The Train of Small Mercies by David Rowell Page A

and it’s just harder to keep up. And, too, you get into college, and, well, you’re different, you know? Or maybe it’s just that you’re older. I don’t know if she’s the same girl anymore. Maybe.”
    â€œWar tends to change you a little bit. Look at the great change I got.”
    Roy looked at Jamie’s leg—or at what wasn’t there. Jamie was wearing a pair of khaki shorts, and the leg ended just a few inches past the cuff. It was perfectly rounded off—like a watermelon, Roy thought. He had seen this type of injury before, but not up close. He could see the purple traces of scars from the amputation surgery, but they were disappearing already. In most ways, the leg looked as if it had never extended any farther.
    â€œI really am sorry about that, Jamie,” Roy said. “I know that must be really difficult. I just can’t imagine.”
    â€œI guess a missing leg makes a newspaper story around here.”
    â€œOh, I don’t think we were thinking of it like that. Not at all. But what do you think? Can I turn this on?” He held the little microphone between them, and he was embarrassed to see that his hand was shaking slightly. Jamie stared at it for a moment, and it reminded him of all the times he had passed Murphy in the hallway—Murphy keeping his head down, always averting his eyes. Murphy couldn’t have weighed any more than Claire back then. Murphy the pencil. Now here he was these years later, but who had the upper hand? Jamie glanced out beyond the fence and could feel that old resentment toward him once more.
    â€œSure.”
    â€œSo here’s how it works,” Roy said. “If there’s anything you don’t want to answer, just say so. Otherwise, we’ll say that everything you say is all on the record. Which just means that would be part of what I could consider using for the article. Quotes.”
    â€œSo college has changed you, too, you’re saying. You mean you’re not still that All-American listener? That’s what Claire used to say about you. What a good listener you were.”
    â€œYeah, that was me,” Roy said. “The man on the sidelines.”
    â€œI guess you knew a lot about me through Claire.”
    â€œNot really,” Roy said. “Sock hops. Proms. Doesn’t that feel like a long time ago to you?”
    â€œYep.” Jamie swatted at something buzzing near him.
    â€œWe were talking about changing. Besides the injury, how would you say that being in Vietnam has changed you? Or do you think it did at all? Or maybe you feel like it’s too early to know.”
    Roy leaned over the tape recorder to make sure the cogs were spinning.
    â€œI wrote Claire when I was over there,” Jamie said, “even though I’d heard she had a boyfriend. She wrote me two letters back. The first one was all about the classes she was taking, her sorority, how hard she was studying. Like I was some kind of pen pal or something. Guys around me are getting sexy pictures of their girlfriends, letters about how they’re waiting for them to come home. I guess I was kind of hoping for something more than reports from Biology 101 and English Literature.”
    Roy offered a nod of compassion. He understood he wasn’t going to get answers to his questions until he let Jamie say everything he wanted to about Claire.
    â€œYou probably saw all that coming, didn’t you?” Jamie said. “You probably saw it long before I did, Claire finding some slick Joe College after high school.”
    â€œWell, Claire was complicated,” Roy said quickly. He realized his mistake too late and shielded his eyes from the sun, though they were sitting in the shade.
    Jamie almost smiled at Murphy’s nerve. What Murphy said was true, but Jamie knew it must have brought some satisfaction for Murphy to be the one to say it. Murphy probably had spent more time with Claire, in the