Chapter 7 - The Living Room Tribunal
The interior of the house smelled of stale coffee, cold grease, and panic.
Sitting in his worn leather armchair, looking like a cornered animal, was Howard Whitaker. He had aged ten years overnight. His eyes were bloodshot, his hands gripping the armrests so tightly his knuckles were white. Over the fireplace behind him hung the ornate shadow box containing Grandfather's Navy Cross, his ribbon bars, and the ceremonial gold-hilted officer’s sword.
Beside Howard’s chair sat an old, brass-bound green military footlocker, its clasps unlocked, dust wiped from its surface.
"You brought shame to this house," Howard rasped, his voice shaking with a dangerous mixture of humiliation and rage. "You called the VFW? You told Davis about... about Great Lakes?"
"You brought shame to this uniform forty years ago, Howard," Julian replied, stepping into the center of the living room. He didn't sit down. Neither did I. We stood side by side, towering over him in the spotless white uniforms that represented everything he had stolen and everything he had failed to become.
Beverly hovered near the archway leading to the kitchen, wringing a dish towel in her hands. "Nora, you have to stop this. He’s your father! He worked hard to put food on the table! So what if he made a mistake when he was nineteen? What does it matter now? You have your career! Why do you need to take his dignity?"
I looked at my mother, really looked at her, for the first time in my adult life.
"Dignity, Mom?" I asked, my voice calm, but freezing cold. "Was it dignity when you told me you wouldn't drive nine hours for my 'silly little ceremony'? Was it dignity when Dad laughed in the other room, telling me I was just playing dress-up in an office?"
Howard flinched. He couldn't meet my eyes. He stared fixedly at the carpet.
"You didn't skip my ceremony because it was a long drive," I continued, taking a step closer to the chair. "You skipped it because you couldn't bear to sit in an auditorium filled with two hundred real naval officers and look at me with gold stripes on my shoulders. Because every time you look at me, Howard, you see your own fraud staring back at you."
"I did the best I could!" Howard shouted, suddenly looking up, tears of pure, impotent self-pity spilling over his red-rimmed eyes. "Your grandfather was a monster! He expected me to be a hero like him! You don't know what it was like growing up in that house! Nothing I did was ever good enough!"
"So you decided to make sure nothing *we* did was good enough either?" Julian stepped forward, towering over him. "You took the poison your father gave you and fed it to your children. You broke Nora’s heart every time she achieved greatness, hoping that if you crushed her spirit, she would stay down here in the dirt with you."
Julian pointed to the footlocker. "Is everything in there?"
Howard didn't answer. He slumped back into the chair, covering his face with his calloused hands, his shoulders shaking with silent, humiliating sobs.
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Beverly stepped forward, her voice a desperate whimper. "The sword is still on the wall. Please, Nora. Leave the sword. If the neighbors see you carry the sword out, everyone will know."
***
