by Odie Lindsey
To get back to the wound site. To beg her: leave me be. To save. Save. Save.
Yes: to amend. No matter how far away you shoved me, I was stained by home. I can see this now, Susan George. I understand. The running? The never coming back? It made the most sense at first: hiding. Escaping the truth that you handed me. Over years and highways and continents and jobs . . . I believed in the abandonment of my complicity, my fact.
The more I came back with JP, the more detail was resuscitated: what happened in Bel Arbre. I could see it. Smell the death of it everywhere. And I remembered: all the running began with a push: from me to her, and then from you, to me.
Now, the compulsion to save: my vocation my religion, my reduction of self. To amend, to outlive, to reparate. To replace: houses, people, animals, children. Your daughter: Lucy. For you and for Lucy, I needed to save. To amend: to . . .
This was as much of the letter as Susan George would read. She folded the pages back into thirds and stuffed them into the envelope. Held it to her nose and inhaled, though there was no trace of scent.
She had to decide whether or not to forward it to her lawyers, to have them contest the Wallis House estate, challenging Dru’s capacity at testament. She knew that the process would be handled in a local court, by local people. Her people. That the letter itself would serve as Exhibit A: Dru Wallis, Crazy, and that this, in turn, would bring the house back to her.
She worried about what this would mean for Dru’s daughter. The infant had already lost her mother, and had no grandparents or close Pitchlynn relatives left. Contesting the estate would strip the girl from all connection to town, to family. This cleaving had already happened with Dru.
She leaned back into the wing chair and grasped at the armrest. Her hand quaked as if by muscle memory, as if retracing the jittered application of makeup, years ago—a couple of decades, almost—in an effort to be composed for the visitation.
Friends and relatives had called on Susan George for days after Lucy’s wake, as had her pastor, and a couple of her father’s old associates. The condolences offered by the latter had been fused to the pressing issues of in-town development. (Susan George had by that point taken over management of the Wallis family holdings.) Between visits, she had gone back to bed, or gone into the bathroom to vomit. When alone, she had wandered the waxed wood floors of the house, in the predawn darkness, in bare feet and mourning dress. Unable to force an appetite for days, she had opened the refrigerator time and again to the waft of fetid shrimp under cellophane.
She could still smell the dishes in the days-old sink water. The chain smoking, the flowers, the phenol of sweat.
Sitting in the gold silk chair, she could still smell all of it.
10
In the dim light of Lucy’s nursery, JP and Colleen traded in shushes, hand gestures, giggles. As the baby shower guests assembled within earshot of his bungalow, JP watched his daughter fall asleep on Colleen’s shoulder, then lifted the infant gently, his breath held—If she wakes up, we’re screwed—and placed her in the crib. The orange on-light of the humidifier shone like an ember, and a sound machine rumpled the lukewarm air. (JP had experimented with the Rain preset, alongside Crickets-at-Night, Whale Song, and even White Noise; he would never, ever dial up Amniotic Heartbeat.) He and Colleen froze when the baby wriggled on the crib mattress, peeping. Seconds later, however, with no further cry or fidget, JP held out his fist, beckoning Colleen’s gentle bump.
He led her out into the hallway, then produced a handheld device that looked like a smartphone. “This thing is critical,” he whispered, pressing the on button. A night-vision image of Lucy’s body popped on-screen.
Colleen gasped.
“Amazing, right?” He showcased the camera settings, Close Up to Wide Angle. The infant’s alien form was broadcast in stark white-blue contrast. Framing the monitor image were digital readouts and diagrams: room temperature, Wi-Fi signal, and the like.
Colleen looked away. “That thing freaks me out.”
JP slipped the monitor back into his pocket. “Trust me, you’ll get addicted to one when the twins get here.”
They stepped into the den to bid good night to the sitter, JP offering her a catalog of assurances that he’d be right there, just outside, on the lawn; that the sitter must call or text with anything at all; that he’d check in throughout the evening; that really, she shouldn’t worry about bothering him; that . . .
Colleen opened the front door, then hooked her arm around his. The two stepped out into the warm night air.
