1975

1975

The radio hummed low on the kitchen counter, the announcer’s voice steady as he spoke about Saigon-about helicopters lifting from rooftops, about a war that was finally, officially over. Jamie stood at the sink, hands submerged in soapy water, listening anyway. She had been listening for years.

Holly sat at the small oak table behind her, a mug of coffee cooling between her palms. The morning light caught the edge of her wedding ring as she turned it absentmindedly, round and round, as if worrying at a thought she couldn’t quite set down.

“It never should’ve happened,” Holly said. Her voice cut through the radio and the clink of dishes. “Any of it, such a waste. All those years. All those men.”

Jamie’s shoulders stiffened, though she kept washing. “It’s over now,” she said carefully. “That’s what matters.”

Holly shook her head. “No. What matters is that it was wrong from the start. My Tom said it back in 65-said it wasn’t our fight. He was lucky he never had to go.”

Jamie turned then. The word lucky landed hard, like something dropped and broken.

“Lucky,” Jamie repeated, drying her hands on a thin towel. “Is that what you call it?”

Holly looked up, startled. “I didn’t mean-Jamie, you know I- “

“My husband was a prisoner of war for three years,” Jamie said. Her voice was steady, but it took effort, like holding a door shut against the wind. “Three years of not knowing if he was alive. Three years of letters that never came and officials who wouldn’t look me in the eye.”

Holly swallowed. “I know that I do. And I’m sorry- “

“You say it was a waste,” Jamie continued. “You say it never should’ve happened. And maybe that’s true. But when you say it like that it sounds like you’re saying he was a waste. Like what he survived doesn’t count.”

“That’s not fair,” Holly said, standing now. “I’m talking about the war, not your husband.”

“They’re not separate,” Jamie snapped. The towel twisted in her hands. “You don’t get to pull them apart because it makes the conversation easier.”

Silence fell between them, thick and uneasy. Outside, a car passed, tires hissing on the damp street. The radio kept talking filling the gaps neither woman seemed ready to cross.

“My husband came home different,” Jamie said more quietly. “Some nights he still wakes up shouting. Some days he just stares at the wall like part of him is still over there. So, when I hear people say it was all pointless… “her voice trailed off.

Holly’s eyes softened. She sat back down slowly. “Tom never went,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t touched by it. He watched friends leave and not come back. He watched you wait. I watched you wait.”

Jamie looked at her then, really looked. Holly’s certainty had always come easily-clean opinions, sharp edges. But now there was something else there. Guilt, maybe. Or relief tangled with shame.

“I was angry,” Holly admitted. “Angry that they asked so much and explained so little. Angry that staying home felt like cowardice to some and survival to others. I didn’t know how to hold both.”

Jamie exhaled, the fight slowly draining out of her. “Neither did I,” she said. “I just held on.”

The radio announced a commercial break. The room felt quieter without the war narrating itself in the background.

“I don’t think we are arguing about the same thing,” Jamie said at last. “You’re talking about why it happened. I’m talking about what it cost.”

Holly nodded. “And maybe both can be true.”

Jaime turned back to the sink, finishing the last plate. When she set it in the rack, Holly reached out and touched her arm-not an apology, but an acknowledgment.

Outside, spring was trying to arrive. And inside that small kitchen in 1975, two women sat with the uneasy truth that wars didn’t end just because the fighting stopped-and that understanding each other might take just as long.

Jamie didn’t pull away from Holly’s hand, but she didn’t lean into it either. The touch lingered for a moment, then Holly let it fall back to her lap, as if afraid of asking too much.

“I saw him yesterday,” Jamie said. “Mark. At the VA.”

Holly looked up. “How is he?”

Jamie shrugged, a small, helpless motion. “He hates that place. Say’s the walls smell like fear and disinfectant. Say it makes him feel like he’s still being processed-like he never really came home.”

Holly nodded slowly. “Tom says the same thing about the plant. He feels useless sometimes. Like everyone else went off and did something big and terrible and important, and he just stayed.”

Jamie turned surprised. “He never said that to me.”

