Day 831: 5 Minute Freewrite CONTINUATION: Wednesday - Prompt: brussel sprouts

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Captain Lee was one of those men who did not require novelty in certain things – if he liked a meal, he could eat it for days.

Still, bonus points for Maggie Thornton having some grilled chicken and lean Italian sausage to add to the brussel sprouts salad that he had eaten for breakfast when he brought the rest of it to her apartment for their lunch.

“Well, if a man is kind enough to bring a woman a complete meal, a woman ought to add some things he likes to it if she can.”

“See, this is reason number fifteen quintillion, nine hundred quadrillion … .”

He always did these ridiculously large numbers and went all the way down to the smallest details while the widow Thornton laughed and laughed … .

“Two hundred fifty-six thousand, nine hundred eighty-seven … .”

He paused as Mrs. Thornton gathered herself, then went in for the kill … .

“Point two four six eight nine… .”

She doubled over laughing while he grinned.

“ … Why you're going to be Mrs. Lee, soon enough, Maggie.”

“The numbers I pull for chicken and sausage!” she cried, still laughing. “What would I have gotten for some meatballs or some veal parmigiana?”

“You've got to recover from the numbers I've given you today, my love … but I'll make something so you can add meatballs and we can find out!”

She broke down all over again, and he finally joined her in laughing.

Captain Lee needed that laugh. He had hidden it well, but he had been reeling since the Lofton County Free Voice had come out with the true list of the dead in the Ridgeline Fire. That list had been terrible, and, as the interim divisional commander of the Blue Ridge precinct of Big Loft VA's police – that precinct that had failed in its evacuation duties and thus done nothing to reduce that upwards-of-12,000-death count and then covered up the deaths of Black and Latino servants to cover up the extent of the failure – he had to eventually respond to it.

That had triggered memories of other lists … he as colonel had been commander of a Special Forces unit, and as commander, he had to deal with all of that … and the lists of the men who had gotten his men killed unnecessarily … .

There was yet a third level – Captain Lee, at 18, had gotten so angry with his grandmother in how she and her family had celebrated his wife's death that he had nearly started the Ridgeline Fire in 1994 … now he knew what he would have done had his Lee grandfather not gotten there to stop him … while Captain Lee feared no other human being, the evil that had lurked inside of him terrified him still, as it was being revealed to him day by day.

(Captain Lee with his lieutenants had captured the actual arsonist of the Ridgeline Fire, Lieutenant Bruce Deadwood, but the captain had refused all acclamation because he knew why he had been able to track the rogue lieutenant/enraged hitman down … the difference between them was not a wide one, for one expert killer had simply discovered the same path another would have taken, had he not been diverted by his grandfather)

Then, there was Grandmother Selene … her admissions and confessions … by no means complete, but her humility, her brokenness, his discovery that she had been hurt by her husband's death much as he had by his wife's … the way his heart had gone out to her in utter compassion to her even though she had been so bad that she had unlocked the mass-killer ability inside of him before the Army had channeled it properly into Special Forces … the sudden closeness between grandmother and grandson that he was not at all ready for, although he had held her in his arms as she had her breakdown, stayed in the chair when she finally went on to peaceful sleep, and even taken her a quarter of the way up the mountain in the morning, and allowed her to witness him, from a distance, in private prayer.

In prayer, he had poured it all out … all the turmoil within him that by that point was causing tightness in his chest … heart problems were a hereditary issue in his family, and although his doctors kept saying he was fine, he knew he wouldn't be fine for long if he didn't go to the Lord and release all the burden there, in addition to staying with healthy routines.

Maggie Thornton had become a part of those routines … her warm, giving nature, her deep Christian faith and her willingness to pray with and for him … the fact that she always had good food around and had learned how to cook versions of the more starch-heavy Italian-American diet in the high-protein way he needed … her blocking out time for them to discreetly court, responding to every opportunity he provided for them to do things together publicly, and also seeking out fun things they could go do without breaching the decorum they had to maintain because they both worked at police headquarters. The fact that she respected that decorum so perfectly, without ever questioning or pushing the limits, meant the world to the man who loved her.

The world, and some really big numbers … his jokes were not quite without purpose, although he was a little short of even $50 million, to say nothing of octillions of dollars …

Mrs. Thornton didn't have a clue about Captain Lee's real money, the inheritance given to the family of his late first wife that they had returned with interest once they had built what his late first wife had dreamed up. She knew he had lived like a Spartan for nearly 30 years, living only on what the Army provided and so saving up and investing his checks, and thus was living on only a portion of his police check … she knew he had some sizable money put away, but no clue about how much.

