Personal Effects

by E. M. Kokie

  Once back in the kitchen, I’m confronted again by the letters. I don’t know which came first or when: his decision to beat the TV down and generally smash everything of value in the living room, or the decision to open and read seven months’ worth of condolence letters, mostly from strangers.

  I can only hope he read the letters second — and recently, because they’re all in one piece, and so is the kitchen.

  “THANK GOD YOU’RE HERE.”

  Shauna catapults herself out of the house and at me before I can even close the car door. We stumble back into the side of the car with the full weight of her body thrown against mine. But when she steps back, her forehead is furrowed with worry. She shrinks in front of me, wrapping her arms around herself as if to hold her body together.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I had to go home first.”

  Her eyes narrow to slits. “And?”

  “He wasn’t home.” I don’t tell her about the state of the house.

  A glimmer of softening in her eyes, but the moment and the glimmer fades fast. It’s now or never.

  “Shaun, I’m sorry.” For everything. I need to tell her now, before anything else, that I am so fucking sorry for everything I’ve ever put her through, starting with ignoring her calls and working backward from there. “After the shit storm has settled, I’ll make it up to you.” I don’t promise, not to her, but I’m determined. I will make it all up to her.

  I wait. She doesn’t move for a long time, but then her serious face appears. Means she has demands.

  “I don’t want you to go home.”

  “I know you don’t.” I brace for her outburst. “But I have to.”

  “No, you don’t. I talked to Mom.” Shit. I should have seen this coming. “She said you can totally stay here until you work things out with your dad.” Shauna with a plan. “I already made up Stacy’s old room, and —”

  “Shauna —”

  “You can’t go back there!”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah, like you’ve been fine your whole freaking life? Like all the times he’s —?”

  “Shauna, stop!” She jumps. I force my voice to be as soothing as I can. “Really, I appreciate it, all of it. But I have to face him. Today.”

  “And if he beats the shit out of you?”

  “He won’t.” I promised myself I wouldn’t lie to her anymore. “And if he does, he does. But I have to do this.”

  The anger melts away, leaving fear. “Please, for me, just stay here, at least tonight. Please?” Tears slide over her cheeks.

  For the first time in a very long time, I know exactly what to do for her. I pull her into my arms and hold her as tight as I can. She turns her face against my shoulder and lets go, crying so hard her body shakes against mine. I just hold her, waiting for the waves of tears to pass. She soaks my shirt. I try not to think about how good it feels to hold her, even with the tears.

  Her hair smells so good. Like Shauna, her familiar smell, and so, so good. I press a soft kiss to the top of her head and rest my face against her hair, breathing her in.

  When her tears stop, I can hear the questions swirling around her brain. I run my hands over her back, feeling her shiver until I hug her tighter to keep her still. I need to do this now, before all the shit gets in the way again.

  Her hands on my back soothe away the last of my doubts. I just start talking.

  I tell her about Will, and Missy, and Zoe.

  I tell her about Curtis. I have to close my eyes so I can keep going when her eyes go wide and wet. I tell her about the T.J. who lived there — about the pictures on the table — in that black-and-white apartment. About the pictures in my bag, of the family I never knew. About the letters in my bag, waiting to be read.

  And before I can lose my nerve, I tell her everything else. I edit out Harley with a quick, decisive cut. But I hold nothing else back.

  I tell her about the stalking, and how much of a stupid idiot I was when I met Celia in the library. How I floated around all afternoon, so proud of myself, like a moron. I tell her about Will’s coming home, and about cursing out Celia, and trying to hit Curtis. I tell her about thinking about leaving, and Curtis’s bringing my bag back, with everything inside.

  I describe every screwup, every look, every stupid thing I did. It just pours out of me until I run dry.

  I try to tell her about that last night with T.J., when I did everything wrong, but the strangling ache in my throat cuts me off.

  She starts shushing and trying to talk over me, but I can’t let her until I say what she really needs to hear.

