by E. M. Kokie
Oh. Celia’s brother. A little older than in the pictures, and with the start of a scruffy beard, and glasses, but definitely him.
“Oh, uh, hi.” I carefully put the picture back where it was, adjusting it until it’s exactly like I found it. “I was just looking at the pictures.”
“I think she has some albums set aside to look through with you,” he says, staring at the pictures on the table. “Some pictures of your brother.”
I want to say something, but nothing seems right, with the twisting sick feeling in my stomach and the itching desire to see the pictures she’s put aside right now.
“So, you’re Celia’s brother, right?” I take a large sip of my soda and push my hand out to shake hello.
“Uh, no. I’m Will. Celia’s husband.”
HIS HAND IS STRETCHED OUT TOWARD ME, BUT MY HAND falls away before we touch. The bubbles sting my nose. I try to swallow without choking.
“Will?” I sputter and gasp around the burning sensation. “Husband?”
But Will . . . in the letters . . . I thought Will was married to Missy. A different Will? Unless he’s not with Missy, or not with her anymore?
“Yeah,” he says slowly, drawing the word out. He thrusts his fingers through his hair. “She said she was going to have time to talk with you for a while before I got home. Guess that didn’t happen? Damn.”
I look back at the picture. At all the pictures. Watching them realign. Yeah, a wedding — theirs: Celia and Will’s. But in that picture with her and T.J., the vacation one, he’s with them, on vacation. T.J. knew him. She married this guy, not even . . . When? When did she? I look at the wedding picture again. Celia is younger. Will’s younger. Oh, God. My eyes fly over the images in frames. Pictures of Will and Celia, Will and Zoe. On the wall above the table, more pictures. One with him holding a tiny baby while Celia looks on.
“Here, Matt, sit down. I’ll go get. . . . Just sit.”
The glass is removed from my fingers, and I’m nudged toward the couch. But I can’t move. The pictures. There are no pictures of just T.J. and Zoe. None of just T.J. and Celia, either. Like . . . almost like . . . Oh, God, I am a fucking moron. Have to leave. Get out, before they come back. Bag. Where’s my bag? . . .
“Matt?”
Worried voice. Fast footsteps.
“Oh, God, Matt, I wanted to have a chance to talk before . . . Come on and sit down.”
“Sorry.” That’s my voice. “Sorry — I’ve made a big mistake. I . . .” Dizzy. “I found the picture, of you and Zoe, in T.J.’s stuff, and the letters . . .” Did they have an affair? God, does Will know? He can’t know — he was nice. Shit. Need to leave.
I look at her. Her eyes, wet and sad. But knowing. She knows what I thought. She knew. Before I got here. This afternoon. She knew and she let me come here anyway. She lied to me.
“You thought we were together,” she says, “Theo and me, and that Zoe was his.” It’s gentle, and not even a question, and it burns. “No, we weren’t. And Zoe isn’t his daughter, but she loved him. She called him Uncle T. Come on and sit down. We need to talk.”
What the hell? “Why did you invite me here, if . . . ?” God, she must think I’m really stupid.
“Wait.”
Before I can get to the door, she grabs my arm. I shake her off but she reaches again, and her words start to filter through the raging in my head.
“I wanted to be able to talk to you, talk it through. Forgive me, but I didn’t think springing all this on you in the library was a good idea.”
Something in her tone, and the all this, pulls me back. The tingle down my neck. The need to know what all this means. “All this?”
“Yes,” she says, “all this.” She holds out one of the pictures from the table.
I don’t want to take it. Not even sure if I trust myself to take it. But she’s insistent. As soon as I reach for it, she takes a step back toward the couch. I have to follow. Once seated, she lays the picture frame down on the table in front of me. She reaches her hands toward me, like she’s gonna touch me, but stops. I can’t help but stare at her hands, still too close to me. She’s talking. All these words. Nothing’s making sense.
“So, I’m sorry, about Will,” she says, then grimaces. “Well, not about him, just that you met him before we could talk.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me in the library? I mean, how hard would it have been to say . . . ?” I trail off because I don’t know what the truth is. Will is Celia’s husband. Has been her husband for a while. Man, Will is Zoe’s dad. So what were Celia and T.J.? An affair? Do I want to hear this?
