An American Tune

by Barbara Shoup

  She probed it like you’d probe a cracked tooth with your tongue. Can’t – what?

  Lie? Tell? Risk? Keep on?

  Can’t hurt Charlie anymore.

  There was no breathing technique in the world that could stem the sudden liquid flow of darkness through all the channels where her breath had just been. There it was: simple and impossible. Stop hurting Charlie.

  But she couldn’t go backward, couldn’t be the person she had been the moment before Pete called out to her as she left People’s Park that day last summer. She couldn’t staunch the flow of memory it had set in motion, couldn’t remain unchanged by it. She couldn’t forget that she had seen Tom and how it had felt to be with him. She could only tell Charlie the truth and hope that, in time, it would heal them. And not the whole truth, not yet. She’d have to find a way to draw him slowly, safely toward it.

  Nora got out of the bathtub, put her nightgown and robe on and went downstairs. Charlie was sitting in his leather chair, a book open on his lap. She put a log on the fire, which had begun to die down, and sat down in her own easy chair, directly across from him.

  “I’m sorry about tonight,” she said, quietly. “But Charlie, the thing is – my brother died in Vietnam.”

  He looked up from his book with a fearful expression.

  “And all this talk about Iraq. I can’t help it, I’ve been thinking about him, and . . . other things from that time. It’s one reason I’ve been –” She splayed her hands. “So – out of sorts lately.”

  She waited for him to ask, “You had a brother? Was this death before or after your parents died in the car crash? Before or after you struck out on your own that summer after you graduated from high school? And what, exactly, do you mean by ‘other things from that time’?”

  But he said nothing.

  “Don’t you see it’s the same thing?” she asked. “As Vietnam?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t see it that way, Nora. And I’ve said this before: I don’t see what good it does for you to be so upset over what’s happening there. What does it have to do with you? With us? It’s not like anything you can do will change it.”

  “I know I can’t change it,” Nora said. “God, it’s the opposite of that. Believe me, I know all too well that I’m completely powerless to do anything that matters. It’s just – I know I’ve been, well, difficult since Claire left. I know I hurt your feelings, and spoiled things tonight – and it wasn’t the first time.

  “And I wanted . . . Charlie –” She paused and took a deep breath to steady her voice before going on. “It’s been hard since Claire left, being without her. Both of us are struggling with that, and I don’t know why, but we haven’t been able to be much help to each other. And Jo. I’m heartbroken about Jo. We both are.

  “But for me it’s this war coming, too. It’s been on my mind about my brother, I just can’t seem to stop thinking about it, and I thought telling you about him might explain, maybe, at least part of why I’ve been so – I don’t know, blindsided by the whole thing. I mean, when you see all this stuff on the news, doesn’t it make you remember?”

  Charlie was quiet a long moment, gazing beyond her at the dark window. “I don’t let myself remember,” he said, finally. “I want to live my life now. I want us to do that, to enjoy what we have together. Is that so much to ask? Look, I’m sorry about your brother, Nora. I – didn’t know. But –” His jaw clenched, as it always did when he felt boxed-in and recalcitrant. “Dwelling on it now,” he said. “How can it do anything but make you feel miserable? What’s the point in that?”

  “No point.” She gave a helpless shrug. “But there it is, in my mind. Keeping it or letting it go doesn’t feel like an option. Anyway. I thought I should tell you. So you’d know.”

  Charlie nodded.

  She felt dismissed; though, later, he crawled into bed and drew her to him, spooned his long body around hers and held her till he drifted off to sleep, the way he used to when they were happy.

