[ussbansheec] Marines Don't Cry
- From: Andy Maluhia <CaptainAndy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ussbansheec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 06:35:08 -0500
_Marines Don't Cry
_by JT & Kimimela Swiftwind
****takes place about four years after 'Papa's Butterfly'
Kimi had promised, she'd sworn to Winona that she wouldn't tell anyone.
Walking deep into the woods around the reservation, she felt the first
tears in her eyes. "It's not fair," she said to the emptiness. "Just
not fair." She kicked at a twig, missed and fell on her ass. The bump
was enough and she burst into tears, her face on her knees.
Kawee never told him to shove off or that he was in the way, she
wouldn't, but Hakan would and did. "Take a walk, Dad, take a break.
You're not gonna do any good if you drop from exhaustion" his son had
said, practically shoving him away from the medical set up they'd made
outside the clinic. There were so many ill that it made more sense to
set up in tents than indoors. That was something JT had experience with
and it made him feel good to 'do' something. He'd done what he could
and now his youngest, showing that spark of whatever made him garner the
name Ma'heono'soo, told him to take a break. And now, there he was,
walking along in fatigues and feeling fatigued, trying to sort out his
thoughts. Then he heard the sobbing ahead of him. No doubt some poor
soul lost a family member. He walked forward to see who it was and
stopped dead in his tracks when he came upon the person.
"Kimi?" He knelt next to her. "Kimi, baby, what's the matter?"
"Papa," she croaked, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him
close. It had been four years since she'd called him that. Since the
day he'd turned down her application, she'd only ever called him 'sir'.
"Papa, it's not fair," she cried onto his shoulder.
"Shhh...." he said softly as he wrapped her in his arms as he sat next
to her. She might have been twenty years old but she'd never stopped
being his baby, even through her distance from him after their
disagreement. "Nothing's fair about this sickness, baby, nothing."
"M-Mahkah lost Mina," she sniffed. "Noni lost her baby." Coughing
slightly, she held him so tightly because she was scared he'd
disappear. "Sh-she was crying. I've never seen Noni cry before. She
told me, made me promise not to tell anyone. I c-can't hold this on my
own. She lost her son, papa."
"Winona was pregnant?" he asked curiously. "I would have had my first
grandson?"
Kim nodded, her tears drying on her cheeks. "She didn't want you and
mama to know til she worked out how to tell you her man refused to marry
her. He left her the day she told him."
"The son of a bitch," JT spat. Any sort of profanity coming from him
was a rarity and it only showed how upset and tired he was. "I'll beat
him into dust. My poor Noni...oh, this is bad, Kimi, so very bad..."
"I'm sorry, Papa, I shouldn't've told you." She frowned as she held
him, let herself be held by him. "And I'm sorry I lost you somewhere.
I've missed you." Her tiredness told out as she quietly started to cry
again in small, barely audible sniffs.
Tired tears of sorrow and mourning slid down his cheeks as he held his
daughter yet his voice was quite steady and strong. "I missed my Kimi,
too, darlin'. I thought maybe you just decided you didn't need me any
more," he told her. "Ticked you off for loving you too much..."
"I needed you," she admitted. "I just didn't want you to know that.
Thought it made me weak in your eyes. Just another baby girl. I worked
so hard not to be. I thought..." In a small voice, she whispered, "I
thought you didn't think I was good enough to be one of your Marines."
"No, no, it was never that," he said softly. He lifted her face with
one hand and smiled sadly, ignoring the drying tears on his face. "You
look like Mama, you know. You're beautiful. One day, if you have
children of your own, you'll know how hard it is to see them walk away
from you. I didn't want you to walk away, Kimi. It was never that you
weren't good enough for the Marines, it was more that they aren't good
enough for you."
"I disappointed you 'cause this is all I ever wanted?" she asked
softly. "I disappoint you 'cause I'm not like the others. I'm not
spiritual or loving. Just hard and a little cold sometimes."
"Kimi, you've got me all wrong. The only thing that you ever did to
disappoint me was to stay distant from me and I even understand that for
the most part," he said with a shrug. "Do you really think I love you
any less or respect you any less because you aren't the same as your
sisters or brothers?"
"Sometimes," she admitted. Her cheeks were wet so she dried them on her
sweater sleeve. "I don't have your faith, Papa. And I'm not as good as
you wanted me to be. I just make a good Marine and MP. Thick skulled
and thick skinned. I know I disappoint you more than you say."
"Kimi, when your mother and I decided to get married, we agreed to let
any of our children take her path, mine, or one of their own choosing
when they were old enough. You've got what it takes to live a good
strong life right here, " he said as he tapped her temple, "and in your
heart. You don't have to be like me for me to love you. If I can't get
by the fact that you're not my baby girl, the little butterfly I used to
push on a swing, then it's my problem and not yours."
