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"Yes," she admitted "Want some more Coke? There&039;s half a can left in the kitchen No? Yes, they had figured out how they could add an aparte Didn&039;t want me in the house with &039;e a place with my sister - and came up here Left her down there" She shook her head "Then this all happened"

"So," I said, about to ask so very nosy but unable to stop myself, "why did you stay?"

"Why?" she repeated blankly

"After they disappeared Why did you stay?"

"Oh," she said with coet you I stayed here in case they turned up"

"Don&039;t you think that&039;s kind of eerie, Martin?" I asked that night, as he put away the leftovers and I washed the dishes

"Eerie? Senti to turn up alive, after all these years"

I recalled the saccharine pictures in the aparturine All very sentimental "Maybe so," I conceded reluctantly "Did you see that Angel and I had rearranged the living rooe and pulled the plug The sink water drained out with a big gurgle, like a dragon drinking water "It looks good I think the gallery table Jane left you needs sos is loose"

"I think -bloods, Martin"

"I told you, Shelby needed a job"

I gatheredup the dishtowel on a rack ht

"I wondered when you were going to ask," he said finally

"I wondered when you were going to tell"

He turned to face ainst the one at right angles to him I crossed my arms across my chest His sleeves were rolled up and his tie was loosened He crossed his are expert would bloods ht I&039;d lead off with the most obvious question

Martin sed My heart was pounding as if I&039;d been running

"I knew Shelby in Vietnah it"

I nodded, just to shoas registering this information "After the war after our part of the warI&039;d ence people in Vietnam I spoke souys in our unit and we spoke Spanish with the to do"

Martin&039;s knuckles hite as he gripped his crossed arned on with another coovernment"

"You were asked?"

"Yes" His eyes ed with black lashes and brows that were Martin&039;sfeature "We were asked And in our - working with us, was Jirown up next to some exiled Cubans His Spanish was even better than ours" Martin half-s ine

"What we did was," he resu them away But it was supposed to see the, that I was doing soood for my country I never made any personal profit But it&039;s becouys are" He was looking out theinto the night I wondered if the Youngbloods could look outside the sideof their apartment and down into our kitchen I could not move to draw the curtain And Martin had his own private view of darkness Guns Guns were better than drugs Right? Of course with all Martin&039;s trips to South America, I had been worried Martin&039;s pirate side had led hih Martin had often expressed profound contes and those who sold them Guns were better "And we delivered theroups Some of these people were okay, soh A feere just - bandits"

I pulled lasses off and rubbed my eyes with my hand I had a headache I put theer I stared past Martin&039;s aret some Bon Ami and really scrub that sink "And one day - it was about , ere up in the Cha a delivery to one of the better guys Out of nowhere, ere aroup who&039;d heard soot the scar onAnd Jiot his head blown off"

I took in my breath quickly I was married to man who had witnessed this barbarity, this horror, had been part of it I began to shiver I wanted this story over

"Shelby and I got out of there, just barely We had to leave Jih about the copter to get us out, though he was bleeding like a stuck pig And then it took us a while to heal We heard the group ere supposed to take the guns to were all dead before we got there When we came back to the States, Shelby went to see Jimmy Dell&039;s family in Florida Jimmy Dell had been the oldest kid by far, and there were fivethen, Shelby thought, and Mr Dunn surely thought so, too So Shelby wandered for a while" And Martin had gone to stay on that isolated farm in Ohio with a man he hated, just to have a familiar place to recover And while he was there, he hooked back up with Cindy And they married And he never told her this Or not all of it Ridiculously, I could not stop shivering

"After a few years Shelby went back to Florida Angel had gotten interested inhappened to her, and she got Shelby interested, too They got uards"

Gee, I wondered whom you would work for in southern Florida

"But they didn&039;t want to work for that kind" My face must have spoken for me "So later, mostly they worked at the s people ere there temporarily Some of the people were pretty famous" Martin attempted a smile "And they did some stunts in karate movies, too Their last job was for a wo people

"She didn&039;t owe it, Roe" Martin looked directly at me "She&039;d stolen it, and they found her They let the Young-bloods live, but they gave theel was in the hospital, still, when Shelby caet insurance, and they were broke, and they needed to leave the area for a while I&039;d been worried about you being out here by yourself when I was out of town, and the apart"

He came over to me in two steps, waited a moment to see if I would hit him if he touched me, then put his arms around me I felt his heavy ht that the workouts I had attributed to a desire to stay fit and look good were actually ai hiainst his thick chest and let so be absorbed by him

"So," he said to the top ofto happen now?"

"I&039;et some Bon Ami and scrub the sink" Martin held o in the fa"

He left the kitchen through the hall door, his shoeslittle noises on the hardwood as he crossed the hall

I got the Bon A side, and set to work I thought of a conversation I&039;d had withabout love, and she&039;d said that woe theed; they can&039;t possibly love the daer, that can&039;t be the reason they stay A wo sense of self-preservation will leave the bad relationship to save herself; the self-preservation will kill the love, so the individual will leave and be saved from further harun to be unfaithful, she had left, and she no longer loved him

I loved Martin so much it made me catch my breath, so to stay I had no idea what he was thinking, sitting there in our new room in our new house I rinsed the Bon A It had probably never been so clean in its entire existence

I seeether I was relieved beyond s I would have had to leave Guns were bad Could I live with guns? I could live with the guns And why on earth had Martin fallen in love withbetween a Martian and a Venusian I doubled over and put an to cry

Martin heard and came in He hated it when I cried He turned ainst hi to crawl inside his skin After a few moments, this had the inevitable effect, even under the emotional circumstances Martin moved restlessly, and I kept my arms wrapped around him and raised my face to his