"What's In A Name"
Disclamer: I am not Misters Michtell, Van Sickle, or anyone else making money from "Tin Man".
Everyone in the palace had heard it at one time or other. Cain would call D.G. kid or kiddo and DG would say I'm not a kid!
But lately DG's tone of voice as she replied had moved from playfully annoyed to just annoyed to cool to practically icy.
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Cain quietly looked over the hall. Today was a group of war widows here to offer what advice they could on what the best form of help the Crown could offer. He quickly spotted DG and waited for the 'I can't take this any more' signal.
Time passed and Cain was getting twitchy waiting for the signal. The Queen had come up with the idea for Cain and the signal after an overwhelmed DG had introduced the Minster of Science to several colorful new words. After that day DG would wait about a half an hour, then signal for Cain to come over with some excuse. But today... Cain watched as DG went from one group of women to another, talking easily, smiling widely, reaching out a sympathetic hand to comfort. It had been nearly two hours and DG hadn't even glanced at him. After another hour the reception ended and Cain saw DG slip out to the gardens.
When he found her she was sitting on bench with her knees tucked up to her chin.
“You did well today, kid.”
DG spine stiffened. “Leave me alone.”
“Don't be like that.” Cain moved to sit next to her, but as soon as he did DG jumped up.
“I said leave.” DG's teeth were clenched and her hands were fisted at her sides.
Cain had had enough, “You don't like it when I call you kid, and yet you act like this.” He let out a snort. “Gods, DG...”
“Fine!” DG turned sharply to face him. “You want to know why the kid did so well today? Why she got along with the grown ups?”
“I never said...”
“Three months! He had just three months left before his discharge when a sniper shot him!”
Cain was truly lost now.
DG closed her eyes and drew her arms across her chest. “I was so excited when Nick first asked me out. He was just a year older then me, but he had skipped a grade, so the idea that I, a lowly sophomore, was going to the movies with a senior!” A smile caught the corner of her mouth.
“Nick had always been great with fixing things. He wanted to open his own garage, but had no way of coming up with the money. And his cousin had joined up right after 9-11, and Nick had always looked up to his cousin. So after graduation he joined as well.”
Cain felt a tugging in his stomach.
“For the first year he worked the motor pool on base, but then he got orders that his unit was being sent over seas.” DG sat back down.
“I took a bus for two days to get there, and when I did get there I found out that there had been some kind of leak or power outage or something, but I couldn't get a license. I started to cry, right there in the middle of city hall. A secretary called her pastor and he said that it wouldn't be legally binding, but that God had made marriage long before man had made government.”
“Wait, you mean... Are you saying... You're...”
“Mrs. Nicholas Cooper.”
Cain felt like he had been punched.
“So the reason I did so well, the reason I was able to talk to those women for hours... I know what it's like to live with only half your heart, to get a love letter that's been opened and read a half a dozen times before it got to you, to have that moment when there's a knock on the door and you just know that knock is different. I know what it's like to walk through town and have people just look at you because they don't know what platitudes to offer a woman who's now a widow before she was really a wife.”
DG stood up again. “I know what it's like to try and hold on to any bit of normal you can, to enjoy every minute of happiness, because tomorrow memories might be all you have.”
“I know what it's like to get to be so good at hiding the pain that you even hid it from yourself.”
DG leaned down close to Cain's face, “So, stop calling me kid and leave me the fuck alone.”
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No one in the palace heard it, the story that DG had told Cain that day. All they knew was one day Cain stopped calling her kid and started calling her ma'am.