While He Was Away

by Karen Schreck

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Listen,” David says. “There are a whole bunch of guys lined up here, waiting. I already called Mom and Dad. I’ve really got to let someone else take a turn.”

  I can’t speak. Tears are stinging again.

  “I love you,” David says. “If something weird happens again, just know I’ll get in touch as soon as I can. No news is good news.”

  “Okay,” I manage to say. “I love you too.”

  “You’re my hero,” he says.

  And hangs up.

  I call Bonnie. She’s crying, right there at her desk at work. In the background, someone is making sympathetic sounds that Bonnie is totally ignoring. “He’s safe,” she tells me through her sobs. “David’s safe.” I let her say that for a while.

  Then we agree that we can’t let the waiting get to us like this. Because it’s going to go on and on.

  Seven

  The next morning there’s a knock at the front door.

  No one ever knocks at our front door now that David is gone.

  I consider not answering it. But the knock sounds again, and suddenly my life—my empty life—overwhelms me.

  My robe is flannel, too hot for July. So I throw on one of David’s old cotton shirts and a pair of shorts. Then, tugging my hair up into a sloppy ponytail, I answer the door.

  Ravi stands on our porch, a manila envelope in his hands.

  All I can think is maybe that envelope is the color of the sand where David is. Manila sand.

  “Hi.” Ravi nervously turns the envelope in his hands. He’s wearing a plain white T-shirt and black jeans. He’s got his sweatshirt tied around his waist. His skateboard is propped against the porch steps. He must be just off work.

  “Hi.”

  The muscles in Ravi’s forearms ripple as he turns and turns the envelope.

  “I brought you those pictures,” he says. “Actually, copies of those pictures. I kept the originals for David.”

  “Oh.” I remember Bonnie’s description of him—the shyest, sweetest boy. Maybe not so shy anymore. But the other thing. Yeah. I guess he’s that.

  “There’s a color copier at work. So…here.” He thrusts the envelope into my hands.

  “Thanks.” I push my hair from my eyes. I probably look like I just got out of bed. Because I just got out of bed. I shift awkwardly on my feet, then notice that I should have buttoned one more button on David’s shirt. Plus, there’s the issue of a bra, or lack thereof. I press the manila envelope to my chest. “You want some coffee?”

  Ravi shrugs. “I wouldn’t say no.”

  We go to the kitchen. I put a pot of coffee on. Ravi waits for me to sit down at the kitchen table, and then he does too.

  Together we look at his pictures of David.

  There they are, maybe six years old, wading in a stream that is pure Oklahoma—the water rust-red from the clay. David is holding up a dripping turtle. They’re both laughing hysterically.

  Here they sit at Bonnie’s counter, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. There are jelly handprints all over the napkins. David’s hands. I’d know them even then, so little.

  Now they’re marching in the Fourth of July parade, wearing their Boy Scout uniforms and proudly carrying the banner for Troop 27.

  And here they are as older boys, maybe around the time of 9/11. Ravi looks miserable. He’s averting his face from the camera. But even so I can see he’s got a nasty-looking bruise on his cheek, a cut on his lip. David’s not smiling either. But he’s got his arm around Ravi, and he’s looking right out of the photograph, right at me. His gaze says, This isn’t right, what they did to my friend. This is wrong.

  That’s it. That’s all the pictures. But that’s more than enough. Getting this glimpse into David’s life, I feel like someone’s turned on a light inside me.

  Smiling, I look up at Ravi. I start to thank him again. But something in my expression makes him catch his breath and draw back in his chair.

  “I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do before work. Like get some sleep. I’ve got to go.” He shoves back his chair and practically sprints from the house.

  I listen to the sound of his skateboard skimming away over the street.

  Only when the sound has completely faded do I realize that I never gave him that cup of coffee.

  •••

  That afternoon I stand in the kitchen staring down into a pot of gold. Or a bowlful of sunlight. At least that’s what it looks like—this big glass vat of honey that sits on the sheet of plastic that I’ve spread across the table.