  21

  “The Things We Said Today”

  FROM JBMI65@aol.com

  TO TGilbert@gilbertlaw.com

  SUBJECT Then

  DATE SENT Sun, Dec 1, 2002 4 PM

  Do you remember that first Thanksgiving in the house, when Bridget and I cooked the turkey and, carving it, you found we’d left the plastic bag of innards inside? How you just stood there, holding it between your thumb and fingers with this expression on your face that made Bridget and me laugh so hard Bridget peed her pants. Which only made us laugh harder. It was just a few weeks after Bobby died. The first thing that had made me laugh since we got home that afternoon and my dad was there to tell me. I remember howling with laughter, feeling almost sick with it and, even while I was laughing, thinking that leaving the giblet bag in the turkey was funny – but not this funny. I could as easily have been crying.

  I don’t know. You’re probably reading this and thinking, all those years of utter silence, and she’s e-mailing me about a stupid Thanksgiving turkey? The truth is, it’s what I wrote because I couldn’t think how else to start. After I saw you a few weeks ago, I told myself I wouldn’t write to you, no matter what. The problem is, though, I can’t stop thinking about – everything. It’s what I said to you about coming back to Bloomington because of my daughter, Claire – how I knew it would make me remember and dreaded that. But it’s Iraq, too. Everything since 9/11, really. The way it’s so much like Vietnam – and people just won’t see. Does it seem that way to you, too? Or am I being paranoid?

  You’re the only person in my life who remembers what it was like then – and I guess all this about the turkey and how freaked out I am, suddenly remembering so much after all this time, is just to say you’re the only person I feel like I can talk to right now. Can I e-mail sometimes? Say no, if you need to. I’ll understand.

  FROM TGilbert@gilbertlaw.com

  TO JBMI65@aol.com

  SUBJECT Re: Then

  DATE SENT Mon, Dec 2, 2002 8:05 AM

  You’re not paranoid. Write, talk. Any time.

  FROM JBMI65@aol.com

  TO TGilbert@gilbertlaw.com

  SUBJECT Then

  DATE SENT Mon, Dec 3, 2002 12:35 AM

  There’s another Thanksgiving that I’ve been remembering, too: the one right before your parents moved to Florida. Thinking about it now, it seems so obvious to me that it’s directly connected to what happened that Christmas Eve, maybe more directly connected than my getting so freaked out about the bombing that had started up again. I never could explain to you how your mother made me feel, how when I was around her I began to believe I really was all wrong for you. That you really would be better off with someone else. I see now that it was hard for you to be with them, too. Even though, by then, we weren’t involved in anything we might have gotten into trouble for, our politics were the exact opposite of theirs – and, of course, there was their disappointment about what you’d chosen to do after law school. There was a lot you couldn’t say when you were with them. But you loved your dad and you’d never have just walked away from him the way Bridget and I did from our families. I admired you for that, but it also made me feel worse about hurting my own parents – and that sometimes translated to being mad at you when you went to see yours, and feeling abandoned.

  Still, I should have tried harder to explain to you how I felt. Partly, I didn’t because, deep down, I knew it was irrational. You were right: I shouldn’t have let your mother bother me. But it was more than that. When Bobby died, you saw where I came from, you knew what my family was like. But I could never bring myself to talk honestly about those things with you.

  Why, I wonder now, since from the very beginning I knew there was nothing I could ever do or say to make you stop loving me. I depended on it, absolutely, but it was so – large. I couldn’t see what I gave you in return. That was the blessing of it, but I didn’t know that then. And I don’t want this to be true, but it is: no matter what happens to me now, no matter what and who
m I lose from here on in – even if it’s my own daughter – I know it won’t make me feel as lost as I felt after I left you, knowing I could never, ever come back.

  But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Already.

  What I want to tell you is what happened that night. The truth is, I haven’t thought about it myself till now. Not really. Though I dreamed it almost every night for a long time afterward – and began to dream it again when Claire decided to go to IU.

