Free Summer of Two Wishes by Julia London Page B

some sweet tea.”
    Inside, the house looked the same as it always had. It was built of limestone with a beamed ceiling in the living room and a linoleum floor in the kitchen his father had been promising to replace for ten years. One long corridor led to all the bedrooms.
    Finn walked into the one he’d shared with Brodie until Luke had gone off to college. He dropped his ruck on the bed and looked around. It was the same as the day he’d left it ten years ago. His rodeo trophies were lined up on a shelf above his bed. There was a pair of cleats on the dresser. Brodie’s, he figured, as Brodie had been the one to play baseball. A poster of Pamela Anderson dressed in a string bikini—complete with the obligatory mustache and glasses drawn on by his best friend Mike—was still tacked to the wall.
    Mike was the reason Finn had joined the army. Not the only reason, but the one that got him thinking about enlisting. Mike had come from a working-class family who didn’t put much store in college. Mike did, though, and the most realistic way for him to get there was through the G.I. Bill. He’d joined up after high school, did his time, and was just about to get out and go to college when 9/11 happened. Mike re-upped. And he died in Iraq.
    Several months after he died, Finn had seen his pickup on a dirt lot next to Highway 281 with a sign that said, FOR SALE, GOOD CONDITION . That was all that was left of Mike. He’d been reduced to a pickup on the side of the road, and Finn…Finn couldn’t let that happen. So he’d signed up for Mike. In memory of. Because Mike had the balls to die for his country.
    But it was more than that, really. It was for all of the soldiers who were dying over there. Guys like Finn, guys who supported the war, who were doing the best and only thing they could to avenge 9/11. Finn was young and strong and good with a gun. He felt like he had a responsibility to himself and to his country.
    He’d been married to Macy almost three years when he told her. She laughed at first, but when she saw he was serious, she was furious. She didn’t believe in this war or any other. “It’s a dead-end war! There will never be peace there!”
    “It’s not any more dead-end than social work,” he’d argued. “And you’d still be doing that if we didn’t live so far out.”
    Macy had gasped. “But those are children you’re talking about!”
    “Exactly,” he’d said. “You do what you can to protect innocent kids. Here or there, it doesn’t matter.”
    “Okay, what about our kids?” she’d demanded. “We’ll never have them if you get yourself killed!”
    “But, baby, if I don’t get myself killed, just think of how much better we’ll be for it. Think of what better parents we’d be.”
    In the end, she’d given in. But she hadn’t liked it.
    Finn had set up everything so that it would be easy for Macy. José was there, and Finn had assumed everything would be okay…
    He looked away from Pamela and Mike’s scribbling.
    Yes, his room was just as he’d left it with one notable exception: There was a computer atop a small desk, shoved up against the wall beneath the window. On the right of the monitor was a mouse pad and mouse; on the left, a stack of correspondence and a jar to hold pens and pencils.
    His mother walked in with a glass of sweet tea and noticed him looking at it. “We made this into the computer room,” she said apologetically. “I hope you don’t mind.”
    “Not at all.”
    “Is this going to be okay?” she asked, gesturing to a stack of fresh towels at the foot of the single twin bed.
    “It’s great, Mom.” Finn ran a hand through his hair. He was feeling a little closed in.
    “Tea?” she asked, holding the glass up.
    “No. But thanks.”
    She put the glass down. “Finn?”
    He was surprised to see tears in her eyes. She’d cried so much since he’d come home; how many tears did she have left? “Mom, stop,” he said softly, and pulled her into a hug.