Chapter 29: Leave

March 30, 2005 - April 2005

As soon as we were dismissed, the place broke into sheer pandemonium, as everybody tried to find their family members. I wasn’t even sure my family was there, so I ended up wandering around looking for a familiar face. I think the people who had it the worst were the spectators, since there were about a thousand of us all dressed alike and with the same haircut. Fortunately, I was a few inches taller than most and that made it a little easier. I slowly circulated, and then I saw a poster being held aloft saying ‘REAPER’ and I made my way towards it. I couldn’t recall anybody else named Reaper in the battalion, but I didn’t think it was that unusual a name. I knew I had hit the jackpot when I saw another head above the crowd standing next to the sign. I held my hand up and waved, and he grinned and waved back. It was my brother Jack.

He turned and yelled, “He’s over here! We got him!” We kept waving and started heading through the crowd towards each other.

When we finally got together, I saw that our baby brother, Bobbie Joe, was the one waving the sign. He was nowhere near as big as Jack or me, so all you could have seen of him was his hands holding the sign. I didn’t care. I gave them both a hug. “When you going to get your growth spurt, Bobbie Joe? You ever going to grow up?”

“Screw you, too, Grim. You’ve been in the Army two years now and you’re still an asshole,” he replied, laughing.

Jack said, “Look who’s talking about a growth spurt? I used to think you were big, but I guess I was wrong.” Jack was two inches taller than me and must have weighed at least twenty or thirty pounds more. He was like a human mountain now.

“Yeah? In the Army we specialize in cutting big problems down to size.”

I was about to grab him and show him when he turned away and waved his hands over his head. “I got him over here!” he called out.

“Who’s here?” I asked.

He gave me an odd look. “Everybody you invited.”

“Hey, communication has been pretty screwed up lately,” I told him. “I haven’t heard from any of you in two weeks.”

“Mom and Dad and Kelly,” answered Bobbie Joe.

The mention of Kelly lifted a big burden from me, but I still needed to talk to her. Something about her last letters just wasn’t right. I looked over at where Jack was waving. I saw Dad first, but he’s about as tall as Jack and me. He’s almost a head taller than Mom or Kelly. It was like watching a ship part the sea, as he came forward, and then I saw my mother and my fiancée. Mom was crying but smiling, and Kelly was simply smiling. I ended up hugging both of them at the same time, and looking over at Dad and saying, “Hey, Dad!”

“Hey yourself!”

Kelly pulled my head down to hers and she gave me a kiss that was enough to raise the temperature about twenty degrees. “I have missed you so much!” she said.

“Same here, babe, same here.” I gave her another hug, and then hugged Mom again. After a bit we were hugged out, so I asked, “What’s going on? Where are you guys staying? How’d you get here?”

“We drove up yesterday and stayed the night. We’re actually staying down in Syracuse. We’ll stay the night and then drive home tomorrow,” said Dad.

“All six of us? You drove the minivan up?” Six of us plus luggage might be tight.

He shook his head. “No, Kelly has her car. We drove up in the truck, so we can throw all the luggage in the back.” I raised an eyebrow at that but shrugged it off. Dad loved his pickup truck, and it was certainly big enough for the four of them plus luggage in the capped-over truck bed, but the thing got gas mileage like a Humvee. It helped if you owned an oil well. “We brought up some civilian clothing for you in case you didn’t have any.”

“Thank you.”

I was interrupted by a voice from behind. “Specialist Reaper!”

I turned and came to parade rest. I knew from the voice that it was Lieutenant Briscoe, but I was surprised to find him approaching with Captain Holman. “SIR!” I barked out.

“At ease, Specialist, at ease,” he said with a chuckle. “This won’t be a minute.”

“Yes, sir. Uh, allow me to introduce my parents, John and Maureen Reaper, and my brothers Jack and Bobbie Joe, and this is my fiancée, Miss Kelly O’Connor.” I turned to the others and said, “This is my Platoon Leader, Lieutenant Briscoe, and our Company Commander, Captain Holman.”

“Pleased to meet you, all of you,” said Briscoe. Holman said the same, and they shook hands with the others.

Briscoe dug into a pocket and pulled out something. “Specialist Reaper, I’m jumping the gun by a few weeks, but I thought you might like to have this before you went on leave.” He handed me the chevrons of a corporal.

