Read Online A Weldon Family Christmas: A Southern Steam Novella (Weldon Brothers) by Jennifer Saints - Free Book Online Page A

to be entwining our paths closer than I imagined.  I met your friend, Lance Corporal Lance Dawson today and was more amazed by his inspiring humor than in discovering that I went to school with his sister Sheila at the University of Georgia.  We were discussing the odds of having a connection to another person halfway around the world when he mentioned that his football buddy from Valdosta State, JD Weldon, had been to see him a few days ago.  I mentioned meeting you and quickly learned that you, Mr. John Donovan Weldon from Savannah, Georgia had been an ace football player.  I hope you don’t mind, but LCL (as he likes to be called) shared some funny stories about your times together at FSU.  I imagined you’d just been to see him before the Christmas party.  I’m not trying to say in any way that I know how difficult visiting him must have been for you.  But I do know that when I write for a man who’s lost his arm, I feel guilty that I have mine.  When I bathe the brow of a soldier in a coma, I feel so underserving of his sacrifice.  These men are strangers to me.  To have a friend lose both his legs, had to have hit you hard, too. LCL seems to be making lemonade out of lemons.  But then again, he could be putting on a brave face for everyone here.  I know you must be worried for him and the things he’ll be facing when he goes back to the World.  I hope I’m not presumptuous in promising to contact his sister and guide her in ways to help her brother adjust to life.  Even for injuries as devastating as the loss of limbs there is a future to be had.
    Did you really strap a bra to your coach’s car license plate and it stayed for several weeks before he discovered it?  And how did you manage to set the campus clocks back an hour in April?
    Looking forward to your answers.
    Please take every care,
Emma
     
    John tried to sort through the varied emotions Emma’s words evoked.  She had a knack for nailing the heart of every issue she touched upon.  His life on the family farm in Savannah had always been a simple one of planting crops and harvesting the rewards.  His time in college had been simple as well.  Play football.  Win games and pass his classes.  In Vietnam everything was complicated, a chaotic morass of tragedy and pain where nothing was what it should be.
    Lance had dropped out of college and had been drafted first.  John had kept in touch with Lance while on tour.  He still had a hard time swallowing what had happened to his friend.  When he’d gone to see Lance in Saigon, John had gone to comfort his friend.  Instead, John had been the one who’d needed help.  Guilt ate at him that he still had both his legs.  Lance’s acceptance of his loss had upset John, made John even angrier at the world and the war on Lance’s behalf.
    Emma had known.
    There were a few pranks John hoped Lance hadn’t shared.  There were things Emma didn’t need to know.  He could hear the sound of men rising to face another day of war.   
     He went to her last letter before he ran out of privacy, wondering if he’d still feel like punching that Craig guy in the nose.
     
    Dear John,
    While part of me wishes to share little anecdotes to make you smile and ease your burden, I can’t seem to fill the page with anything but what’s in my heart and on my mind.  An old friend of mine from high school who now works for Senator Brand was here today.  He too had the audacity to tell me I shouldn’t be in Vietnam and thought I’d abandon my job to spend time in Paris.  It was Craig’s opinion that my efforts to comfort soldiers would be better spent on officers in Washington than the men here sacrificing their lives on the frontline.  His opinion made me mad.  Even now I still feel angry enough to spit.    
    When I asked him about the Peace Talks, he made a joke and said he never expected they would pan out.  I rarely have the desire to smack someone, but I wanted to punch him in the nose