Homefront

by Kristen Tsetsi

  “Mia! I will call the landlord. Or the police!”

  “I’m okay,” I say, but nothing comes out, so I say again, louder, “I’m okay,” and she says, “If you are sure,” and I hear her go down the stairs.

  I imagine her in her sunlit apartment with the yellow mug I left outside her door and that white hair, eating a piece of toast or a banana, dancing in her living room or putting together her things before leaving for a fun day of…whatever it is she does during the day. She’s already forgotten me and here I still am, my body a rock, despair confined to the bathroom instead of bleeding under the door into some kind of collective unconscious, as I believe it should. Are we not connected, after all?

  Chancey pokes half a paw under the door. I reach out a finger and he clutches it, then lets go. He must be looking for something. A toy, a string. I scratch the door with a nail and watch his foot searching for the source of the noise. Through the floor, I hear Safia humming cheerfully over running water. She taps something—her toothbrush?—and the water stops, her song fading with her footsteps as she walks to another part of her apartment.

  Not for the first time, I hate her.

  Chancey accidentally snags my skin and I pound a fist on the floor and say, without as much force as I feel, “Chancey.” The pounding scares him enough and his back claws slide on the slippery floor when he scampers to hide. I want to smash his little head, but I don’t, not really, and tears start fresh when I think of his paw drawing away from me. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” I say. “Chancey, baby. Chancey.” I shift focus from the rug to the gap under the door and see his nose, mouth, and whiskers. “Hi,” I say. I stick my finger under the door and he backs off.

  “Chancey! You shitbag little shit. Sit under the goddamn bed until you die, for all I care.”

  I pet the rug. Stare at the floor. Take out one of my earrings and roll it around on the loops.

  Lying here isn’t enough, anymore.

  I throw off the curtain and stand up, dizzy. The sink keeps me steady until the spinning passes, and then I open the door. Chancey, who had only gone as far as my bedroom door, skulks—his stomach an inch from the floor, shoulder blades jutting like fins from his back—into the closet. I follow only as far as the vanity and take William’s lighter—the only one I haven’t lost—from the bowl it’s been in since Brian’s visit and bring it to the living room.

  The Christmas tree stands in a perpetually tilted state, most of its dead needles still clinging, branches holding strong under the light weight of decorative balls and ornaments. No water pools in the stand because it has long since evaporated or been lapped up.

  I can’t have the tree out back in the woods, so close, a reminder of him, or of him and me. I read somewhere, once, that death doesn’t really exist. It’s not an ‘end,’ but a energy’s change in form. If there is any energy left in the tree, it must be struggling to escape the cage of dried, damaged bark.

  I don’t bother to remove the decorations before holding a flame under a low branch. One of Jake’s ornaments, a hard molded teddy bear stuffed in a camouflage knit stocking, blackens at the heel and is quickly followed into the fire by one of mine and, in an instant, the full tree. Whoomp! I tear out my earring and toss it in, then hurry for the one still on the bathroom floor and throw it in, too.

  The flames are tree-shaped, wide base to narrow tip, and dance to a melody I can almost hear, if I turn my head just so. In seconds, the tree will disappear completely, and might never have been here at all. With no remaining evidence—like the bird Jake hadn’t been able to save from Chancey the first and last time we’d let him outside, beak and feet and bones all barbarically ingested—who can confidently say that it ever was? that it ever sat in our living room under cheerful white lights with presents—my earrings, my not-engagement ring—decorated in Santa-faced paper and piled around it on the floor?

  I run to the closet and tear through the Christmas box until I find the crushed star, accidentally stepped on after I told Jake I thought it was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, but then saved by Jake in case it could be salvaged for next year.

  I toss it into the flames. It burns fast.

  “Star bright.” That strikes me as funny. I giggle.

  In the distance, a smoke alarm screams and someone is pounding on a door and voices ramble incoherently. I squint at the firelight and scoot back a few feet from the heat, and the cliché of hypnotic flames proves true when I find myself jolting at a sudden grasp on my shoulder.

  “…are you doing?!”

  There are five or six, including Safia and Paul, but only Paul thinks to grab the small extinguisher from where it hangs in the kitchen. The others stand out in the hallway, craning their necks to look into the room, while he sprays the shelves (which latched onto the flame pretty early and continue to burn) and the wall behind where the tree once stood, until half of my living room is covered in foam.

  I listen for sirens, angry that one of them probably called the fire department. I don’t want to be bothered with all of that.

  “Are you okay?” Safia kneels beside me, and the rest of the neighbors—strangers to me, people I have seen once or twice each in passing, except for the red-haired girl, who might be smiling—file away with sideways glances at me.

  I nod and say, “I’m okay,” and, “Did anyone dial nine-one-one?”

  Safia shakes her head. “There was no time, and now everything is okay.”

  Paul carries the extinguisher into the kitchen, then comes back out to stand behind his wife.

  “What happened?” she says while looking at the downed TV.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It was an accident. I was lighting a cigarette, and I guess I was too close to the tree.”

  Paul says, “They go up like tissue when they’re dry like that.”