“Sir?”

“You’ve earned it, Corporal. We’ll do the paperwork when you get back, but the Captain and I don’t think it will break too many rules to give you this now. You’ll be getting a fire team as we rebuild the battalion.”

“Yes, sir. Understood. I won’t let you down.”

“I know you won’t.”

Captain Holman looked at my brothers. “Either of you fellows planning on following in your brother’s footsteps?”

They shook their heads. “No, sir. I’ve got a football scholarship to the University of Georgia,” answered Jack.

“The Bulldogs? You’re big enough for them. Well, if you boys change your mind, we’ll be happy to talk to you. If you’re half as good as your brother, you’ll do fine,” Captain Holman said.

“Thank you, sir,” I answered.

“Congratulations, Corporal. You earned it,” he finished.

We shook hands and left, and my family gave me a confused look. Mom asked, “Was that a promotion?”

I made a waffling motion with the hand I didn’t have wrapped around my fiancée. “Yes and no. I’m still an E-4, which is the same as a Specialist, which is what I am now, or was, anyway. This is a lateral promotion, they call it. I won’t get paid any more, but it makes me a non-commissioned officer. I’ll have a fire team when I get back here.”

“So, you don’t make any more money, but you have a bigger job?” she asked. “That doesn’t sound fair.”

I grinned at her. “That’s the way it works, Mom. Don’t worry about it. If I do a decent job, my name will be at the top of the list when it comes time to promote somebody to Sergeant.”

“And you can do this job?” asked Dad.

I thought about it for a second, but only a second. “Yeah, Dad, I can run a fire team.”

“Well, then, congratulations. You can sew that on your dress uniform and take us all out to dinner when we get home. We’ll find someplace nice and expensive.”

“Now I wish he’d waited!” That got my family laughing at me.

With that, we went over to where I had stashed my personal gear, and my brothers and I hefted it and carried it as Dad led us to the parking lot and the truck. We loaded it, and then they climbed in, while Kelly led me over to her Miata. “You want to drive?” she asked.

I gave an involuntary chuckle. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I’ll probably be looking for the machine gun mount on the roof!”

“You’ll have to get over that,” she replied. “I think your parents were wondering if you were going to buy a car to come back here with.”

I nodded. When I had arrived here right out of training, we had almost immediately gone into preparation for our deployment, and it had made no sense to buy a car and then put it into storage two months later. Things were different now. I could easily see driving around for a year before we had to go back. That we would eventually go back was almost a guarantee. Nothing I had seen in Iraq made me think we were anywhere near winning over there, or even that we knew what ‘winning’ would look like.

We got in and followed my father out of the parking lot and out of Fort Drum. I just sat there and watched her driving. She was so beautiful. She had worn designer jeans that looked like they had been painted on, and a cable-knit sweater that was about one size too small, so it hugged her curves very nicely. She looked over at me and asked, “What?”

“Hmmm?”

“What are you looking at?”

“You.”

“Grim!” Kelly blushed. “Seriously.”

“I’m looking at you. I have been dreaming about you ever since I went back to Iraq. I’m just so happy you came.”

She gave me a funny look. “Well, where else would I have been, silly?”

“I don’t know, school I suppose,” I told her.

She shook her head, causing her coppery hair to flow around her. “No, that’s not an issue.” I looked down at the floor, feeling guilty for ever doubting her. She looked over at me, and asked, “Grim, what’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

“I ... I’m sorry. I thought ... I don’t know...”

“What’s wrong?”

I looked over at her. “Ever since you went off to college, it’s been like things are different. I was wondering if you had changed your mind or something.” I looked down at the floor of the car again. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” I said quietly.

Kelly reached over and smacked me on the side of the head. “Grim, you’re an idiot! Of course, I’d come. I love you! Now, what’s going on?” She had an exasperated look on her face.

“Well, it’s just that since you went off to Vanderbilt, the letters haven’t been coming as often, and you used to write how you and your friends were going to parties and over to fraternity houses and places like that. Then, this year, it’s like I haven’t gotten many letters at all. I write, but nothing comes back.” I sounded like I was whining, but I had to say it. “I figured that now that you had left Matucket, you had finally seen what was out there, you know.”

