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. I m not flunking everything.I got Ds. Quit twisting my words.Your grades are unacceptable,Nick. Whatever. Go to your room right now. For what? Being disrespectful.Your father would never allow you to  He s not here, is he? So who cares. Get to your room! Her eyes filled with angry frustrated tears.Nick walked out of the kitchen.Instead of going upstairs, hismother heard him slam the front door.She leaned against thekitchen counter for strength as she made dinner, because her legsfelt like rubber.The urgency of war took her husband into rockyhills and sandy deserts far away from her.She needed his help.Idon t know what to do with our son.I m so angry you left mehere to do this all by myself.That night, like every night, she criedherself to sleep.When daylight lit the edges of the curtains, sheawoke, putting one foot in front of the other.Nick never noticed herresoluteness day in and day out.He missed each second she wipedher tears away so he wouldn t see.The dark day arrived when the dark blue car pulled up alongthe curb in front of Nick s house.I sat on my skateboard across thestreet and watched as two men in military dress blues got out.Icould see Nick watching them through the big picture window in hisliving room.The taller of the two took off his stiff hat and tucked itneatly under his arm.I could hear the footsteps timed in unison likea march on the wooden porch all the way across street.Nickopened the door before they had a chance to knock.They askedfor his mother, so he hollered for her.The men looked at each otheras if to say, Son, we could ve done that ourselves, but theyremained silent.Nick left them at the door and sat down on thecouch to finish his turn at HALO.His mother walked into the room and saw Nick playing hisvideo game. What s so urgent you had to yell like that? she askedimpatiently.Then, she saw the men at the door.She dropped hercoffee cup on the hardwood floor, where it shattered like herdreams.into a million tiny pieces.All the tears she hid from theworld flooded her heart like the Euphrates River floods its banks inspringtime.Nick watched as a tremor shook her body to the floorlike she was having an earthquake from the inside out.He stood up from the couch and stared at her.One of the men opened the door and walked in, because hewas a man of the cloth.He knelt next to the weeping wife,  Mrs.DiMitri, I m sorryabout your husband. What happened? He was killed in the line of duty. How? Her voice was a jolting aftershock. He died in the rocky hills of a northern region of Afghanistan.It s all we re allowed to say, Mrs.DiMitri. Oh my God, she wept. He died a hero saving his fellow soldiers, the man of the clothoffered, hoping it would lessen the wound.Then, he helped Nick smother up to the couch because her legs refused to move.The tallerman handed Nick a faded picture.He recognized it immediately. Where did you get this? Nick asked the tall soldier in dressblues. Your father kept it in his helmet. How do you know that? Nick s voice cracked ever soslightly. I saw him put it in there myself.Nick just stared at the picture. Your father was a good man.He loved you very much.In the blink of Nick s brown eyes, all the things he d never saidto his father rushed into his brain, choking off any words or feelingsthe way a weed chokes out a healthy plant.Nick rememberedrefusing to play catch with his father, because he wanted to playvideo games more.Besides, he d told himself that playing catchwith his old man was embarrassing.He also remembered squirrelingout of hugs his father tried to give him, because it wasn t cool to huganyone except a girlfriend.He remembered, suddenly, that hecouldn t remember the last time he said  I love you to his father.In a second, some people blink the most important moments oftheir life away and everything after becomes  too late [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]