Chapter 4 - Vale Had Received Both Of My Letters
I found Vale in the hotel lobby off base.
He had a cup of coffee and a stack of assessment folders.
I dropped into the chair across from him.
“You got my letters.”
Vale looked up.
Not confused.
Good.
“Two.”
I stared.
“I sent two.”
“Yes.”
“You received both.”
“Yes.”
“And never answered.”
“No.”
My anger arrived cleanly.
“I spent years thinking the program kept them from you.”
“No.”
“You could've written one sentence.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you?”
Vale closed the folder.
“I was angry.”
“At me.”
“Yes.”
“I was eighteen.”
“Yes.”
“That improves nothing.”
“I know.”
“Then explain.”
He looked toward the lobby windows.
“I had convinced myself you understood what I was trying to do.”
“I understood you were helping me.”
“I thought you understood why.”
“Because I sucked at close combat.”
“You didn't suck.”
“I was terrible.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
I almost laughed.
Still him.
Still correcting words in the middle of a fight.
“Why did you train me?”
“You asked.”
“More.”
Vale rubbed one hand over his face.
“Because you worked harder when nobody was laughing.”
That was true.
The scheduled sessions were awful.
Mason and another instructor turned mistakes into jokes.
People performed for the room.
I froze when watched.
Vale found me after one session and said:
“You fight the audience more than the person in front of you.”
I had asked for help.
He gave it.
Then kept giving it.
“What did you want from me at the board?”
Vale looked at me.
“The truth.”
“I gave it.”
“Part of it.”
My face hardened.
“What part did you want?”
“That I never made the private sessions a condition of your recommendation.”
“I said that.”
“That you asked for them.”
“I said that.”
“That Mason's instruction had become personal.”
I stared.
“I wasn't asked that.”
“You could've said it.”
“So that's what this is.”
Vale’s jaw tightened.
“You watched him humiliate applicants.”
“Yes.”
“You saw him single out Darren Lewis for being slow.”
“Yes.”
“You saw him call a girl useless in front of thirty people.”
“Yes.”
“You knew why I challenged him.”
“Yes.”
“And when the board asked whether there were climate problems in the program, you said—”
“I said I didn't want to speak for other recruits.”
Vale went silent.
I remembered the room.
The captain asking:
Have you personally experienced inappropriate treatment from staff?
Me:
No.
That was true.
Mason mocked me.
Vale protected me more than he should have.
I had never been the main target.
The captain asked:
Have you witnessed treatment you considered inappropriate?
I had paused.
Then:
I don't know what the standard is.
Cowardly.
Also honest.
I had been eighteen.
I did know it felt wrong.
I had also known my enlistment slot was hanging by a thread because the program had gone under review.
Vale said:
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“I needed one recruit willing to say it.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You needed me.”
“Yes.”
“Not because I was the clearest witness.”
“No.”
“Because you thought I owed you.”
Vale looked away.
That was the first time I knew I had hit the right place.
“You trained me.”
“Yes.”
“You drove me home.”
“Yes.”
“You made me good at something I thought I would never be good at.”
His face tightened.
“And you thought that bought my loyalty.”
Vale did not answer.
I waited.
Finally:
“Part of me did.”
I sat back.
He continued before I could.
“When you didn't give it, I told myself you had chosen your career over people getting hurt.”
“Nobody got hurt.”
“Not physically.”
“Still not the same sentence.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
I hated how much that sounded like the man I remembered.
“Why not answer the letters?”
Vale looked at me.
“Because the first one asked whether I hated you.”
My throat tightened.
I had forgotten the exact wording.
Apparently he had not.
“What did you think?”
“Yes.”
He said it without drama.
“For a while.”
I stared.
Vale continued.
“I was forty-one years old and angry at an eighteen-year-old because she didn't become the witness I wanted.”
He looked down at the coffee.
“I knew how ugly that was. So instead of answering badly, I didn't answer.”
“That wasn't better.”
“No.”
“The second letter?”
“You said you hoped I was okay.”
“And?”
“I was too ashamed to write back.”
I looked away.
The hotel lobby kept moving around us.
A family dragging suitcases.
A TV with no sound.
Two soldiers laughing near the elevators.
Ordinary life had kept going while I built a whole explanation for one man's silence.
Vale said:
“I saw your name on the assessment roster yesterday.”
I turned back.
“You knew I was here.”
“Yesterday.”
“And you didn't call.”
“No.”
“Why?”
May you like
His mouth tightened.
“Because apparently I learn slowly.”
Related Stories