  “You are sitting there,” she says. “just beside the tree when we come in. Why did you not call out or answer the door? We could all have died.”

  “Shock, I think,” I say. “But thank goodness you all showed up. Thank you. You saved my life. And Chancey’s, too. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “It was nothing,” says Paul. “You need us to do anything? Want to come downstairs and take a breather from the smoke?”

  “Oh, no,” I say. “I’ll open a window. And I should clean up and make sure there are no…uh…embers. I’m okay.”

  He laughs. “No embers here. I foamed the hell out of that fire.” He lightly tugs Safia’s hair. “Ready?”

  She nods and gives me a brief hug. “Please, come if you need something.”

  Her accent bothers me today, and I don’t know why. The more I hear it, the more pronounced it seems and I’m starting to wonder if she’s faking. “If you don’t mind,” I say, “where are you from, anyway?” The ‘anyway’ made me sound rude, but there’s nothing I can do about that, now. And I guess I don’t care.

  She tells me, then waits for me to respond.

  “What made you come here?”

  “What do you think?”

  “What town?”

  She tells me.

  “That’s where Jake is,” I say, barely registering how utterly strange it is that, with a whole country at the situation’s disposal, Jake is in the same town where Safia grew up.

  She blinks and pats my hand. “Again,” she says. “If you need something…”

  “No. Really. Thanks.”

  She gets up and takes Paul’s hand and they leave.

  The wall and a quarter of the ceiling are a beautiful gray-black and the air smells like evergreen and soot. Dried foam covers much of the floor.

  I hear the door to their apartment close and their voices murmur through the wood. I get on my hands and knees and put my ear to the floor.

  “…didn’t you just tell her why you came?. . . ‘Why do you think’ will make her..”

  “…fine,” she says.

  “…curious. So bad…came to live here for me?”

  Silence, then, “No,
it is not, but…”—they move to a room where I can’t hear them, and then they return, their voices louder—“not the only reason, and you know.”

  “Of course I know. We…week without being reminded. How about a thank you? ‘Thank…help, Paul.’ That’s all I want.”

  She says, with exaggerated enunciation, “Thank you for your help, Paul.”

  A door slams, and then another. I shuffle on my knees to the window. Paul slides into his car and shuts the door and sits there for a long time before starting the engine and pulling onto the street.

  I wonder what ‘help’ means and why she did come here. I hadn’t thought about it before. People move to America for any number of reasons, and I must have assumed hers was to be with Paul. But, what of that other reason?

  She could be a sympathizer, but that requires no help, unless…

  That she is a woman means nothing. They’ve been as likely to work alone as they have to work with or for men.

  Her clothes, her hair, all gradually altered to make her indistinguishable in a crowd. Who would notice—or be suspicious of—a blonde in a baseball cap?

  I used to think the warnings were silly propaganda that brought to mind a passage from a book on Jungian philosophy I was assigned to read in college. The subject matter focused on the methods governments use to gain the public’s backing for war. Something about degrading the enemy’s moral character while painting them as omnipotent so the public is encouraged to believe they must be stopped at any cost. Should there still be any doubt, the supposed and likely exaggerated threat of their power is used as a reminder to us that we must kill them, and that while we’re doing it, there’s absolutely no reason to feel guilty. We’re just defending ourselves, after all.

  The textbook specifically referred to the Soviet empire as the enemy in question, but how do I know the writer’s intent wasn’t to turn Americans against their own government? To have Americans, at the very least, questioning their faith in the administration they created?

  My lack of faith is beyond the questioning stage, and yet…yet…Safia could—but, could she?—be one of the people they warn us about. Be aware of your surroundings, they say, because another attack is imminent, but they don’t know where or when. It could be in a city, or it could be in sleepy, small-town America. Your small town. And this town, while small, is home to one of the country’s most historically famous Army divisions.

  The door to Safia’s apartment opens, then closes, and I hear footsteps on the stairs.

  I get up and lock the door. My socks stick like gauze to the dried blood on my feet. She knocks and says, “Mia?”

  I hold my breath.

  She knocks again. “Mia, are you there?”

  I feel her standing out there, waiting.

  “Here,” she says sliding a folded piece of paper under the door. “So you do not forget. Please come.” She waits for another moment before going down the stairs. Her feet fall in soft scrapes like she’s wearing slippers.

  Her door closes and I pick up the protest flier and affix it to the refrigerator with a Times Square magnet.

  ________

  To: Jake.Lakeland@army.net 10 May / 5:09pm

  Subject: Answer me

  Jake,

  Are you okay?

  Don’t play with me, anymore. I have to know you’re out there. You don’t know what it’s like not hearing from you. Part of me wishes I’d never found out about email. I’m more worried now than I ever was, but not about your safety. About us. Is there still an “us”?

  I hate not knowing.

  Mia

  p.s. I did something. It’s almost all gone. We still have what we need, but I just couldn’t have it around, anymore. You know? So, I finally got rid of the tree, and the TV won’t be upsetting me. I think it’s important to have no television, don’t you? They make you crazy with it.

  M.

  p.p.s.. I forgot about the one in the bedroom. It’s taken care of now, too.

