by E. M. Kokie
I can’t say it again. If I say it again, I’m gonna go insane.
“OK, not why,” she says. “I get why.”
Great. “Does everyone know?”
“Pretty much.” She nods, picking at the edge of the bedspread with her nail.
Terrific. Every time I think it can’t get worse, it does. Screw it. I’m not going back. They can fail me.
“Matt, even the kids who usually suck up to Pinscher and sign his petitions and stuff get that he went too far.”
My head’s gonna explode. “Went too far?” Pounding in my ears. It’s not a fucking matter of degrees. “Went too . . . Is that what Michael said, that the asshole ‘went too far’? Do you think that there is any fucking —?”
“Calm down.” Her hands fly up in front of her. “I get it. I do. It’s just . . .” She trails off, shrugging a little.
Whatever Michael said to her, I know he doesn’t get it, so maybe she doesn’t, either. “Went too far,” like just the shirt would have been OK? Or maybe a shirt with all the names but T.J.’s? It wasn’t about “too far.” It was about right and wrong. I wasn’t wrong.
That first punch, the moment of impact, the crunch and the flood of blood. I feel sick.
“I’m just so tired,” I say, “of everything.”
“I know,” she says, smoothing the spot next to her.
I can’t. I can’t talk anymore. And I definitely can’t sit on the bed with her. Or pretend everything is OK.
Crap. Dad’s truck in the driveway.
Shauna’s up and in motion, all thoughts of talking forgotten. She’s never really felt comfortable around Dad, but it’s been worse since the funeral.
I get her out the side door just before Dad comes in the front.
THE NEXT MORNING I WAKE WITH A HEART-CLENCHING jolt. Dad’s voice bellows down. All the blood rushes to the top of my head and pounds there, trying to get out. I was in the middle of a dream, a Shauna dream, a good one.
“Did you hear me? Get your ass up here!”
7:27 a.m. Shit. I’m gonna be late for work.
I skip the shower in favor of breakfast. Takes all of ten minutes to brush my teeth, throw on some clothes, and be up in the kitchen wolfing down a bowl of cereal.
Partway through the second bowl, I hear Dad’s feet on the stairs. Too late to get my boots on and slip out the side door, I finish my cereal.
Dad looks over his shoulder at me on the way to the coffee.
“Saw your girlfriend’s car last night. Didn’t hear her leave, though. What, you sneak her out after I went to bed, or was it this morning?”
Dad’s leer broadcasts all the things he’s thinking: all of them disgusting.
“Just be careful,” he says, his chest all puffed out, almost swaggering over to the table, tossing the newspaper open as he yanks out his chair. “Her family can’t afford another mouth to feed, and I’ll be damned if I finally get your ass in gear just to have you piss it all away.”
I should correct him, for her sake, her honor or whatever. But I can’t make myself do it, for mine. His thinking we’re having sex means maybe he worries a little less that he has to make a man out of me. There’s something vomit-inducingly wrong about lusting after your best friend. But letting your fucked-up father think you’re screwing her is a million times worse.
“You hear me?”
I snap my chin to chest and up again, like he does.
“I want to hear you say it.”
I swallow hard around the guilt. “I hear you.”
“OK, then.” He beams and cuffs my shoulder as he struts past.
“Working tomorrow?” Dad asks.
I shovel in more cereal, slurping out a “No.”
“Good,” Dad says. “Don’t make plans. Storm windows should’ve been down a month ago.”
Oh, joy. Time for the biannual fun fest of pinched fingers and rusty scrapes, not to mention a whole afternoon of frustrating Dad by failing to follow his orders fast enough.
“Hey.”
I wipe my face into a blank mask and nod my understanding.
“Finals in a week and a half?”
He knows they are, but I nod again.
“Better get studying. You fail and we are going to have a serious problem.”
Failure equals dead. Sure thing. Got it. Thanks for the pep talk, Dad.
“I looked into it. GED won’t cut it for the better assignments, and if you’re gonna have any chance at all to advance through the ranks, you’ll need to start off right.”