  The thing is, Tom, even before Bridget showed up that Friday I was upset with you for deciding to go to Evansville on Christmas Eve. Being there at Thanksgiving upset me more than I let you know – and then, on top of that, the bombing in Hanoi. I was so angry about it. I hadn’t been that angry for a long time, and I think the way it kept raging up in me freaked me out as much as the bombing itself. I’d look at the children in my class and imagine them like the children in that awful photograph: you know, the one with the naked little girl running down the road, screaming. All that week, every chance I got, I’d go into the bathroom, lock myself into a stall, and just sit there till I could calm down.

  Even so, I’d have been okay – I think we’d have been okay – if Bridget hadn’t come. I was so depleted when school finally let out for break that I probably would have spent Christmas Eve sleeping. Maybe we’d have had an argument when you got back from Evansville, but that probably would have been a good thing. People in healthy, adult relationships argue. They negotiate.

  Which is something I didn’t do with Charlie, either, I see now.

  But Bridget –

  She came.

  You’d told me more than once that I didn’t see her clearly, and you were right. I saw what I wanted and needed to see. But even when I knew full well that what she was doing was crazy or wrong, I’d think of how she befriended me that first day, how my whole life changed because of it – and I was incapable of putting any emotional distance between us. Something else I see now is that I loved her as completely and irrationally as you loved me.

  When I got home that afternoon and found her at the house, I knew there was something really wrong. Her hair, the clothes she was wearing. The kitchen curtains had been drawn – we always kept them open. There was the fact that she’d come by Greyhound Bus; where was her car? And, of course, that she asked me to lie to you about having split with Cam.

  I was stupid. I just wanted us all to be together for a few days, happy – like we were that fall we first met. I longed for that time so much, so often, and couldn’t admit to myself that – even then – it was already a lifetime ago. I knew I should have told you the truth that night when I came to bed: that she was still with Cam, that she’d mentioned some kind of “action” coming down. I owed you that. You were my best friend, the most important person in the world to me. I trusted you more than anyone. I felt horrible about lying to you, but once I’d done it, it seemed to me I couldn’t go back – and I was pissed off at you for thinking the problem of Bridget could be solved by my going to Evansville with you.

  Oh, God. It was so long ago. I was so wrong – about everything. Including the ridiculous idea that you should have been able to read my mind. But I still can’t help thinking, how could you have not known that I needed you to stay with me?

  22

  “Helpless”

  FROM TGilbert@gilbertlaw.com

  TO JBMI65@aol.com

  SUBJECT Re: Then

  DATE SENT Mon, Dec 3, 2002 8:12 AM

  I hate to think how many times I’ve run it all through my head, thinking, what if I hadn’t gone? What if I’d come back that night, like I should have? The only thing I know for sure is that if I’d been there and been the one who woke up and heard Bridget leave, I’d have let her go. I was sick to death of her by then – all the fucking melodrama about her love life, her political tantrums, her moral outrage about every little thing. And, okay, since we’re coming clean here, I was pissed off at you, too. I just didn’t get the thing with my mom; that was part of it. But mainly I was pissed off because you kept taking Bridget in. All the time she lived with us, right from the start, I wanted her to leave.

  But if I’d said, “Okay, I’m done. It’s me or Bridget,” I wasn’t sure which one of us you’d choose.

  I was glad every time she went away. And, yeah, we were friends in high school. I liked her family; they were always good to me. But I swear to God that, by then, if Bridget had gone and blown herself up that night all alone, I wouldn’t have been that sorry.

  Even after all this time, there’s no way I can explain how I felt Christmas morning when I got home and you were gone. You’d made your choice, I thought – and without even leaving me a note to tell me why. I didn’t know about the bombing until a couple of hours later, when the guy next door stopped by with some cookies his wife had made and mentioned it, and the fact that a body had been found. I called the police. What else could I do? I told them that Bridget had been here, that you were missing. For three days, until what was left of Bridget was finally identified, I was afraid you were the one who died – and all I could think was that if it wasn’t you and if I ever saw Bridget again I’d kill her myself. I think I would have, too. But then I’d think, if it wasn’t you, if you did make it out alive, then you’d gone off with Cameron. Which, it turned out, was true.