  “God, Shauna . . . I’m such a fuckup.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yeah, I am.” I’ve fucked everything up. Everything. And no matter what I do, it’s just gonna get more fucked up. “I can’t . . .” The air catches in my chest.

  “Shh.” Soft breath against my skin. Her hand curls into my shirt over my heart, anchoring her to me. “You’ll work it out. I’ll help you.”

  “I’ve been an asshole, and I know I screwed up, and I have no idea what I’m gonna do, and you’re —”

  “It’s going to get better. Maybe not tomorrow, or next week, but eventually, it’ll be better. And I’ll be here, but you’ve got to deal with it — with . . . T.J.”

  I flinch.

  “He’s gone. And I know it sucks. But you can’t keep trying to pretend that everything’s OK. That’s fucked up.” She smiles. “And not that Pinscher didn’t have it coming . . .” She bobs and weaves until I feel my mouth turning up. “But if you keep trying to pretend that everything’s OK, you’re gonna explode again.”

  “Or turn into my dad.” Fuck. I can feel the panic coming. I try to pull away, but she won’t let go, so I hide my face in her hair.

  She pulls back and tugs at my shoulders until I meet her eyes.

  “You’re not him.” She leans up closer. “You are nothing like him.”

  I want to believe her.

  “Nothing,” she whispers.

  I shiver. My fingers won’t stop rubbing at the worn-soft denim of her jeans. My palms mold over the curves of her hips, fingers pressing in.

  A slow smile lights up her face. She shifts up on her toes. “Trust me,” she says, her lips moving against my chin. Her breath flutters over my lips. I gulp it in, my gut lurching with the breath. “Kiss me?”

  It takes only a little tug at her arm to pull her close. I bend my neck to press my mouth to hers. Harder. She makes this sound, like humming in her throat, and opens her mouth. And then I don’t know who is kissing who. But she tastes kind of sweet — not grape, more like honey. The spark of contact sends an electric current straight through me. My hands clutch at her hips. I’m kissing too hard. Teeth. Her fingers on my jaw, guiding my mouth. I let her lead. Quick kisses, moving like a dance. Then there’s a rhythm, a give and pull to it, and her fingers slide into my hair. When she breaks the kiss to breathe, she blushes to the curls around her face.

  “Wow,” she whispers.

  I can’t form words, too focused on breathing and dealing with the hot, heavy ache.

  A car door slams. We jump apart.

  I frantically look around, bracing already for my or Shauna’s dad. But after several gasping breaths, it’s clear no one is here. My pounding pulse is slowing, nothing like the pulsing pleasure-heat-pressure of before.

  Her laughter floats around me, soft, gentle, warm like her hands. Her fingers roughly rub at her overheated face. I tug at my jeans. A mischievous smile forces her cheeks to curl up toward her eyes.

  My stomach growls loudly. I can’t remember the last time I ate. And it’s getting late. “Listen, I really think it’ll be OK at home, but just in case, can I hang on to the car for one more night?”

  “Sure.” She steps a little closer and her fingers reach out, as if to take my hand, but she just touches a bit of my shirt instead. “You’ll bring it by tomorrow?”

  “I have to work, so i
t would have to be before or after.”

  “After’s fine,” she says, before taking another halting step closer and sort of leaning toward me. “Mom and Dad have to go visit my aunt. They’ll stay in Jersey for the night. So come by anytime after work. We could hang out.” Her eyes flicker up to mine. “Or something. Maybe order in some Chinese for dinner?” Her face is red. She’s studying something on my shirt now, her fingers still worrying the edge of it.

  “Sure,” I say, but the word gets mangled, what with the lack of air and all the blood diverted from my head. “Sounds good.”

  “OK.” She is so happy. And beautiful.

  She holds my stare. A slight tilt, chin higher, angled perfectly, and it’s all the invitation I need. This time I have to break the kiss or lose it, right there in her driveway. She buries her face in my shirt before pushing away from me.

  “Go.” Her hands slide down my arms and away. “And call me later.” Her serious face is very serious, but she can’t hang on to it, and the big smile ruins it. But I will — I’ll call her, right before bed. Can’t wait.

