While He Was Away

by Karen Schreck

Even this time of night, that rig is pumping away.

  •••

  We jounce over the train tracks. By day, girls perfect cartwheels on the iron rails. Boys set out pennies to be flattened. Where are their parents? I’d like to know. That’s what I think, seeing those kids.

  “My mom would never let me do that,” I told David once. This was close to Christmas.

  David laughed. “Let you? You’re eighteen, Penna. Shake off Linda’s clutches.”

  Then David helped me tie my old Barbie dolls to the bitterly cold train tracks. He cast his shadow over their plastic bodies while I snapped photos before the next freight train thundered through town. One blasted by right after David and I unbound the Barbies, but for once I didn’t feel like Linda was hovering, afraid for my life.

  I’ve pretty much shaken off Linda’s clutches now. But still, I can’t help myself. I glance back, checking, and glimpse my house a block away, sagging like the neglected thing it used to be before Linda and I moved in and tried to spiff it up a bit. Four end-of-the-season azalea bushes, planted by the front steps, that just managed to hang on. A new coat of gray house paint on the front and the back. (Linda says we’ll get to the sides next year.)

  Linda has left the porch light on. The round ring of the kitchen light glows blue too. Otherwise the place is dark.

  I see her then. I catch my breath.

  David must feel the change in me—a sitting-up-straight—because he glances back. “She’s home already?”

  “No.” I shake my head until my helmet wobbles. “It’s just that old lady who walks our block. I swear this is her third time today, though. Way late for her.” I bite my lip, feeling concerned. “Too late for someone her age.”

  I watch the lady’s frail figure grow smaller as we zip away. Like always, she wears a simple dress—it was pale yellow earlier today, so it probably is now too. She clasps her hands at her thin waist. She picks her way over a broken stretch of sidewalk, lifting her feet in their sandals almost as blind people do, searching for the next safe place to set them down. Her ankles are so narrow that any wrong move might snap them in two. She keeps her eyes fixed on the horizon as she did this morning and afternoon when she passed by. And yesterday morning and afternoon. And mornings and afternoons before that, like clockwork. She looks fairly steady on her feet, even this late. I have to give her that.

  We turn a corner and the lady’s gone. I lean into David again. “Linda’s still at Red Earth.”

  David nods. No real surprise. More and more in the past few months, Linda seems to have shaken me off too. She’s always at the old-time saloon she inherited, along with the house, from her dad. I never met him before he died, but I’d heard that he was a mean drunk who ran my mother out of town when she was about my age. At the very, very end of the day, dead, my grandpa made amends as best he could for his actions.

  “Unlike some people,” Linda likes to say. Linda’s not big into trust.

  If Linda were home, it would be way past midnight and our whole house would be ablaze. It takes Linda a while to wind down from work. She’s wired like that. Plus, for the first time ever, she cares about her job, so she’s got this extra buzz thing going on.

  “Adrenaline rush,” she says. Ultimately, though, she likes to wait up for me. The last of her clutches, I guess. “I like to know where you’ve been. I like to know where you’re going,” she says.

  When I glare, Linda glares back.

  “I’m entitled. We’re the only family we’ve got,” she says.

  Until this year, that fact didn’t bother me. Linda and I didn’t need anyone else. We didn’t need people who dumped us, ran off on us, or worse.

  Now, in those moments when I feel like Linda is suffocating me, I just breathe in the scent of David, lingering on my skin.

  I breathe him in.

  What will I do when he’s gone?

  Two

  We pull to a stop at a crumbling viaduct flanked by a U-Store-It warehouse and a boarded-up brick factory. At least the factory was boarded up last time I looked. Someone must be trying to turn it into something else now. There’s some kind of neon flaring over there, some kind of noise.

  But David and I don’t care about neon or noise. Not tonight. The viaduct is where we want to be.

  Other kids come here too, especially when some local band sets up its amps in the dry streambed that runs beneath the viaduct. The acoustics are wild. The parties can be fun. But David and I have always liked the viaduct best abandoned.

