The Guineveres (19 page)

“We have no way of knowing their faith,” Father James said.

“But Sister Fran said taking communion gives us eternal life. Couldn't you give it to them just to be on the safe side?” Ginny asked.

“Even if we knew their faith,” Father James explained, “we have no way of knowing if they're in a state of grace or if they've given confession since their last mortal sin. And they've certainly not been observing the Eucharistic fast,” Father James said, pointing to their feeding bags, IVs connected by tubes to their forearms. “It is my duty as a priest to administer under the strictest of guidelines, and I take these duties seriously.”

After mass, we helped rearrange the Front Room again, and we put away the service items, the hymnbooks, the candles, the bowl, and chalice. Father James left, Sister Connie went to check on lunch, and we were free again to change. Inside the storage room, as we folded our robes and finger-combed our static-heightened hair, Gwen began tugging Her Boy's duffel—the one marked with the long string of numbers ending in 63—out from the space beneath the shelf where it had been wedged.

“Well,” she said to us. “Aren't you going to get yours?”

“We'll get in trouble,” I said.

“We're already in trouble,” she said.

“Is now the time for this?” Win asked.

“Now is precisely the time for this. It's their personal effects. How else do you expect to learn anything about them? Do you think the Comatose Soldier Fairy will appear?”

Ginny began dragging out Her Boy's duffel and even managed to unclip the closure strap. We didn't know what we should expect to find. Nothing like dog tags or birth certificates would be inside them; otherwise they'd have names listed on the outside and not simply a number.

“One at a time,” Win said. “So we can each see. We need all of our eyeballs if we're going to figure out who they are. We've got to work together.” Win was always so reasonable, so levelheaded. That's why it surprised me years later to learn that she struggled with alcohol, just like her mother. Seems to me she would have had the foresight to resist it, but I know now from her stories, from all that she lost—her friends, her jobs—that addiction is stronger than willpower. It runs through one's blood.

Gwen demanded to go first. She unstrapped the canvas. On top was a pressed uniform: khaki pants, khaki shirt, a hat that resembled what a line cook would wear, also khaki, some boots. She pulled out a pair of white boxer shorts, tugged at the elastic, and waved them in a hula-like fashion. The Guineveres covered our faces in embarrassment.

“Show some decency,” one of us said.

“Hurry up,” another one of us said.

From the bottom of the bag, she pulled out a box. It was light, made of green-tinged metal. She pinched the clasp on the front, and the box emitted a shallow creak as she lifted the lid on its hinge.

“What's in it? What's in it?” Ginny said. A clue about one of Our Boys was a clue about all of them.

Gwen reached inside the box. “Comb,” she said, pulling it out and setting it on the floor in front of her. “Sugar packet. Chiclets. Matches.” She sorted through the box some more, then pulled out two postcards. “These,” she said. The postcards were identical. The front pictured blue-green water, rocky hills covered with trees, an inlet with some fishing boats.

“Read them!” one of us said.

“Blank,” Gwen said, and she held up the first one to show us, its corners bent and frayed from where it'd been stuffed into his pocket. On the second postcard, Gwen's Boy had only just begun to write something. His handwriting was boxy and crooked, as though his hands were shaking when he wrote it. “Dear M—,” Gwen read. “This postcard reminded me of home. If you are reading this…” She stopped, flipped the card over again to inspect the front once more.

“If you are reading this … what?” Ginny said. She grabbed the postcard out of Gwen's hand.

“That's all it says.”

“Who is M?” I wondered out loud.

“It could be his mom,” Win said.

“Or a girl back home,” Gwen said. She pulled from the box a small photograph and flashed it in our direction. A picture of a young woman, tight brown curls, a small, curved nose like the beak of a bird. “‘Love, Marjorie P.,' it says.”

“Could be his sister,” Win said.

“And this?” Gwen said. She now held out the flat of her hand on which sat a ring, a thin gold band with some nick marks on it.

“Could be…,” Win said, but even she couldn't wager a guess.

“Do you think he's married?” I asked. Ginny handed a postcard to me, and I analyzed it. Craggy shores. Small, rippled waves. Rock formations that arose from the water like humpbacks. It was like no place that I'd ever seen, though I'd never been to the ocean.

“Engaged,” Ginny said.

