While He Was Away (23 page)

Last night the streets were looking really lonely. Nobody and nothing around. We were rolling along, talking sports, girls, politics, family. Drinking Gatorade. One of the Iraqi guys was teaching me his words for
hello
and
good-bye
and
please
and
thank you
and
Where is the bathroom?
We were laughing our heads off at my pronunciation.

Suddenly the earth heaved up and fell in chunks, and our truck pitched like crazy to one side and then came down on all four wheels. We were safe. But, man.

Now the loneliest road looks crowded with danger.

Another guy is chomping at the bit here. He needs to write
right now
, and I have to whip something off to Mom and Dad. Gotta sign off.

David

I try to write him a real email back. Substantially positive. But I can’t. Nothing I say seems like enough.

So I just write:
I
miss
you. I love you
.

And hope that’s enough.

Next morning Linda still isn’t home. So I call Tom.

“Come on over,” he says. “She’s already had her morning walk—no sign of life at your house, she said. She’s probably going to need a nap soon.”

I get ready fast. I slip the old letter from Owen into my bag, and the photograph of Justine too, and head out.

Tom leads me onto his back porch, where Justine is sitting, bowed over something in her hands. He gives me a quick pat on the back, and then he leaves the two of us alone.

“Hi,” I say. And then I try it out. “Grandma.”

Justine looks up and gives me a radiant smile. Now I can see what she’s holding: a square of fabric. She sets the fabric on the porch railing. Gripping the rocker’s rickety arms, she tries to stand.

“You sit here,” she says, wavering a bit.

I hold out my hands to catch her if she falls. “The steps are fine.”

Still hunched, she looks up at me. “There’s a chair in my bedroom. Or we can get one from the kitchen.”

For an answer, I plop down on the steps. Shaking her head, Justine sinks back into the rocking chair.

“I’m not being a good host.” Her laughter is soft and sad. “But then I never really was.”

“You were pretty good to Tom when he needed you.”

Justine wearily waves this off. “It was as simple as setting another place at the table. We’re family.”

Is Tom more like family than I am?
I wonder. I remind myself it’s not a competition. I pull her photograph and Owen’s letter from my bag. “These are for you.”

Justine eyes them.

“They won’t bite,” I say.

Justine takes them from me. She gasps at the picture and quickly puts it facedown on her lap. She puts the letter there too. “I think I’ll just save these for later.” She draws a pressed handkerchief from her sleeve’s cuff and pats her eyes. “I don’t deserve any of this. But I’m so grateful.”

Justine tucks the handkerchief back in her cuff. She gives me a steady look then. “I’m losing my mind, you see. Bit by bit, it’s slipping away—my brain is like a piece of ice, slowly melting.” She gives her head a shake, like she’s jarring something into place. “It’s humbling, sometimes horrible, remembering who I was, things I did. But it’s also a gift.”

Hearing this from her is somehow worse than hearing it from Tom. My heart sinks. Here is this woman, the person I’ve been searching for, who was supposed to help me understand so many things. Now she’s saying she’s nearly gone? I want to cry. I look away from her until I can pull it together. When I look back again, she’s watching me closely with the intent, alert eyes of a healthy woman.

“This is my last chance.” Her voice is quiet. “My last chance to do something right.” She smiles. “Just hope I can remember what I’m trying to do. There’s something I must do, something I must find. But now, bless me, I can’t remember what it is.” She laughs, shaking her head so hard that wisps of her hair fall into her eyes. She blinks and her pale eyelashes tangle in her hair. Still she doesn’t push her hair away.

So I do. I push Justine’s hair back behind her ear as if she’s the child and I’m the mom. She smiles so gratefully that I have to smile back, never mind how sad I’m feeling inside.

“You sound like Linda,” I say. “She’s always looking for a last chance to do something right.”

“Is she? Poor girl. Poor dear girl.” A shadow passes over Justine’s face. “The things I’ve
done
. The things I
haven’t
done. Someday you’ll understand, Penelope.”

Justine holds out her hand and I take it. Bone thin and fragile, it weighs less than the killdeer did that night in the attic. But Justine’s hand trembles as the bird did. And I can feel a faint pulse at her wrist that seems nearly as rapid as the bird’s frantic heartbeat. Not quite, but nearly.

“I pray you don’t have to, though,” Justine says.

I look away from her hand—that translucent, papery skin—and into her eyes. “Don’t have to what?”

“Understand like this—what I’m understanding now. These regrets.”

Justine seems to tire quickly then, and she has me call for Tom. He comes immediately and helps her to her bedroom for nap. When he comes back out on the porch, he tells me that he’s doing a double shift today. He’s got about twenty minutes before he has to leave.

“You’re looking peaked,” he says. “Want something to eat?”

“Tell me more about what’s going on with her.”

“While we eat.”

I follow him into his small, neat kitchen, where he makes me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, pours me a glass of milk, and tells me to sit down. “Eat.”

I take a small bite and make myself chew.

“So this is how it is.” He sits down too and spreads his big hands wide across the table. “The doctor says she’s hit a plateau—his word—when it comes to the Alzheimer’s. But when she worsens, she’ll probably worsen quickly, and there will come a time when I won’t be able to
do
for her anymore. She’ll be harder to manage. There will be falls, infections. Not just her brain, but her body will shut down. She won’t be safe unless she’s living in a facility.”

I put my sandwich on the plate. “A nursing home, you mean?”

