While the 4th Battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, along with Lt.-Col. Conner Andresi were invented for the sake of this story and their participation in the Iran war is questionable, Battalions 1-3 really do exist, and fought during the war in Afghanistan. We thank them for their service, their dedication, and their sacrifice. From everyone here at The Garden--thank you.
[
Conner Andresi
]
Conner Andresi walked down Kawartha Lakes County Road 45, which connected downtown Kinmount to the country roads that he had grown up on. As he walked, he marveled at how little had changed. The trees were somehow both taller and smaller than he remembered them being; reaching enormous branches up toward the sky from the front yards of houses. But now they weren't the monoliths they'd been when he was ten years old and riding his three-speed down the road past them.
Tilting his head back, he breathed in the clean country air. The road in front of him was clean grey cement, stretching as far as the eye could see and branching off in either direction at seemingly random intervals to make up the side-streets of Kinmount. Each house was different. Separated by the space of yards and fences and cleanly-trimmed yards; they rose behind screened-in porches and wooden verandas, behind open gardens and smaller vegetable patches and square-fronted garages. Red brick abutted grey-painted wood, whitewashed sideboard stood beside foundations of river stone and plastic-looking yellow faux-board.
He glanced at the Community Center, as his wandering took him passed it. He had taken the bus from Toronto to Kawartha Lakes, and a smaller bus from Kawartha Township to Kinmount, Ontario. It was built of red-grey bricks, all uniform, with a sloping roof of red metal. The roof was new--obviously installed earlier that year, or the year before. The bottom two feet was made of the same cement-stationed river rock that made up many bases of the houses around it; rocks which came from Burnt River which wound through Kinmount before separating into a series of lakes as you followed Highway-121 further northward.
How many weekends had he spent in that building, as a child? More than he could count, likely. As a child, Conner had been what people in cities referred to as a "
troubled youth
" and what people in small-town communities like Kinmount referred to as "
a curse
". Pausing at the top of a small hill, Conner let his eyes run over the white-painted boards of the Community Center veranda. Yellow beams held up a whitewashed roof and fence, all supporting the same red metal roof as the main building. That, at least, had been because of him. A small case of partially-accidental arson.
In truth, he hadn't
really
been troubled. Not seriously. His trouble had been Kinmount. As a child, the only thing to do had been to get into trouble. To run down the roads with one neighbor or the other chasing him, spraying small stones out from the heels of his running shoes. He had dreamed, each night, of escaping the small town. It had strangled him; choked him; made him unable to breathe.
At thirteen, his parents had sent him to a military-style boarding school in Niagra called the Robert Land Academy. It was an all-boys school that sent about seventy percent of its graduating students, students like Conner Andresi, to the cadets.
He wasn't thirteen any longer. Four years at Robert Land Academy, three years with the Junior Cadets Academy, seven years with the Canadian Armed Forces first as an infanteer and then as an artillery officer, and three tours of Iraq spanning a decade--much of which he had spent training Kurdish forces in Basra and Nasiriyah. The first fourteen years had turned a long-limbed, rawboned thirteen year old into a long-limbed, rawboned twenty-seven year old. He grinned often and cockily. His confidence was matched only by the strength of his body, and the willingness to use both.
The final ten years had turned that twenty-seven year old into a completely different man. At thirty-seven; his smile appeared only rarely, and even then the once easy cockiness of it now held a slightly wry edge. His grey-brown eyes had a grimness about them, the inflexible planes of his still-rawboned face now faintly held the resemblance of a skull. Conner Andresi hadn't been the first man broken by Iraq--he was only one of many. But he was broken all the same.
A one-strapped travel bag swung against his back as he walked down the side of the road. It held the shape of a kidney bean, pulled up on either side where the straps connected to the fabric. A heavy zipper held it closed. His long legs stretched out as he walked; covered in grey dress pants and ending in well-shone black shoes. White socks peaked out from beneath them with each step. A collared black polo shirt hugged his stomach and chest, three buttons closed right up to where the length of his neck appeared, connected in a sweep to a slightly sharp chin. His eyes blinked constantly, moving from one side of the road to the other; a habit he'd picked up in Djibouti during the strait-runs for OEF. One wrong step in Djibouti-Randa or Djibouti-Dorra during those days would find your legs landing on opposite sides of a mile--as his commanding Officer had said repeatedly.
It had been twenty-four years since he had last been to Kinmount; twenty-four years since he'd last hugged his mother, or shaken his father's hand. He thought about that while he walked, following the curve of the road down toward a collection of small buildings. A laundromat and a pizza restaurant shared a red and white building, while a store marked '
SHOP 'N SAVE
' stood beside them in green and grey.
As Conner made his way toward them, he stopped at the sound of barking. It seemed to be coming closer--and fast. He thought he could hear a woman's voice behind it, though that was still too far to make out. It came from a long pathway, little more than a four-foot wide dirt trail that had been spread over with gravel years ago. A couple of rectangular rocks had been piled near the entrance of the pathway, and decorated with some old metal... what looked to be cart wheels. The path curved away into the forest; oak trees towering above more spacious cedar and spruce.