"And if I still want to be your little butterfly sometimes?" she asked.
"That make me a lesser Marine in your eyes? That I used to cry every
night because I lost my papa or when I went to boot camp that I'd take
longer showers because the water was a good camouflage to tears?"
He reached to enfold her in his arms again then kissed the top of her
head. "Any time you wanna be my little butterfly, you just come right
over. 'Scuse me if I can't help but think about you that way but I
promise I'd never embarrass you in public, either." He rested his cheek
on the top of her head. "Baby girl, you ask your mother what a
miserable SOB I get to be when I miss you. I don't know why that woman
tolerates me."
"'Cause she's blinded by love," Kimi teased, relaxing against her
father. "Certainly isn't for your looks or your charm." Taking a deep
breath, she said in a soft voice, "Papa, I passed my officer tests. I
get promoted next week."
"I wish I'd've known you were taking them but that's my fault," he
muttered but then he squeezed her tightly. "Well done, Kimi, I am
certainly impressed. Your first shot at them?"
She nodded as a grin flourished on her face. "I wanted a good grounding
in the MPs before I tried for the investigation side. They accepted me
provisionally before I sat them based on my SATs. I, er, kinda did
embarrassingly well." She shrugged as she blushed. "Got top grades for
the officer exam. I start my training in a month."
For the first time since the sickness had begun to spread through out
their community. JT laughed out loud. "Now, that's my girl! Now I can
tell you that I flunked them the first time I took them. A test taker I
am not, darlin'. Oh that's wonderful, Kimi, I'm impressed. I'll salute
you when I feel like letting go of you here but you do realize that that
kind of puts you under my purview, don't you?"
"No, I'm too thick to remember my papa's the commander of the MPs," she
teased. "I can be professional, I've been calling you 'sir' for years.
Just so long as I can come home and call you Papa again."
"Disrespectful silly butterfly," he said with a chuckle. "If you don't
mind the guy at the top of the ladder, you'll be fine. Just don't let
anyone give you any grief over who you dad is and you can always call me
that, Kimi. Always."
"They did, at first," she admitted with a shrug. "Already heard that
you fixed the test for me. Kinda hard for you to given you didn't know
I'd taken it. Oh and you got me onto the investigation team. Just to
let you know, for future reference. See, I don't need to sleep my way
to the top, like other women. I just get my papa to promote me."
Rolling her eyes in honour of the idiots she'd worked with in her two
years in the Marines, she eased out of her father's arms. "I know you
didn't. They're just fat-heads that don't know a good Marine from one
who sits on their... rear ends on guard duty all day."
"Kimi, I still hate the fact that I can't pick you up every time you
scrape your knee when you fall or smack the hell out of some boy who
hurt your feelings but I am proud of you. You've got the dignity,
grace, and morals that your mother and I tried to instill in all of our
children. You are a strong and beautiful woman who I'm proud to have as
a Marine and even more proud to have as a daughter," he told her.
"Thanks, Papa," she said softly. "But you know boys don't look twice at
me anymore, don't you? Too scared of the big Marine General. They're
all petrified. Besides, I don't mind if you pick me up when I scrape my
knee. I don't think it'd be so good for your image though."
"Don't worry, baby, I think I'll handle it if that happens," he said
with a chuckle. He held a hand to her face. "But that only reminds
me...you feeling alright? You been sick?"
"I threw up this morning but Noni caught it and inoculated me." She
gave her father a weak smile. "That was when she told me. She'd been
crying in the bathroom. Papa, please don't tell her you know."
"I won't say a word. Kimi, I promise. If she catches me like I wanna
cry she'll just think it's because of everything else," he said with a
self deprecating snort. "That hurts. You know I don't push you guys
like Mama does but I would have loved to have held him. Ai, your poor
sister." He couldn't even begin to touch Mahkah's grief. It was awful...
"She said Mahkah knows, said it was helping him grieve, but no one else
does. Not even Mama." Kimi sighed softly and shook her head. "She'd
chosen a name, Papa. She'd called him Andrew."
"Nameseme would have been pleased with that. God but I'm glad him and
mama have been spared this so far," he said with a shudder. "Mama and
Hakan have told them not to even open their windows or open their door..."
"Noni said she was going to inoculated people today." Slowly, she
climbed to her feet and dusted the seat of her pants off. She offered
her hand to her father. "Come on, old man. We need to get back, go
help more. Do... something."
He didn't need to take her hand but he wanted to. He pulled himself to
his full height and dusted off his fatigues. "Come, little butterfly,
let's take care of our own," he said.
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