“He may never have gone through with it,” Gwen said. “In fact, I'm certain that he hasn't. Not yet, anyway. I mean, look at Marjorie P. Does she look like the marriageable type?” We shook our heads. Loyalty to The Guineveres meant agreeing, even when you didn't.

“Clues, anyway,” Ginny said. “You know what his home looks like. There's a Marjorie P. there.”

“And just how do you suggest we locate Marjorie P.?” Win said.

“And what will we do if we find her?” Gwen asked. She placed his ring on her wedding finger. Her lips puckered. She already felt territorial.

“All finished? My turn,” Ginny said. Her patience was wearing thin, and she began to lift items out of Her Boy's bag. Standard uniform. Another metal box. She licked her lips and opened it, quickly rummaging through the contents. “Comb, of course.”

“Good grooming is essential. Even during wartime,” Gwen said. Win cracked the door to the storage room to check for Sister Connie.

“Gum. Playing cards. Some sort of meshy material. And this,” Ginny said. Between her forefinger and thumb she held an hourglass. She handed it to me, and I watched the small granules slip through the narrowed neck. “And this,” she said. Now she held out a box, about the size of her palm. The outside was shellacked with a painting of a snake encircling itself, eating its own tail. She shook it, and we could hear a soft sifting noise. “Something's inside.” The box rattled as she pulled at the lid.

Finally, she dumped the contents into her trembling palm, and we circled in front of her.

“What is it?” one of us asked. Whatever she held was brown, mottled with spots, shriveled, and folding in at the edges.

“A fig?” someone suggested. We all touched it, and it felt hard.

“Could it be medicinal?” someone asked. “An exotic mushroom or something?”

“A piece of leather?”

“A lucky talisman,” Ginny said. She gently closed her fist around it, as if cupping a firefly, the kind we watched at night from the window of the Bunk Room. She rifled through the box some more, with her eyes closed this time. She was trying to memorize the contents by heart.

Win had already begun opening Her Boy's duffel. She skipped removing his uniform and dug down for the box she knew she'd find at the bottom of the bag. She sat on her heels, knees together, box balanced on her lap. She unlatched the lever and swung open the lid. “Comb,” she said, and with the flick of her wrist she pulled it out of the box as quickly as she placed it back in.

“The sign of a gentleman,” said Gwen.

“What else?” I said.

“He smokes.” She held up a miniature pack of cigarettes, the cherry-red package crumpled and flattened.

“I'll take one of those,” Gwen said.

“You don't smoke,” Ginny said.

“It's an attractive addiction. Light my cigarette, darling,” she said, and she held two fingers to her lips, an imaginary cigarette tucked between them.

“There's no such thing as an attractive addiction,” Win said.

From the box, Win soon produced a small wooden paddle, no bigger than half a ruler in size. Atop it sat a brown speckled horse, and atop that a cowboy with a wide-brimmed hat. The horse's hooves were mounted to the paddle by elastic strings, and when she manipulated the two buttons on the sides of it, she could move the horse in different directions. Push both buttons at once, the horse crouched down. Only one at a time and in succession and he appeared to be galloping. Win laughed in simple amusement.

“Juvenile,” Gwen said. She still wore Her Boy's ring, which was several sizes too big for her. She hadn't put it away with the rest of his belongings, explaining we should each keep one memento by which to remember Our Boys.

“Could he have been a cowboy?” I asked. “Lived out west? Maybe they all live out west as ranchers or herders.”

“Executives, remember?” Gwen said. “How many times do I have to explain this?”

Finally, then, it was my turn. I unclasped the hook, and I reached my hand past his uniform, and just as I felt the cool metal on my fingertips, we heard Sister Connie. “Girls! For goodness sake, are you still changing?” she hollered.

The Guineveres' bodies went rigid, as if steel had been poured through our veins. “Almost finished, Sister!” someone yelled. We scrambled to shove the duffels back in their rightful places beneath the shelf.

“Here we are,” we said, popping out of the storage room a few minutes later.

“Hurry up or you'll be late,” Sister Connie said. “You know how Sister Fran values punctuality.”

We peeked at Our Boys once more, sent silent intentions aimed at their hearts. “Saint Adrian will watch over them,” I whispered. He was the patron saint of soldiers, a fact we learned during our All Saints' bingo lesson.