“He doesn’t say it out loud much,” Holly said. “But I hear it anyway. In the way he flinches when someone thanks him for being smart enough to stay out of it. In the way he changes the station when the news comes on.”

Jamie sat down across from her. For the first time that morning, they were at the same level, knees nearly touching.

“I used to think,” Jamie said, “that when mark came home everything would make sense again. That the waiting would end and the answers would begin.”

“And,” Holly asked gently.

“And it turns out waiting just changes shape,” Jamie let out a soft, humorless laugh. “Now, I wait for him to sleep through the night. I wait for him to smile without it looking forced. I wait for the man I married to come back all the way.”

Holly’s eyes filled, though her voice stayed calm. “I wait too,” she said. “Just not for the same thing. I waited to feel like I hadn’t abandoned anyone by staying.”

Jamie considered that. She had been so certain of the lines before-Who paid the price, who got off easy. But the truth was messier, thread with fears no one talked about because they didn’t fit the narrative.

“You know,” Jamie said slowly, “there were times I hated people like you.”

Holly winced, but didn’t interrupt.

“I hated the normalcy. The grocery shopping, the dinner parties, the way life kept going. It felt like a betrayal,” Jamie met her eyes. “But maybe that was the point. Someone had to keep the world going.”

Holly reached for her coffee mug, now cold and smiled faintly. “And someone had to go and come back and remind us what it cost.”

The radio crackled back to life with a song-something soft and familiar. Jamie recognized it from the letters Mark used to mention, the ones he never got to send.

“He asked me yesterday if the people would ever stop arguing about it,” Jamie said.

“And what did you say?”

“I said I didn’t know.” She paused. “But I told him maybe arguing is how we try to make sense of things that don’t have neat endings.”

Holly nodded. “Maybe listening is part of it too.”

Jamie looked at her friend-no, not just her friend, but a woman who had stood on the other side of the same war, holding a different kind of silence.

“Stay for lunch,” Jaime said suddenly. “I made too much soup.”

Holly smiled, relief flickering across her face. “I’d like that.”

Outside the world of 1975 kept moving forward-unevenly, noisily, carrying it scars in plain sight. And inside the kitchen, two women began the slower work of understanding, one conversation at a time.

Holly stayed.

The soup shimmered softly as Jamie ladled it into bowls, the steam rising between them like something alive. They ate at the table where arguments usually happened, where newspapers were spread and folded, where letters once sat unopened for days because Jamie couldn’t bear the possibility of bad news anymore.

“it’s strange,” Holly said after a few bites. “How quiet it feels now that it’s over.”

Jamie nodded. “Too quiet sometimes. Like the noise just stopped all at once and no one told our nerves they could rest.”

Holly glanced toward the hallway. “Is Mark coming home tonight?”

“Yes. Late.” Jamie hesitated. “He works the evening shift now. Says the dark feels familiar.”

Holly didn’t ask more. She had learned finally when not to push.

“I used to imagine what it would be like if Tom had gone,” Holly said instead. “I’d picture myself strong. Brave. Writing letters every day.” She smiled faintly. “But I don’t know if I would’ve survived the not knowing.”

Jamie traced a crack in the table top with her fingers. “Some days I didn’t.”

The admission hung there-raw, honest. Holly reached across the table and this time Jamie let her take her hand.

“I think,” Holly said carefully, “that we were both drafted in our own ways.”

Jamie looked up.

“Into fear. Into waiting. Into pretending we understood something that was bigger than us.” Holly squeezed her fingers. “We just wore different uniforms.”

Jamie’s throat tightened. She thought of Mark at nineteen, all sharp edges and confidence, boarding a plane with a crooked grin. She thought of herself, just as young standing in a dress she’d ironed twice, waving until her arm ached.

“You’re right,” she said quietly. “I just wish someone had told us that surviving wasn’t going to feel like victory.”

The front door creaked open then, slow and cautious. Jamie’s breath caught.

Footsteps. Heavy ones.

Mark appeared in the doorway, his jacket slung over one shoulder, his face drawn but familiar. His eyes flicked from Jamie to Holly uncertainty crossing his features.

