Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“What an irony. You know what I want your advice about?”

“No clue.”

“You ever stray?”

“From what?”

“You know what.”

“My marriage vows?”

“Boy, you’re fast as lightning.”

“That’s why you got me here? I can’t believe this.”

“My wife has multiple mental problems. I won’t go into detail. Put it this way: Her father liked little girls. One night he decided to drive himself and his wife off a cliff into the Atlantic Ocean. Since the night her parents died, my wife has been an ice cube.”

I was trying to signal the waitress to bring the check.

“I say something wrong?” Wiseheart asked.

The shadows of the fan blades were rippling across his face. The impropriety of speaking about his marital problems to someone he hardly knew seemed totally lost on him. I started to speak, but he cut me off. “I got into a sexual relationship with another man’s wife,” he said. “I don’t feel good about it. I’ve had a dalliance here and there, but not with a married woman.”

“Then get out of it.”

“Hell hath no fury,” he said.

“What do you want from me?”

He folded his hands on the table and looked out the window at the swamp and the thunderheads building in the south and the wind straightening the moss in the trees. “I just wondered what you thought of me.”

“Why should you care about my opinion?”

“I know your war record. You were at Omaha Beach and the Bulge. You heard the story about the Nip trainer I shot down at the expense of my squadron leader?”

I looked away from him.

“I had four kills. The trainer gave me five and the status of an ace. All I saw was the rising sun on the fuselage. I thought it was a Zero. I didn’t realize my mistake until I was down on the deck. I took out the trainer anyway. When it caught fire, I saw the pilot’s face. He looked like he was seventeen. When I climbed back upstairs, it was too late to help Captain Levy.”

“You thought you were protecting him. As far as the Japanese trainee is concerned, maybe he would have flown a kamikaze into the side of an American battleship.”

“Not everybody thinks that way.”

“They weren’t there. They’ve never paid any dues. They have no idea how you think when other people are trying to kill you. What if the trainer had been a Zero and gotten on your leader’s tail?”

“You’re a good guy, Holland.”

“There’s nothing exceptional about me. Regarding that other matter, my advice is to bail out.”

“Which matter is that?”

“What do you think?”

“Oh, the marital question. I don’t know about that. She’s quite a gal.”

“I’m done on this.”

He beamed. “I nailed you again. That’s three times. I have to invite you to one of our poker games. God, you’re fun.”