Unburying Hope (11 page)

Chapter
Twelve

She woke later in that hazy state where your
eyes open but your brain doesn’t register the physicality of things like
ceiling or pillow or even breath.
 
She waited a few seconds, as if to let the world around her settle into
solidity and she smiled when she realized she was warm in her bed, the day was
dawning and her phone alarm had not clanged.
 

It must be the weekend.
 

Her brain started a slow recalibration, she
stretched her toes out under her down comforter, deciding that this had to be
the day to open the brown cardboard box in storage, to pull out the electric
blanket so that waking up in the frozen months to come wouldn’t be so
hard.
 
Lifting her head an inch or
so, she pulled the comforter around her neck, covering her chin and mouth and
nose, so only her head was out in the cool apartment air.

“Hey, baby, don’t steal all the covers.”

Celeste nearly jumped out of her skin, because
memories exploded together and she didn’t know whom she would find.
 
She was careful not to let someone
sleep over on a weekend night, because the weekend was her dreamtime, when she
could stretch who she was, go for a long bus ride out of the city, where she
could imagine a bigger life.
 
In
her sleepy fog, lit up by the brain blast of shock and confusion, she wrapped
the comforter around her breasts and rolled over to face the voice.

Eddie reached into her cocoon, “Good morning,
sexy,” he ran his fingers through her long hair, releasing it from the confines
of the wrapped bedding.

She felt his arms, strong and intent, but he
moved to her instead of yanking her out of her warm spot in the bed.
 
So thoughtful, she realized.

His eyes were half open and she watched as he
came close and planted a few kisses on her cheeks and lips, comfortable and
cozy, as though this was morning #98 instead of #1.
 
His breath was slow and he half-whispered, ‘Can we sleep for
a little while longer?
 
Or”, she
felt his body wakening, “Should we get up?
 
Do you need to get out the door somewhere?”

She didn’t want this moment, this embrace, to
unwind, so she lowered her own excited voice to a soft whisper and said, “no,
no, go back to sleep, we can sleep longer.”

Without releasing her from his sure hold, his
eyes closed, his face relaxed and she could tell within a minute that he was again
fast asleep.

Sleep tugged at her brain too, but she lay
there, fighting it, eyes as open as she could manage, looking at his brown-black
eyelashes, his spiked bed hair, his thinned cheeks, the shadows of the receding
night on the hollow in his forehead, seeing him as she never knew him, with his
perfect face unmarred by a rocketed weapon.
 
How must he see himself, she wondered, permanently damaged
on the outside?

She let her own body, with its now remembered
sex memories of the passion of six hours ago, melt back into sleep, held in a
strangely comforting embrace that she’d never felt before.
 
As a child, she’d slept near her
mother, sometimes snuggling up to her mother’s back, never her front.
 
That was reserved, her mother said, for
husbands.
 
Her own one-night stands
never ended in holding and the few short term boyfriends she’d had weren’t
capable of closeness, leading her to wonder seriously if she was worthy.
 

Her head lay on her pillow near Eddie’s soft
breathing and she suddenly realized that maybe her mother had meant this kind
of embrace for herself, for a man that she might meet after Celeste grew up,
more than she meant it for Celeste in her own adulthood.
 
Her mother hadn’t had this kind of
holding, Celeste realized.
 
Her
heart torn between sorrow for her mother’s emptiness and her own current shock
at the loveliness of being held, she let her eyes close and she matched her
breathing to Eddie’s until she lost herself to a delicious, warm, held sleep
that felt safe, deeply safe.

Chapter
Thirteen

“I see what you’re attracted to,” Frank
said.
 
“He’s good looking, has
those smoldering eyes and those baby cheeks, he’s a perfect combination of boy
with manly intent.”
 
He leaned in,
“But he’s too agitated.
 
When he
walks into the office, he goes to your line because you’re on the right.
 
Our right, his left.
 
He walks against the wall until he gets
to the front of the line.
 
He’s
super solicitous of the old ladies in line but he’s on edge if he’s near men,
like he thinks everyone could be carrying a gun.”

“He spent years in Iraq and Afghanistan,”
Celeste defended.

“Maybe that’s it.
 
He thinks crowds are dangerous.
 
I went out with a soldier once, but it was too crazy making.
 
Every little sound set him off.
 
He went to work at 5 am so he wouldn’t
have to drive in traffic.
 
He
wouldn’t leave his desk at lunch and he’d go straight home to sit in front of
his TV.
 
That guy was shell
shocked.”

“Did you dump him because he was no fun?”

“No, I have a heart.
 
I cared about him.
 
But he was on more meds than I’ve ever dreamed of, for muscle spasms,
migraines, a couple different sleeping pills because he couldn’t get himself to
sleep, pills for depression, for anxiety.
 
He had about eight pill containers he’d pour from several times a day.
 
And I couldn’t reach him, you know,
emotionally.”

“What made him so messed up?”

“He couldn’t admit he was broken or the Army
would have released him with no benefits.
 
They can put you out for an ‘Emotional Disorder’ even though you’re
fucked up because of your time IN the Army.
 
So he let them redeploy him three times and they kept him
for a year or two extra each time, extending his tour.
 
Each time, he said, was worse for
him.
 
He came home from the first
deployment on migraine meds and sleeping pills but came home the third time on
anti-psychotic meds.
 
You know I
like my men a little crazy, but real, mental illness crazy?
 
Honey, my heart bleeds.
 
I was so sad for him.”