Kelly sighed. “Grim, it wasn’t like that. Yes, I had a few problems going from Matucket to someplace different, but it’s not what you were thinking, not at all. Still, Grim, I simply do not understand you at times! It’s like you have this gigantic inferiority complex or something!”

“Kelly, I’m just...”

“STOP IT!” she yelled at me. “Just stop it! I never ever want to hear you say the words ‘I’m just’ again! You are the most amazing person! Do you have any idea how lucky I feel to have you be in love with me? You are strong and brave and good! Do you know just how rare that can be? I don’t care about anything else!”

“You deserve somebody...”, I told her.

“JUST STOP! If I’m so wonderful, then I deserve somebody just like you! What makes you think that going to college makes you a wonderful person? Believe me, there’s a lot of assholes in college!”

I had to admit, I got a laugh at that. “Okay, that’s probably true.”

“Grim, I love your brother Jack, but just because he’s going to college doesn’t make him better than you. Let’s face it, his grades aren’t any better than yours were, off the football field he’s Mister Lazy, and he changes girlfriends like I change shoes! Trust me, I’m not attracted!” she said.

I laughed loudly at that. “True, very true. I am guessing that he hasn’t settled down yet?”

“Your mother is hoping that he’ll grow up someday, but I’m not holding my breath. From what he was telling your brother, some of the college recruiting trips got pretty wild.”

“Figures.” I looked over at her and shrugged. “So, college hasn’t changed you?” I asked.

That got me a sigh. “Not like that. I do have to tell you, though, Vanderbilt was tougher than I thought it would be, or maybe it was just that I didn’t realize what would change when I moved away from home. My schedule was a lot more difficult, and my roommate liked to party. I’d go with her and some dorm friends to weekend parties to blow some steam off, and I wasn’t writing to you or calling home. There were some problems. For that, I’m sorry. I messed up.”

It was my turn to apologize. “No, I was figuring it was something different, so when I didn’t get a letter, I would stop writing, too. It probably didn’t help that we moved around so much the last six months. I am sure that some of our mail went missing.”

“Well, you figured wrong!” She looked over at me, and said, “Grim, look at me. I love you! You are the only man I have ever been with or ever want to be with. I am going to marry you and have your babies and grow old together with you. Get that through your thick skull!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Good!”

“So, how is it you can take time off to come up here and meet me? Is it spring break or something?” I asked.

Kelly gave me a sheepish look, and another sigh. “No ... Grim ... I’m not at Vanderbilt anymore. I left.”

My eyes popped open at that. Kelly O’Connor was the smartest person I had ever met. She was made for a fancy college! I simply couldn’t understand it! “What happened?”

She kept her eyes on the road ahead but reached out and took my hand. “Grim ... I did a few dumb things while I was there and made a few mistakes.”

“Talk to me.”

“Well, like I said earlier, just because you can get into college, it doesn’t mean you can’t be dumb. My roommate, Sarah, she was a party girl, and she wasn’t carrying anywhere near my load. She was constantly bugging me to go out with her, her and a few of the other girls in the dorm.”

“You flunked out?” That was simply incomprehensible to me. Kelly had been straight-As as long as I had known her. When she had been born, she had probably popped out of her mother’s womb and quizzed the doctors and nurses on their technique!

“No! God, no! No, I kept the goofing off just to the weekend, but I would go out with them on Fridays and Saturdays, and I know I got trashed a few times. We’d go over to a party at a frat house, and just drink as much as we could, just getting absolutely hammered. A lot of the guys would try to get you upstairs, and I never did go, but Sarah and some of the others did. Still, it wasn’t pretty.”

I nodded. “But you didn’t go upstairs?”

“No, it’s like I told you. You are the only - the only - man I have ever been with. Still, I shouldn’t have been at some of those places.”

“So, why’d you leave? Did you get kicked out or flunk out or something?”

“Uhhh ... Okay, this happened at the beginning of the spring semester. It was the first party, and Sarah and I and a couple of other girls went over to this fraternity. It was Tau Beta Kappa, and the four of us started playing this drinking game, and Sarah, my roommate, she got roofied.”

“Shit!” I commented. Just because Matucket wasn’t Metropolis, it didn’t mean that I didn’t know what a roofie was. Back home, being on the football team meant I had a steady potential supply of girls who were interested in me (just ask my brother Jack!), not that I ever indulged. Still, I had heard of it. “Was she ... raped?” I asked.