Taking in the blue-collar horde on the white-collar lawn, she couldn’t help but snicker. Colleen still wasn’t sure what JP had been thinking, bringing all these county folk to the Wallis House estate.
In lieu of T-shirt and shorts, or any hot-weather staple, the women were outfitted in new or semi-new dresses from the I-55 outlet mall, or maybe the Target over in Tupelo. Some of the men had tucked their plaid and pearl-button shirts into their good jeans, while others wore the creased khakis and button-downs generally reserved for Sunday service.
The congregation sat beneath a wedding-style white tent, under which was a series of tables with white cloths and flowers. Large circular floor fans were stationed at every corner. Foam beer koozies commemorated the event, with Twice as Nice scripted above caricatures of twin infants. JP had hired a caterer from the southern fusion restaurant over in Oxford, and while nobody was sure what made “tandoori bbq” tandoori, nor why a pimento cheese wonton was a necessary endeavor, the grub sure was tasty, and its complication cued ample banter.
Somehow, short notice or no, JP had even curated a proper soundtrack—north Mississippi trance blues, old fiddle tunes, and sacred steel gospel—marking a regional authenticity on his part. (The newbie had paid attention, they thought. Good on him.) A small parquet dance floor had been assembled for the boogie.
“Well?” JP asked Colleen. “Did I pull it off?”
“The question is not did you, but how did you? Christ, JP, this spread would take me a year. Thank you. I mean it.”
JP held his hand out for her to grasp. “A pleasure. Now let’s go charm these people with our refined repartee.”
Colleen groused a bit, but let him pull her into the glut of friends and family. This initiated a series of endless hugs and well-wishes, questions about baby-names, and baby-needs, as were woven in to stories of the guests’ own baby-based experiences (and/or lack thereof). Such stuff usually taxed Colleen to pieces. On this night, she couldn’t kill her smile.
THEY WERE fully immersed in visiting when Susan George showed up. She, too, was appropriately dressed—only more so than the others. Her eyes cut the crowd as if taking in an exhibition, or roadside accident.
JP, Derby, and Deana stood around a centerpiece table, where Colleen sat catching her breath.
“Evening, y’all,” Susan George said. “I heard the festivity from all the way over at my house, and figured I’d take a peek. Hope I’m not intruding.”
“We did send invitations,” JP replied.
Susan George rolled her eyes, then turned to stare at Colleen.
Derby cut in. “This is my wife.”
“Yes!” Susan George said. “You’re the veteran?”
Colleen nodded.
“Wonderful,” Susan George said. “You know, we haven’t had a baby shower on this land for some time. It’s such a fine space for a party, don’t you think? A reception, or small concert? Anything that brings the town together.”
“It is,” JP replied. “Only, this party is for the expectant parents. Close friends and family, so . . .”
Susan George stayed focused on Colleen. “You look special.”
“Thank you.”
“And how lovely you are out of that uniform. No offense, but the look was a bit, well, uncomely. Whereas motherhood . . .”
“Uncomely,” Colleen repeated.
“Oh shit,” Susan George said. “I’ve offended you. I apologize, I’m just not explain
ing myself well. I—”
“No worries,” Colleen said. “Got used to it years ago.”
Deana reached over and squeezed Colleen’s forearm. “Need some air, darlin’?”
“Thanks, Dean. I’m cool.” She turned back to Susan George. “You know, strange as it may seem, it can sometimes be an asset to have a female troop around.”
Colleen was once lodged inside a Bradley vehicle, in a city, after military curfew. It was so quiet and softly dark; the vehicle sat in silent watch mode, battery-powered. The gentle hiss of manpack radios had blended with power line hum, and the scratching of cat paws in the garbage outside. All these low sounds, Colleen remembered now, so low and meditative and droning, nearly secure.
Technically, she was not supposed to have been there. The designated troop, the male who had shared her MOS job qualification, had fallen out with something foodborne. Colleen was the sole, formally-trained alternative in the squad. (Truth be told, nobody really needed her on hand, but regulationwise, the detail couldn’t press on without her. Even the vehicle was out of place, since its bulk overwhelmed any reasonable agility. It was parked at remove from the action, on the periphery of the objective.)
“I’m gonna leave,” Susan George continued. “Let y’all enjoy your shower.”
