The doctors weren’t quite sure what was going on with Puller Sr. They wouldn’t officially call it Alzheimer’s or even dementia. They had begun to say simply that he was “getting old.”
Puller just hoped his father had enough lucidity left today to tell him about the letter. Or at least to allow him to see it.
“You received a letter?” he prompted. “Top- secret communication? Maybe from SecArm?” he added, referring to the Secretary of the Army.
Although his father had been out of the Army
for nearly two decades, he didn’t seem to realize that was so. Puller had found it better to keep the military subterfuge going, in order to put his father at ease, and also to move conversations forward. He felt silly doing it, but the doctors had persuaded him that this was a preferable course, at least in the short term. And maybe the short term was all his father had left.
His father nodded and looked grim. “Not bullshit, at least I don’t think so. Got me concerned, XO.”
“Can I get read in, sir?”
His father hesitated, stared up at him, his expression that of a man who was not quite sure what or who he was looking at.
“Think I can get read in, General?” Puller asked again, his voice quieter but also firmer.
His father pointed to his pillow. “Under there. Had me concerned.”
“Yes, sir. May I, sir?”
Puller indicated the pillow and his father nodded and sat up.
Puller stepped forward and pulled up the pillow. Underneath was an envelope that had been torn open. Puller picked it up and gazed at it. The address was written in block letters. His dad. At this VA hospital. Postmarked from a place called Paradise, Florida. The place sounded vaguely familiar. He looked at the name in the top left- hand corner of the envelope.
Betsy Puller Simon. That’s why it sounded familiar.
That was his aunt and his father’s sister. She was older than her brother by nearly ten years.
Lloyd Simon had been her husband. He’d died many years ago. Puller had been on deployment in Afghanistan back then. He remembered getting a note from his father about it. He hadn’t thought about his aunt very often since then and suddenly wondered why. Well, now he was totally focused on her.
She’d written to her brother. The brother was upset. Puller was about to find out why, he supposed. He hoped it wasn’t about a missing pet, or an unpaid bill, or that his elderly aunt was getting remarried and maybe wanted her younger brother to give her away.
There was no way that was happening.
He slid the single sheet of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. It was heavy stock with a nice watermark. In five years they probably wouldn’t even make this stuff anymore. Who wrote letters by hand these days?
He focused on the spidery handwriting sprawled across the page. It was written in blue ink, which made it jump off the cream-colored paper.
There were three paragraphs in the letter.
Puller read all three, twice. His aunt had ended by writing, “Love to you, Johnny. Betsy.”
Johnny and Betsy?
It made his father seem almost human.
Almost.
Puller could now understand why his father had been upset after reading the letter. His aunt had clearly been upset while writing it.
Something was going on down in Paradise, Florida, that she didn’t like. She didn’t go into detail in the letter, but what she had written was enough to get Puller interested. Mysterious happenings at night. People not being who they seemed. A general air of something not being right. She had named no names. But she had ended the letter by asking for help not from her brother.
She asked specifically for my help.
His aunt must’ve known that he was an Army investigator. Perhaps his father had told her. Perhaps she had found out on her own. What he did for a living was not a secret.
He folded the letter back up and put it in his pocket. He looked at his father, who was now gazing across at the little TV set connected to the wall by way of a hinged arm. On the screen was The Price Is Right. His father seemed intrigued by the goings-on. This was a man who, in addition to having led the ioist, had commanded an entire corps composed of up to five divisions, totaling nearly a hundred thousand highly trained soldiers, in combat. And he was now intently watching a TV show where people guessed the prices of everyday stuff in an attempt to win more stuff. “Can I keep the letter, sir?” he asked.
Now that Puller had been summoned and had the letter and matter seemingly in hand, his father no longer seemed interested or upset. He waved his hand in a vague symbol of dismissal.
“Take care of it, XO. Report back when the matter is resolved.”
He had leave time still remaining. No one had expected him back this early. He could not walk away from this.
Or her. And it wasn’t entirely altruism. A part of Puller wondered whether his aunt could once more help
him through troubling times. And not just with his father. He had never really talked about what had happened in West Virginia with anyone, not even his brother. Yet, despite what he’d told his brother, Puller had things he needed to talk about. What he didn’t have was someone he felt comfortable doing that with.
Maybe his aunt could be that person. Again.
It looked like he was headed to Paradise.