Letter No. 6 — The Way Home

The front porch
Tuesday, 20 October, sunset

Dear Margaret,

I know this is silly, writing a letter to the woman sitting ten feet away from me. But I started this series with a pen and I'd like to end it with one.

About the escape. I can't tell you all of it. Some of it I promised not to tell, and some of it you wouldn't believe. Here is what I can say: the guard never did learn to count chips, but he learned to count to three. On three, the lights went out. There was a laundry cart, a very long tunnel that I am fairly sure I didn't dig, and a pickup truck waiting at the end of it with the engine already running. I never saw the driver's face. He only said one thing: “As you were, Colonel.”

You and I both know who talks like that. I'll leave it there.

When I made it back to what was left of the base, the General was waiting by the board. Every line on it had moved. Not perfectly, not all the way, but it had moved without me. He didn't say much. He took the little velvet box out of his pocket, the one from the ceremony, and opened it. It wasn't eagles anymore. It was stars.

“You're retired, General,” he said. “So am I.”

So that's it, honey. The war is over for the two of us. The troops are in good hands, the board is on the wall, and the paperwork, for once in my life, is someone else's problem.

I have plans. Sleep until 0700, which is practically noon. Learn to cook something that isn't a ration. Teach the kids poker the honest way. Sit on this porch with you and not count anything at all.

The General says he has a new project for me, something quieter. Remembering things. Keeping the stories so they don't get lost. I told him that sounded like the best duty I ever pulled.

I came home, Margaret. That was always the only order that mattered.

Yours, finally and for good,
Pip
GEN Pip Paperwork, U.S. Army (Retired)
Home

P.S. The guard sent a postcard. He says he's winning now. I don't believe him.

— THE END —