21 April 2024, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2349: share the love

Fractal art by the author, Deeann D. Mathews

“So, Colonel, a Saturday appointment – what is going on, sir? You are changing and the world is changing around you!”

Captain Josiah Parker had deep respect for Col. H.F. Lee, and was always prepared to be somewhat bewildered by his patient … the Lee potentials, seen in history in both the 18th and 19th centuries, popped up in a 21st century that was by no means ready for “Light-Horse” Henry and his youngest son Robert E., but still had to contend with Henry Fitzhugh Lee anyway.

“I have heard that companies that deal with the Lofton Trust all over the state are doing overhauls of their practices because of the way you talked with the people responsible for the three water main breaks! I watched the video three times, but that only counts for three of the 650,000 views!”

“It's up that high?” Col. Lee said.

“It's higher than that by now, I'm sure – not for a long time has the potential of a Lee in Virginia been fully understood in its power.”

“I don't show it often, but enough is enough,” Col. Lee said.

“I also am hearing all the way up to the Pentagon,” Capt. Parker said, “that a certain colonel who is about to be promoted to general read half of Special Forces School the Constitution, the Riot Act, half of military law and got everybody in there that needed to be out of there out of there and the rest on point with one phone call!”

“That's a bit overblown, but again, it had to be done, Captain.”

“I heard you are going to be recommissioned to fix all that up!”

“It is not official yet, Captain, but it is in process.”

“How do you feel?”

“It is an answer to prayer … a peacetime assignment that can be done remotely while I continue to care for my wife and little cousins during this pandemic … the weight that has come off of my heart, Captain … oh, the weight that has come off of my heart!”

“Even though we have talked for more than a year about you not wanting to be General Lee?”

“I have accepted – actually yesterday, Captain – that a man must be who he is. We pray that our nation never needs a General Lee in wartime again, and because of some specific details, my official rank will remain colonel for some time yet. But I cannot shrink back in my full power, and in whatever rank and responsibility that comes with that – not now. It is getting just a little ridiculous as we get toward the election.”

“It is,” Capt. Parker said. “I can't tell you the details that I know, but just know: the distraction level, and therefore the mistakes and the oversights, are growing. The Lofton Trust and the Special Forces School both need you in your peacetime strength.”

Col. Lee sighed.

“I thank God I have come to my peacetime strength, at last,” he said. “I made it, at last.”

“You have, Colonel,” Capt. Parker said. “Congratulations. It has been a long journey for you, but indeed you have made it.”

“Excuse me a few minutes, Captain – it is just now hitting me.”

The colonel was off the line for ten minutes, and returned in his usual calm, but his eyes were red.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Maggie Lee picked up her husband's sobbing at the edge of her hearing. That was rare for him, but the extremes of emotion he had calmly been through the previous day, and the realization that their prayers had been answered in terms of his next appointment, had to go somewhere. However, she never asked for details about her husband's therapy sessions, for as an Army veteran he had memories that would shrivel another mind up, not even accounting for how those memories was colored by him having un-diagnosed polar disorder until age 44!

But afterward, there was always a moment when he had to transition from therapy to back to life with her, and now with their seven little Ludlow cousins, and it was there that Mrs. Lee always a found a little way to share the love. On this day, it was three perfectly ripe red ghost peppers, first of the season from Lofton County's own Plumpepper Company.

“Oh, thanks, Maggie – I needed these!” he said.

“I know, dear – thanks for the wild roses this morning,” Mrs. Lee said.