While He Was Away (16 page)

“We Skyped!” she cries, throwing her arms around me.

“Us too.” I hug her back, hard. Maybe I’ll absorb some of her happiness through osmosis.

Bonnie steers me into the dim kitchen. She turns on the light, and the room’s paintings spring to life—sloppy, colorful paintings David did when he was a kid.

“I’ve missed being here,” I say.

Bonnie takes me by the shoulders and sits me down on a stool at the counter. She backs away then, holding up her hands like she’s saying,
Stay. Keep me company on this long, lonely Saturday.

“Could I have something to drink?” I’m not thirsty. I just know this is exactly what Bonnie wants to hear.

She goes to the refrigerator and opens the door. She stares into it as if it will tell her something. “Iced tea okay?”

“Great.”

She pulls out a pitcher and whirls toward a cupboard, takes out two glasses. Pouring, she talks. “Beau’s at work all the time these days. I think it helps him keep his mind off David. I’m just so glad it’s Saturday. I’ve been neglecting things with David gone. It’s like I just don’t care what the house looks like anymore. Not that I ever did, much.”

Bonnie sets a glass of tea down on the counter before me. The counter is a mess, covered with dried spilled food and crumbs. But the tea is good when I sip it, laced with lemon and mint. Bonnie takes a sip too.

“I like life comfortable, you know? But with David gone—well, I’ve really let things go. I’ve given myself today to regain some semblance of control.” She rolls her eyes. We both know what this means. She won’t be in control until David’s home again. She won’t be comfortable either.

Bonnie sits down on the stool beside me. I drain my glass. Then I stand and start scrubbing the counter.

“Don’t you go cleaning up my mess,” Bonnie says.

“I like to do stuff like this.” I rinse the dishrag in steaming hot water. I dry my hands swiftly and snap on some yellow rubber gloves. With yellow rubber gloves I can deal with almost anything.

So I clean and we talk. I tell her about working at Red Earth. Somehow I manage to make it all sound funny. I’m a real crack-up, with all my mistakes. I am even worse at the job than I really am. I love the sound of Bonnie’s laugh, deep and booming, like she doesn’t care what anyone thinks, she’s just going to let it rip. David must have picked up his laugh from her. Before OSUT, when he laughed, everyone laughed.

Bonnie’s laughter makes me feel so comfortable, so at home, that I find myself telling her about Ravi and his pictures. “I hope you can see them too,” I say.

“Oh, I will! Soon, in fact.” Bonnie smiles. “I knew you and Ravi would hit it off. You’re both high-quality people, you know?” Bonnie’s smile fades. “Poor kid. He’s been through so much. I can’t even believe, really, how he keeps on keeping on.”

This seems a little extreme to me. I mean, 9/11 and all that followed for Ravi was a little while ago. But I don’t want to get into it. I don’t want to talk about Ravi anymore. With David’s mother. In David’s house.

Flustered, I turn to another counter, hoping Bonnie didn’t glimpse my expression. I spritz on some high-powered cleanser and scrub hard.

Bonnie tells me about her job. She tells me that Beau got a promotion at the public relations firm, which is really good timing since the value of their house and their retirement accounts have taken a beating in this economy.

We’ve been talking for nearly an hour, mostly talking around the subject of David, when Bonnie suddenly says, “How do you think he seemed this morning? How did he sound to you?”

I look up from the stove top. I’m scouring away at what look to be ancient drippings—eggs, maybe, that have adhered like glue to the black burners. I’ve poured on the cleanser, but these drippings don’t seem to be going anywhere.

“Good. He sounded good.” I blink. I sound like I don’t mean it. I
don’t
mean it. “I mean, it’s hard to tell on Skype, right? But he looks healthy. Real healthy, don’t you think?”

Bonnie nods. “It
was
hard to tell. But it was better than nothing.”

“Anything’s better than nothing. Even noise.”

Bonnie slaps her hand on the spill-free, crumb-free counter. “Did you get one of those phone calls too? Talk about an exercise in frustration! I nearly lost my mind.” She turns sober. “I’m going to have to work really hard at not doing that, Penna.”

