The Purple Heart Came Home to Main Street

“I know I don’t,” he said.

I counted out seven twenties onto the glass. He wrote me a receipt, and he put the medal back in the bag, and then he looked around and found a little white jewelry box under the counter and put the bag in that.

“You tell your grandpa thank you,” he said. “From me.”

“I will.”

“And son.” He looked at me over the case. “The fellow whose name is on that ticket. You know him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He came in here pretty rough,” Lonnie said. “Shaky. I almost didn’t take it. I wish I hadn’t.” He shook his head. “You go easy if you can. Or don’t. That’s your family, not mine.”

I shook his hand. It was a big, dry hand, a working man’s hand. I went out to the truck and set the white box on the seat beside me and sat there with the engine running for a long time before I could drive.

I did not tell Grandpa. I kept the white box in my jacket pocket, the inside one, and I did not take that jacket off much that week.

Seth got home the Monday before Veterans Day. He went straight to Grandpa’s house from the truck yard. I was there, eating lunch at Grandpa’s table, because we were working close by.

Seth is a big quiet man like Grandpa, but rounder, with a gray beard. He stood in the kitchen door with his cap in his hands.

“Walt,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Wasn’t you,” Grandpa said.

“He’s mine,” Seth said. “That makes it partly me.”

Grandpa looked at him for a while. “Sit down and have some coffee, Seth,” he said. So Seth did.

Jared came in from the spare room a few minutes later. He looked bad. He had not shaved, and his eyes were red, and I could tell he had not slept. He saw his dad at the table and stopped in the door.

Nobody said anything for a while. Grandpa finished his coffee. Then he set the cup down and spoke to Jared without getting up.

“You’re going to need to find another place by the first of December,” Grandpa said. “I’ll not throw you out in the cold before then. But that’s the day.”

“Yes, sir,” Jared said.

“And you’ll pay your brother back what he’s spent looking.” Grandpa had not asked me what I spent. I had not told him I found anything. I think he knew I had driven a lot of miles. “Whatever that comes to. I don’t care how long it takes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And one more thing.” Grandpa looked at him straight. “You’ll be at that parade on Wednesday. On Main Street. You’ll sit across the street from me, where I can see you, and you’ll stay till the end.”

Jared opened his mouth. Then he closed it.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

That was all. Grandpa did not raise his voice. He never has, not one time in my whole life. Seth got up and put his hand on Jared’s shoulder and steered him out to the truck, and they drove away.

After they left, I sat at the table and thought about whether to tell Grandpa then. I almost did. But I could see him getting his good coat out of the hall closet in my head, and the cedar box, and the empty blue case. I wanted him to have it all at once, on the curb, where it belonged.