“No, I think the dose was too strong, and she passed out so fast that we knew something was wrong. Still, Grim, she wasn’t the target. I was!”

My head whipped around to her. “WHAT?”

“It’s like I said, we were playing this game. We each ordered a different drink, but when we got them, we switched drinks. I passed mine to the right, and the girl on my left, Kimberly, she passed me hers. You following me?” I nodded. “So, Sarah, she got my drink! I was supposed to be the one who got the roofie!”

“Holy Christ! What happened?”

“Well, she was smaller than me, and maybe the dose was wrong, but about five minutes later, she just started getting really dopey and passed out. It wasn’t like we were drunk, either, since this was only our first drink. As soon as it happened, I started looking around for help, and that’s when I saw him, and I knew!”

“Saw who?”

“Randy Holden! He was there! At the party! He was a member of the fraternity!”

“You went to a party with Candy Pants?”

“No, I mean yes, I mean no. He was there, but I didn’t even know he was at Vanderbilt! It’s not like we had classes together or something,” she protested.

“Jesus Christ! Candy Pants was at that party?”

“I swear, Grim, if I’d have known, I’d have never gone! I’d have left as soon as I saw him!”

“Jesus!” I muttered. For years I had wondered what had ever happened to Randy Holden, what rock he had slithered under. Now I knew.

Kelly wasn’t finished, though. “As soon as I saw him, I knew it was his fault. He had this smirk on his face, like he knew he could get away with it.”

“What’d you do?” I asked.

For the first time since she started telling me the story, Kelly smiled. “Oh, that was easy. I grabbed my bag and pulled out a canister of pepper spray and sprayed his face, right there in the middle of the party! He started screaming and went down on the floor, and I started kicking him in the nuts and screaming back and kept spraying him. A couple of guys tried to stop me, so I pepper sprayed them, too. It was great!”

I just stared at her and rolled my eyes. It sounded to me like a gigantic clusterfuck! “Great? It sounds like a disaster! What happened?”

“Somebody called the cops, and they called an ambulance. I got arrested-”

“YOU GOT ARRESTED?”

“I was charged with assault and battery. That’s not important. Sarah went to the hospital, and they found GHB in her blood, so we knew it had been real. I suppose that’s what kept me out of jail. Daddy had to fly down and hire lawyers and all...”, added Kelly, quickly.

“And your father thinks I’m a bad influence? Lady, at least I’ve never been charged with a felony!”

“Grim!”

“Do my parents know about this? What if they prevent me from seeing you?” I went on in this vein a bit longer.

“You’re not very funny, Grim!”

“Criminal!”

Kelly flipped me the bird, just as we were about to get off the highway in Syracuse.

“So, what happened after that? Why’d you leave Vanderbilt?”

“It just became a mess. The cops charged me with assault and battery, but they also had enough evidence to search the fraternity house. They found no drugs, but the frat brothers had enough time to clean out the place. Meanwhile, there was also the evidence that I had been the target, since Sarah admitted that she had drank my drink, but since we were all underage, everybody was bitching about that, too. Her parents wouldn’t let her press charges, either, since it was all my fault, and they didn’t want any problems. The fraternity - the boys all had rich parents, I mean, you know what the Holden family is like, and Daddy had his lawyers, and it got fucking crazy! We made the front page of the Nashville newspapers.”

“Oh, shit! So, what happened to Candy Pants?”

“Nothing. The cops dropped all the charges on all of us. There hadn’t been a rape, and they couldn’t find any drugs, and the Holden family dropped the assault charges. Vanderbilt simply swept it under the rug; they just didn’t want to know. Maybe if I hadn’t pepper sprayed Randy something might have happened, but it didn’t. Sarah left school, and some of the girls in the dorm acted like it was my fault, that I was the one causing the problems. I left and came home. I won’t go back there. Next fall I start at the University of Georgia. I have enough credits to go in as a senior.”

“Holy shit!” I just shook my head in disbelief. Then I looked at her. “You actually pepper sprayed Randy Holden?”

“He was crying like a baby!” she answered proudly. “I kicked him in the balls pretty good, too! They couldn’t drag me away until after I ran out of pepper spray.”

“I’m sure that your sense of remorse and contrition showed through.”

“Screw you, Grim!” she laughed.