  Back in the car, I give her one final wave. She pushes her hair off her face, then tucks her hands into her back pockets. A huge grin on her face. I’ve known her practically my whole life. I know her sounds, her smiles, the way she moves and talks. Now I know how she tastes and feels: better than every good dream and fantasy I’ve ever had. Nothing bitter or wrong. I’ll go home, where fucking anything could happen. But tomorrow night I’ll be back here. With Shauna.

  STANDING ON THE BACK PORCH, I STARE THROUGH THE window in the door at my father sitting at the kitchen table.

  The letters have been organized into neater stacks around him, and he’s hunched over the table, staring down at something in front of him.

  I am weirdly calm. Scared shitless, but calm. Maybe this is what it feels like to be bracing for war.

  He looks up when I close the door, but doesn’t turn his head until I’m even with him. His first look morphs lightning fast, too fast to understand, stealing my calm.

  “Where you been?”

  “Got back earlier. Stopped home. Then ran by Shauna’s . . . in case she needed the car.”

  He stares at me. Unmoving.

  On the table in front of him, framed by his hands, is the red bag and T.J.’s stuff from the morning of the funeral. Everything’s laid out in a neat row, including the medallion.

  I force myself to look at him.

  The silence is dense.

  I focus on the medallion.

  “Where’d you go?” he asks.

  “Madison, Wisconsin.”

  “Why?”

  His voice is too calm, makes me shiver. “Deliver a letter.”

  “To?”

  “T.J.’s boyfriend.”

  He jolts in his chair. I go on before I can lose my nerve.

  “I mean, I thought it was a letter to a girlfriend, and there were all these other letters that I thought were from her, and I thought . . . but when I got out there, it was for her brother . . .” I swallow. “Curtis.” Dad flinches. “His name is Curtis.”

  His fingers flex, but he doesn’t lift his hands from around the stuff. Too calm. It hits me.

  “You knew.” Pounding in my ears. “You knew, didn’t you?”

  He looks away, his jaw clenches and releases. “I didn’t know.”

  “But you . . . suspected?”

  “When he was a kid, I thought maybe, and then later, but . . .” He sits back a little and rubs his hand over his face before continuing. “Your brother never said anything.”

  “And you didn’t ask.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  He stares at me. Shifts his jaw. Then answers. “I didn’t want to know.”

  “But why, why did you think, I mean, what . . . ?”

  He leans all the way back in his seat, folds his arms over his chest. Just when I think he won’t answer, he does. “Dan.”

  “Dan?” I rack my brain, flip through my memories, trying to see it. Dan and T.J. were friends forever, as long as I can remember. But even in all those times they kicked me out of the room or I sat in the hallway trying to hear through the door, there’s nothing that I can say would have tipped me off, even now.

  Dad’s chair creaks. “Few weeks before T.J. enlisted. I saw them. Together.”

  My eyes bug out.

  “Not like that,” Dad says roughly, disgusted. “Nothing like that. Just . . .” He exhales hard, waving his hand in front of him, then drops it back to the table.

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  He shrugs, like I just asked what he had for lunch. “He knew I had seen them.”

  “But you didn’t talk about it? You didn’t ask? You —”

  He shakes his head.

  “Why? Why would you —?”

  “I figured the Army would take care of it, and if not . . .”

  “Take care of it?” Shit. “Like what, knock the gay out of him?”

  He drops his chin into his chest. “And if not, I didn’t want to know.”

  “And later, all those times he was home on leave? Leaving again, going back to war, when he might never come back?” My voice cracks, and I grip the counter behind me to steady myself. “You didn’t even ask? To try to understand? For him?”

  Tension flows through him. He slowly shakes his head from side to side.

  “And now?”