  MAY 16, FRIDAY

  Wrrrr, wrrr. Paul’s remote control car jumps a mound he made from surrounding dirt in the lot across the street, then speeds out of control and slams into a light pole. He rushes over to check it for damage. I watch a car resembling Brian’s pass under my kitchen window and catch a glimpse of Brian inside. He stops at the stop sign and revs the engine while he waits for the intersection to clear. I make out a set of smooth knees in the passenger seat.

  I wonder if Denise knows.

  She must be back by now. It’s been over a week.

  I take my glass with me to the phone and dial her number.

  “Hi—it’s me….Just making sure you’re okay—you know, after everything…I just saw you and Brian passing by in his car, in case you’re wondering how I knew you were home…That was you, right?. . . Give me a call—we’ll have a drink, or something.”

  ________

  “Mia! Hey, girl…You ever hear that song, ‘I once knew a girl named Mia…’?” A chuckle is followed by the tap of a glass being set on a table. “It ain’t Mia, it’s Maria, but don’t you think it’s got a good ring to it?. . .Yeah, I’m still livin’ it up at the resort with my masseuse and a pretty cabana boy…That enough to get you to visit?…Anyway, c’mon over or give me a call. I’ve got somethin’ for you. This is Donny.”

  I pick up the phone to call him, then put it back down. Later, maybe.

  _______

  A note waits just inside the door, having been slipped under the crack.

  Mia. The handwriting is more masculine than feminine. Paul must have written it. Because we want to make sure we have many people in attendance, the date of the protest has changed to June 10th, but the location will stay the same. –Safia

  MAY 19, MONDAY

  Cold coffee leaves a fuzz coating on my tongue, but I drink it anyway while watching smoke from my cigarette inch toward the flame of an oil lamp balanced on the windowsill. Not for light, but for the hint of a breeze. ‘Uncharacteristic warmth,’ they called it on the news. The weight of humidity alone should have snuffed the flame, but it burns steady.

  I look at the clock—ten in the evening, his time—and give myself ten more minutes before leaving for the grocery store. The change jar has been depleted of all but fifteen cents, and I’m hungry again. This morning I finally dug Jake’s card out of the junk drawer and tore off the strip of paper he taped to the back with his PIN number scratched on it. The number was easy to memorize: nine, one, six, nine. His birthday followed by mine.

  I sit with my back to the living room so I can ignore the television, still facedown on the floor.

  The filter slips from my lips, slimy from random crying, and I catch it before it falls into my lap, but burn the skin between my fingers. I dry my face with the back of my hand and wipe my hand on my shorts.

  Denise calls to ask if I’d like to stop over later for dinner. “I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner. I just got back three days ago,” she says.

  ________

  The grocery store doors slide open to the smell of rotisserie chicken. I roll through the produce section, snatching fat red grapes and shiny, green apples, then head for the meats and fill up with top-cut steaks, double-thick pork chops, lamb chops, and a small rack of ribs. After the meats come the sides: boxes of seasoned stuffing, macaroni and cheese, and a narrow bag of rice pilaf because Jake and I always wondered what it was.

  I snack on grapes from the bag sitting lopsided in the child seat until more than half are gone, then switch to Jake’s crackers because the box will ring up the same price, empty or full. I go back to the produce section and exchange the grapes.

  Jake would want candy, so I go to aisle nine—CANDY, COFFEE, CHIPS, SOFT DRINKS—and look for the bag Olivia tossed into the cart, “Jakey’s favorite”: lollipops. Holding the bag of candy to his chest, Jake once explained the importance of variety before setting the lollipops on a bag of bagels so they wouldn’t get crushed. Once home, the bag’s seal broken, he would pluck out a yellow to start th
e cycle. Lemon was always the first to go, followed by orange, then grape, and finally—his best saved for last—cherry. Cherry is my favorite, too, and when Jake caught me biting at one of the plastic wrappers, he said, “What are you doing?” and watched me, waiting for me to take it out of my mouth and drop it back in the bag. “What?” he said when I stared at him. “They’re mine. You get all the chocolate-chip ice cream.”

  I shift the bag from one hand to the other and it droops over the sides of my palm. I wait for something to happen—a surge of sentiment, anything—but all I feel is annoyed.

  Still no emails, and if he has no time to write, I have no time for a trip to the post office.

  I weave through the store and, item by item, return what would have gone in his care package to the shelves where I found them, then bypass the pharmacy—not today—and pick out some of the most exotic-smelling—and expensive—lotions and shampoos and drop them in the cart. This is the first time I’ve bought them without smelling them first. My stomach can’t handle it today. But, I remember. They smell good.

  ________

  The air works well in Denise’s house. Too well. My hands, when they’re not holding a fork and knife, are tucked under my thighs. My hot kitchen would feel pretty good.

  “Thank you for bringing the pilaf,” she says with odd formality, cutting into a tender slab of swordfish. “It turned out to be the perfect side, don’t you think?”

  I don’t know what the perfect side for swordfish is and didn’t know Denise knew, either. “It’s good,” I say.