Of course. OCS is out, but he’s just tweaking the plan. Not giving up the dream. Not Dad. Already thinking beyond enlistment and Basic, like they’re a foregone conclusion.
“You hear me?”
I grit my teeth. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now you better haul ass over to the site. Roger’s not paying you to stroll in whenever it suits you.” I shovel in one last mouthful. Then one more. “Now,” Dad commands, glancing at the clock.
I drop my bowl in the sink and grab my boots, start shoving them on as fast as I can. But he’s staring, and I can’t find the right feet.
“If you can’t get yourself up and —”
The doorbell.
“— to work on time . . .” He trails off into a head-shaking sigh. I struggle to get my right foot into my boot.
Someone knocks on the front door.
Dad glares, pissed, like that helps me get out of here any faster.
Another round of knocks.
Screw the laces. I grab my backpack and head for the side door.
Outside, I go to lock the door, and don’t have my keys. Shit. Not in my pockets. Must be on the counter. I debate going without them, but I can’t leave it unlocked, and who knows what time he’ll be home.
I open the side door as quietly as I can. Skip the squeaky step and inch into the kitchen.
“Mr. Foster.”
What the hell is CAO Cooper doing here?
“Come in.” Dad’s voice is brittle.
I lean until I can see around the door frame.
Dad’s staring at whatever Cooper’s —
A dolly — with two black footlockers. Cooper turns and grabs another one off the front porch. Three. Army-issue footlockers.
“I’m glad we could finally arrange to deliver your son’s effects.”
My knees hit the floor.
Dad doesn’t talk. Or move. He just stares. Cooper turns and grabs a box off the porch, holds it for a moment, obviously waiting for my father to say something, and then puts it on top of the footlocker on the floor.
“Why don’t we sit down,” Cooper says, motioning toward the living room, a large envelope in his hands. “We can go through the inventory, and the report, and then —”
“No,” Dad scrapes out. “That — that won’t be necessary. I’ll just sign the receipt or whatever forms and look at it later.” He holds out his hand. Not even going to sit down.
Cooper holds the envelope like a shield. “Of course, that’s fine, if that’s what you want. But it might help for you, and Matt”— he looks at me until Dad looks —“to have a chance to ask questions or . . .”
Dad just holds out his hand. Cooper knows when he’s beat. He opens the envelope. I stare at the footlockers.
I can’t move. Or breathe.
“Top of the stairs,” Dad says. Sounds like he hasn’t spoken in days. “First room on the right.”
My arms stop working.
Top of the stairs . . . T.J.’s room.
Cooper picks up the cardboard box. Taps his fingers against the side. “This is the commemorative chest we talked about. I know you were hesitant, but your family is entitled — and later you might want it. If you’re not sure, you can unpack it and take a look, try putting some of your son’s things in it, his uniform, the flag, his medals. Or you can leave it boxed up until you decide. If in a few weeks you really don’t want it, I’ll come back and get it. No problem. But you, or someone, might want it later. So
, just think about it.”
Cooper disappears up the stairs before Dad can balk.
Cooper makes more trips. My eyes follow the footlockers out of sight, and I flinch each time one lands on the floor of T.J.’s room above me.
The third thud shakes me loose. I push myself up, grab the edge of the table to keep from falling over.
“Well,” Cooper says, picking up the forms Dad signed, “if you have any questions, any at all, you know how to reach me.” He looks my way. “Anytime.” He focuses on Dad again. “If I don’t hear from you, I’ll get in touch in a few weeks to make sure there’s nothing else I can assist you with.”
Dad stares at the wall. Cooper waits.
Finally, Dad looks Cooper in the eye. “Thank you.” And that might as well be good-bye.
Cooper shakes Dad’s hand. Nods my way. And he’s gone.
I push myself out of the kitchen, pinballing off the wall for support.
Dad hasn’t moved — he’s still holding the door partway open.
Then he closes it and turns to look up the stairs.
He stands at the bottom of the stairs, hand on the banister, one foot on the first step.
I’m dizzy, and sick, but standing.