“Do you ever see him?”

“No, I bought him groceries for a few weeks so
he wouldn’t have to go into a busy supermarket.
 
Then he moved back in with his folks.
 
He said they didn’t know he was gay or
crazy but he could no longer hide the crazy.
 
So they are taking care of him.”

“Eddie’s not that bad,” Celeste said,
balking.
 
“I do see him hug walls,
and his eyes dart.
 
He’s watching
everything that goes on.”

“How many meds is he on?” Frank asked.

“I’ve never asked him.”

“You should give him these,” Frank said,
putting two yellow gel capsules on the counter in front of Celeste.
 
“They’re omegas, great for your immune
system and evening out your mood.”

Celeste screwed up her lips into a cockeyed
smile, “Are these your fish oils?
 
That’s weird.”

“No, it’s natural.
 
And it won’t screw up your brain when you drink.
 
You could use them too, they help with
reverbs from drinking too much.”

“I’m thinking of not drinking anymore.”

“Bite your tongue, young lady!” Frank
laughed.
 
“Who else would muddle
mint with me for mojitos after a long work day?”

Celeste laughed.
 
“Yes, what was I thinking?
 
You do know that Eddie and I don’t drink when we’re together
though, right?”

Frank needled her, “And how’s non-alcohol-fueled
sex?”

“Oh, it’s amazing,” she said, “You can feel
everything.”

“Hmmm,” Frank rubbed his chin like a wise old
man.
 
“I may have to try that.
 
Someday.
 
But not today.”
 
Frank pointed at an article in the morning newspaper on his lap
underneath his workstation.
 
“I am
freaking out about the drug wars.
  
I’ll need a couple of cocktails just to calm down.”

“I know it’s getting worse.
 
I’m scared too.
 
But how could we ever leave Detroit?”
she asked.

“They’re asking all Detroiters to uproot, to
move into one third of the City, so they can use the other two thirds for
gardens.”
 
Frank’s voice betrayed
his shock.
 

“What?
 
No one is going to understand that,” Celeste said.

“Your graffiti isn’t enough, Celeste,” Frank
looked straight at her.
 
“Missy, it’s
time.
 
We’ve got to leave.
 
My condo closes tomorrow, I get funded,
pay back my mortgage and I’ve got just enough to relocate and put a down
payment on a little house outside of Beaufort.
 
Come with me.”

There would be so little to take, Celeste
thought.
 
She’d leave the
furniture, since the apartment came furnished.
 
She’d specifically avoided buying anything, except her new
clothes recently, and some cooking utensils and spray paint over the last few
years.
 
She could probably fit all
of her things into two suitcases and ship a box of her kitchen and bedroom
things.
 
She could buy new bedding,
she could actually buy new kitchen things.
 
She shook her head at how lightly she inhabited her
world.
 
She could probably leave
with one suitcase of new clothes.
 
She could drop off all her home furnishings at the local donation center
where she’d dropped three bags off of her clean, neatly folded old clothes.
 

Eddie was right.
 
She had not put down roots.

Eddie didn’t talk a lot.
 

Frank was the only person who could get her to
laugh and go on and on, but that’s because Frank was a force of nature.
 
She could hear him coming down the
street, she knew when he stamped his time card, she could feel the office air
change palpably.
 
A smile rose and
by the time he sidled in to sit near her, she found herself with a full-blown
grin.
 

It’s not that she was a dud, she thought.
 
It’s that no one had physically
catalyzed the energy around her before.
 
She felt naturally buoyant in Frank’s electrical charge.
 
Her happiness had echoes of newly
awakening memories of her childhood when there was a man around, when she was
very, very young.
 
A strong sense
of the presence of a happy man who loved her.

With Eddie, it was less fireworks, more
stamina.
 
A steady charge.
 
She didn’t have to think of things to
say.
 
Not that she had to with
Frank, because being with Frank naturally juiced her up.
 

But Eddie.
 
He was on edge.
 
His mood was often heavy with a back-story that she did not know.
 
He second-guessed his thoughts and
actions like she did but his military training helped him slog forward through
any doubts he might have had.

He always asked her what she wanted to do,
with the decision delayed until she weighed in, her opinion was considered, then
a choice was made to eat at a certain place, watch a certain TV show or
movie.
 
She suspected that the
negotiating machinations helped him feel that he was accomplishing something,
analyzing options, moving forward.

When they were watching TV, Eddie didn’t say
anything when she moved around on the sofa.
 
He put his arm around her and pulled her close, or released
her when she moved, waiting for her to settle before reaching for her
again.
 
Sometimes, she’d jump up
and rearrange pillows before sitting back down, just to feel him, still staring
at the TV show, moving himself to fit back in with her.
 
It was the opposite of sitting with the
old lady, where any tiny movement by Celeste caused trauma.
 
She smiled at Eddie, he’d smile back,
squeeze her and put his forehead to her forehead, touching skin to skin at her
hairline, then he’d check his phone for texts and settle back in.

It could be exhausting, this being called to
an excitable sense at work with Frank, and a happy, settled self-awareness with
Eddie.
 
She wondered if she’d have
the energy to sustain both relationships.
 
Maybe the new skirt and dress and jeans were magical, they had turned
her life inside out within a few weeks.
 
She was living the life she had played out in her head all these years:
animated, connected, awake.
 
No sleepwalking
to and from work.
 
No impotent workday
dreaming of a house and a man, no wondering what would have to erupt in her
life to bring any of those imaginary conversations to life.