I rolled up the door of unit 22, sick with dread, and the cool air rolled out, and the light fell on a glass case, and inside it, a folded flag, a row of military medals on ribbon, and a carefully preserved old uniform, and on the wall above, a photograph of a young soldier who was not my Gerald.
I stepped into the cool, my dread turning to bewilderment, and read the little brass plate beneath the photo. It bore Geralds older brothers name.
Couldnt take the heat or the cold, the woman had said, and now I understood, old wool uniforms and paper citations and ribbon rot and fade and grow moth-eaten in heat and damp, and my Gerald had been preserving something sacred: his fallen brothers memory.
Geralds brother had died in the war, long before I met Gerald, a young man cut down overseas. The family, in their grief, had boxed his things away and rarely spoke of him. But my Gerald had never forgotten his big brother.
He had gathered every trace of him, the medals, the flag, the uniform, the letters home, the photographs, and had them all restored and preserved in this climate-controlled shrine, tended for thirteen years.
His letter, in the case, read: Old girl, this is my brother Tom. He died in the war a hero when I was just a boy, and the family was too broken to keep his memory, and it near killed me watching him be forgotten. So I gathered everything of his and I keep it safe and cool here, medals and flag and all, restored proper. A man like Tom deserves to be remembered. I always meant to build a proper display, maybe give his medals to the veterans museum. Please, old girl, do not let my brother be forgotten. Love, Gerald.
I wept in that cool room before the shrine my husband built to the brother he lost as a boy and mourned his whole life.
Couldnt take the heat or the cold, because a heros memory is fragile, and Gerald guarded it for thirteen years.
I did what Gerald wanted. I took Toms medals and story to the veterans museum, and they were honored to display them. Toms uniform and flag and photograph are on view now, his heroism remembered by everyone who passes, a young man who gave everything, no longer forgotten.
I kept his letters home, and I read them to Geralds grandchildren, so they know they had a great-uncle who was a hero, and a grandfather faithful enough to remember him for a lifetime.
My son did not know why I drove out toward the airport. Now he knows his daddy kept his fallen brothers memory alive for fifty years. Couldnt take the heat or the cold, because Gerald would not let a hero fade. Tom is remembered now, by a whole town. My loyal, loving Gerald saw to it, the way he saw to everything.