He heaves himself onto the first step and up.
I stagger after him, pulled along as if he’s towing me up the stairs.
Dad’s in front of the open door to T.J.’s room. I want to run past him and lock myself in there until he leaves, but my legs won’t work. I push against the wall, force myself up two more steps. It feels like walking against a strong current, sinking ankle deep into the mud with every step.
A soft click. My knees buckle and I land on the step. Dad rests his hands on the worn wood of the closed door. T.J.’s stuff on the other side. Stuff I didn’t even think we’d get. Stuff Dad hasn’t hidden or gotten rid of yet.
A vise clamps around my ribs; my lungs can’t work.
Dad turns, marches away from the door, then leaps, startled when he sees me. He steadies himself against the wall.
The dim hallway hides his face, but his whole body surges up and his hands grip and flex in the air. He stomps down the stairs so fast I stumble backward to get out of his way.
I try to follow, but I can’t. I have to go up there, now. If I don’t . . . My legs tremble. He closed the door.
I watch each step down the stairs, one foot in front of the other, waiting to wake up or breathe or get my brain to work. I need to figure out what to do. What if I’m still asleep? Downstairs, in my room, asleep, and I wake up and there’s nothing upstairs in T.J.’s room?
Dad’s standing at the sink, rinsing out his mug, as if nothing happened.
He turns to look at me. I wait for it, hoping that maybe, maybe this time, he’ll get it. He’ll let me . . . Even if he said “Later,” it would be enough. Something. He hardens his eyes. Warning me off. Warning me off even asking, or letting on that any of this just happened. Unbelievable. I knew it, and still, fucking unbelievable.
He reaches for his keys.
“Dad?” I hate my voice.
“Yes?”
“But . . .”
“What?” Hard. Angry already.
I try to form a question that won’t get me thrown through a wall.
Dad does his best to make sure I don’t feel like asking any questions. When I start to work my mouth anyway, he turns — full frontal challenge.
“What?” Begging me to say a word
“Dad . . .” I can feel my eyes looking up, like I can see through the ceiling. My throat burns, locked tight. Eyes sting.
He’s over me, in my face, so close I have to step back, wedged between him and the wall.
“You mind your own fucking business, you hear me?”
“But . . .”
“No.”
Dad holds his ground. I have no choice. No way I can get at them now. And if I stay, if I fight with him . . . he might haul them out right in front of me.
I back down, look at my feet. Shake my head. Act as whipped as I can. For now. I need time to regroup. I retreat. Grab my backpack and leave, without looking back.
I walk to the site in a daze. All the way there, and for most of the morning, I keep turning it all over in my head. I’m such an idiot. Dad, and Uncle Mac, and Aunt Janelle — everyone — called that bag T.J.’s personal effects. When months went by with nothing else, I thought that’s all we were gonna get. But now there’s more — three footlockers full — but for how long? How long until Dad moves them, too? Or gets rid of them, if that’s what he did with the rest?
I’m pretty sure that bag was in the hutch for weeks, until he moved it, maybe because of how I looked at it sometimes. And the flag — it was up in T.J.’s closet for months. And the pictures. He waited until just a few weeks ago to get rid of the pictures. But he won’t wait so long this time. Not now. Not after this morning.
I’ll risk the beat-down, if it’s what has to happen, to get something of T.J. back. The bag’s either hidden somewhere or gone. Either way, I can search for it later. Right now, I’ve got to get into those footlockers.
SATURDAY SUCKS. HARD. BESIDES DAD’S FRUSTRATIONS and glares, by the time we’re done with the storm windows I’m covered in sweat, grime, and stinging scrapes. And my shoulder’s throbbing.
I keep up my kicked-puppy act the whole time. Biting my cheek when I have to. The longer he thinks I’m the old, beat-down me, the longer it’ll take him to get rid of the trunks. I checked them last night, just for a second, just to be sure. They’re still upstairs, for now.
Dad heads back inside while I clean up, hauling the windows back to the storage shed and then winding up the hose. Dad had plans to go out tonight. I hope he still does, that I’ve acted whipped enough not to tip him off. If I’ve blown it, I have no idea what I’ll do. I can’t wait. Not for long.