  You asked how could I not have known that you needed me to stay that Christmas Eve. I did know. You were pissed at me for asking you to go; I was pissed at you for being stubborn about not going with me. Then Bridget came and the whole thing shifted and I felt like you’d chosen to spend Christmas with her instead of me. So, stupidly, I left, mad, and drank too much at the fucking country club and had to stay the night. I blame myself for that.

  But here’s what I want to know. After you got away from Cameron, why didn’t you come back? Didn’t you know I’d want you back, no matter what?

  FROM JBMI65@aol.com

  TO TGilbert@gilbertlaw.com

  SUBJECT Re: Then

  DATE SENT Tues, Dec 4, 2002 1:17 AM

  I knew. There wasn’t a moment I didn’t want to come back. When I think about it now, it seems totally obvious that I should have called you the second I got away from Cam. You’d have come for me, we’d have figured out what to do together. But then, so many things seem obvious to me now.

  This is such a strange age, isn’t it? The way, suddenly, you have this long view of your life – like the map of a journey that had no map when were traveling it. You see how clearly one road led to the next and the next. You see what mattered. You, Bridget, Claire. That was it for me – and my mother-in-law, Jo, who was the real reason I ended up where I am. If I hadn’t encountered her by chance, I don’t know how much longer I could have just wandered, resisting the temptation to come back to you, regardless of the consequences. Because, like you said, I always knew where you would be.

  Funny. Now it’s news 24/7. You can find out anything, anywhere, any time. Then, we didn’t know, couldn’t safely try to find out what had actually happened after the bomb exploded. I remember that afterwards Cam had the radio on in the car, listening for news. There was one report in the morning: the damage done, an unidentified body found, not even any speculation about who might be responsible. But the station faded away as we got farther and farther from Bloomington, and was completely gone by the time we crossed over into Illinois. Then, within days, the bombing in Vietnam stopped, there was serious talk of the war really, finally ending – and what Bridget did turned out to be such a small story, after all. Buried in the back pages of the newspapers. She would have hated that.

  I was scared to death the whole time I was with him. He convinced me the FBI was looking for me. He made me handle guns and documents so my fingerprints would be on them. The thing is, though, getting caught, going to prison, wasn’t what scared me the most – some part of me would have been thankful for a clear punishment for what I’d done. What terrified me was coming back to the mess I’d made of my life. I couldn’t even bear to
think about it. I knew you loved me, I knew you’d want me to come back, but I couldn’t see how I could let you forgive me when I knew I could never forgive myself.

  For the longest time after I got away from Cam, I just drifted. Northern California, Oregon, Idaho. I waited tables in crappy little nowhere places. I’d save up a couple hundred dollars, enough to move on. I had to keep moving, I thought. When I thought about all I’d done, all I’d lost, I’d make myself stop – and eventually I did stop. Altogether. Which amazes me now. I mean, all those years. How could I have just . . . forgotten? After Claire decided on Bloomington, I started having dreams about the night of the bombing, but I didn’t actually think about it – or what happened afterwards. I didn’t dare.

  I still wonder if Bridget meant for me to follow her – and, if she did, whether it was to force me, finally, to act on what I said I believed or to make me save her from herself. She never told me what she planned to do or asked me to help – though, of course, she’d used me, used both of us, appearing like she did, knowing we’d be implicated once the bomb had gone off. I was angry and upset with you about Evansville. She knew that. She knew I was distraught about the bombing in Vietnam. Maybe she purposely reeled me in, playing on my guilt for doing nothing about the war, on my worst fears about us – that, ultimately, you’d choose the life your parents raised you to lead. And where would that leave me?

  Even so, when I left the house that night, it wasn’t a political act, it so wasn’t about being angry at you. I followed Bridget to try to stop her from whatever she was setting out to do. When I couldn’t stop her, I stayed with her because, stupidly, I believed I could somehow keep her safe.