“Randy’s worrying me something fierce. He’s waking up screaming more and more nights, and he frightens the children. But worse than that, he’s talking about shooting himself. He keeps saying there ain’t no point in his living no more.” She bit her chapped lower lip, and her eyes were pools of worry. “I dunno what to do, Mrs. Grace.” Myrtle lowered her face into her hands, and for a moment, as the waitress approached their booth, her shoulders shook.

The young waitress stood there, her pad in her hand, and looked quizzically at Grace, who smiled briefly and gestured her away. “Come back in a couple of minutes, will you, please?”

The waitress turned her attention to clearing a nearby table, and the clatter of plate on plate seemed louder than need be, which annoyed Grace, but Myrtle seemed not to notice.

Grace leaned across the table and took Myrtle’s hands. “There is help for Randy,” she said. “There’s help at the veterans hospital over in East Asheville. I took the liberty of going there. I talked to the nicest man, a counselor, who works with soldiers who’ve come home from war. Randy’s not the first, and he’s not the last soldier to have what’s known as post-traumatic stress syndrome.”

“They got a name for what ails my boy?” Myrtle’s eyes went wide.

“They do, and Randy has all the symptoms: depression, rages, starting up at the slightest noise, being suspicious of things and people, having nightmares.”

As she listened to Grace, Myrtle nodded.

“Soldiers come home from the war and keep remembering all the terrible things they saw and heard, and there are plenty of them. Sometimes, at war, they do things that make them feel as if they’ve lost their own humanity.” She was being too specific, frightening Myrtle, and she hadn’t intended to do that. “These memories get burned into their minds. It’s like they’re watching a movie, only to them it’s as real as if they’re still over there and whatever it is, is still happening to them.”

“Like, what’s happening to them?” Myrtle asked.

“Whatever they saw, whatever they heard, the noise of war, and the awful horror of war. Maybe they saw their best buddy get killed, or they saw a child blown up before their eyes. I cannot even begin to imagine the kinds of things these young men experienced and what they had to do to survive. Whatever it is, they bring it home in their minds. To them, every door that slams shut, a car door, the bathroom door, all doors, sound like a gun going off.”

Myrtle’s hands covered her cheeks. Her mouth hung open. After a moment, she asked, “What can we do?”

“We can convince Randy to talk to the counselor at the veterans hospital. That would be a good start.”