“But don't forget what happened to Saint Adrian,” Gwen said. She turned toward me. “His limbs were cut off one by one.”

“And then his head,” Ginny said.

“And then his head,” Gwen repeated. Gwen traced a line with her index finger on my neck.

“Who's the patron saint of the patron saints?” Win asked. She knew how to defray tensions, a skill that would help her in her later life when she'd really need it. It's not that Win didn't care what others thought of her—it's that she cared too deeply. Once, when she talked to me from her home out west, she told me she'd finally discovered the key to happiness in life.
“Care less,”
she said, putting equal emphasis on each word. This was after she left the man she was supposed to marry, and after she quit drinking, but before she opened her bakery. Maybe this was her way of telling me that sometimes you just have to let go. I've tried to take the suggestion to heart. Sometimes in the mornings while I'm lying in bed, I breathe in and out slowly, in and out.
Let. Go. Let. Go.
It hasn't come easily to me.

We heaved a heavy sigh toward Our Boys, then left to find the rest of the girls, who were still finishing up Morning Instruction. Sister Fran stood writing at the board when we arrived, a chalky line across her back from where she'd leaned up against it. “Take your seat, girls,” Sister Fran said to us without turning around. Her parrot, Ugly, was in the classroom today, which meant we were having morality lessons. “Say ‘God doesn't make junk,' Pretty,” Sister Fran commanded the bird as she picked it up. It adjusted its wings and sidestepped along her slender forearm.

The bird squawked unintelligible noises, a string of vowel sounds.

“God doesn't make junk,” Sister Fran repeated, kissing the air. In her other hand she held a thin biscuit the color of a communion wafer, and the bird lunged toward the treat. “No, no, Pretty,” Sister Fran said, bringing the bird toward her, nose to beak.

“Dear me, where's my whistle,” the bird sang. “Dear me, where's my whistle.”

The room filled with laughter. The Guineveres took our seats, picked up our pencils, and copied down the day's lesson plans. Sister Fran lectured on the history of the Advent wreath: Purple candles signify penance, and the pink candle signifies joy, she explained. Each candle represents a thousand years and shows just how long humanity had to wait for Our Savior, and just how lucky we were when He finally was born on Christmas morning to save us all. The Guineveres nodded. We pretended to take notes. But instead, we took Sister Fran's suggestion and scribbled out letters.

Ginny wrote on a new page of her notebook she had titled “Advent” in large block letters as a decoy. “I'll think about you every time I look at your Lucky Talisman. I'll keep it hidden in my shirt, and at night I'll keep it beneath my pillow. But I'm not sure how lucky it was if you were injured so badly. Maybe it saved your life, though. Maybe you could have died. What do you think happens to us when we die?” Ginny tapped her pencil to the tip of her nose.

“If you're actually reading this letter … that means you're awake,” Gwen wrote in her notebook. “And that means I need some answers: Do you think I'm prettier than Marjorie P.?”

“Someday I'd like to move out west,” Win wrote to Her Boy. “And ride horses. I've never been on a horse before. Have you? It seems like ‘out west' is another way of saying somewhere better than here. At least that's how I think of it. But if that's the case, then almost everywhere is out west.”

I stared at the blank page of my notebook and doodled some hearts and some stars, and an angel with feathery hair. I knew almost nothing about My Boy. I tapped my pencil to my teeth. Beneath Ginny's desk she rubbed Her Boy's mysterious object, her Lucky Talisman that she hoped would bring her luck. Win had stuffed the small wooden toy inside her waistband. She bloused her shirt out to obscure the lump, and I wouldn't have even known it was there, except for the fact that she kept touching it. Gwen discreetly pulled Her Boy's ring from her bra, then tucked it in the cave of her fist. I looked on in envy. They each had something of Their Boys to hold.

“I just want to go home,” I wrote in my notebook. But we had no homes, so we had to find out who Our Boys were. We'd learn their names, their hometowns. We'd track down their parents, and they'd wake up, just like Junior did. And the end of our story would be like a fairy tale, I assured myself. It would not be like a saint's life, which almost always ended in suffering, no matter how joyous. I gazed up at the nativity mobile above Sister Fran's desk. Those foam wise men spun and spun. One's mouth was agape in wonder—or in pain. It's hard to tell the two apart.