  It’s abandoned now. David turns the key in the ignition, pockets the key, and toes down the kickstand. I jump off, whip off my helmet, and hook it on the bike’s seat. I lean into David, press my cheek to his hair. His hair is a shadow of its former thick and curly self. But even scalped army style, bristly and prickling, his hair still smells good, like him.

  David hugs me fiercely, swiftly.

  The bike’s engine, cooling, ticks like a tinny watch, tracking the minutes. David seizes my hand. My life and love lines run longer and deeper than his. Even after all the weeks at OSUT, his hands are still soft. Amazing. These past weeks, when I felt too sorry for myself, I’d go online and watch videos of the boot camp where David was based. I saw what he went through. Some of it at least. He said it was great. Hard, but good. Worth every minute.

  But I saw guys in camouflage, clutching guns as they staggered, vomiting, out of the gas chamber. The ropes course, the high walls and fences they scaled, the muddy trenches surrounded by barbed wire through which they crawled, facedown sometimes, other times on their backs. I saw one guy go kill-crazy, screaming and crying like a madman after he got pepper spray shot into his eyes during a training exercise.

  “Breathe. Settle down. Go slow. You’re good,” the drill sergeant kept telling the guy.

  “I’m dying,” the guy shrieked, blindly swinging his baton.

  I stopped watching then, but still I heard him in my dreams. I dreamed it was David screaming and crying like that. David gone blind, his hands blistered and torn from training. David, who never intentionally hurt anyone, not even when he was a little kid. David needs his eyes and hands.

  And he’s got them. I squeeze David’s smooth, perfect hand. We walk into the cool, damp shadows beneath the viaduct. We leave the ticking sound behind.

  “I’m glad you won the contest.”

  I look at David, surprised. By the light of the single streetlight, I can see that his eyes are steady.

  I smile. “You never said that before.”

  “Really? Well, now I have.”

  We look at what I won nearly a year ago when Linda and I first moved to Killdeer. I’d never done a mural before, but then I’d thought, What the heck? Might as well try—and entered Killdeer’s Public Art Contest for Teens. I won the viaduct’s curved wall. Every morning at dawn, sunlight strikes just there. That’s when my work really glows. But even in the gloom I can make it out: six eight-foot-tall killdeer rising from a gigantic, tangled nest up the curved concrete side.

  Hyped on winning and on having just met David, who’d entered the contest too, I painted each bird in a different style—every style I could think of except realistic, though I could have done that too if I’d wanted. There’s the Impressionist Killdeer, all wavy like it’s shaped by gentle light. The dotapalooza Pointillist Killdeer. The Expressionist Killdeer, its feathers great slashes of paint. The What-the-Heck-Is-That? Abstract Killdeer. The Cubist Killdeer, with fragmented beak and wings going every direction. And the soulful Icon Killdeer, with its golden beak and halo.

  At the award ceremony, the mayor and other chamber of commerce folks said the mural really made a difference.

  “It salvages the place,” the mayor said.

  “It makes an ugly area pretty,” someone else said.

  I blushed, happy, but a little embarrassed too. I’d liked the viaduct to begin with, all rough and gritty. But I was glad I’d made a difference. And I hoped—I still hope—the mural might help me get a college
scholarship.

  “Your manga guys were great too,” I remind David.

  I can see his sketch of those guys—his entry—even now. With their regal features and supple limbs, they looked a lot like him.

  He shrugs. “I deserved what I got.”

  I bump against him. “Got me.”

  “Second place: manga. First place: Penna. Far as I’m concerned, that whole competition was about you.”

  “This whole year was about you,” I say. “Far as I’m concerned.”

  David thumps his chest, acting all macho. “Without me, you would have hightailed it back to Chicago. Bright lights. Big city. Lakefront beaches. And let’s not forget your snazzy magnetic school. Without me, you would have gone back there in a heartbeat.”

  I laugh. “Magnet school.”

  David doesn’t even blink. “Fascinating teachers. State-of-the-art kiln. Most excellent computer lab. Sophisticated friends. All-around urban chic.”