  Ravi’s visit helped me. At least it made me want to do something—really do something. Something meaningful.

  I set the four molds of our hands beside the honey bowl. I stare at them, remembering how David and I laughed as we pressed our hands into the plaster, how we cheered when they came out perfect. We kissed, careful not to get plaster all over the place. At first. Then we didn’t care.

  I take a funnel from a drawer. How am I going to hold a funnel and pour a big bowl of honey all alone? David should be here to help me.

  No point in thinking things like that.

  I put the funnel back in the drawer.

  I heft the honey bowl and balance it on my hip. Using my hip as a fulcrum and my left hand as the main support, I tip the bowl forward. Honey spills slowly into a plaster hand—“spills” being the operative word. The honey glops into that plaster hand, the one beside it, and the one beside that until finally I just empty the bowl haphazardly over the four hands, hoping for the best.

  “What a fricking mess,” Linda would say if she were here instead of at Red Earth.

  “Creative chaos,” I’d say back.

  From the kitchen window I see her then, the clockwork lady, walking past. I watch as the lady moves out of sight. At least she’s making progress. If she can, so can I.

  I lift the sticky honey hands and set them on a wax-paper-covered cookie sheet. I’ve sprinkled a little flour on the wax paper too, because I’ve read flour keeps honey-coated things from sticking. To say the molds are now coated with honey would be an understatement. Honey on the inside, honey on the outside. Honey, honey everywhere, and not a drop to eat. Gingerly, I throw away the glopped-up sheet of plastic, and then I bring a pot of water to boiling. Careful not to burn myself, I use the hot water to clean up my creative chaos.

  When the table is clean, and the floor too, I study my flesh-and-blood palms, and I remember his. I trail thick and thin lines of nettles and baby’s breath into our honeyed palms. I press two small, blue-green wax braids into the right ring fingers.

  It feels good, making something.

  I clear more space in the nearly empty freezer and slide the cookie sheet and our honey hands inside. I shut the freezer door, then open it again, take out a lonely freezer-burned pizza, and heat it up. I eat a couple slices and leave the rest for Linda. I watch a movie that isn’t about war or love. It’s supposed to be funny, a comedy of errors, a laugh riot. Small-town Southern girl becomes president’s assistant, starts an international conflict, and then stops it with the single gift of her mama’s banana-cream pie? Ha-ha.

  I need sleep. I go to my room. I pull the shades and lie down under Plum Tumble.

  •••

  Next day, I get more prep work done for school. I tackle math. Science. I do not tackle history—those essays we have to read about the Vietnam War.

  Still, Linda would probably feel reassured that I seem to be getting my act together. If she were around to notice.

  Maybe tomorrow I’ll get up early to catch Linda in the morning. I want her to see how well I’m doing now. How love can be stronger than war.

  •••

  My cell phone rings. I roll over and grab it from my nightstand. It must be early morning, because there’s the sunlight, making honey-locust-leaf shadows on my bedroom wall.

  It’s the fourteenth day. He’s on his way there. The call is probably from Bonnie, waking me up to remind me of thi
s fact.

  I mumble a distracted hello into the phone.

  Static fills my head—a sound like an animal scratching at a screen door. Without thinking, I hold the phone away from my ear. Then I realize I’ve forgotten about the time difference. Baghdad is eight hours ahead of Killdeer. I glance at the clock. It’s 8:00 a.m. here. So it’s 4:00 p.m. there.

  He could be there already.

  I press the phone close to my ear again. Forget how much the static hurts. I want to hear.

  I hear my heartbeat pounding through my ear against the static.

  I’m right.

  “I’m here,” he says. “In Baghdad. I’ve already got my own cell phone—an Iraqi one—from this crazy little kiosk. Support the local business, right? We’re staying in these—”

  The static covers his words.

  “What? I couldn’t hear you! David? What did you say?”

