An Anthology of Tales

What Heroes Are

Patrick.

Not exactly the bravest sort of name. His ma could have gone with John, or Steven, or even Michael.

Poor fella, doesn't even look like much.

He's no eye candy. If he ran a lot more, his legs won't look like picks. He's not on the flabby side, but the thing seems horribly ill.

Those were the kind of comments I got from my family members whenever they got around to talking about my husband. I usually sat quietly at dinner, smushed somewhere in between Jolie and Fred, my in-laws who were my age. I come from a family of twenty-nine. Yep, you heard that right. My mother and father had twenty seven kids - the largest in our town of Sootwinton.

But, my family's not exactly the best there is. I am the twentieth daughter, and like a lot of my siblings, I got married pretty early - at 18 - to Toothpick Patrick that everyone constantly made fun of. It made me feel sorely embarrassed. My elder sisters all got married to smart looking, stocky men with bright blue or gray eyes and broad shoulders, callused hands, white smiles, and ambitions so clear they made mirrors jealous.

My Pat, on the other hand, was a different specie altogether. He was a lovely, melancholic person. We met when I was 16, in the district called WusBin (my family called it Dustbin) and he'd taken an instant liking to me because I was full of silly jokes. Pat was a thin, tall guy with too much hair on his head, rosebud lips, hazel eyes and "absolutely nothing to call flesh" according to my aunt Brenda. He was all bone. The government only recruited able-bodied men to fight for the preservation of our diminishing country, and the year all of Pat's friends were chosen to go to war was the same year he'd married me. My family said I was something of a consolation prize.

I usually pondered over that statement numerous times in the middle of the night. I didn't ask Pat if he married me because he truly loved me. Luck had fallen on him later that year - precisely on our wedding night - when a letter came in, recruiting him to join the wardogs faction in the West. He'd left me without as much as a proper hug, or a goodbye kiss.

Two and a half years passed since he left, and I got only two letters a month from him saying he was alright and that he missed hearing me laugh.

September 19th was the day he returned, and was the most shocking day of my life. I could barely recognize the man who stood in front of me in all his military garb, big bags and leather boots; his hair chopped neatly to frame his face, his lanky figure appearing a lot larger; like a tree trunk, and his arms about as bulky as one of farmer Reginald's cows. I wouldn't have believed it was him if he hadn't said my name. He smoldered me in a lengthy hug and my abdomen had quivered so terribly that I feared he would notice.

The war was against The Lavenders; a movement of terrorists set to obliterate world peace. Not only did these people plant bombs, they planted viruses too; polluted water, burned crop, and just about caused a desolation wherever they went. Patrick spent hours everyday talking excitedly about his dangerous adventures in the West.

He told me all about the Lavenders and their conquests as I slowly washed and wiped the dishes, unable to look at him full in the face. He was painfully different from my old Pat, and I hated that it made me feel secretly excited for when my parents would see him. He now looked very much and even spoke like Roman, my sister, Cecelia's husband.

"They're inhuman, Reese." He went on, his voice lowering. "Strange beings. We have to behead them before they die. Bullets and knife wounds do nothing but coax blood."

I squeezed my face in disgust. The government had trained the wardogs to be fearless, prepared for anything, ambitious, but also - heartless. They could never show pity or mercy to their enemies. I glanced sideways at the scars that covered Pat's arms as he came to stand beside me to help sort the washed dishes, and I began to wonder just how much pain he'd been in; from training and in actual combat. He was basically a hero now. No longer Toothpick Patrick. I wondered how often he got seriously hurt, and the number of times he had neared death; how his lifestyle had changed altogether. I wondered how often he thought of me. There were no women in the West, and so it was impossible for wardogs to find that sort of comfort. Although, I remembered overhearing Cecelia and Roman once, arguing heatedly over his involvement with one Eunice Lodo or so.

"Reese?"

I blinked, disrupting my train of thoughts and glanced up at Pat. He was staring down at me in concern. I gathered he'd said something I missed.

"Are you okay? You've gone pale!"

He put the dish down and carefully took my hands out of the sink, then grabbed a towel and began to wipe the foam off, all the while staring at me as if I held a firebrand to my eyes.

"I'm alright." I swallowed nervously. His hands felt strange, and large. "I just. . . I haven't been sleeping."

"Why not?" He asked, putting down the towel and drew me close. "Does ma still make you watch Ross and Whitney?"

I shook my head. I'd stopped babysitting my youngest siblings over a year ago. My immediate younger sister, Nancy, did that now, rather begrudgingly. Pat held my shoulders and ran his hands down the length of my arms.

An alarm went off in my head. His touch was electrifying.

"Then what is it?" His voice came in a lulling whisper. I glanced up at him and found I could not look away anymore. His face had become sharp and chiseled, his jaw set. His eyebrows were still the same bushy arcs. Altogether, his features appeared alien to me.

I glanced down, unable to answer the question. I didn't know exactly what was wrong. His sudden arrival felt like some kind of painful breach; an invasion of privacy, a disturbance. I felt that I was not yet prepared to see him. I felt he should have warned me before coming back. He had swooped right in - as heroes did - and taken me by the utmost surprise, and possibly saved me from future taunts at dinner.

Was that what I really wanted?

I started a bit when his warm breath fanned my neck and traveled down into my cleavage. He was breathing in the scent of me.

"I missed you terribly, Reese." He muttered.

I fought to say something, and just when I found the words, he pulled me in and kissed me deeply. He staggered back and gently collided with the kitchen sink. Goosebumps raided me from head to foot as his hands slid all around me, grasping me tightly to himself. I feared I would combust. Pat and I had never gotten real intimate before. He only liked to kiss my cheeks when we were younger, or the back of my hands.

I suddenly found myself wiggling away from him.

"What?" He asked, almost breathless.

I wrapped my arms around myself, my eyes clocking everywhere. "I don't think that's what I want to be doing."

"What do you want to be doing?" He half chuckled.

I stared at him straight in the eyes even though he was two heads taller. "Why did you marry me, Pat?"

The question threw him off guard, his brows arched high. "That's a strange question, Reese."

"I know it is, but answer it. Answer it honestly. Did you marry me because you love me, or because you felt left out and wanted some form of consolation?"

He folded his arms too and the light above him rested alluringly on the veins that ran up and down the length of them. "I married you because I wanted to. I wanted to be with you, Reese."

"And yet you ran off immediately that letter came." I contributed. "You left me clueless, Pat. Two letters a month? Deidre gets one every week from Hanson."

"I'm not Hanson."

"Neither are you Pat!" I swallowed, my eyes welling up. It seemed that I finally found the problem. "I want my old Pat back. This person - this. . . stereotype of a man isn't what I wanted to spend the rest of my life with."

He began to walk forward, "What are you saying, Reese? I might've changed on the outside, but I'm still the same Pat on the inside."

I shook my head. "No, you're not. You're not my Pat anymore."

I threw him a weak glance before strolling out of the kitchen.