  I sigh, pulling a wistful face. “Dingy, small, incredibly expensive apartment. My depressed and unemployed mother. The mistakes I made, going out with guys who weren’t you.” My throat is suddenly as dry as the streambed beneath our feet. Don’t go, I want to say.

  David stares at his beat-up running shoes. “You would have left Killdeer and gone back if you could have, even after you met me.”

  I set my hands firmly on his shoulders. “Don’t be stupid. We’re forever.”

  To help him remember this, I kiss him hard.

  When I pull away, David huffs out a breath. “Okay.” He runs a fingertip down my cheek.

  I run a fingertip down his. “Can we get to work now?”

  “Hold on a minute.”

  Instantly I know what he’s planning. He’s his old self again.

  “No!” I’m going to be my old self too. I’m going to be the cautious one, on edge whenever he pulls this stunt.

  David ducks from my arms. I make a grab for him, but he dodges my grip. He backs up about ten paces. Then he sprints right past me, straight at the viaduct’s curved wall. He runs right up it and back-flips off. He lands on his feet.

  “Lucky!”

  “I’m always lucky.” David shakes out his hands and feet, shakes his bones back into place.

  “Except for the time you nearly bashed your brains out.” I catch my breath as soon as the words escape. But the words hit home. David frowns. His gaze turns anxious.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  He nods slowly. He keeps his voice quiet. “No tears now, Penna. Please.”

  I look away.

  “I came home from training.”

  “Training was only training. Training was not Iraq.” I realize I sound like a whining idiot. But I can’t seem to shut up. “And I was busy while you were at OSUT. I had school. What am I going to do now, this summer?”

  “You promised, Penna.” David gives me a pleading look. “My last night. No extra weight.”

  David pulls me close this time. We get all wrapped up in each other.

  Finally we come up for air. We agree if we’re going to do this thing, we better do it before it’s too late. David searches out the two backpacks that we dropped off earlier this evening before our roundabout ride. He lugs the backpacks over to the wall, drops them on the ground. The sound echoes hugely as he kneels in the dust.

  He unzips the backpacks and pulls out four quarts of paint, two thick paintbrushes, two thinner paintbrushes, and a screwdriver. He pries open the paint cans with the screwdriver—blue, red, yellow, green. Then he picks up a thick brush and a can of blue. He looks at me.

  We’ve been planning this for a while—our practically last thing before. Part of the prize, the mayor said, was that I can continue to change this wall, as long as I maintain the quality of the work. Well, we’re going to make it better tonight. We’re going to give ourselves more to remember. More to bring him home.

  I stand under the wing of the Icon Killdeer, flat against the wall. David lets the paintbrush sink into the blue paint. Then, hefting the can, he walks over to me. He adjusts my arms against the cool concrete, spreading them wide. He positions my legs too.

  “Don’t move,” he says.

  “Don’t worry.”

  David outlines my body in blue, head to toe, on the concrete. He brushes up against me as he does it; he presses close here and there and there, as if he’s imprinting the memory of my shape on his hands. It feels good. When he’s finished, I step away from the wall. I laugh. I love the shape he’s made. Me, big and blue. But something bothers me too.

  “Scene of the crime?” I say.

  David shakes his head, confused. “What crime?” Then he grins. “Crime of passion?”

  I touch David’s chest. He drops the paintbrush back in the can and sets the can carefully on the ground. He holds back for a moment, so I do too. Then my hands cup his head—the bristles at the nape of his neck—while his hands tangle in my hair. There’s paint in my hair, on my scalp, I can feel it, but I don’t care. On and on and on. Don’t stop.

  David stops first. With a ragged sigh, he adjusts his jeans. I try to pull him back, but he shakes his head.

  “Now you do me.” He smiles. “That’s not what I mean. Silly Penelope.” He picks up the paintbrush again. “This is what I mean.”

  So I outline his body in blue under the Icon’s other open wing. When I’m finally finished, we stand back and look. We look and look. There we are. Forever.

