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MAY 7, WEDNESDAY

Bass pounds out in the lot,
vibrating the bathroom walls. I finish being sick, flush the
toilet, and wait for it to quiet before opening the door. Donny is
still asleep in his shirt and jeans and socks. I slip off his
glasses and set them on the nightstand before leaving.

________

“
Stanley and Kellerman. How
may I direct your call?”

Lowered blinds keep out the
bright blue sky and aspirin hasn’t reached my headache. It hurts,
some, to say, “Hi, Olivia.” Behind the blinds the window is closed,
but humidity still finds a way in. Under the door, through the
walls.

“Well, hi, hon! How can I
help—Oh, listen to me, will you? That’s what happens when you call
me at work!…Anyway, sweetie, what can I do for you?”

My hand sweats around the
phone. “I—”

“I can’t speak for very
long—so busy, today, for a change—but I can call you back at lunch,
if you’d like.”

“No, I—I just wanted to ask
you—”

“Oh, no…You saw the news
last night, too? I’ll tell you what, hon, if another…”

I hold the phone away from
my ear. When I listen again I catch only the end: “…and I can’t
believe it. Isn’t that terrible?”

“It is, it is,” I say.
“Terrible.”

“Tsk,” she says.

Brakes squeal outside and I
turn the handle on the blinds to open them. A rusted, blue car
parks in front of the house across the street and honks.

“Are you there,
hon?”

“I’m here,” I say. “I’m
just—you know—taking a second. Thinking about what happened.” The
car honks again and a girl steps onto the porch and opens a pink
umbrella. “A parasol?”

“What’s that,
hon?”

“Nothing.”

“Well,” she says, “I know
how you feel. That poor—”

“Actually, Olivia—sorry to
interrupt—I’m just…in light of all that…see, I seem to have lost
Jake’s email address—his new one, I mean—and I’m, well, I’m just
frantic to get a hold of him. Do you have it, by any
chance?”

“Well, why. . .? What do
those poor children in Oregon have to do with Jake?”

“Children?”

“Yes. The ones that mother
was keeping in cages as if they were little more than…”

I wait it out. I’d thought
it would be about the war. Her bad news has always been about the
war. “Well,” I say when she finishes, and, “It’s a bad place, the
world. Or, I mean, it can be. You know. I guess—I guess I just want
to talk to him to reassure myself that there’s some good in it
all.” I switch the phone to my left hand and wipe my palm on my
shorts. “You do have it, don’t you?” I close my eyes.

“Of course I do.”

The pulsing thickens in my
head, so I lay my face on the table. “I thought you might.” The
veneer is cool on my cheek.

“Don’t you have it on your
computer? Doesn’t it save in your address book?”

“My hard drive crashed last
week,” I say. “I lost everything.” When the spinning comes, I raise
my head and look out the window. Softer now, the pulse, so maybe
the aspirin is working.

The car across the street
pulls away from the curb, and a hand pokes through the half-open
driver’s side window to drop a piece of trash.

“Oh, no. Well, let me just
get to my address book…” Rustling. Fingernails clicking on keys.
“Here it is,” she says and gives it to me. “I’m so happy he’s
emailing you now. He asked me not to tell you, back when, because
he thought it was just another thing that would help along any
worrying, but I told him. I said he should—”

“Thank you,” I say. I hang
up.

The monitor stays blank
through seven cigarettes and I am nicotine sick. I get up and mix a
strong drink and sit back down and light another cigarette and set
it in the ashtray. Smoke drifts past the monitor.

I type,
Jake.

Today is William’s funeral
and the lighter lies buried in a bowl.

I wonder if Denise will
look, if the casket is open. I wonder if I will look inside Jake’s
open casket.

Jake sent an email on a
Thursday the week before he deployed. It’s saved, number
one.
Long day, but longer when I think
about you and how many hours until I can come home. Can’t wait to
see you naked! Lather on some peanut butter. —Moi
When he walked in after work, he had the face. It
was not a day for joking about peanut butter, or for the lingerie I
felt half sexy, half awkward wearing. I put on my robe while he
told me.

When Denise comes back to
Tennessee, I’ll invite her over, listen to her talk about William
and about Brian and we’ll drink a bottle of something strong and
I’ll ask her why she never mentioned email.

We’ll have a nice
dinner.

But the only food in my
cabinet is a box of macaroni and cheese, and I’m out of
butter.

I type
Bastard
and delete it.

Surprise.

Delete.

I can’t be mad, can I? I
don’t get to be mad. You’re at war, after all. Anything I feel is
inconsequential.

Delete.

I could be at your funeral.
You could be flat in your casket regretting that we didn’t
communicate as much as we could have.

“Hypocrite,” he would
say.

Delete.

Hi, Jake,
and nothing more.

Send.

Eight o’clock, his time. I
mix another drink and sit back down and wait.

From where my desk sits, the
view outside is of trees and rooftops, and all of the street sounds
are scattered mysteries. A car door slams and mutterings drone
unintelligible and low, the words’ possibilities unending. I
pretend the slamming door belongs to a taxi and that down on the
street, where I can’t see, Jake pays the cabbie. The taxi pulls
away and Jake shouts at my—our—widow. “M!” he shouts, and I get up
and cross the room. I look down. He stands in the lot in all of his
gear. The duffel bag hangs on his shoulder. He smiles. He spreads
his arms wide, the way he does. Like a boy. And emails don’t
matter, anymore, because he is here, the secret was kept to protect
this surprise, and I slide up the window and yell, “I’m coming
down!” and—

The computer speakers
chime.