I look at her. “Are you okay?”

She bows her head and runs her fingers through her hair—that gesture David makes when he’s anxious. She looks up at me and forces a smile. “Positive attitude, right? Beau’s got that in spades. I just have to work a little harder.”

I set down my scouring pad, tug off the yellow gloves, wash my hands, and go over to the counter. I take a deep breath.

“David said he had something big to tell me. But then we had to stop talking. Did he tell you anything important? That you can tell me, I mean.”

Bonnie sits very still, watching me.

“What have
you
heard?” My voice rises. “Bonnie?”

“He’s doing okay.” Her voice is quiet and careful. “No action to speak of in these first days—at least not against the U.S. military. Those Iraqis, though. Already, he’s seen some awful stuff when it comes to the citizens. There’s a certain marketplace he happened to be passing through. That’s what we always hear about on the news, right? ‘A marketplace.’ Well, I guess some are worse than others when it comes to casualties.” Bonnie looks at me, her blue eyes pained.

Suddenly my head is spinning. It must be all that cleanser, too many chemicals inhaled. I go to the fridge, open the freezer door, and look inside as if there’s something I want in there. All I really want is frosty air to clear my head. It helps a little. I shut the door and sit back down beside Bonnie, who doesn’t even give me a second look. She keeps talking as if a girl sticking her head inside a freezer is an everyday occurrence.

“What’s the connection between ‘casualty’ and ‘casual,’ I want to know.” Bonnie presses her fingertips to her forehead like she’s got a bad headache. Maybe the chemicals took a toll on her too. “Anyway, he’s starting night patrol duty tomorrow. Actually, it’s today for him now.” She glances at the clock on the stove. “He’ll be on patrol soon, most likely. He didn’t say much more about it. He tried to sound happy just to be doing something that makes all that training worth it. Maybe he
is
happy. I don’t know. I did more looking around on the Net than I should have. Don’t do that, Penna, if you can stop yourself.”

“He planted his own little garden over there,” I hear myself say. “Already he figured out how to do that. Can you think of anyone else who would pull that off? He’s resourceful. And lucky.”

“A good combination.” Bonnie takes my hands in hers. She taps her finger gently against my tattoo. “I was so upset when I saw that he’d gone and done this. I know I didn’t act like it—why waste the precious, little time we had left—but I was. But now I’m glad he did it. Anything that makes him happy, as long as it doesn’t hurt him, makes me happy.”

“Are you happy about patrol duty then?” My voice is shaky.

She sighs heavily. She starts to speak and then can’t seem to find the words to say. She stands and comes around the counter to me. She puts her arms around me. I let her hold me for a while. Finally I pull away.

“Is there anything you need, Penna?” Bonnie gives me a sad smile. “Now that you’ve cleaned practically my entire kitchen?”

I start to shake my head, but then I change my mind. “Can I use your bathroom?”

She nods. “Upstairs. You know.”

Of course I know. I know the way like the back of his hand. I know the worn plaid fabric on the couch cushions and the smell of the cinnamon-scented broom by the fireplace and the array of pictures of David set at strategic angles on the mantelpiece. There is the one of little David in his baseball uniform. There he is with braces and zits—on the verge of hot, probably just realizing that girls exist. And there he is last December, standing in front of Killdeer High after his last day of classes, an official graduate, with his arm around me.

Upstairs I walk right past the bathroom and into David’s room. I shut the door behind me. I look around, taking everything in.

If the rest of Bonnie’s house is a mess, David’s room is pristine. It’s like a museum. A shrine. Same soccer-star posters. Same drafting table, with a drawing placed carefully in the center. Same computer. Same Boy Scout vest, hanging from a dowel like some indigenous weaving. (I wonder if Ravi still has his.) Same bookshelves packed with thick fantasy and sci-fi novels, manga and comic books. Same tower of CDs. Same empty fish tank filled with the dinosaur, cowboy and Indian, and army guy diorama that took over in sixth grade when the fish died. Same pictures of me, on the swings at the playground, sitting on the back of his motorcycle, standing under the viaduct by the mural.