“Matt,” she says gently, touching my arm. “There are some things you need to understand. I’m not sure I’m the right person to tell you, but it looks like it’s mine to handle anyway.” She squeezes my arm. “This is actually so much like the both of them, making me do all the hard work so they don’t have to.”
“What?” Them?
She smiles. It’s confusing. “Maybe we should start over.”
“How can we start over? Everything, everything is all wrong.” I can hear my voice rising as my throat tightens. “What the hell were the letters, the . . . Did he know? Did Will know that you . . . ? Did T.J. know, about Will?”
“Of course he knew,” she says gently. Too gently. It pisses me off.
“Then what the hell is with the letters and the love crap? You write all that crap to him when —”
“I didn’t write them.”
“What?” The hell she didn’t. Lying? To protect Will?
“They’re not my letters.”
Bullshit. I can see them, in my head. The address labels. This address. The Love you, C., on every fucking letter. “You signed them. And the envelopes, the return address. I’ve read them. All of them.”
“No, I didn’t,” she says, shaking her head. “I didn’t write the letters.”
My head spins. Love You, C. CELIA CARSON, on the envelopes. “I don’t understand.”
“I know,” she says. After several attempts to say something else, she shifts so she can face me more and starts again. “Your brother could be so stubborn, especially when he was trying to protect someone he cared about. I think he was just trying to protect you.”
I can see him, on that last visit, in the half shadows around the fire. “Protect me from what?”
She pushes her braids over her shoulders, stares at her hands. “How much did he talk about his life here?”
I think hard, sorting back through fragments from lots of conversations from the last few years. “Not a lot, I guess. He never seemed to want to talk about Army stuff, so we talked about . . . other things.” She nods, but her head dips lower over her clasped hands. “I mean, he talked about some stuff, some friends, and, like . . . I knew where he was when he was stationed at home — Georgia, here, but . . . he never even talked about you. If I hadn’t found the letters . . . But if you didn’t . . .”
“Theo and my brother did Basic together. After Basic, they got different advanced-training assignments, but by then . . .”
She smiles, shaking her head, but suddenly her mouth snaps tight and pinched. She looks away. When she looks back, she nods toward the picture, forgotten on the table. I pick it up and look at it. Celia holding Zoe, just like the picture in my pocket, but standing next to them is T.J. and the tall guy from the vacation photos. T.J.’s arm slung over his shoulder. Huge smiles.
“That’s my brother, Curtis,” she says, her finger drifting into my field of vision to point to the guy standing on the other side of T.J. “They met in Basic. With different advanced training assignments, and later different bases, it wasn’t easy to get a lot of time together, especially without drawing attention, but they made it work. Eventually Curtis got assigned to an admin post here. Theo visited as much as he could. He spent a lot of time here between his first and second tours. And when he re-upped after his second tour, he got himself assigned to the closest post he could. In the last few years, The
o practically lived here — next door — with Curtis.”
My hands shake. I pull my picture of Celia and Zoe out of my pocket. A thin blue line along the edge, clearly part of T.J.’s shirt. My picture is only part of a copy of this one.
Celia’s breath hitches. She reaches across me. Her finger traces along the same minuscule line of blue at the edge of my picture. “I guess he cut it down to be able to fit the other piece in his wallet, or somewhere on him. Somewhere close. He’d have kept it close, and hidden.”
There’s a buzzing in my head, thoughts fighting for dominance like swarming bees. All I can do is stare at T.J.’s arm around that guy, Curtis, and try to understand. They’re both smiling, mugging for the camera. Curtis’s arm is wrapped around T.J.’s waist. His shoulder pressed into T.J.’s side. T.J.’s fingers gripping Curtis’s shoulder, tugging Curtis closer. A hard half hug. I can remember what T.J.’s one-armed half hugs felt like. But T.J.’s fingers, digging into Curtis’s arm, are too tight. T.J. never hugged me like that. Like he couldn’t get me close enough.
