This Is Home

by Lisa Duffy

  She hadn’t even heard the police car pull up in front of her house or the sound of his boots on the paved path to her front door.

  She only looked up when he said her name and—even then—she was outside herself, as though she were looking down from somewhere above, watching some stranger sitting on the steps with a letter smoothed out on her lap, studying it as though it were a map guiding her instead of a piece of paper telling her to pack up and leave. A letter saying: This is not your home.

  The rest is a blur.

  Weeks of packing and moving, and now she is here, in this strange house with boxes filling the front room and the living room rug rolled up and stacked in the foyer and the kitchen table leaning against the wall, its legs scattered on the floor beside it.

  Bent had offered to help her get settled, but he’d done so much already, and Quinn didn’t feel right accepting any more help.

  That was days ago, and she hasn’t unpacked.

  She hasn’t really done anything besides walk around this apartment in a daze.

  She called in sick to work on Monday, and then again today, and she could sense Madeline’s fury through the phone—her sons would need to have breakfast and be driven to school and picked up in the afternoon and fed dinner—and Quinn’s absence was difficult.

  That’s how Madeline put it—Of course, I’m sorry you’re ill, but rearranging my schedule is difficult.

  She doesn’t like to disappoint Madeline. And she misses Nick and Nate—she’s been their nanny since they were infants, after all. Some days she thinks her job as a nanny to the twins is the only thing that keeps her sane.

  With John deployed twice in their five years of marriage, gone for a year the first deployment and two the second, Madeline and the boys have become her family, her home away from home.

  She loves the routine of her job and most of all, the feeling of being needed. Being part of a family.

  When John came back from Iraq earlier this year, after his second deployment, she thought that might change. Now, finally, they could start their own family. Except he wouldn’t touch her.

  It became a thing between them: sex. The lack of it. How he never wanted her anymore. The unspoken argument behind every shouting match.

  John said they were fine. That all couples go through ups and downs, and after all, they had been together since they were in high school.

  If she had wanted to strike back, to hurt him, she could’ve said: Define together.

  Together implies occupying the same space. Perhaps the same country.

  But she didn’t allow herself to say things like that to John. It was selfish, in her mind. This was his job. And anyway, it’s not like she wasn’t at least partly to blame.

  Would John have enlisted if she hadn’t gotten pregnant back then? Would they have even married?

  They were juniors in high school when they started dating—although some days, she wonders if she can really call it dating, remembering the group of friends they were always with, the way they somehow ended up a pair. In her memory, he’d never taken her out on an actual date.

  After high school, all their friends left for college. So did John. Quinn was the only one who stayed in Paradise.

  Her father had been angry at her for that. But for her, college could wait. Her scholarship could wait. It was her mother who was running out of time.

  The lung cancer she’d fought when Quinn was younger had returned, spread to her liver, then her brain, and her mother refused to live out her last days injecting that poison into her veins.

  Quinn had spent the year when everyone was away at school taking classes in early-childhood education at the community college and caring for her mother and watching her father glare at both of them—mad at Quinn for staying and mad at her mother for not fighting harder and mad at the universe for handing him more than any one person should have to handle, a sentence he muttered under his breath no fewer than a dozen times a day.

  When John called from his dorm, he’d sound restless to Quinn. Classes were hard—harder than he expected—and he was never much of a student anyway.

  He’d been the star wide receiver for Paradise High. At college, he sat on the bench all season—the upperclassmen on the squad bigger, faster, stronger than him.

  It’s not like I thought it was going to be, he’d say, and Quinn would swallow her resentment. She’d have given anything to switch places with him.

  And then everything after that blurred and blended and moved in fast-forward: her mother died, Quinn got pregnant, and John joined the service.

  He hadn’t discussed it with her. He surprised her the day they were married at the courthouse. After the ceremony, they were in the car when he dug in his pocket and pulled out a box. She was confused because the wedding ring was already on her finger. He flipped it open and inside there were dog tags. Fake ones, she saw when she picked them up. She looked at him, expecting him to laugh, to tell her it was one of his pranks.

  But John wasn’t laughing. His face was sharp, a flicker of something in his eyes that she recognized immediately.

  The same look she’d see on his face in a football game when he’d walk to the sidelines and pull off his helmet after scoring a touchdown, his teammates slapping him on the back and John, emotionless, sitting down on the bench and staring back at the field, tracking the ball, waiting for the play, calculating his next move.

  The look of someone who was needed. Someone who belonged.

  John had reached over, put his hand on her stomach, flat still, even though two hearts fluttered inside of her. He leaned in and whispered, “When I meet them, I’ll be a soldier,” with such pride in his voice, such conviction. She only nodded, speechless.

  Nothing in her life had prepared her for this.

  She didn’t know anyone in the military. Her mother’s father, but he was dead, and she’d never met him, only saw an old black-and-white picture of him in his WWII uniform.

  When she thought of people joining the army, she pictured southern boys in Ford trucks with oversize tires and flags hung in the back window. Midwestern farm boys born from a lengthy line of men who served.