  The silence stretches between us. Finally, he opens his mouth. “If he chose to be . . . like that, then I didn’t want to know. But . . .” Dad turns his face away from me. His shoulders tremble. When he turns to face me again, he looks so old: eyes sunken, face lined, lips thinned out and pale. His hand strays as if he’s gonna touch something, but his fingers fall to the table and stop a couple of inches from T.J.’s dog tags. He swallows hard. “Knowing anything would be better than . . .”

  I can’t look. His hitching breaths ignite the terror at the base of my skull, but everything else screams for calm. I’m not going anywhere. From the corner of my eye, I see him touch the tags.

  “I’m not going to enlist.” His hand jerks, fingers pushing the dog tags out of line. “No matter what you do, I’m not doing it. So, if you’re thinking about kicking my ass every day until I do, we might as well start now. But I’m never going to do it.”

  He gently lifts the dog tags and lays them on the table back in their place, straightens the chain and pats it down.

  He tilts his head, strokes the chain. Shakes his head, like he’s arguing with himself. Or making up my side of the fight. My heart pounds, pulse loud in the quiet kitchen. A week ago I’d have been ready to bolt. Now I have to stay.

  He finally stops muttering to himself. But his clenched jaw says the fight is far from over.

  “I’m not enlisting,” I say again, stronger.

  “Then what —?”

  “I don’t know. But not that.”

  I tense for it, whatever is gonna happen now. Hoping I don’t run as soon as he moves.

  I hold my ground. “I’m not enlisting. And I’m not going to college, either,” I say, going for broke.

  “Then —”

  “At least, not right away,” I add fast. “Maybe later. I don’t know. But not right away.”

  His hands clench. Unclench. Clench. He glares. I don’t look away.

  He’s not backing down. But he’s not trying to kill me, either. I’m not stupid; he’s not giving up. But I said it, and I’m still here.

  His chair scrapes back from the table and I shudder with the sound, but my feet stay rooted to the floor.

  He leans back in his chair. Then nods to the chair next to him.

  I take the three long steps across the kitchen and sink into it. My legs tremble under the table.

  He stares at me, like he’s just realized I’m sitting there.

  “I’m not going.” Anywhere.

  He wraps his arms across h
is chest. A rumble of sneering, sad laughter. “What, then? Because you’re in serious danger of pissing your life away.”

  “I was thinking maybe building? Construction? Something like that?”

  “You’re pissing away your chances and gonna have fuck-all to show for —”

  “I’m not.” I flinch and lean away, then look. He’s puffed up but not swinging. “I’m not gonna just be some loser. But . . .”

  “And your girlfriend? Think she’s gonna be happy working all her life? Both of you busting your butts just to make ends meet?”

  The question hits me like a fist.

  “Whatever else, Shauna has a chance to make something of herself. You gonna hold her back? Make her struggle while you work a series of dead-end jobs? Seriously, Matt. Where is your head? You’re on a one-way ticket to nowhere, and I am not gonna let that happen.”

  His fist hits the table. I jump.

  “I’m not,” I say. “I’m gonna figure something out. Maybe talk to Mr. Anders. Something. Something that I’d be good at that wouldn’t make me want to kill myself.”

  I hold still under his scrutiny.

  “Dad . . . I’m not T.J. And I’m not you.” I don’t know who I am yet. “Can’t you see that? And just let me . . . let me have a couple years to . . . figure it out? Figure out . . .”

  We sit in silence. Me waiting, him having some conversation in his head.

  “You are going to pick it up next year,” he says finally. “Come up with a plan, a plan that gives you a future. And you’re gonna have to hustle to make sure you have enough credits to graduate, since you failed Spanish.”

  “Huh? I thought . . . the hold, since I didn’t pay yet, I didn’t think . . . They sent my report card? Or . . .”

  “I paid for the case,” Dad says, nodding his head to the side. “All of it. Told Pendergrast you were visiting family for a few weeks. That you needed a break.”

  Wow.

  “Don’t get used to it. You screw up again, and you can clean up your own mess. And you’ll be handing over every single paycheck until you pay me back. You hear?”

  “Yeah.” Wow. Failed Spanish, not surprising, but does that mean I passed everything else? “So, my report card?”