“The letters,” Celia says, her voice more steady. “Curtis wrote them. It wasn’t safe for them to write each other directly — not with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Too risky, for both of them. A lot of the guys in Theo’s old unit knew, but this last tour he was assigned to a new unit. He didn’t really know them yet. A few he especially worried about. One stray letter, one guy who didn’t like him, and there could be trouble. And because of his position, Curtis was always going to be a target — all it would take is one jerk who didn’t think he got a fair shake . . . So, they used my name instead of his on the envelopes, and Theo sent his letters here.”
Buzzing louder, fighting for space with the pounding, tight in my chest, burn creeping up into my throat. It hits me like a punch to the gut.
“No way.” I drop the picture with a clatter of metal on wood. I’m on my feet. The room sways. I fight to keep my balance, using the nubby arm of the couch for a crutch. Have to get out of here. “You’re a fucking liar.”
“Matt, it’s a lot to take in, I know. But calm down. We’ll talk some more. I’ll try to answer any questions. Curtis will be home soon, and then you can talk to him.”
“Fuck.” I’ve gotta get out of here. She tries to touch me and my arm flails away, knocking stuff over as I stumble and bounce toward the door. “Don’t touch me. I don’t believe a word of this crap.”
“They loved each other,” she says, voice cracking.
“Shut up.” I need to get out.
“We kept telling Theo to tell you,” she says, talking faster, louder. “We thought he was going to tell you, on his last visit, because he said he was ready —”
“Shut the fuck up.” The door won’t open. Knob won’t turn.
“Curtis is devastated. Can you try to understand that?” she rasps through angry tears. “After Theo was killed, he fell apart. He’s really struggled. He’s separated from the Army now, and losing Theo . . . He’s lost even more than —”
“You’re disgusting. Stay away from me.” The door! Get it open!
“Even if you don’t believe me, if you want to leave, please, just let him have his letters,” she pleads. “It would mean so much. . . .”
I get the door open and stumble out into the hall, Celia’s voice and then Will’s trailing behind. I can’t breathe. Need air.
The front door is heavy, and it swings all the way open when I full-body yank on it, slamming into the wall and rattling as I struggle to make it through. Have to get away. Pounding blood in my ears. Burning throat. Fuck.
I crash into a body, hard and tall and rushing at me, so we both sort of collide and rebound, tottering for a moment on the porch.
“Whoa,” says a deep voice near my ear. Strong hands grab me and lift me up midfall. “Hey, you OK?”
“Yeah, sorry,” I say, reaching out to push off. Need to keep moving.
“Matt?”
“Huh?” I look over my shoulder as I hurry down the steps. Curtis. My legs revolt, locking. I grab the banister, barely able to keep from falling.
“Careful, man,” he says, hands reaching out to grab me again.
“Get the fuck away from me!” I stumble backward, my feet searching for solid ground. “Don’t touch me!”
“OK, OK,” he says, hands up in front of him. “Just calm down.”
“I don’t wanna calm down. You’re a bunch of liars!”
“Hey. I haven’t said anything yet. And you don’t even know me.”
“And I don’t want to. There is no way . . .” Pressure in my ears.
He reaches out a hand, palm up. Big hand. Fingers spread wide, palm pinkish and light compared to the darker skin of his arm and the back of his hand. “Let’s just go back inside and we can talk, OK?”
Anger surges up, ripping through me, making everything burn hot and red, turning me. My fist already hard and ready. “Why, so you can tell me some more lies? Fuck off.”
“You’re so much like your brother.” He looks up to the sky, his long neck prominent as he swallows.
I am hurtling toward him, my whole body arching behind the swing of my arm. The impact never comes, and before I know it, I am turned, head forced low, facing the ground. Curtis’s pulling my arm behind my back, and I can see in my head how he grabbed the swinging arm and turned me. I kick and fight, but in no time, he has me on my knees with my head almost touching the sidewalk, my arm pulled back as far as it will go. I try to kick out, and he pulls my arm harder until I think it’ll pop out of the socket.
“I told Theo to tell you,” he breathes in my ear, too close. I try to yank free and he leans pressure on the place where my arm meets my shoulder. “Goddammit, cut it out. I don’t want to hurt you, Matt.”