My touch brings back the
screen. In bold letters, ‘CW2 Jake Lakeland,’ Jake’s name right
there on the screen, just now sent from where he sits at his own
computer, linked by—whatever it is that links us—and it’s
almost—almost—touching, like being across from one another in the
same room, immediate, now, talk-typing, and I don’t even read his
before sending my own,
I’m here I’m on
now
and no time to punctuate or to sign
before sending.

I stare at the screen and
breathe, breathe, drink, light a cigarette. Tug back my hair and
wipe my face and wait, wait, until the shaking stops and the
cigarette is out, but nothing. Nothing comes.

I open his
message.

To:
[email protected]
7 May /
2034

Subject: Hi,
there!

Hi, M. You found me! I’m
glad. Sorry I didn’t tell you, but my mom probably explained why. I
figured Denise would have leaked a long time ago, so she’s better
than I thought. Can’t write much because I’m just on a short break.
It was so good to see your name, though. Really - so good. I’m okay
and things are fine, considering, and I’m safe and relatively
comfortable. I love you, you know. More later, I promise.
–J.

“You’re going to go bald!”
comes through the floor, a muffled yell. I listen for more, but
whatever it was is over.

How many times a week, I
wonder, does he wait in line for a computer, sit down, and spend
the time to write his mother? I wonder who else he emails who isn’t
me.

Safe and
comfortable
. Well, good.

To:
[email protected]
7
May / 11:39

Subject: Re: Hi,
there!

I’m glad you’re glad I
found you. And I’m glad you’re fine. Glad glad glad. Thanks, by the
way, for asking how I am. So. How long have you had email? Do you
have any idea how much better I would have felt to get notes from
you letting me know you were okay? How could you not tell me? You
call your mother, you email your mother, you probably send her a
scented, handwritten, kiss-ass letter every day. You secretly want
to fuck her, don’t you? You know what? It’s all been about you. You
you you. Fuck you, Jake. Don’t bother writing back.

Send!

My face heats and I can feel
and hear my heart. I click on the ‘Outbox’ folder, but there’s
nothing there. The message is already gone, moved to the ‘Sent’
folder.

Smart would have been to
write it on paper, first.

Five more cigarettes burn to
the filter while I wait for a response.

To:
[email protected]
7
May / 12:29

Subject: Sorry

I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean
it, Jake. I swear. I was just mad. Do you understand? Please write
me. I know you just care about me

But, I don’t send it. I
replace the message with,
I didn’t mean
‘don’t write back.’ You know I want to hear from you. Love,
M.
and send that, instead.

I follow it with
another.

To:
[email protected]
7
May / 12: 30

Subject: One
more

I do care about you and
don’t really think you don’t care about me. –M.

To:
[email protected]
7
May / 12:31

Subject: Last one, I
promise

I’m really, really sorry
about what I said about you and your mother. That crossed a line.
Please don’t hate me.

To:
[email protected]
7
May / 12:32

Subject: Last and
final

But I am mad. Just so you
know. Write me as soon as you can. Love, Mia

The glass is
empty—already—so I mix another and sit in front of the monitor
until my back hurts and I’m drunk and out of cigarettes and there’s
nothing left to do but lay my head on my arms and pass
out.

MAY 8, THURSDAY

I turn the speakers high in
case I leave the room for something, and check the internet
connection every few minutes.

By noon, my back hurts from
sitting at the computer. Chancey sleeps behind the
keyboard.

By seven, I’ve written and
deleted twenty-three messages and closed out four e-cards
mid-creation.

By midnight, he’s still sent
nothing.

I write
Please know me
and click the send
button.

MAY 9, FRIDAY

Safia’s gnarled-twine mat
says ‘WELCOME’ in black. I knock and start a count to
thirty.

Music made of bells and
chimes and a twanging string instrument filters into the hallway. I
inhale a strong, spicy odor that won’t confine itself to her
kitchen, and I can’t identify it beyond
good
. Laughter—Safia’s—follows jumbled
muttering, gets louder as she nears the door, and is just ebbing
when she opens it wearing an oversized sweatshirt and a pair of
jeans, her hair nearly white from over-processing and hanging in
two straw-like braids from underneath a backward-facing baseball
cap. Over the fitting-strap, a yellow embroidered message reads,
“Happy Life.”

“You are here!” she says
waving me in. Before I reach the dining area, she’s handed me a
glass of wine.

Tea candles flicker in
tinted votive holders and a blue and green bubbled glass chandelier
hangs over the table in the eating cove. Paul gets up from his
chair and adjusts the dimmer switch until a round of “Better!” and
“Good!” gives approval to the turned-down bulb. I count
heads—seven—and am glad I decided to have a drink or two (three)
beforehand. Dull twinges of anxiety linger, but nothing that won’t
be killed with the wine in my hand.

“Everyone,” Safia says,
leading me to the table and making me stand there while she motions
for Paul to search for an extra chair, “this is my upstairs
neigh—my friend,” she nods at me, “Maya.”

“Mia,” I say. I take a long
drink and my nose flairs from the bitterness. I’ve never agreed
with red wine.

“Mia,” she repeats. “I am so
sorry. Mia, this is…” She introduces the table. Names like Neil and
Kelly and Nina and Joan and Charles, but not necessarily those
names. I won’t remember them, so I don’t try. They nod and smile
and murmur “Mia” and “nice to meet you” and then fall silent while
I stand over them with my empty glass. Have I emptied it already? I
cover the bottom half with my hand.