Dad’ll be around Monday — Memorial Day. No way we’re “celebrating,” but no way he can work, either. No sites to inspect on a national holiday. We’ll both be here, pretending nothing’s happening. Be like him to get rid of it all tomorrow, if he’s leaning that way. And even if he doesn’t, after tonight I’ll only have after school, when I’m not working, unless I cut. And if I cut, I’m screwed. Has to be tonight.
I can’t stop thinking about what could be in the footlockers — the sweatshirt with the ripped front pocket T.J. wore everywhere. The pictures he took when he was over there, maybe even a couple pics of him. His camera. His CDs and iPods. Please, let his iPods be in there.
I kick off my muddy shoes on the porch and wipe off the worst of the crud before going inside. Dad’s standing at the counter, drinking a glass of water.
His white shirt is starched crisp, the pocket sealed to the shirt and the cuffs sharp, and he smells like a sweet cedar closet from a healthy dousing of his favorite cologne. Those aren’t poker night or hanging-around-with-Uncle-Mac clothes. Either Dad has an actual date or he’s hoping to find one later.
He flashes a grin on his way to the door. Damn near whistling. He might as well have said, “See you tomorrow.”
If he does come home tonight, no idea how late he’ll be, but I’d bet he’ll be gone at least a few hours. And he never brings anyone here, at least not until he’s been seeing them for a while. Really no way of knowing if he’s got all-night plans or just hopes to have an all-night plan soon.
And he might already have plans to get rid of the footlockers.
What if I wake up tomorrow and he’s hauling them out the door?
Or come home sometime next week and they’re gone?
Like the bag. Like the flag. Like the pictures.
If I don’t do it now, tonight, I might never get the chance.
I wait just long enough to be sure Dad’s date isn’t gonna crap out, text Shauna to blow off our plans, and then start for the upstairs.
Standing at the bottom of the steps, it’s like a rush.
Every step is a separate defiance.
Four long
strides from the landing to the spot right in front of the door to T.J.’s room.
I spent eight years living in the room behind me, more than two of them staring at this closed door and wanting to be inside. Wondering whether T.J. would let me in if I knocked. Wondering if I could get in and get whatever, look at whatever, before T.J. came home, the fear of being caught clogging my throat. How many times did I sit here in the hallway, reading a comic book or playing a game, waiting for him? Most of those times he stepped over me, walked into that room, and shut the door behind him, without a word.
It takes me three tries to make myself actually touch the doorknob. But once I turn the cold metal, the door swings wide like someone pulled it open from the inside. I stare into the room. T.J.’s old bed. His desk. His dresser.
It looks pretty much the way it did when T.J. left for Basic, only dustier. Same plaid bedspread and nearly flat pillow barely making a lump. Same faded posters and stuff on the walls: Dave Matthews Band between the closet and the door; some pages cut from magazines, mainly Rolling Stone; the huge-ass Bruce Springsteen rocking out over his desk, the Born in the U.S.A. album cover blown up and stretched across the far wall, and the Human Touch album poster on the wall next to his bed; and smaller pics and ticket stubs and notes and stuff on the corkboard. I can practically hear T.J.’s music radiating from the walls.
Stacks of CDs overflow the rack next to the desk. In the far corner, a few boxes T.J. left before his first tour in Iraq and never bothered to take with him later.
Crossing into the room feels wrong, and not just because I haven’t been in here in a few months or because Dad would pummel me if he found out.
No, it feels wrong because it still feels like T.J.’s. Like he’s deployed on an extra-long tour and could be home anytime. Or like the times between deployments — he didn’t stay here for more than a few weeks at a time, but this was still his room.
The clock in the living room ding-dongs its quarter time. I don’t know quarter after or to what, but it’s enough to make me step over the dividing line of competing carpets and into the room.
The cardboard box — Cooper said that’s the commemorative chest. Waiting to be filled, meaning there’s nothing in there now. It can wait.