  “—okay. Really. Like I told Mom, I’m doing okay.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  Again, he says something I can’t hear for the noise.

  I want to scream in frustration. I press the cell so hard to my ear that my cartilage crackles. I can feel the heat radiating from the cell, probably the same stuff that the scientists say is wiping out all the honey bees. I press harder.

  “Did you get any of my letters yet?” My voice is very loud. “I’ve written a lot. I know it’s probably too early for snail mail, but I’ve sent email too.”

  “We got in early, early this morning. We’re in the city right now. I’m standing outside an Internet café. I’m going to try—”

  His words get garbled.

  “David! Don’t hang up!”

  I hear him then, as perfectly as before. “I love you, Penna.”

  There’s a beep. Then dead silence.

  I didn’t get a chance to tell him that I love him too.

  •••

  Again I call Bonnie.

  But this time something seems to have shifted in her. This time she’s not crying. She sounds completely composed, even grim, like now that he’s finally there, she’s thinking marathon, not sprint. She’s readying herself for a long haul.

  I ask her if she knows what it’s like where he’s staying.

  “A camp just outside Baghdad. He said he’d send some pictures as soon as he is able. Maybe even today.”

  We remind each other that this is a good thing, just hearing his voice. It’s the best we can hope for. It’s the best, we tell each other just before we say good-bye.

  Who are we kidding? The best would be if he were here.

  But then when I go to my computer, he is here.

  There he is. There he really is.

  A short message, no doubt sent from that Internet café: “For you, because of you.” And a photograph attached.

  He’s sent me a picture of himself lying in the middle of a gigantic heart he’s traced in the dark yellow dust of Iraq.

  I make the photograph my screen saver.

  Then I climb back into bed. I let myself just lie there, thinking of him, the sound of his voice, that lucky dust against his skin. I close my eyes.

  •••

  Linda stands over me, holding a steaming cup of coffee. She’s made it just the way I like it. I can smell the cream and sugar.

  “Rise and shine,” Linda says. She’s in her work uniform, her hair twisted up into a French knot. She looks all business.

  I snarl something unrepeatable into Plum Tumble. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I glance at my clock: 11:30 a.m. It’s only been a few hours since David’s phone call, but already it feels like a lifetime.

  “Let’s try again.” Linda sits on my bed. She holds out the coffee. I have to sit up to take it. I take a sip of coffee and burn my tongue.

  “It’s nice outside,” Linda says. “You should get out there and enjoy it.”

  I touch my tender tongue to my upper lip. “I didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

  Linda arches an eyebrow. “Or the night before that or the night before that or the night before that. I’ve been waiting for you to snap out of this, Penelope, but I can’t wait any longer. We’re going to have to make some changes around here.”

  “Oh.” My bad-ass voice. “Are we finally about to discuss things?”

  Linda stands, brushes the wrinkles from her black pants, and goes to my bedroom window. Swiftly, she raises the blinds.

  “Yes. We are,” Linda says. “Things are different now. We have to face that.”

  “Huh.” I take another drink. The coffee tastes burned, though maybe that’s just my tongue. I know Linda’s got her brew down to a science. I watch as she takes in the picture of Justine above my desk. She really regards it. Then she walks over to it and puts it facedown on the shelf.

  “Hey!”

  “Justine was about forty when she left me.” Linda’s voice is calm, as if she’s picking up a reasonable conversation that we just left off. “It was the nineteen sixties. Nineteen sixty-nine to be exact. Vietnam. Hippie movement. Women’s movement. Civil rights. You name it. Everyone was escaping everything to find themselves, even in podunk towns like Killdeer.” Linda shrugs.

  “Justine probably had lots of reasons to go, lots of excuses. But as a forty-year-old mother myself, I can’t imagine leaving my child. I’d never do something like that to you. Just like I’m not going to stand by and watch you fall to pieces now. Over a boy. Or for any reason.”

  “Put her back up!”