“Sit tight,” Colleen ordered.
She and Van Dorn had been the only ones in the Brad. On that night, in that space, Van Dorn had been like some de facto bro minder. A babysitter of sorts, while the squad pursued an extraction, the result of a tip-off, well paid. And this was okay, was procedurally humdrum and calm . . . until the SINCGARS had suddenly lit up with chatter: one frantic operator requesting a medevac, while another answered back for intel.
She and Van Dorn had scrambled for first-aid kits, field dressings. They monitored the tac/nav screen, radio chatter, and the back-and-forth from comm; the sync and squelch, call signs and copy, and the hydraulics of the Brad deck, which had opened like a maw as the squad approached the vehicle.
“I’m picturing this one time . . .” Colleen spoke up, too loud. “This time when my squad brought me an injured hadji woman. She’d been shot up, and they plopped her right down on the ramp of our Bradley. Just there, like you’d plop a shot deer on a tailgate. And—”
“Honey,” Derby interrupted. “Stop.”
“I’m fine, babe.” She swatted at him playfully. “Swear to god, I have a point.” She patted her tummy and nodded. “Yup, the female was carrying. Was six, seven months along if she was a day. So it was . . . devastating, you know? Because she had, like, a gnarly chest wound. Was done in, no question.”
The slain woman’s brown eyes had been vacant and dry, though Colleen couldn’t help but lean in close, to consider. Behind them, the woman’s husband was held at gunpoint, his hands flexicuffed at his back. He screamed so relentlessly that they’d finally jammed him into the back of a Hummer.
“And we all knew what we had to do with the woman,” Colleen said, glancing over the rapt faces of the party. “ ’Cause everybody knows what to do, right?”
When no one replied, she asked them again, only louder. “I mean, y’all know, right? You all grew up the same way I did. You know what we had to do.”
The guests’ silence held firm, though Colleen was correct: they all knew the answer. The country boys who had been among her squad, whether from northeast Mississippi or northwest Wisconsin, had chosen to do what they’d been taught after shooting rabbits or deer that turned out to be pregnant: they would gut the woman and get the baby out.
Only then did someone remember that a male troop shouldn’t mess with a Muz female. So this, then, was the point of Colleen’s story—a fact she now decided to keep to herself, given that nobody on hand had the spine to engage it. Since nobody wanted to hear.
She had demanded a field knife, then started in. The woman’s belly and body had jiggled on the Brad deck. There was the layer of skin and fat, and entrails that few had seen in humans, but which, yes, were reminiscent of the hunts the lot of them had shared growing up. The guys had stood firm as Colleen reached inside, her hands glistening with blood, searching, seeking, until she’d found it, a bit bigger than a bunny, curled up amid lips of sticky flesh and lining. She had reached in and cupped the infant with both hands, then pulled it to her breast.
The male troops had scrambled to assist her, their hope coalescing into naïve instruction: Water! Snips! Someone get a goddamned bulb syringe! A few of the fathers among them were even flushed by the warm memory of their own children being born, by the terror and miracle of the process. It was glorious. One soldier let slip a soft prayer of relief.
Colleen was the last one to acknowledge the shredding. Against her efforts to cradle the infant, the body seemed to disintegrate, to pour away, until at some point one of the guys—maybe Van Dorn, she couldn’t remember—had clenched her shoulder and ordered her to stop, just fucking stop holding it.
She had looked to each squad member, seeking any counter-opinion to the fix, before nesting the item back into its mother. Someone had then handed her a brown, standard-issue towel, and another troop poured water over her hands as she wrung them clean. After that, they had put Colleen into the front seat of the Hummer, the male hadji in back, bawling and babbling, and then drove to Charlie Med. En route, when the husband had spit on the back of Colleen’s neck, Van Dorn had punched the man and bagged his head, and then punched him again.
At debrief, she could only respond to her CO’s questions with name, rank, serial number.
“Anyway,” she said, glancing around, “gender protocol ain’t always clear-cut, you know? Things aren’t always clear.”
Derby took her hand, and helped her away from the table.
Susan George called out after. “Forgive me, girl. I’m just an old fool, and I didn’t mean to. . .”