  Not John—kind, funny, oddball John with his lopsided grin and sleepy eyes, so blue between his dark lashes sometimes she teased him for it, called him her pretty boy.

  He saw the shock on her face, told her it was just the National Guard, insisted he’d never go to war. It was a weekend away, extra pay, help with college.

  She envisioned him getting called to help in a natural disaster—maybe a flood down south or a tornado in the Midwest, or even one of the nor’easters in their home state.

  But they both had been wrong. The Guard unit he’d joined went to war after all. A year in Iraq, to be exact.

  Now Quinn opens her eyes. Gets out of bed.

  It’s the middle of the night, and she needs to be at work in the morning, but she can’t sleep. Locking herself in this house for the last couple of days has her suddenly desperate to be outside, and she dresses quickly in the dark, not sure what she’s pulling out of the suitcase on the floor and throwing on her body—leggings and one of John’s sweatshirts, too hot for this weather but she doesn’t care.

  The desire to be anywhere but in this bare, dark bedroom is suddenly overwhelming. She knows her eyes are swollen from crying, and when she catches her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she pulls the sweatshirt hood over her head to hide her blotchy face.

  Before she can change her mind, she is outside, keys in her hand, closing the door quietly behind her as though she’s a teenager again and sneaking out of her house, slipping soundlessly into the dark street.

  Minutes later, she’s in the car, heading for the waterfront, the air blowing in through the open window humid and warm at this time of night from the heat wave that’s settled in.

  She parks in the town lot in front of the water, gets out of the car, and walks to the railing. Lights from the boardwalk reflect off the stretch of Atlantic in front
of her.

  She breathes in the dank odor of low tide rising from the rocks below.

  Laughter trickles past her, and she turns to see a group of kids in the park, far off in the distance. Teenagers from the sound of it, the silhouette of a girl lounging on a swing coming into focus in the dark.

  She and John used to come to this park when they were in high school. Late at night, after his football game, they’d park in front of the water. Sometimes they’d get out of the car and find a bench in the park and sit.

  Paradise Park was a popular couples spot back then, but Quinn and John rarely kissed on those nights. They’d just sit and talk. Or sometimes just watch the ocean with the radio playing in the background. Both happy to be anywhere but home.

  Years later, it was the same park where Quinn had met Bent for the first time. It seems like another lifetime now. She can close her eyes and picture the girl she used to be. But it’s a hazy outline of someone she barely recognizes.

  John had been deployed, Quinn remembers, and he’d called her late one night. She remembers the phone ringing and then John’s voice on the line, seeming so far away even though the connection was fine. He’d called to tell her a guy in his unit was coming home, one of his bunkmates, and he wanted Quinn to meet him.

  “I’m sending your present home,” John had told her over the phone. “His name is Bentley. He’ll be in uniform at the entrance of Paradise Park.”

  After they hung up, Quinn had rushed out of bed and hurried to the kitchen to write down the day and time of the meeting—Wednesday. One o’clock sharp—but in the back of her mind she was replaying the sound of John’s voice. How he’d sounded different, speaking to her in a voice she’d never heard before.

  The week had passed and then it was Wednesday. Quinn had strapped Nick and Nate into their car seats and driven across town. The boys were tiny then—she’d only just started the job and she knew Madeline wouldn’t approve of her meeting some strange man with her boys in tow.

  But Quinn wanted to meet the man who slept in a bunk near John every night. It meant something to her back then, to share this small thing. With miles and oceans separating her and John, and a war she didn’t understand, this was something she could keep close to her.

  She parked in a space in front of the ocean, put the twins in the double stroller, and hurried to the entrance of the park.

  She was late, and in a rush, pushing the heavy stroller in front of her, and there was a noise next to her from the playground, and she looked over to see two boys chasing each other around the swings, one of them holding a stick out like a gun, shouting, Bam, bam. You’re dead. A woman walked over and grabbed the stick from the boy, scolding him it seemed. He pouted, kicked at the sand.

  When Quinn passed the little boy, she heard him tell the woman, It’s just pretend. Not real.

  Then she noticed the soldier.

  From where she stood behind him, he looked just like John: tall and broad shouldered, standing with the posture of someone trained to be alert. To be ready.

  He was standing on the wide concrete steps at the entrance of the park, dressed as if he just stepped off a tank in the Middle East, the desert camouflage uniform out of place against the backdrop of the New England coastline.

  When she reached him, he turned and looked at her, raised a photograph and held it up: a picture of her and John from their senior prom.

  “You’re here,” the soldier said, and she pointed to herself, joking. As if to say, I’m here? He’d come from the Middle East. She’d only driven the three short blocks to the park.

  She asked about his trip home, and he held up a finger, interrupting her. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small package, her name in John’s handwriting on the front.

  “Here,” he said, holding the package out to her. “He’ll kill me if I forget. And these days, I seem to forget everything.” He tapped his temple. “They didn’t send me home for nothing.”

  She took the package, glanced at the scar peeking from under his hat, running the length of his hairline to his jaw, a thick stripe of newborn skin, puckered and pink against the weather-beaten, unshaven slope of his cheek.

