The Inheritance

Among the things I had packed away on the top shelf of my bedroom closet was a small wooden box my dad had given me when I was a boy. Intricately tooled and hand-painted, the box held a yellowed picture of him in his Navy uniform, taken the spring of 1942, just before he shipped off to do battle with Japanese ships roaming the Pacific.

Also in the box was the Purple Heart he had been awarded for his wounds, received during an encounter with a submarine off the island of Okinawa; a medal he had refused for numerous reasons to wear. The young chief petty officer came home from the war with all his limbs intact, but was scarred and walking with a limp. He maintained from that day forward that the war had not only destroyed his leg, but had irretrievably damaged any remaining sense of patriotic obligation.

Expecting not to see him for another three days, my mother seemed out of sorts when David arrived home from boot camp unannounced that evening at dinner time, producing orders for guard duty in the Caribbean arena aboard a naval supply vessel. Her joy, while unspoken solely for the benefit of my father’s pride, overflowed at the idea that her baby boy was safe—for the moment—from the ravages of war.

“Had to be the luck of the draw,” David said, spearing a second serving of my mother’s roast beef.

Leaning back in his chair, my father gave him an appraising look over the top of his coffee cup. “Do you really think luck had anything to do with it?” he said, at once distant and surfeit.