What he saw, he could not have seen.NO," HE HEARD himself whisper. He turned back from the door. He
drew deep breaths. His heart pounded. He spun around and looked
again, then banged wildly on the windowpanes.
"No!" Eddie yelled. "No! No!" He banged until he was sure the glass
would break. "No!" He kept yelling until the word he wanted, a word he
hadn't spoken in decades, finally formed in his throat. He screamed that
word then—he screamed it so loudly that his head throbbed. But the
figure inside the booth remained hunched over, oblivious, one hand
resting on the table, the other holding a cigar, never looking up, no
matter how many times Eddie howled it, over and over again: "Dad!
Dad! Dad!"
Today Is Eddie's Birthday
In the dim and sterile hallway of the V.A. hospital, Eddie's mother
opens the white bakery box and rearranges the candles on the cake,
making them even, 12 on one side, 12 on the other. The rest of them—
Eddie's father, Joe, Marguerite, Mickey Shea—stand around her,
watching.
"Does anyone have a match?" she whispers.
They pat their pockets. Mickey fishes a pack from his jacket,
dropping two loose cigarettes on the floor. Eddie's mother lights the
candles. An elevator pings down the hall. A gurney emerges.
"All right then, lets go," she says.
The small flames wiggle as they move together. The group enters
Eddies room singing softly. "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday
to—"
The soldier in the next bed wakes up yelling, "WHAT THE HELL?"
He realizes where he is and drops back down, embarrassed. The song,
once interrupted, seems too heavy to lift again, and only Eddie's
mother's voice, shaking in its solitude, is able to continue.