“Hey,” he said.

Jamie stood. “Hey.”

Holly rose too, awkwardly. “Hi Mark.”

He nodded. “Didn’t know we had company.”

“I was just leaving,” Holly said quickly, though she wasn’t quite ready to go.

Jamie shook her head. “You can stay a minute.”

Mark studied her face then nodded. “Okay.”

There was an unspoken tension, the kind that came from years of headlines and half-formed opinions. Holly cleared her throat.

“I’m glad your home,” she said simply. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that properly.”

Mark looked at her for a long moment. Then he shrugged, small but sincere. “Me too.”

Holly smiled, tears bright in her eyes. “I’m still figuring out what it all means.”

“Yeah,” Mark said. “So are we.”

Jamie moved to his side, her hand brushing his. He didn’t pull away.

Outside, the radio in the neighbor’s house played the same song again, drifting through the open windows. The war had ended on paper, but inside this house, in this year, something else was just beginning-not resolution, not peace exactly, but the fragile work of learning how to live with what remained.

And for the first time in a long while, that felt like enough.

Mark set his jacket over the back of the chair, but didn’t sit. He stood there as if chairs were still a luxury, he wasn’t certain he deserved. Jamie noticed -she always noticed-and gently pulled one out for him.

“Sit,” she said. Not an order. Not an invitation.

He did.

Holly shifted her weight, suddenly aware of how much she took up in the room. “I can go,” she said again, softer this time.

Mark glanced at Jamie. She gave a small shake of her head.

“Stay,” he said. The word surprised even him. “If you want.”

Holly exhaled and sat back down. “Thank you.”

For a moment, none of them spoke. The soup had gone lukewarm. The afternoon light slanted across the table, catching dust motes that floated like tiny, drifting memories.

“I heard someone on the radio today,” Mark said finally. “Said we lost.”

Holly flinched. Jamie stilled.

“And?” Jamie asked

“And I wanted to ask him what he meant by we,” Mark’s voice was even, but his hands curled slowly into fists and then loosened again. “Because it didn’t feel like losing when I was just trying to survivor the next hour.”

Holly nodded. “People want a verdict,” she said. “Something clean. Win or lose. Worth it or not.”

Mark looked at her. “And what do you think?”

She hesitated, then answered honestly. “I think I was afraid to admit I didn’t know. So, I picked a side and held onto it like it was certainty.”

Jamie watched them, something cautious and hopeful stirring in her chest.

“I didn’t have the luxury of not knowing,” Mark said. “But I also didn’t have the luxury of choosing why I was there.” He paused. “That doesn’t mean I think it should’ve happened. It just means… it happened to me.”

Holly’s eyes filled again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For the things I said this morning. For the way they landed.”

Jamie reached for her hand. “Thank you for hearing me.”

Mark looked between them, then let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for years. “You know,” he said. “In the camp we argued too. About politics. About blame. About whether anyone back home even cared.”

“And?” Holly asked.

“And eventually we stopped,” he said. “Not because we agreed. But because the arguing took more energy than we had.” A faint smiled touched his mouth. “We learned to listen instead. Sometimes in silence.”

The clock on the wall ticked loudly. Ordinary. Beautiful.

“I don’t know what comes next,” Jamie said. “For us. For the country.”

Mark reached for her hand, rough and warm. “Neither do I. But I know I’m tired of being alone with it.”

Holly stood then, smoothing her skirt. “I should go. But… thank you. For letting me stay. For trusting me with this.”

She moved toward the door, then paused. “If you ever want to talk,” she said to Mark, “Or nor talk. I’m here.”

He nodded once. “That means something.”

After she left, the house felt different-not quieter, but fuller. Jamie leaned her head against Mark’s shoulder. He stiffened for a second, then relaxed.

Outside, children laughed somewhere down the block. A car radio played the news. Life, insistent and imperfect kept going.

1975 did not offer answers. But in that small kitchen, with cooling soup and three people brave enough to stay, it offered something else: the beginning of understanding, fragile as it was, and finally shared.