“Holy shit!” I repeated. I looked at her and smiled. “For our next deployment, I think I’m staying home and sending you to Iraq. You’re more dangerous!” We pulled into the hotel’s parking lot. I got out and said, “If I carry your bag, will you promise not to pepper spray me?”

She grinned. “We’ll see.” She reached out and took my hand. “Are we good?”

I pulled her close and wrapped my arms around her. “We’re good. I’m sorry if I was an ass.”

“I’m sorry you were an ass, too,” she said. I smacked her on the butt, and she added, “And I’m sorry if I was an ass. I think we both do better when we are together. We need to be together more.”

“Yes.”

She reached over and took my hand. “Grim, I know your mother and I joke about you thinking better when we do your thinking for you, but it’s more than that. This last year ... I do better when you help me do my thinking, too. I don’t want that to change. I’m sorry that I let that go. Forgive me?”

“Nothing to forgive. I should have trusted you more. Forgive me for that?” She tearfully nodded, and I smiled at her. “You really pepper sprayed Candy Pants? God, I wish I had been there to see that! Let’s go!” Kelly wiped her eyes.

Jack and Bobbie Joe grabbed my gear out of the back of the truck. “You’re staying in our room,” said Jack.

“We have a cot for you,” added Bobbie Joe.

“Yeah. No hanky panky allowed,” finished Jack.

“You two are real helpful. Just carry the stuff where she tells you to, and don’t piss her off.”

My brothers grinned at me and followed us to Kelly’s room. “Dad said to tell you that dinner was at seven, and not to be late.”

We went inside and closed the door on them. As soon as it latched, Kelly looked at me and smiled, and then she pulled her sweater over her head. She had only a tiny lace bra underneath it. “Don’t just stand there! Dinner’s at seven!”

I laughed at her loudly, and then I began undressing also. We were actually a few minutes late, but it was worth it.

My parents admitted that Mrs. O’Connor had told them about Kelly, especially after Mom saw her driving around town when she should have been at college. I think they were as angry about what happened as the O’Connors were. Dad pointedly asked if I planned to do something stupid about this with Randy Holden.

I shrugged. “Hey, if the guy was standing here in front of me right now, I’d probably use him for target practice, but I am not going to go stalking him on the streets of Nashville. Kelly and I have talked it over. We’ll be okay.”

Then my father turned to my brothers. “If either of you two were to ever be involved in something like what the Holden boy did, don’t even bother calling home. You’ll be safer in jail.”

Bobbie Joe didn’t say anything, but Jack replied, “Listen, I’m not saying I haven’t bent a Commandment or two, but that? No way! That is so far over the line, it’s not funny. I... we...”, he said, pointing at me and Bobbie Joe also. “ ... know right from wrong.”

Mom beamed at that, and Dad simply gave a solemn nod.

After dinner, my brothers decided to watch television in their room, and Mom and Dad decided to have a drink or two in the bar. Kelly and I went back to her room and got back to getting reacquainted, a process which went on late into the night and then renewed again in the early morning.

The next morning, we drove back home, a process which took the entire day. At least we had enough drivers. Dad, Mom, and Jack swapped out in the pickup truck, and Kelly and I swapped driving duty in her Miata. It was still a long drive, but at least I didn’t have to worry about somebody firing an RPG at us. Kelly asked me how long I was home for and what I was going to do in the Army, and I answered as best I could. I didn’t completely know, but I figured that it would be a lot easier to talk to her and see her now. She giggled and said that she could visit me this summer, at least until classes started at Georgia. I liked that idea, and happily told her so.

Driving from Syracuse to Matucket was just over 1,000 miles, and basically took us twenty hours. That included fuel stops, potty breaks, and meals. We left the hotel at 0900 on Thursday and arrived back home at 0500 on Friday. By then we were all exhausted and cranky. I looked around when we got in the house. I saw some chew toys, but no puppy. “Where’s Rex?” I asked.

“He’s over at your grandparents. They’re watching him,” said Mom. “We’ll get him after I get some sleep. I can never sleep right in a car.”

That was a sentiment true for all of us. My family hauled themselves off to bed. I lay down on the couch with Kelly, and we both crashed as well. I didn’t wake up until about half past nine, when I heard people stumbling around. Kelly and I crawled off the couch and shook ourselves alive. “I need to go home and clean up,” she said.