Same picture of the two of us together, standing on the front steps of the art museum in Oklahoma City, the day we fell in love with the same paintings and each other and kissed under the statue of Geronimo in the sculpture garden. A museum guard snapped that photo. He was a big old guy with a thick, gray mustache, and he didn’t want to be bothered until David got down on one knee and begged. He barely looked through the viewfinder then, but still somehow he managed to catch what was best about that day—our crazy happiness. Standing in front of this abstract painting that “hummed,” I said (and David agreed), we have our arms flung around each other. It’s one of my favorite pictures of us too.

Relief. That’s what I feel. Here, everything is the same. Nothing has changed. When he comes home, he’ll be the same too. Nothing will have changed for us.

In this room it’s like David never went away.

I lie facedown on his bed and breathe him in.

After a while I get up again. From the window I can see the backyard and also David’s dog, Mars, sprawled on his side in the shade. Mars doesn’t look so good. He’s panting hard. He looks kind of mangy. Little big dog, lost without his master. If I weren’t afraid he’d tear my hand off, I’d go outside and pet him.

Instead I go to David’s dresser, open the drawers, and touch his carefully folded T-shirts, socks, jeans, shorts. I open the door to his closet, part the hangers, and slip inside. I draw the closet door closed. In the darkness I hide in David’s clothes.

If I’m not careful, I’m going to make a mess of things. I open the door and step back into his room, blinking against the light.

I stumble over to David’s drafting table and look at the drawing there. It’s my superhero Manga David, the drawing he did for his tattoo, complete with the heavy artillery and the circle of barbwire and tumbleweeds. I pick up the drawing. I run my fingers over its back just to feel the indentations David left using his favorite 0.50 millimeter Rapidograph pen.

That’s when I see the drawing that was hidden beneath this one. It’s my Manga David again. Only he’s not packing heavy artillery. He’s not jumping around like he’s half crazy, his mouth open in rage. He’s holding hands with a wavy-haired manga girl that looks like me. The two of them are surrounded by a wreath of hearts and flowers and killdeer, and the letters of our names.

We’re smiling at each other. Sparks fly from our bedazzled eyes.

It’s a beautiful drawing. It’s a beauty.

But David chose the other one.

•••

No one can stay shut away this long.

I have to come out.

I make sure David’s drawings are exactly where I found them on the drafting table. I take one last, long look around, one last, long breath of him. Then I cross the room, open the door, step into the hallway, and go back downstairs.

I find Bonnie in the kitchen, staring into her glass of iced tea. She looks at me.
Feel
better?
her eyes ask.

I don’t answer, not even with my eyes. I put those yellow gloves back on and get to work on the stove top again. Never mind the chemical inhalants. I’m not going to leave a job half finished. Bonnie and I chat about this and that—school starting up again, the weather. I work quickly. Working quickly keeps my mind off that hidden drawing in David’s room. I can’t think about it now. I will think about it later, when I can find a way to be okay with the fact that he chose the other one instead.

When the stove top is sparkling, I rinse out the rag for the last time. I tell Bonnie that I should go.

“Come back soon,” she says. “Come back when Beau’s here. Come for dinner. I’ll make something decent, I promise.”

Closing the front door behind me, I nearly run smack into Ravi.

We draw back from each other.

He is not in worker or skater mode. He is wearing a trim, blue polo shirt, baggy khaki shorts, and yellow flip-flops.

He cleans up real nice.

He’s holding a manila folder, which he now lifts like a kind of offering. “Same old, same old.”

“She’ll love them.”

He nods. “I thought I’d deliver them on my way over to the high school. I’ve decided. I’m definitely going.”

“I’m glad.” I smile at him, and he smiles back—a wide, square grin. I hear the O’Dells’ door open behind me, and Bonnie says, “Well, if this day just doesn’t keep getting better and better. You’re just in time for lunch, Rav.”