“An assisted-living facility. There’s a difference. She can have more independence if she’s not in a nursing home—or at least not yet. We’ll postpone that as long as we can. We’ve talked it all through, Justine, me, and the doctor. She went with me and we chose the place together. It’s right outside Killdeer. She never wants to be a burden, she says.” Tom flexes his fingers, puts a hand over his mouth. But not before I see that his lips are trembling. “This is the first time I’ve talked about this with anyone but her,” he says.

“She’s good here for now, though?”

Tom takes his hand from his mouth. He’s in control again. “She’s good here until I think—or
we
think—she’s in danger. Believe me, I keep an eye on her when she insists on taking her little walks. Every day I weigh the odds. What if she stumbles? What if she wanders away? She hasn’t done either yet, and she’s let me know loud and clear that if I coop her up like a caged bird, she’ll stop singing. So to speak.” Tom runs his hands over his bald scalp. “She’ll die. That’s actually what she says.”

I stare at my barely touched sandwich.

Tom says, “You gonna eat that?”

I shake my head. “Not now.”

Tom gets up, goes to a cabinet, pulls out a plastic bag, and puts the sandwich in it. He hands it to me. “In case you get hungry later.”

I look at him, grateful not for the sandwich but for who he is.

“I wish—” I hesitate for a moment, but then I say it. “It should be Linda and me doing this.”

“You can do other things. Things I can’t do as well.”

“Like what?”

“Oh.” Tom sighs. “Like listening to her. I don’t have the patience, Penna. I’m a doer, know what I mean? But Justine needs someone to listen. And then there’s all the
stuff
. I hate stuff.”

I sit up a little straighter at this. “What stuff?”

“She left this trunk in storage with my things when she ran away to Yellow Rock. I just pulled it out for her the other day. She took one look and burst into tears. And then she was calling me Owen and asking me to help her. She was in bad shape that day.” Tom shakes his head.

“I’ll go through the trunk with her,” I say. “I’ll do it as soon as she’s able. I want to know about Owen. I want—” I can’t put the words together anymore. I’ve never seen Justine struggle half as hard as I am right now.

Tom folds his arms across his chest. He nods slowly, evaluating me with something like pride.

Before I leave, I peek in on Justine. She is still sleeping deeply beneath her intricate quilt. The seams are separating on this one too. Maybe I can help her sew them up.

I’m thinking this as I shut the door and remember the little rectangle of cloth she was working on when I arrived.

Curious, I go back out onto the porch. I pick up the little rectangle and drape it open across my hands.

It’s a banner, not any longer or wider than a shoebox, bordered in red with frayed gold fringe at the bottom. At the center of the banner is a gold star.

“That’s the one thing she pulled out of that trunk.”

I start at the sound of Tom’s voice just behind me. I turn, lifting up the banner. “What is it?”

“A flag to hang in your window when your soldier got killed.” Tom clears his throat, suddenly uncomfortable. “You haven’t heard of the Gold Star Wives?”

I shake my head. Carefully, Tom sets the banner back on the porch railing, right where Justine left it. “It’s the organization she joined after Owen was killed. It’s for folks whose spouses get killed while they’re serving. She was one of the first members, back in forty-five.”

I remember the newspaper article then—how it said Justine was the leader of the local chapter of the GSW. Gold Star Wives, I guess.

“She’s still on their mailing list. We got a letter just the other day. She’s fixing to get to a meeting in the city soon as she’s able. I’d drive her, of course.”

“Can I come?”

Tom looks at me. “You’d want to?” Something in my expression answers his question, and he says, “You better talk to Linda then.”

I roll my eyes. “I think Linda’s got other things to think about right now.”

Tom laughs. “You finally caught on, huh?”

•••

I’m doing my hair for work when I have my first opportunity to talk to Linda.

I’d pass, to be perfectly honest. But she knocks on my bedroom door and then comes in before I can invite her.

“Well, look who’s here,” I say, regarding her in my mirror.

Linda frowns. “I came back. Isn’t that what family is about? Family always comes back.”

“FYI,
Justine
just came back.” I finish off my second braid and secure it with a black band, then whirl away from my mirror and face Linda. “Justine is waiting for you, and she might not have much time.” I let out a snort. “A lot of people seem to be waiting for you these days, wondering what you’re up to.”

With a weary huff, Linda drops down on my bed. She plants her elbows on her knees. Still in her work uniform from yesterday, having worked the lunch shift already today, she looks more than a little grimy. “I won’t let that happen again.” She shakes her head. “I got carried away. I know it sounds stupid, but we didn’t do anything except talk. We sat at the bar all night.” She rubs that sore spot in her neck. “My aching back.”

I roll my eyes, though Linda is staring at the floor now and won’t see. “You could have called.”

“I should have. I don’t know when I’ve felt like this, Penelope. It’s the first time, I think. It took Isaac and me completely by surprise. I’m all confused. He’s all confused. I’m—”

“‘
Confused
.’ Uh-uh.” I shake my finger at her. “I’ve tried that excuse. Didn’t work so well.”

“If you’re talking about David,” Linda says quietly, “it was just so soon after that thing in Chicago. I was making sure you were safe. That’s all.”

“‘That thing in Chicago?’” I have to laugh. “I got hurt in Chicago. I made a lot of bad choices, and ultimately I got really hurt. How well do you know Isaac? I mean, really?” I stalk around the room, suddenly enraged. “You might be making a bad choice too.”

Linda glares. “I haven’t done a thing with Isaac.”

“I’m not talking about Isaac now. I’m talking about Justine.”

Linda claps her hands to her forehead. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Penelope!”

“You’re making a mistake, and—” I point at the clock on my desk. “Now we’re late for work.”

Linda glances at the clock. She stares at the photo of Justine there and then opens her mouth to speak.