  I brush blue paint across David’s cheek. He dabs blue paint on my nose. We could go on from there, make a real mess, but we stop ourselves. We use the rest of the paint to fill in our mural bodies.

  It takes hours doing us right. Sometimes we get a little sad and stop. Then we kiss until we can paint again.

  It’s one in the morning when we’re finally finished. Linda will be home soon if she isn’t already. I’d better get back.

  David presses the lids on the paint cans with the screwdriver’s handle.

  “Some folks have angels watching over them,” he says. “We’ll have killdeer.”

  “We’ll have angels too,” I say.

  From somewhere a few blocks away a car backfires. David jumps as if he’s been shot.

  •••

  The motorcycle idles beneath us again. We stare at the closed door of my house. We stare at the dark windows of my bedroom.

  I clear my throat. “Weird. It’s almost one thirty. She’s not home yet.”

  “So should I come in?” David glances around.

  I could keep stating the obvious. He could keep asking it, all cautious and nervous. We could carry on like this for twelve more hours, until we have no choice but to stop. Or we could do better things with the little time we have left.

  I climb off the bike and walk up the front porch steps. I fish my house key from the pocket of my skirt, unlock the door, and push it open. I turn back to David in the driveway, but he’s already by my side. Moonlight spills like milk over him.

  •••

  On my bed, between kisses, we remind each other that we won’t.

  I fumble with the buttons on my shirt, and for a while it feels like maybe we will.

  Then David pulls back, drawing in a deep breath. “Something could happen. We can’t have something happen. Not now. Not yet. We made a pact.”

  “What pact was that, exactly?” My shirt is a tangle. My skirt is a knot.

  “You know.”

  David’s right. I know exactly.

  I sit up, remembering the pact and the past, putting myself back together again. Back in Chicago I got burned so badly, so many times in a row, that I swore off certain things indefinitely. Even with David. And David, well, he’s been burned too. Plus, he’s had one too many friends get pregnant, or get someone pregnant. And like my mom, his biological parents also had a little trouble on the unwed pregnancy front. That’s not going to be us, we’ve decided. There are too many things we want to do first.

>   I push my hair from my eyes. I reach for the buttons on David’s shirt, intending to do up what I’ve undone. In the dim light, my fingers graze David’s belly.

  David sits bolt upright. He grabs our quilt—the quilt that Linda and I found in the closet when we first moved here. Linda said that my grandma, her mother, must have stitched it together.

  “Look at all those seams separating!” Linda said. “Such sloppy work—of course it wouldn’t hold up over the years. Let’s dump it.”

  Linda held the quilt as far from herself as possible. She held it like it was some kind of dead thing—like it was her mother, actually, my grandma. Linda has made this clear: the only person she likes less than her mean dad is her absentee mother.

  But I told Linda that I could fix the quilt, and I did. I’ve come to love it. David loves it too—all the colors tumbled together out of star-shaped scraps. “Plum Tumble” we call the quilt. As in, “I’m freezing.” “Stay put. I’ll get Plum Tumble.”

  “Plum Tumble,” I say now, holding out my arms. “Let’s just…be together.”

  “Oh, be.” David rolls his eyes. “We’ll see about that.” He shakes out Plum Tumble. He cocoons the quilt around me. “There,” he says, tucking the quilt’s corners tight beneath my shoulders. “Safe and sound.” He smiles at me. “See? I’m perfect for security patrol.”

  His assignment in Iraq.

  He settles down beside me, and I’m thinking what a great dad he’ll make someday.

  I’m thinking of telling David this. I’m weighing the impact when my bedroom door bangs open. The ceiling light glares against the walls of my bedroom, and Linda strides in, a blur in her black uniform.

  “Get dressed,” she tells me.

  “Get up,” she tells David.

  I shake off the quilt, straighten my skirt. David is already standing at the bedroom door.

  Linda catches his arm, her face softening. “I’m sorry. You’re a good guy, David.”

  David nods.

  “It’s just—” Linda hesitates, looking at me with such intensity that it feels like she’s seeing the future she wants for me.