“No,” Colleen replied. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I know better.”
JP stepped in front of Susan George, grabbing her by the elbow. “Go.”
She yanked free, quick as a viper. “Don’t you ever touch me. Don’t you touch any lady.”
“Go,” he repeated.
“This is my family home, it is our home. What’s more, it’ll be our—”
“No,” JP said. “I’m erasing the lot of you.”
Susan George looked to the party guests, her face equipoised for either support or challenge. Earning neither, she stormed away.
The guests remained stock-still until at last Deana spoke up. “It’s all good, y’all. Really. A party ain’t a party till some drunk shows up to crash it, right?” She strode out onto the dance floor and cued the DJ into action. “Somebody get out here with me. Let’s do this thing!”
11
The twins were masterpiece, monument, and renaissance. They were an aria of sticky black hair and gummy, bawling mouths. A bipartite bouquet of smells, and shrills, and crazy thin lips. They appeared as the oldest of elderly men: their eyes confused, and wrinkles profound. Their lack of muscle tone had them trembling with the slightest attempt at autonomy. (What a feat to lift one’s chin a mere inch off of Colleen’s shoulder! Lo, the anguished wiggle!) Each newborn promoted distinct features that were up for familial interpretation: were those Derby’s mother’s ears on Junior? Was that a left-cheek dimple on Sarah? They had navy-blue eyes and ripe pink skin, and they obliterated Colleen’s emotional boundaries. She no longer knew who she was, or wasn’t. Most importantly, she didn’t care.
Colleen’s folks had been on hand in the maternity ward, as had Deana. The latter had fawned over her friend, mouthing an I told you so through Colleen’s body-busted haze. JP was there, too, the sole actor in Derby’s corner, casting off explanation as if he were the first-ever father. Unannounced to all, a reporter from the North Mississippi Cardinal had even shown up in advance of a short feature.
Just as Deana had promised her, as had Derby and her folks and everybody else, the twins brought Colleen a new breath of idealism. They delivered
to her a clean slate, it seemed, without a hint of narrative complication.
(The birthing process itself was marked by procedural hiccup. Despite the fact that Colleen insisted on the rupture of natural childbirth, her delivery was instead defined by Pitocin vs. epidural ministrations, after her water was found to contain excess meconium, necessitating a rapid removal. The doctor had pulled Derby aside to consult on this decision, noting, “Somebody up in there is stressed. Couldn’t control their bowels.” The men had then chosen to flood Colleen with drugs. It was in everyone’s best interest, they decided.
Meconium? This concept of abundant “uterine stool in amniotic water” was alien, ominous. The already exhausted Colleen had mouthed each component of the term, the chop of the consonants and Latinate vowels, and then muttered her fear of the diagnosis. Yet Derby proved expert at making her feel better; he was strong for her. He was determined to deliver the upside, slamming a door on any darkness. He swore to Colleen that it was going to be fine, and that they and their babies were far tougher than any complication.
He was right. Colleen’s thoughts and feelings were a smear of analgesic toil as she shoved, and blasphemed, and sweated to give birth: first to Derby Jr. and then to Sarah Friar. Three weeks early. Expert timing for twins.)
Two days later, having blown past the state’s insurance limit, the pillow-sitting Colleen and flamed-out Derby were sent home to a house packed with gifts. They found scented wipes and diapers from the church, alongside dolls and infant-sized hand-me-downs care of Susan George Wallis and the Pitchlynn LMA. Gift certificates had arrived from friends and coworkers. There were umpteen cards and baby toys bought from that Target in Tupelo. All of this loot had been snuck in by Colleen’s parents, who also hung decorations around the house, mostly baby-blue.
Most prescient was JP’s gift to Colleen, the “Bresties’ Nursing Pillow for Twins.” Resembling a flat-topped inner tube, the pillow wrapped around her waist while she sat on the couch. The cushiony platform lay just beneath her breasts, and positioned the twins’ bodies to feeding-height. This nursing shelf-of-sorts allowed Colleen’s fingers to hoist tea, or scratch, or to comb the feather-soft wisps of dark hair as the infants suckled. She felt like a barge, but her hands were somewhat free.