  His name was Bentley. Winters was printed in black letters on his uniform.

  “You’re John’s boss?” she asked.

  “Sergeant,” he corrected. “Well, former now, I guess, with the medical discharge. Bent.” He held his hand out.

  She shook it, her eyes on the scar. She wanted to ask if John was there when it happened, but the words wouldn’t come out of her mouth.

  He hadn’t flinched under her gaze, and she sensed he was accustomed to women watching him.

  He was handsome in a traditional way, older than her, in his thirties, if she had to guess. The stubble on his jaw reaching up to touch his cheekbone, a starburst of faint lines creasing the outer edge of each eye.

  “Want to grab a coffee?” he asked, gesturing with his chin to the row of restaurants lining the water. “I can tell you about life over there.”

  “These guys are hungry,” she lied, pointing to the infants. “I need to get them home.”

  She’d fed them lunch already. But she hadn’t wanted to hear about life over there. She hadn’t been ready to hear why John sounded like a stranger to her.

  “Luke said you’re a nanny. Toughest job there is, raising kids,” he said.

  “Luke?” Quinn asked.

  “Oh, sorry. John. Luke is how he’s known over there.”

  “Why Luke?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I think it started after some shitty patrol. All of us were spent. Working on no sleep and hungry and filthy. Falling into our bunks. There’s John, taking apart his weapon. Cleaning it, wiping it down, putting it back together. Someone called him Cool Hand Luke, and the name stuck. Got shortened at some point, I guess. Now he’s just Luke.”

  Quinn hadn’t answered, the image of John, tired and hungry and filthy filling her thoughts.

  “Hey, look, if you change your mind, call the station and ask for me. John said you sounded worried. If I can help, let me know.” He looked around and sighed. “Never thought this shitty town would look so good. Paradise, huh?” He winked at her, gave a casual salute as a goodbye and walked away.

  She watched him leave, the way he’d said Paradise lingering in her mind.

  She thought of their duplex across town—the stained shag carpet that smelled like cat pee no matter how many times she scrubbed it.

  Now Quinn blinks herself out of the memory and shivers, chilled, even though she should be sweating with the way she’s dressed in the humid night.

  She should leave. Go back to the apartment and try to get some sleep. She has to be at work in the morning, and she still has boxes to unpack—clothes to hang up and furniture to arrange and pictures to hang and, well—her whole life to put in order. The thought of it makes her want to curl up in a ball, pull the sweatshirt hood over her head, and just . . . disappear.

  Instead, she climbs up on the hood of her car, leans back against the windshield, and looks up at the sky.

  John should be in her thoughts, but all she can think about is Bent. She knows he’s working tonight, and the thought of him patrolling the streets makes her feel safe somehow.

  Brothers is what Bent and John call each other. That’s why she’d called him that day, with John missing and the notice in her lap, and no idea what to do next.

  It shouldn’t have surprised her that Bent hadn’t spoken to John in months. That he didn’t know John was missing.

  After all, John had been disappearing right in front of her for years. Little by little, growing more distant. More silent. More . . . gone.

  And then that night when he’d told her he was leaving again. Signing up for another tour, even though he’d only just come home. And they’d fought, and she’d said that word.

  Coward.

  Right out loud before she could stop herself. It was the last word she’d said to him before he disappeared
into the night.

  She didn’t tell Bent any of it. She didn’t have the words to explain. She merely told him the truth. That John had left. Just vanished.

  I’ll find him is all Bent said, and Quinn didn’t answer, only nodded, unable to speak the question that formed in her mind.

  What if he doesn’t want to be found?

   3

  Libby

  The paint’s not even dry on the wall, and Lucy is complaining about the color. According to her, the chi is all wrong.

  Desiree squints at Lucy when she hears this, and I think I see fire shoot out of her nostrils. Probably because this is the third shade of brown that we’ve tried—none of them are giving off the right energy—and the foyer doesn’t have any windows, and the temperature outside is in the nineties.

  It’s like standing in the hottest oven ever. Watching paint dry.

  “You’re getting paid to put up with this shit,” Desiree mutters to me. “I’ll be outside having a smoke.”

  I want to go outside with Desiree, stand on the porch with her in the shade, and try to cool off. But she’s right. I’m getting paid to stand here and watch paint dry. Twenty bucks an hour, to be exact.

  Lucy doesn’t take her eyes off the wall, but she tsks loudly, and I don’t know if it’s because Desiree is smoking or because she swore.

  Helping Lucy with the house is my summer job. My other option was bagging groceries at the supermarket like I did last year, so when Bent pitched it to me in the beginning of the summer, it sounded like the easiest job ever, so I told him yes.

  And then I found out Lucy thinks if we hang a mirror on the wall within five feet of the front door, the good chi will bounce off and disappear.

  Lucy owns her own real estate agency, but she’s also a certified feng shui consultant who wants to be an interior designer. She’s been flipping houses for years now—buying them for nothing, fixing them up, and reselling them for a better price. She’s been so busy that she hasn’t had any time to work on our house. Apparently, this summer, our house is on her to-do list, and I’m part of the equation.