“Yeah.” I thought for a second, and then looked over at my father, pouring himself some coffee in the kitchen. “Am I staying here or over at Grandpa’s and Grandma’s?”

“Over there. You might as well just leave your stuff in the truck and take it over. Your mother and I will be over later, to pick up the Wonderpup, and I’ll grab it then,” he told me.

“Good.” I turned to my fiancée. “You need to get anything from home. Your folks going to be okay with this?”

“Yes. Daddy will be coming here next weekend, and he did say he wanted to talk to you, but I don’t think it’s anything serious,” she replied.

I sighed. “My future father-in-law wants to speak to the guy shacking up with his daughter. Trust me, it’s serious.”

“Grim! Daddy’s not like that, and you know it!”

I remembered that time he tried to come through a door for me. “We’ll see. I just survived sixteen months in Iraq. I hope I didn’t use up all my luck!”

Kelly protested some more, and I just eased her towards the front door, snagging Dad’s truck keys as we went. We first drove over to the O’Connor home, where I grabbed a cup of coffee and chatted with Mrs. O’Connor while Kelly packed some stuff. I promised that we would come over for dinner that week and tell her our plans. Then it was over to my grandparents.

Rex bounded out of the house as soon as the door opened. He had grown - a lot! - but was still sort of gawky and gangly. He ran around like his tail was on fire but ran straight back in when Grandpa called him. We followed inside, to get handshakes and hugs.

“It’s good to see you again, Grim. Still in one piece?” asked Grandpa.

“Still holding together, Grandpa. How you doing?”

“Just fine. This mutt is driving us crazy, but other than that, we’re fine. This thing’s got more energy than the two of us put together.”

Rex streaked in from the kitchen and jumped up on the couch, much to my grandmother’s outrage. “I hear you,” I agreed. “The folks’ll be over later to rescue you.”

He went over to the mantel and took a key off it. “Here, we got the boys to clean up some. You’ve got some leave?”

“Two weeks. After that I’m back at Fort Drum. Still, it won’t be out of the question to be able to get back here for a few days every now and then.”

“That would be good. Just call and let us know ahead of time.”

“Great! Thanks.” I pocketed the key and wandered into the kitchen, trailed by Grandpa and Rex. “Hi, Grandma, how you doing?”

She was looking inside the refrigerator and making a grocery list. “Just fine, Graham, just fine! You kids want anything special from the Piggly Wiggly? We’re having Sunday dinner here for the family. You like fried chicken, right?”

“I love fried chicken, Grandma!”

“Well, if you want anything special, just let me know. I’ll pick it up.”

“Grandma, do you still sew?”

“Sure, honey. Need something patched?”

“Not precisely. I do need some patches sewed on my dress uniform.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my new chevrons. “I made corporal. Also, I have some overseas service bars for the sleeve and a unit patch for my shoulder.”

“Congratulations!” exclaimed my grandfather. “Anything else new?”

“I picked up a Bronze Star, but that was mostly for just being there, and a few more I-was-there ribbons,” I commented.

“Same here, I guess,” he commented. I looked at him in surprise. He had always kept his Army service, his real service, a secret from his family. “I told your grandmother after you went back to Iraq.”

“You’re such an ass,” she told him, though without any heat to it. “Married forty years before he tells me that!”

Grandpa shrugged. “It was a different time.” He sat down at the kitchen table next to Kelly. “You were so much against the war; I was afraid you’d turn against me.”

Grandma snorted and rolled her eyes, but she looked at me and said, “He’s right. It was a different time. I never did it, but I knew people who would yell at soldiers and throw things at them. Just because the war was wrong, it didn’t mean it was the soldier’s fault.” She turned to Grandpa. “And you know that was a wrong and stupid war!”

He shrugged again. “It wasn’t our country’s finest hour, that I’ll admit.”

“And now?” she pressed, obviously referring to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Grandpa looked at me, and it was my turn to shrug. He said to Grandma, “Jury’s still out on that, I think.”

Grandma looked at me and smiled. “Well, I might not be in favor of the war, but I don’t have anything against the soldiers. You dig out your uniforms and whatever, and I’ll sew them up for you.”

“Deal! Mom told me that I have to dress up in my dress uniform and medals and take them out to dinner sometime. I think she wants to show me off.”

“Darn right she does!” she agreed.