We Were Beautiful Once Read Online Free Page A

looked deep into the man’s eyes.
    â€œListen, Nick, on my dad’s sixty-fifth birthday, I made him a promise that I’d find out what happened to Roger.  My brother, dead or alive is over there, unclaimed.  I’ve come to bring him home, the only way I know how.”
    Nick had a military habit of standing ruler-straight in his 5’11”, one-hundred and fifty pound frame, which as of late shouldered the gathering disappointments of life.  But tonight he rose from his chair, shoulders curved and an unmistakable weariness in his eyes adding ten years to his already advancing forty.  He had grown up not far from the town center in a working-class family; his father had hammered home the idea that hard work built character.  Yes, he knew about fathers, the heavy burden of expectations, the hopes unrealized, and the torment of those that lose or come close to losing their sons altogether.  Drifting to the window overlooking West Street, he saw that the stores were dark, and his eyes focused on the reflection of his face—sunk behind a five o’clock shadow.  At street level, people scurried for home.  He took a deep breath.
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Directions Decided
    1981
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    NICK PUT THE KEY IN THE BACK DOOR OF THE SPLIT RANCH that sat isolated at the cul-de-sac of Coswell Street, feeling that what might appear to be the wrong move to the rest of the world might turn out to be the right move after all.  He’d decided to take the case, despite having represented the government’s interests against veterans, despite Art’s inability to pay but more than a fraction of what it would cost to prosecute the claim.  Nick told Diane his decision after dinner, when she and the children—Trish, seven, and Jamie, fifteen—were all seated on the tall chairs that surrounded the kitchen bar.  The conversation turned to an obligatory appearance at the Bennetts’ next Saturday evening, to his son’s petition for new sneakers and his daughter’s recitation of the day’s playground politics.  Finally, left alone with dirty dishes and over the endless murmur of the television in the corner, his rationale to Diane was that his practice needed a boost, and one of the things he knew well was the ins and outs of veteran claims.  As she dried the pots, she nodded her head—more a sign that she was listening, rather than approving.  Nick said he thought representing veterans rather than fighting them had a better business upside.  What he had not shared with Diane was his curiosity about the apparent dismissive treatment Art got from the Army, especially in light of the reports of his brother’s sighting in Camp 13.   
    Later on, when the children were in bed, Nick peeked into Jamie’s room to listen to him breathing, something he did every night since nearly losing the boy to an asthma attack as a baby.  Nick recalled the hours spent watching Jamie sleep in a clear bubbled hospital croup tent, a speck in the Universe tenaciously clinging to life.  Three days and three nights he had stared through the tent enveloping this human lump of flesh, whom he had only known for a few days but for whose life he would have traded places.  He left Jamie’s door open a crack as he walked towards his study, mulling over his reasons for taking the case.  Reasons beyond those he had given Diane, and not simply because he had developed a soft spot for veterans.  Reasons to do with that image Art painted of his dad, how he had lost the will to live when the government marked the death of his son in a registered letter.  Recalling how he had nearly lost Jamie and experienced an uncertainty no father should, Nick knew his reasons had to do with a man’s grief, a son unclaimed.  Nick knew about feeling helpless and hopeful at the same time as he watched Jamie’s doctor pull an all-nighter—his stethoscope to the