Unremarried Widow (11 page)

“I don't know. With Miles gone so much—”

I let the thought hang as I reached for my glass of orange juice.

“Well, I would love it if you were down here,” Heather said.

Annabelle held her knife and fork motionless and looked at me as she spoke.

“What would you do with the house when he gets back?” she said.

I chewed for a few moments, thinking. “Rent it out?”

Annabelle nodded thoughtfully.

“It's just—” I considered. “It's so nice here. Nice to be around all of you, nice to be near my mom. Nice to be away from the Army.”

“But don't you miss Miles?” Heather said.

“Of course.”

“So, how would you have a house down here?”

“I don't know. I'm still trying to figure all this out,” I said, waving my fork to take everything in: marriage, real estate, the military.

When Miles called in mid-October,
south Florida had settled into fall. Sunlight poured through the jalousie windows of my bedroom and the Gulf below stretched flat and smooth to the horizon.

“How are things over there?” I asked.

“I'm pretty beat,” Miles said. “They have us flying all the time. Not much time to rest.”

I worked a length of my hair around my index finger and twisted it tight against my skull. The phone line hummed.

“Listen, Miles,” I said. “I have something I want to talk to you about.”

“All right,” Miles said.

“I think maybe we should buy a house here.”

“A house?”

“I was just thinking.” I twisted the lock of hair tighter. “My friends are here. My mom's here. I'm really happy here.”

A breeze blew through the open window and lifted the curtains before setting them carefully back down.

“I mean, I'm not happy,” I said. “Because I don't have you.”

I took a deep breath.

“That came out wrong.”

I waited for Miles to speak, and when he didn't I continued.

“I mean, I want you here. I want to live with you. But you're going to be gone for a year. Maybe more.”

“Definitely more.”

“Okay. So you're going to be gone for more than a year. And when you come home, you'll only be home for another year or so until you deploy again. Right?”

“Right.”

“So maybe it makes sense to buy a house down here.”

“I just don't know if it's the right decision for us right now,” Miles said.

I looked out to the beach, where women in sorbet-colored bathing suits called out to children grouped on the sand. They answered in tiny, shrill voices. I could feel the quality of the sunlight changing as the day headed toward noon and the light pushed through the screens like honey through a comb.

“But we're both working now,” I said. “Together we make good money.”

“But what happens when I come home?”

“We rent out the house. Or—”

“Or what, babe?”

“Maybe I just stay here.”

“Stay there?” Miles said. “What do you mean, stay there? Like, after I come home?”

“Listen, it's just . . . I've been thinking. You've got, what? Six more years in the Army? Five after you get done with this tour? You're going to be deployed most of the time. Look at the other guys from flight school. They've been home one year the last three.”

“So, what are you saying? That you want to live in Florida and not where I am?”

“That's not what I'm saying.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I'm just saying it's been hard. All those towns we lived in. All those jobs I worked. Always moving.”

“You think it wasn't hard for me? I didn't like those towns, either.
But at least we were together. That's what got me through. And if that's not enough for you—”

“It is. It
is
enough.”

“Doesn't sound like it.”

“I just thought—”

“I have to go.”

“Already?”

“My time is up.”

“When will I get to talk to you again?”

“I'll try to call next week.”

“Miles?” I said. “I'm sorry.”

I bit my bottom lip and listened as he took an uneven breath.

“It's okay,” he said.

Teresa Priestner called not long
after.

“Hey, there. How are you doing?” she said when I answered.

“Great,” I said. “Really great.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I got a great job. I'm working now.”

“Oh, yeah? That's good news. Do you see your girlfriends, the ones who were at the wedding? What were their names? Heather? Annabelle?”

“I just saw them on Saturday. Annabelle's getting married in March. We went bridesmaid dress shopping.”

“That's good.”

Teresa was quiet for a long while and I starting raking the cat fur on the counter into a pile.

“But how are you doing?” I said. “I haven't talked to you in forever. Have you heard from John?”

“I spoke to him last night. That's why I'm calling.”

I stopped raking the counter.

“Is everything okay?”

“He told me he's been talking to Miles.”

I started on the pile again, slower this time, pulling grains of sand with long strokes across the Corian.

“Miles said you guys have been having a tough time.”

“Excuse me?”

“He confided in John and I thought I should give you a call.”

I let out an exasperated breath.

“Honey, they are in hell over there,” Teresa said. “They get shot at all the time. John found bullet holes in his aircraft yesterday.”

I traced the clear space that surrounded the pile with the tip of one finger.

“I'm just saying,” Teresa said. “He doesn't need any extra stress right now, you know? Things are really hard over there and he doesn't need to be worried about you.”

I picked up a crumb between my thumb and index finger and dropped it on top of the pile.

“Okay? I don't mean to yell at you. I don't want you to think I'm mad at you. I wish you were up here at Fort Bragg. We could keep your mind off stuff.”

You could keep me in line,
I thought.

“I just want you to do what you can for Miles while our boys are over there,” she said, and paused for me to answer. I held the phone in my hand and stared at the white countertop.

“All right, honey,” she said after a while. “You hang in there. How's your mom?”

“She's fine.”

“Tell her I said hello.”

“Okay.”

“Take care, sweetie.”

I hung up the phone and looked up to see my mother coming down the stairs.

“You are not going to believe who I just got off the phone with,” I said.

She stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. “Who?”

“Teresa Priestner.”

My mother's eyebrows pulled together and the muscles along her jaw tightened.

“Is everything okay?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. She called to yell at me.”

I waved an indignant hand, incensed at the meddling of Army wives, blind to how hard it must have been for Teresa to make that call.

“Yell at you?” my mother said. “About what?”

“About not being a good wife.”