I stop struggling, waiting to catch my breath.
“I told him to tell you, but he was so afraid that you might react badly. Wonder where he got that idea.”
I push back against him. I can’t make any words come, and I need to get away, or I’m gonna puke or cry or something. My stomach hurts. My arm hurts. And there’s a panic rising up to strangle me. I push back again, trying to kick at his legs. He pulls me closer until his chest is pressed against my back.
“Just calm down and I’ll let you go,” he says into my shoulder.
It’s too much. He’s too close. Fuck. Let go. He has to let go. Don’t touch me. I can’t make my mouth work.
“I told him to tell you.”
Without warning he loosens his hold and pushes me away from him, so I spin toward the street and stumble before I find my feet. When I do, he’s standing there facing me, obviously ready if I come back at him. The way he looks at me makes me stop. I take a couple deep breaths, and so does he, relaxing his stance, but not totally relaxed. I watch him. He doesn’t even look like a faggot, maybe his clothes, maybe, but he’s strong, and he’s big. He doesn’t sound like a faggot. His hands look strong, not girly at all. No way. No way was T.J. . . . with . . . no way.
“You’re lying,” I spit out finally.
“Fine,” he says, shaking his head and grabbing his bag off the sidewalk. “If that’s what you want to believe, fine. Go home to Daddy. Keep believing you knew your brother. Fine by me.”
He’s halfway up the steps when he turns around and looks at me. “I loved him.” His face contorts through an evolution of emotion ending in a gulping sound. A deep breath and he skewers the center of his chest with one rough finger. “And he loved me.”
He presses his fists to his eyes, growling out a terrible sound, fury and pain. Then he smooths away all the anguish with his long fingers. Mask back in place, he waves toward the house a couple of times and then sags. “If you want to hear about who your brother really was, come on back, or call. But if you ever take a swing at me again, I’ll break your arm.”
It’s only once I’m back at the car, wiping the puke from my mouth with trembling hands, that I realize — I left my backpack in the house.
MORNING COMES
WAY TOO SOON. AT FIRST I’M PISSED AT having to leave the hostel for the lockout period. But once I’m out in the air, it’s better than being in that dark, claustrophobic room. I snag a table outside the coffee place away from the crowds at the farmers’ market a block up. It’s a little wobbly and not all that comfortable, with the woven metal of the chair cutting into my butt and legs, but it lets me sit in the perfect balance of sun and shade, eat my fancy bread, sip my too-strong coffee, and try to make my head stop for five fucking minutes.
I barely slept last night. When I did, I dreamed of T.J., but not my T.J. I dreamed of some other T.J., who was weird and wrong. In one dream, no matter how many times I yelled or got right in his face, he couldn’t hear or see me. In another, every time I grabbed at him, pieces fell off in my hand.
After I’ve torn through the first mini-loaf of bread, butter melting before I can get it in my mouth, my stomach and nerves start to settle. The caffeine starts to do its thing.
There’s one clear thought drowning out all the others: I need my backpack. I have to get it back.
They’ve probably already looked through it and found everything, including the one letter I didn’t read — and I know I should just kiss it all good-bye, that they’ll never give it back, even if I asked, but I can’t. I want it. I want it all.
My brain keeps chanting that I need to get my bag back, with everything inside, like if I don’t, I’ll die. And I might. The burning awful hole in my gut might really, eventually, get so big that internal organs fall out or get eaten away.
First, above everything else, Shauna’s money is in there. What’s left of my money is in my wallet in my pocket, but the backup from Shauna is in the small pocket at the back of my bag, and I’m gonna need it to get home.
Second, and almost as important, I need the letters. If I could just read them all again, I could make sense of this. Because there has to be something in them I missed that would make this make sense. I mean, how could I have misread them so badly? If they’re telling the truth, why didn’t Curtis ever mention Celia, his sister, in his letters? Why do so many talk about Missy and Will? Are there two Wills, or did Will used to be with Missy? So many of them talk about Zoe. And not like she was just someone else’s kid he knew.
