I turned around slowly because I was too afraid to believe him. But when I saw the rental tag on the front license plate of the car, I felt my heart lurch in my chest. The little sedan came to a stop a few dozen feet from us. I couldn’t make my feet move as the door opened and an old man with white hair got out. He looked around the property and then spotted us. He put up his hand in a wave and began making his way in our direction when he suddenly stopped. His eyes went to a spot over my shoulder.
I heard Puddles yapping just as I turned to look in that direction. The little dog was trying to get her owner’s attention.
But Walter was too busy staring at the man across the driveway. Walter was leaning heavily on the cane he used when he and Riley went for their walks.
“Walter, are you alright?” Linc asked as he grabbed one of Walter’s arms when the older man swayed a little. Riley quickly grabbed the other.
Walter was paler than I’d ever seen him, but he never took his eyes off our visitor. He carefully pulled free of Linc and Riley and stepped forward. He ignored me and Cam as he walked past us. Even Puddles lost out on his attention. The little dog stopped yapping and ran back to Riley, who picked her up and cuddled her to his chest. We all watched as Walter slowly closed the distance between him and the man still standing by the car.
Silent tears began streaking down the man’s cheeks. I felt Cam’s arm go around me from behind and I covered his hand with mine as I watched the two men in front of me.
“My Lenny,” Walter whispered when he reached the other man. He reached a hand up to wipe at Lenny’s tears. Lenny let out a harsh cry and then he was carefully pushing into Walter’s arms. Walter was just a little bit taller than Lenny. He wrapped his arms around Lenny and I could hear him telling the other man that everything would be all right. Lenny pulled back a little and Walter grabbed his face. “My Lenny,” he repeated, then he kissed Lenny softly.
I could feel tears clogging my own throat as I watched the scene unfold before me.
“Is that the guy who died?” Riley whispered. I hadn’t even heard the teenager come up behind us.
Cam put his arm around Riley. “Yes, it is,” he said quietly.
“Ho… how?” Riley asked.
I didn’t really listen as Cam softly explained the story to Riley and Linc. I was already familiar with the tale. After Walter had agreed to move in with me, Riley, and Cam, we’d helped him pack up his house and move everything over. I’d been in Walter’s room unpacking boxes when I’d come across a picture of him and his platoon. I hadn’t ever seen the picture before and when I’d asked Walter if he wanted me to put it somewhere, he’d quietly asked me to leave it in the box. Of course, I’d seen it so I’d automatically memorized it. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Walter’s tragic loss of the man he’d loved so many years earlier, so I’d done what I’d always done and tried to cancel out one memory with another. I’d hoped to discover that Lenny wasn’t among the men in the picture and I’d be able to put the thing out of my mind for good.
But it hadn’t worked out that way.
Many of the men had been wearing their dog tags and it hadn’t taken long for me to match the dog tags to the names of the men in his unit. Lenny had been standing right next to Walter in the picture. I’d ended up researching Lenny’s family so I could get a better idea of who he’d been, and that had led me down a rabbit hole I wouldn’t have ever been able to conceive of. Curiosity had driven me to reach out to Lenny’s relatives to see if his body had ever been found. I’d thought it might be a place that Walter might want to visit someday or be buried there himself when the time came. But I’d been stunned to learn that Lenny was alive and well… that while his helicopter had been shot down, he’d survived the crash. Like Walter, he’d been held captive but instead of months, it’d been years before he’d been released. The young woman I’d talked to via email was Lenny’s niece and she’d remembered her uncle coming home when she’d been a teenager. She’d recalled that a few months after coming home, Lenny had left in the dead of night with no note, no phone call, no nothing. He’d returned a week later even more broken than he’d been when he’d finally come home from the war.