My mother stood quietly and looked away, toward the sliding glass doors and the beach beyond.

“Can you believe that?” I said. “Like I'm not supposed to talk to my husband? Like, since he's in Iraq I have to be sweet to him all the time?”

“Do you think maybe—”

“It's bullshit,” I said. “Right?”

“I don't know,” my mother said.

“But to call me like that? To reprimand me?”

I waved my hands angrily in front of my face.

“She thinks because her husband outranks Miles that she can boss me around. No one but me seems to realize that I am not in the military.”

My mother stayed with her hands on her hips, and when I could tell she wasn't going to say anything, I turned and stomped to the back room.

“It's bullshit,” I said again over my shoulder.

That night I sat down
to write Miles an angry letter, a piece of mail that would sum up how I felt, how I was right, how it
was
bullshit. But I
thought back to something we had said months ago when we were both new to Army life: the military is hell on marriage. I realized how hard the other wives worked to keep their relationships going. Teresa—who had already seen John through two deployments—knew exactly what to do. So instead of my angry letter, I wrote a love letter in its place. I put down all the things I loved about Miles. The freckles across his shoulders, the way his skin smelled after a shower, the calluses on his hands, how we talked before falling asleep at night, his breath in my face in the mornings. I stopped bringing up the house. Teresa was right. He was in hell.

Miles wrote back:

I find myself dreaming about your hair. How I love to touch it and run my fingers through it. How, when you sit beside me in bed and bend your head down to kiss me and your hair falls around me to where the only thing I can see is your face. Your hair acts as curtains blocking out the world so that all I can see is you, and all you can see is me. I wish that we could wrap your hair around both of us and block out all of this.

Afterward there was a long silence from him and then:

The internet has been down for a few days. It sounds like you know why. His name was Spc. Timothy Adam Fulkerson. He was hit by a landmine while providing security for the rest of us in the entire base. I didn't know him personally. Just knew who he was, the guidon bearer for D Co. Most of our enlisted knew him though; some were good friends. It really sucks to see these men hurting, and I can only imagine what Spc. Fulkerson's family is going through right now. Also keep in your prayers the family of Cpt. Matthew Mattingly. He was the 58 driver that was shot and killed a few weeks ago. Both of these men were
among the finest in the Task Force from what I understand and from what their peers say. We had Fulkerson's memorial service today. I hope it looked nice for his family's sake. We taped it to send to them. Throughout the service I just kept getting the feeling that this young man has given the absolute sacrifice, and his family deserved so much more, much more. But a stupid ceremony is all we have to offer in place of a promising future and a wonderful son and friend.

Later he wrote to tell me about the death of another soldier:

I hate telling you this kind of stuff, babe. I don't tell you these things to try to scare you or make sure you know things are rough over here. On the contrary, I really try my best to protect you from all of the cruelty and ugliness that goes on over here. I attempt to make all news sound positive at best and uneventful at worst. I just sometimes can't hide everything. Some things have to be told, ugly or not. I am here to protect you and all our friends and family from all this crap, and I wish you did not have to see or hear anything about what is going on over here. I honestly do not know if what we are doing over here is helping or hurting, but I know that if I wasn't here then someone else would have to be. I can't think about that now though. I just try to focus on the good things, like you, and home, and our bright future that I know is ahead of us.

At the beginning of November
he wrote:

No real news here. Just keeping on keeping on.

And:

I tried the video thing today. I think it worked. I did not burn it to the CD yet in case I make another video before I go to the post office again.

And:

I love you.

It was his last letter home.

Women would tell me later
that they knew.
Just knew.
They knew the minute they woke up. They knew as they cleaned their houses in fits of clairvoyant anticipation. They knew as they dressed and waited on the couch for the soldiers to come.

Did I know?

At Fort Rucker, Miles once took me into the equipment room to try out a pair of night-vision goggles. He turned out the lights and we stood in unbroken darkness.

“Can you see that?” he said.

I felt his fingers brush the air in front of my face.

“Nothing.”

“Put these on.”

He placed the goggles in my hand and showed me the strap with his fingers, guiding me as if I were blind, and I strapped the bulky headset over my face.

“Holy shit,” I said.

I could see everything. The countertop, the shelving units, Miles next to me. The room glowed in shades of incandescent green as if someone had flipped the switch on a powerful floodlight. I saw in emerald tones what had been there all along.

Looking back to the notification—and even earlier, to the time of impact—I recognize this knowing that the other women describe. As Miles was making a hard left bank over the sands of northeastern Iraq, I threw my car in reverse and ran straight into the bed of a parked pickup.

“Damn it,” I said.

I gritted my teeth and climbed out to check the bumper. A three-inch puncture cut into the black rubber. The car was brand-new, our first big purchase together, bought the week after the wedding. I ran my finger over the gash.

“Shit,” I said.

I checked the truck for damage—none—and drove home angry. That night I couldn't sleep, and the next morning arrived fogged over with feelings of guilt and anger and—there it is, in vibrant green—foreboding.

At work I called a docent about coming in early. I scheduled a group tour for the following Thursday. I had promised to make crêpes the week before and I had brought in sugar, flour, and eggs, but the plan seemed more interesting than the execution or I was too busy or I forgot, and at five o'clock I put all the ingredients back into my tote bag and lugged it out to the car. I drove home with the seed of unease stuck like a stone in the back of my throat. The lights in the garage were turned off when I pulled in and the feeling was deeper there, thicker, murky like the waters of a slow-moving river. I made my way up the stairs with my purse in one hand and the heavy tote bag in the other. I set the sack of ingredients on the top step and put my key in the dead bolt, but the door was already unlocked. I pushed it open with my free hand.