What she noted, and loved, was his generosity of time and treasure … this mighty warrior, scarred though he was, lethal though he still was (several corrupt folks in Big Loft had already learned the hard way), broken-hearted as he was, still provided and protected everywhere around him that there was a need … an officer, and a Christian man … not so much the kind of Southern gentleman of the past, who could look down on and abuse another man not of his race or class – or gender, for such men had abused and mistreated women of all colors between themselves as well.

Henry Fitzhugh Lee abhorred and actively repudiated all of his legacy in that respect, showing up in aprons to serve people his ancestors would have enslaved or simply slaughtered, showing up and never wanting or permitting himself to be recognized, it being sufficient that God and those God had graciously put around him knew what he was doing.

And so, these private lunches with his beloved, with Mrs. Margie Bell quietly chaperoned from her room, the door open to the sitting room … from these Captain Lee drew strength, as he and Mrs. Thornton ate and bantered and laughed, and the tension of the week eased off enough so that serious matters could be discussed, for Captain Lee valued her insights as she valued his problem-solving ability.

“I know that nobody can sit down in a reasonable space of time and write 12,000 letters,” he was saying to her, “so it will have to be a form letter, the magnitude of which exceeds anything I have ever done. When I wrote home in the Army, it was after having done all I could – if my men died, my heart was broken but my conscience was clear, and those deaths contributed to Unit 6 never having been defeated in the field, not even at Five Bright Nine. But this letter comes out of the most colossal failure in Lofton County's history – it is my Appomattox, except that I didn't have anything to do with the failure except now having to clean it up.”

“It's not fair, Henry,” Mrs. Thornton said, and noticed his eyes flashing in agreement with the complaint he had not made before adding, “and this is why the Lord had to find the humblest mighty man in Virginia to do the job, like he did at Appomattox.”

Captain Lee considered this, and then looked up.

“Lord, I know some things run in families, but, Sir!”

Then he smiled, grimly, but he was smiling.

“All right, Maggie, I see your point. Somebody has got to do it, and the Lord has graciously chosen somebody from a family with experience … I mean, there were battles in the Civil War not bungled as badly as the Ridgeline Fire and its aftermath, with a lower casualty count too!”

“I know, Henry,” Mrs. Thornton said. “It's just staggering to think about it. I've cried so much, trying to deal with the real list of the dead … all those families, without their breadwinners as they approach the holidays … but the Lord has graciously chosen us to deal with it all, and so, here we are.”

“I suppose that's the only way to look at it,” Captain Lee said, with a shake of his head. “I'm glad God knows what He's doing and what we're doing too, because otherwise … .”

“I understand you completely, Henry.”

“So, what are we carrying over to the Church in the Midst of Life tomorrow?”

“Chicken casserole – 30 pans. The numbers at the battered women's ministry have really skyrocketed, and so has the regular lunch ministry – because you know, with 12,000 dead, we have to remember that a whole bunch more were displaced and put out of work, and all those families without breadwinners. It's at least 60,000 people directly affected, in a city of only 300,000.”

“One-fifth – that's about the number I have worked out as well,” Captain Lee said. “I see you keep up with those numbers too, Maggie.”

“I'm not really a big numbers person,” she said, “but I'm learning from the best!”

Captain Lee just smiled, controlling his desire to grab the woman and make 27 years of pent-up love to her, controlling his desire to tell her about all the numbers that would come with that. It would all wait until she was Mrs. Lee, but …

“Keep on learning, and thank you,” he said. “There will doubtless be more to come.”

As his passion settled down, his longing for her brought another thought to mind...

“Would you look over the letter, when I have it done tonight?”

“Of course, Henry. I'll be up until at least 10.”

“Thank you, my love. I need your help and I thank God I have it. Are you and Margie still using the commercial kitchen over on Wayland for bakes of this size?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I'll go gas up the pickup truck – if we're moving 30 pans or more that's a better choice than either of our cars.”

“Thank you, darling. I really appreciate you, in how you have stepped up and made it possible for Margie and I to do more without risking ourselves.”

After lunch, Mrs. Thornton observed a familiar pattern … Captain Lee tended to get deeply relaxed when they were together, and often took brief naps. She had done her homework on veterans with his level of PTSD … although many women would have been annoyed and bored by a date that went to sleep on them, Mrs. Thornton recognized he was unintentionally paying her a huge compliment. No veteran like him could sleep if there were any perception of a threat, and a lot of his threat perception in civilian life had to do with a tangle of triggers even he did not fully understand. However, none of those triggers were operational in Mrs. Thornton's presence, so, he relaxed and could deeply rest. He would not be asleep for long, but he got a lot out of those kinds of naps, and needed one this day especially… that form letter had to be drafted that night.

“Sweet dreams and renewed strength and refreshed mind, my love … .”

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash