."
He came inside and stopped when he saw Bernard at the kitchen table.
Neither man said anything for a moment.
Then Bernard stood up slowly with his cane and Pitch crossed the kitchen in four steps and they held on to each other the way men do when they have not allowed themselves to need something for a very long time.
Kinley arrived at nine on the dot with Zach behind her.
She had worn the purple socks.
She stood in Vela's kitchen doorway looking at Bernard and Pitch and the photograph on the table, and then she looked at me, and I could see her trying to understand the full size of what she was looking at.
I went to her and took her hand.
"Come meet them," I said.
Zach stayed near the door.
He looked like a man who understood he was present at something he had nearly prevented.
I introduced Kinley to Bernard first.
"She's the one who carried my shoes to the truck," I told him.
Bernard looked at her seriously, the way good people look at children when they want them to feel seen.
"That was a good thing you did," he said.
Kinley looked at her shoes.
"I didn't want her to have to do it herself."
"That's exactly right," Bernard said.
Pitch shook Kinley's hand formally and called her ma'am, which made her blink and then stand a little straighter.
The parade committee arrived at nine thirty.
Two men and Ruth Aldene, who had brought a folder of revised arrangements and the focused expression of someone who had been on the phone until midnight making corrections of her own.
G was not with them.
Ruth set the folder on the table without preamble.
"Mr.
Bixler has withdrawn from the Grand Marshal position," she said.
"He submitted his withdrawal in writing this morning.
He has also withdrawn from the Hometown Heroes recognition."
She said it plainly, the way you state a fact that requires no additional commentary.
Vela, to her credit, kept her face completely neutral.
Ruth continued.
"We would like to offer the Grand Marshal position to Mr.
Kaminsky and Mr.
Pritchard jointly, if they're willing.
The recognition will be formally dedicated to the memory of Sergeant First Class Mack Calloway and all four members of the unit pictured in the photograph."
She looked at me when she said Mack's name.
I kept my face still.
My throat was less cooperative.
Bernard and Pitch looked at each other across the table.
"All four of us," Bernard said.
"All four," Ruth confirmed.
Pitch nodded once.
"Then yes."
Bernard picked up his cane and straightened in his chair.
"Yes," he said.
Zach had moved from the doorway to the edge of the room.
I could see him from the corner of my eye.
He was looking at the floor, then at Bernard, then at the photograph.
After Ruth and the committee left, he came to stand beside me.
"Who was the fourth soldier?" he said quietly.
"The one Bernard and Pitch didn't know at first."
"Mack identified him on the back of the frame," I said.
"His name was Carl Reese.
From Cincinnati.
He passed away in 1997."
Zach was quiet for a moment.
"Dad never talked about Grenada."
"No," I said.
"He didn't."
"Why not?"
I thought about that for a moment.
About what Mack used to say when people asked him about the service.
About the look he got when certain news stories came on.
"He said the men who talk the loudest about what they did are usually the ones who did the least," I said.
"He was proud of his service.
He just didn't need anyone else to know it."
Zach looked at the photograph.
"I'm sorry I moved your bed to the garage," he said.
It came out differently than it had on the phone.
Quieter.
More weight behind it.
"I know," I said.
"I mean it, Mom."
"I know you do," I said.
"We'll talk more.
There's time."
Heath appeared in the doorway.
May you like
"Cadillac's out front.
They're ready."
