Disclaimer:The characters in the Stephanie Plum series belong to Janet Evanovich and are used here without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warning: Possible Tissue Warning
Young Carlos Chooses A Path
By TT
Visiting people was not his favorite thing to do. But his dad had insisted that the whole family had to go to see his old friend. Everyone seemed excited, but Carlos was uncomfortable. He didn’t like meeting strangers and having to be polite. Besides Celia usually got him in trouble no matter how well behaved he was.
When they arrived, Carlos thought that maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. His father’s friend had a son his age named Brad who, it turned out, liked many of the same things Carlos did. The best part, though, was the woods around the house.
Since they lived near an army base, Carlos and Brad decided to play army in the woods. They got Brad’s father’s binoculars and found some good sticks they could use as guns.
Heading out, the two boys had a lot of fun. Slowly they began heading further and further away from the house until they were in the middle of the woods.
“Wait,” Brad said, putting a hand on Carlos’ arm to stop him. “We’re getting kind of far away.”
Carlos turned and looked behind them at the path they both knew led back to their parents. With a glance at his watch, he realized they didn’t need to be back for a while.
Turning and looking in front of them, he noticed the path split. One of the paths was clear and free of debris, obviously a well-traveled path. The other path looked more like a deer trail. It was narrow and just barely noticeable. Obviously not many people had gone down that path.
But there was something about it, maybe it was the thought of adventure, maybe it was because the path was so wild, or, maybe it was just plain curiosity, but he wanted to go down that path.
“We don’t have to be back for a long time, yet,” he told Brad. “Let’s see what’s down there.”
“I don’t know,” Brad said. “That looks like it goes toward the base and we’re not supposed to go near there.”
The lure of that less-traveled path was calling to him, though. Taking a step in that direction, he called over his shoulder, “If we get to the base, we can always follow this back.”
With no other protest, Brad followed him.
The two boys walked the narrow, overgrown path for a while, Carlos blazing the trail and Brad following behind.
As Brad had predicted, they did eventually end up near the army base.
Though Brad tried to get the other boy to turn back, Carlos wasn’t ready. He could see the men moving around the base and his curiosity got the better of him.
“We’ll go in a minute, I just want to see what the army men do,” he hissed. Although they were still in the woods and there were no people near them, both boys were being quite, afraid to be discovered, knowing they shouldn’t be there.
With a sigh of resignation, Brad settled on the ground while Carlos took the binoculars and started watching the men.
He wasn’t sure what all they were doing, but it all looked really cool.
Eventually, Brad asked to take a look too and the boys began passing the binoculars back and forth. As they watched they discussed some of what they saw and how they could use it in their game.
So intent were they on what was before them, they both let out a small shriek of surprise when a throat cleared behind them.
Leaping to their feet and turning around, they found themselves looking up at a man in army fatigues.
“What are you two doing here?” he asked, looking each boy in the eye, his face unreadable.
The two boys drew themselves up a little taller. This was obviously one of the army men they’d been watching. Carlos noted the patch on the man’s sleeve and thought it looked special. He’d have to find out about it later.
“Nothing, sir,” Brad responded, his nervousness apparent in his voice.
“Nothing?” the soldier asked.
“We were playing in the woods and found a path,” Brad babbled, trying to explain. “We didn’t know it led here.”
Turning his full attention to Carlos, the man asked, “And what were you doing with the binoculars?”
Carlos swallowed, and looked the man in the eye. He wasn’t sure what he saw there, but his nervousness seemed to retreat a little. “We’d been playing army and when we saw that we were at the base, we just wanted to see what you guys did,” he explained, his voice not quite as nervous sounding as Brad’s.
The soldier looked at them for several seconds before saying. “I see. While I appreciate your interest in the Army, I’m afraid you can’t sit here and watch. It would be best if you headed home now and didn’t come back.”
“Yes, sir,” Brad responded.
Carlos nodded, but his eyes widened in shock a moment later as he spotted three other men appear from nowhere, each having the same patch as the man who spoke to them.
“Dismissed,” the soldier who had been speaking to them commanded, his mouth betraying the slightest of smiles. Stepping to the side, he allowed the boys to head back up that little traveled path.
When they had gone a few feet down the path, Carlos turned around and saw that the men had all disappeared again, almost like they were never there.
As he and Brad headed back toward Brad’s home, all Carlos could think of was how much he wanted to be able to disappear like those soldiers did.
Present
“And that’s when you first wanted to become a Ranger?” Stephanie asked.
“Yeah,” Ranger answered. “I went back to the house and started asking about the patch. It was Brad’s father who told us the men had been Army Rangers. Of course, they he and my father began scolding us about going so far from the house and knowing better than to go near the base. By the time they were done, there was no way either Brad or I would think of straying so far again.”
Stephanie chuckled and placed a kiss on the side of Ranger’s throat, knowing how difficult this time was for him and appreciating his sharing this insight into his youth. Sitting up a little straighter, she met his eyes. “I’m glad you took that other path,” she said, reaching up to brush a stray lock of hair from his face. “It was the first step on the path that made you who you are.”
“Babe,” Ranger whispered, leaning forward and kissing her.
Several hours later, Ranger sat in the bed, his back against the headboard as Stephanie slept beside him.
The lights were off in the room, but there was enough light filtering in from outside that he could just see the words on the page in his hand.
Brad had been one of his closest friends growing up. Even when he had rebelled, Brad had always been there, reminding him of their youth, of their dreams. When he’d gone into the army, Brad had followed him. So many times Brad had followed where he had led.
Ranger signed and ran a hand through his hair.
Now, all these years later, he couldn’t believe he was to give his friend’s eulogy. It didn’t seem possible that Brad was dead. But he knew it to be true.
Reaching over, he rested his hand on Stephanie’s hip, smiling slightly as she sighed in contentment. Ranger knew without a doubt that he was only doing this well because she was here with him. She never pushed, and was just there for him, providing the support he needed. It had been years since he’d thought about that first meeting with Brad. He assumed the memory would hurt now that he was gone, but it hadn’t. It had helped ease some of his pain, some of his sense of loss.
Setting his speech aside, he shifted until he was lying next to Stephanie. He wrapped one arm around her and drew her tightly against him, taking comfort as she snuggled into him.
As his eyes drifted closed, the closing of his eulogy ran through his mind and he felt the truth of it to his soul. It was true not just of Brad, but of him as well:
End.
*From ”The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost