"Just up by the college," Evan said.
The second cop said to his partner, "Not that far. Only about four miles, all uphill."
The one with the flashlight said, "Get in the squad car with me and he'll follow us to your place in your wheels. You barf in my car, you clean it up."
"Got it," Evan said.
EVAN WAS AT HIS PARENTS' HOME for a Sunday dinner that had become a more or less regular event since he had come back out to California. Once Daylight Saving Time arrived every year, Jim Scholler barbecued almost every night, and on this warm evening in late May he'd grilled chicken, which they'd eaten with fresh spring asparagus, a loaf of sourdough bread, and Eileen's "famous" tomato-potato salad with cilantro and red onions. Now, still long before true dusk, they were sitting outside, in the Schollers' large backyard in the long shadows cast by their mini-orchard of plum, fig, lemon, orange, and apricot trees.
Over their last glasses of cheap white wine, and with Evan now reemployed with the police department, ensconced in his new apartment, and with the immediate physical danger from his head wound behind them, at long last Eileen had mustered the courage to ask Evan about his love life.
He dredged up a chuckle. "What love life?"
"You're not seeing anybody at all?"
"That's not been at the top of my priorities, Mom. I'm not really looking."
His father cleared his throat. "What about Tara?"
"What about her?" The answer came out more harshly than he'd intended. "Didn't I mention that she never answered one of my letters-not one, Dad!-and I wrote about a dozen of them? That said it all clear enough. Plus, last I heard, she had another boyfriend."
"When did you hear that?" Eileen asked.
"At Walter Reed. In fact, the guy came to see me."
"Who did?" Jim asked. "Tara's new boyfriend? Why'd he do that?"
"I don't know. Guilt, probably."
"Over dating Tara?" Jim asked.
"Over stealing my girlfriend after I sent him over with one of my last letters to hand deliver to her? And instead he snags her away while I'm half-dead in the hospital? Could a person feel guilt about that? Or maybe if you were the reason a whole squad got wiped out?"
"You mean your boys?" Eileen asked. "Are you saying that Tara's new boyfriend is the man in your convoy who shot too soon?"
"You got it, Mom. Ron Nolan. I believe I've mentioned him once or twice."
"Never nicely," Jim said.
Evan slugged some wine. "What's nice to say?"
"Evan." Eileen frowned and threw him a quizzical glance. "I don't think I'd heard before that he was seeing Tara."
"But wait a minute," Jim said. "I thought you and Tara broke up over the war. Wasn't this guy Nolan over there too?"
"Yeah," Evan said. "Funny, huh? So I guess maybe it wasn't the war with me and Tara after all. Maybe she just wanted out and that was a good excuse."
"No." Eileen's voice was firm. "That's not who Tara is. She would have just told you the truth."
He shook his head. "I don't think we know who the real Tara is, Mom. Not anymore, anyway."
But Jim came back with his original question. "So this guy Nolan came to Walter Reed to apologize, or what?"
"That was the spin he put on it. But you ask me, it was to rub it in."
"Why would he do that?" Eileen asked.
"Because that's who he is, Mom. He's a mercenary who shot up that Iraqi car because he wanted to, period. Because he could. And if you want my opinion, he came to Walter Reed, among other reasons, to show me he'd gotten clean away with it. And while he was at it, he stole my girlfriend. This is not a good guy, believe me."
"Then what does Tara see in him?"
"That's what I've been getting at, Mom. She's not who you think she is."
"I still don't see how you can say that."
Facing his mother's implacable calm, her hard-wired refusal to think ill of anybody, Evan suddenly felt his temper snap. He slapped a palm flat down on the table, his voice breaking. "Okay, how about this, Mom? When Nolan told her I'd been wounded, you know what she said? She said I made my bed, I could sleep in it. Her exact words." His eyes had become glassy, but the tears shimmering in them were of rage, not sorrow. "She just didn't care, Mom. That's who she is now."
For a few seconds, the only sound in the backyard was the susurrus of the breeze through the leaves of the fruit trees.
"I can't believe that," Eileen said finally. "That just can't be true."
Evan drew a deep breath and raised his head to look straight at his mother. Exhausted and angry, he nevertheless had his voice under control. "No offense, Mom, but how can you know that? That's what she said."
Eileen reached out across the picnic table and put a reassuring hand on her son's arm. "And when was this?" she asked.
"When was what?"
"When she heard that you'd been wounded and said you'd made your own bed and you could sleep in it."
"I don't know exactly. Sometime in early September, right after Nolan got back home, about the time I got to Walter Reed."