Conner knelt down, letting his bag slip off his shoulder. It thumped quietly against the side of the road. He kept his eyes forward, staring down the curve of the pathway. A moment later, he was rewarded. A dog came sprinting around the nearest turn, legs stretching out and then pulling back as it streamed toward the road. It was a German Shepard; the tongue rolling as it ran, small stones flying away from its paws. Conner didn't move from the end of the pathway, only bracing one knee in the gravel and holding up a flat hand as a the dog approached.
Gravel scattered as it came to a screeching halt. It took a few steps toward him, sniffing the air and then bounding backward--obviously looking to play. A couple of vehicles passed on the road behind him, and Conner noticed the dog's head move up, scanning sideways as it followed the cars. Obviously not road trained.
"Hey, you--" he turned his hand over so that his palm faced toward the sky. He saw the dog's keen eyes turn back to him, obviously interested. Tucking his hand behind his back, he folded his fingers closed and then brought it, very slowly, back around the front of his body, "What do I have here? What's this? Is it a treat, do you think?"
The dog's ears perked up at that. He took a half-step forward, sniffing at Conner's hand. Now he was certain; he could hear a woman running down the pathway, calling out.
Driver
, he thought the voice was saying.
"Is that you, little guy? You want a treat, Driver?" Still with his left hand raised, he reached down and carefully unzipped his travelling bag. A small pack of dried beef jerky, the classic
Jack Link's
in its plastic red packaging, appeared as he grabbed it from the front of his bag. At the sound of the plastic crinkling, the dog's glance moved from his outstretched hand to the bag.
Obviously the smell was what convinced him. Stepping forward quickly, he lowered his nose and began to sniff around Conner's bag.
Without a second of hesitation, Conner reached down and took hold of the dog's collar. It was simple black, with a small metal tag that jingled as he moved. He didn't grab him forcefully, only curling his fingers between the collar and the top of the fur on the dog's neck--in case he ran. Tucking his other hand into the bag of jerky, he pulled out a piece.
"Do you know commands?" Conner kept his voice soothing, "How about--" he curled his free hand closed, folding the beef jerky into his palm, "Sit?"
The dog sat, tail wagging excitedly and disturbing a bit of dust from the gravel behind him. Conner stroked two fingers over the top of his head, and then opened his hand in front of the dog's mouth.
"Good boy. Take it."
He was forgotten as the dog took the beef jerky from his hand and proceeded to chew it. He had obviously outpaced his owner by a fair amount, because it wasn't until that moment that she came down the path, appearing from around the curve into the trees. She'd obviously been running hard. Her chest heaved as she breathed out, her forehead slightly shiny with sweat. Even as a distance, Conner could read the relief in her posture at seeing him with his hand wrapped around the dog's collar. She raised a hand, jogging forward. A black leash dangled from her hand.
The dog--
Driver
--had finished the jerky and was sniffing at Conner's hand as she approached.
"Thank you!" She called. The sound of her voice made Driver turn, his tail wagging as he pulled slightly against Conner's closed hand. Bending down in front of him, she clipped the end of the leash around Driver's collar and stood. It took her a moment to catch her breath, obviously winded from a hard run. As soon as she had it, she reached out her hand.
"Thank you so much... again. I went to put his leash back on about a mile ago, and he just bolted."
"No problem," Conner shook the woman's outstretched hand. Her palm was a bit damp, but her skin was soft and her grip strong as it met his, "Someone's obviously started to train him, but he's still young, right?"
"Eight months," she replied. As she spoke, Conner got the feeling that the woman was studying him--seeing him for the first time.
She was, he thought, strikingly beautiful. Part of it was the exercise; her already sun-tanned cheeks having taken on a deeper flush of pink during her run; and part of it was being outside, like how the sunlight caught the shoulder-length golden threads of her hair. It was slightly lighter toward the front than the back, and fell around her face in slight waves. A couple of stray curls, just in front of her ears, created a frame for her cheeks. The features of her face, from her eyebrows to her eyes themselves--deep blue, and narrow--to the long bridge of her nose, had a kind of sharpness to them. A sharpness made all the more striking by a round, slightly prominent chin and a proud neck.
He could see a pattern of freckles against the woman's skin. A bit strangely, none of them touched the smooth lines of her face. They stood out across her chest, and the back of her hands, and along the sides of her neck where it swept up to disappeared beneath the curls of her hair.
She adjusted herself slightly, wrapping Driver's leash in one hand and tucking them both into the pockets of her sweater. It was grey, obviously well-worn, and unzipped about half way. He tried not to focus on the fact that, where her sweater peaked open, a pair of round breasts were being pressed down by a purple sports bra.
That fact was easier to ignore than it might otherwise have been, because of the expression on her face. She had tilted her head, studying him carefully. Her eyes went to the bag on the road, and then back to his.
"I'm Bradley, by the way."
"Isn't that a boy's name?"
His words might have sounded insulting, to anybody overhearing them. Anybody who hadn't been there on the first day that
Bradley Chastain
had walked through the front door of his family's house--nearly thirty years earlier. He had begun to piece it together earlier, as soon as the woman appeared, but it was hearing her name that had confirmed it for him. He saw the same realization taking place on her face; the immediate shock becoming a disbelieving kind of fascination.
"Conner?"
