Buckeye

The war rages on in Vietnam, even as support for it in the US reaches record lows. In 1969, word of the My Lai Massacre reaches the American public: US soldiers, expecting to encounter the enemy while on an ambush, instead massacred an entire village of innocent civilians. The public is horrified, and public opinion about the war begins to turn.

Tom continues to protest. That year, the largest draft of the conflict so far is held, and both Tom and Felix are grateful that he is not drafted. Felix decides that the time has come to be honest with Tom. Cal and Becky agree, and they tell him the entire story.

Tom struggles to process what he has been told. He is angry at everyone for making their own lives easier by keeping this immense secret from him, and he feels that the brunt of the blame should be placed on his mother. It was, he thinks, her decision that started everything.

Some time later, Tom goes to Columbus. He intends to show up at Margaret’s apartment, but when he gets there, he loses his nerve. Instead, he follows her to the department store where she works. He thinks that she is not entirely okay. He cannot bring himself to talk to her, so he leaves without introducing himself. After that, he gradually stops speaking with his father and the Jenkinses.

The war ends in 1975, and the country moves on. Felix and Bishop develop a romantic relationship. Felix is sure that they will have a long life together, but he begins to have trouble breathing. He is diagnosed with advanced emphysema.

Felix tries to get a hold of Tom, but Tom will not return his calls. Eventually, he runs into Cal, who is shocked at his obvious decline. Felix tells Cal everything, and Cal makes the trip to Toledo to tell Tom that Felix is dying. Tom returns with him, and after seeing Felix’s diminished state, he decides to remain in Bonhomie to care for him.

Tom stays with Felix until the end. They talk about the past, and Tom realizes that he is no longer angry. He can understand how difficult life was for Felix, and he has real empathy for what it must have been like to lose Augie and keep his identity a secret for so long. He decides to write to Margaret to tell her that Felix is dying and invite her to visit him in Bonhomie.

Margaret receives the letter and is surprised to hear from her son. She kept tabs on whether he was drafted and had seen Skip’s death notice. She realizes that she should probably go. She arrives in Bonhomie and is surprised to see how much the town has grown.

She is too late to see Felix, however. He has already died, and she missed his funeral by mere hours. She isn’t sure if she should go to the wake at the Jenkins home, but she does. She is still unsure about being there, but Tom recognizes her. He approaches and explains that she’s too late.

She apologizes to him for everything, explaining that her mother abandoned her as a baby and that she’d never been able to come to terms with it. He hugs her tightly and then walks away. Margaret thinks that he said something to her during the hug, but she could not make out the words.

Cal and Becky grow old. They have a good relationship with Tom and Tom’s long-term girlfriend, Kathy. Tom and Kathy work together at the radio station in Toledo. They do not want to have their own children, but Cal and Becky are happy when they begin to talk about adopting a child.

Cal and Becky finally take their postponed honeymoon, and on it, Cal gives Becky the letter she wrote and asked him to keep until she was 60. She reads it and then gives it to him to read. He was expecting predictions and a serious tone, but it was mostly full of jokes since she wrote it when she was still a child.

Cal thinks about the long, slow march of time. He realizes that he didn’t miss out on his identity by not being in the war. Wars had damaged his father and Felix and killed Skip. He decides that the measure of a person is how they respond to their bad choices and missed chances. By that definition, he has done just fine. He and Becky visit an amusement park, and he surprises himself by enjoying it just as much as she does.