Exactly one year had passed from the day Bill returned from the Vietnam War and he was staring out the window and thinking about how his life had become so hopeless. As a 31 year old Vietnam War veteran from Georgia, Bill remembered the awful day when his leg was blown off from a grenade in Vietnam. The war had changed him greatly and saw the loss of his leg as a symbol of everything he had lost after the brutal war. Bill reminisced about how much he loved life before going off to war and how he was vivacious, diligent, athletic, and popular and he believed nothing could ruin his almost perfect life. Bill remembered all the gruesome scenes from the war that played in his head like an unwanted slideshow and this has caused his depression after the war. Bill also remembered his greatest heartache before the Vietnam War of when his mother died of cancer when he was a boy and was forced to live the rest of his life under the demanding pressure of his father. He thought about all the reasons that led to the wasting away of his own life after the war as he now was living in his father’s huge mansion doing nothing all day but feeling sorry for himself. Bill had no motivation to get a job after the war because he thought life was pointless so he had depended on his father ever since.
Bill’s father, Dick, reluctantly took in his son after the war thinking Bill was just going through a temporary stage that he would soon come out of. Dick was a successful heart surgeon who had set high expectations for Bill ever since Bill was young. Dick was a short bald man in his late sixties and he always had a stern look on his face. Bill had admired all the obstacles his father went through before becoming the flourishing man he was that day, but Bill was not close with his father because Dick had controlled almost every aspect of Bill’s life. Dick was so frustrated with how Bill’s life turned out after the war that he had barely talked to his son and saw his son as a worthless leech who had done nothing with his life. Bill then got up after thinking about the disastrous turning point of his once cheerful life and wandered the halls of his father’s mansion. The mansion was large and lavish but also extremely depressing for Bill because the mansion had many frightening features such as stone gargoyles on the roof and the outside walls seemed to be suffocated with ivy. Also, because such a huge mansion was empty except for his father, Bill had realized how much he missed having a companion but he had become too reserved after the war to talk to anyone.
While walking around the mansion, Bill suddenly heard a knock at the door and he remembered that this was the day his father would interview people to become the new housekeeper. Dick had to fire the old housekeeper because she was secretly stealing from the mansion. Bill was sitting in the dining room when he heard his father open the door to greet a soft sounding girl at the door. When she came in the dining room following Dick, Bill immediately noticed that this girl was the most gorgeous girl he had ever seen. She was a tall girl with long black hair in her early twenties and she stood in front of Bill with a great confidence. Bill was so awestruck by the girl, that he did not say a word during the entire time his father interviewed her. She had said her name was Candy and that she had plenty of experience as a housekeeper so Dick hired her.
Bill still could not talk to Candy for the week and instead tried to avoid seeing her, but one day Candy started a conversation with Bill about his leg. Bill told her of his experiences in the Vietnam War and Candy was the first person Bill could really talk to since the war. Over the next several weeks, Candy and Bill talked about everything from movies to music and Bill found out they had many things in common. Bill believed Candy was the perfect girl and he felt special for the first time in a long time when he was around her. Eventually, Candy had caused so much confidence in Bill that he actually got a job and Bill’s father soon became more supportive of Bill. Bill believed his life would soon get back on track and he would be the joyous person that he was before the war.
Bill believed that Candy was his soul mate and that he would propose to her in the mansion when his father Dick went on vacation. The day finally came when Candy came over and Bill was ready to propose right in front of a big fireplace in the mansion’s study. Bill had turned around to take the ring out of his back pocket when suddenly Candy took the wood stove shovel and violently bashed the shovel into Bill’s temple which knocked him unconscious. When Bill awoke, Candy was gone and so were many of the valuable possessions in the mansion. Bill was extremely baffled and heartbroken to the point of suicide but he figured that when his father came back home, his father would understand what had happened and would help support Bill. The next night when Dick came home, he was outraged to see the valuables in his mansion gone and had blamed the whole incident on Bill. Dick then kicked Bill out of the mansion for good and refused to ever speak to his son ever again.