  Linda shakes her head. “She nearly ruined me, Penelope. You know that. She surely ruined my dad.”

  “You can’t blame everything on your mother,” I say. “I’d think you’d want me to remember that.”

  Linda opens her mouth, but for a moment—oh, joy—she can’t seem to speak.

  I set my coffee cup on my nightstand and stride across the room to where Linda is standing. I right Justine on the shelf. Then I turn back to Linda, fists on my hips. We stand there, staring each other down. I can feel heat coming off her. She probably can feel it coming off me. I look away first. I look at Justine, who doesn’t give me any answers.

  Linda clears her throat. “Here’s the deal, Penelope. You’re going to start working for me. It’ll be a little hard because you’ll be plunging into the thick of things. But I know you can do it.”

  I stare at her. “Come again?”

  “The night girl quit yesterday. I have to find another server, pronto. And you have to find a way out of your funk. You need to keep busy. When David was at training, you really threw yourself into your studies—which made me proud. When school first got out, you got a lot of baby-sitting gigs. You mowed lawns. Did some housecleaning. But once he came home, you just kind of ground to a halt. You need to start making some cash for college, pronto.”

  I throw myself on the bed. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  Linda frowns, then forces a smile. “I don’t like that kind of tone unless I’m using it.”

  “And I don’t like having a mother who’s also my boss!”

  “As long as you’re living under my roof, you’ll do as I say.”

  “I could leave,” I say. “I might do that. I might drop out of high school too, just like you did. Plus, I know someone else who did that and he’s doing okay.”

  So I’m elaborating a little on Ravi’s situation. So what?

  Anyway, Linda doesn’t take the bait.

  We glare.

  I repeat the bit about my mother, my boss. But it comes out all whiny this time. Linda has won. She knows it. I’m not going to leave or drop out of anything. I want to go to art school too much. I want to go there with David.

  “Think of it as a great opportunity,” Linda says. “You have to have some work experience, kiddo, if you want to get anywhere in life. Not to mention—again—the benefits of a regular paycheck.” Linda straightens her shoulders. “You start tonight. Drink your coffee. We’re out of here in two hours. Got to get you there early so you can get oriented.”
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  I feel panicky. “I’m supposed to be building up my art portfolio this summer, remember?”

  “I haven’t seen you doing that much. Anyway, working will clear your head, get your creative juices flowing.”

  “Give me a chance, will you?” I’m pleading. I hate pleading.

  “You’ll have the daytime. That should give you plenty of time to get things done. And nice light, which you also need.” Linda walks out of the room like everything is all decided.

  I pull up my screen saver. There he is. I could sit here all day, just looking at him. Okay, so maybe that is a little troubling, but I just about could.

  “Shower, Penelope!” Linda calls from the kitchen. “I’ve almost got your work apron pressed, and if I find you in your room when I’m done, I’m canceling your cell service for as long as it takes to get you playing for the team again. I’ll cancel cable if that’s what it takes, honey. And you know that means no email.”

  I bitch. I moan. But I head for the shower.

  And standing there, warm water rinsing suds from my hair, I suddenly remember the loose floorboard and the envelope tucked beneath, holding something I want to see.

  Maybe I am falling to pieces. Before, I never would have forgotten about something like this.

  As soon as I escape from Red Earth, I’m going up there, alone in the dark this time without Linda hovering.

  Eight

  I stare at the fake yellow Gerbera daisy permanently enshrined in the dashboard vase of Linda’s yellow VW. I’m hypnotized by the flower’s bobbing. We are bobbing along, the daisy, Linda, and me. Our first official commute to Red Earth.

  I plant my beat-up, black Doc Martens on the dashboard—“All black, all the time, that’s the uniform!” Linda said, as she handed me one of her polo shirts to go with my old black jeans—and then I slump down in my seat. I lean against the window, trying to spot places where David and I have gone together. They are everywhere. The train tracks with Barbies. Sonic for limeades. The bowling alley to make fools of ourselves throwing gutter balls.