While He Was Away

by Karen Schreck

  “An assisted-living facility. There’s a difference. She can have more independence if she’s not in a nursing home—or at least not yet. We’ll postpone that as long as we can. We’ve talked it all through, Justine, me, and the doctor. She went with me and we chose the place together. It’s right outside Killdeer. She never wants to be a burden, she says.” Tom flexes his fingers, puts a hand over his mouth. But not before I see that his lips are trembling. “This is the first time I’ve talked about this with anyone but her,” he says.

  “She’s good here for now, though?”

  Tom takes his hand from his mouth. He’s in control again. “She’s good here until I think—or we think—she’s in danger. Believe me, I keep an eye on her when she insists on taking her little walks. Every day I weigh the odds. What if she stumbles? What if she wanders away? She hasn’t done either yet, and she’s let me know loud and clear that if I coop her up like a caged bird, she’ll stop singing. So to speak.” Tom runs his hands over his bald scalp. “She’ll die. That’s actually what she says.”

  I stare at my barely touched sandwich.

  Tom says, “You gonna eat that?”

  I shake my head. “Not now.”

  Tom gets up, goes to a cabinet, pulls out a plastic bag, and puts the sandwich in it. He hands it to me. “In case you get hungry later.”

  I look at him, grateful not for the sandwich but for who he is.

  “I wish—” I hesitate for a moment, but then I say it. “It should be Linda and me doing this.”

  “You can do other things. Things I can’t do as well.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh.” Tom sighs. “Like listening to her. I don’t have the patience, Penna. I’m a doer, know what I mean? But Justine needs someone to listen. And then there’s all the stuff. I hate stuff.”

  I sit up a little straighter at this. “What stuff?”

  “She left this trunk in storage with my things when she ran away to Yellow Rock. I just pulled it out for her the other day. She took one look and burst into tears. And then she was calling me Owen and asking me to help her. She was in bad shape that day.” Tom shakes his head.

  “I’ll go through the trunk with her,” I say. “I’ll do it as soon as she’s able. I want to know about Owen. I want—” I can’t put the words together anymore. I’ve never seen Justine struggle half as hard as I am right now.

  Tom folds his arms across his chest. He nods slowly, evaluating me with something like pride.

  Before I leave, I peek in on Justine. She is still sleeping deeply beneath her intricate quilt. The seams are separating on this one too. Maybe I can help her sew them up.

  I’m thinking this as I shut the door and remember the little rectangle of cloth she was working on when I arrived.

  Curious, I go back out onto the porch. I pick up the little rectangle and drape it open across my hands.

  It’s a banner, not any longer or wider than a shoebox, bordered in red with frayed gold fringe at the bottom. At the center of the banner is a gold star.

  “That’s the one thing she pulled out of that trunk.”

  I start at the sound of Tom’s voice just behind me. I turn, lifting up the banner. “What is it?”

  “A flag to hang in your window when your soldier got killed.” Tom clears his throat, suddenly uncomfortable. “You haven’t heard of the Gold Star Wives?”

  I shake my head. Carefully, Tom sets the banner back on the porch railing, right where Justine left it. “It’s the organization she joined after Owen was killed. It’s for folks whose spouses get killed while they’re serving. She was one of the first members, back in forty-five.”

  I remember the newspaper article then—how it said Justine was the leader of the local chapter of the GSW. Gold Star Wives, I guess.

  “She’s still on their mailing list. We got a letter just the other day. She’s fixing to get to a meeting in the city soon as she’s able. I’d drive her, of course.”

  “Can I come?”

  Tom looks at me. “You’d want to?” Something in my expression answers his question, and he says, “You better talk to Linda then.”

  I roll my eyes. “I think Linda’s got other things to think about right now.”

  Tom laughs. “You finally caught on, huh?”

  •••

  I’m doing my hair for work when I have my first opportunity to talk to Linda.

  I’d pass, to be perfectly honest. But she knocks on my bedroom door and then comes in before I can invite her.

  “Well, look who’s here,” I say, regarding her in my mirror.

  Linda frowns. “I came back. Isn’t that what family is about? Family always comes back.”

  “FYI, Justine just came back.” I finish off my second braid and secure it with a black band, then whirl away from my mirror and face Linda. “Justine is waiting for you, and she might not have much time.” I let out a snort. “A lot of people seem to be waiting for you these days, wondering what you’re up to.”

  With a weary huff, Linda drops down on my bed. She plants her elbows on her knees. Still in her work uniform from yesterday, having worked the lunch shift already today, she looks more than a little grimy. “I won’t let that happen again.” She shakes her head. “I got carried away. I know it sounds stupid, but we didn’t do anything except talk. We sat at the bar all night.” She rubs that sore spot in her neck. “My aching back.”

  I roll my eyes, though Linda is staring at the floor now and won’t see. “You could have called.”

  “I should have. I don’t know when I’ve felt like this, Penelope. It’s the first time, I think. It took Isaac and me completely by surprise. I’m all confused. He’s all confused. I’m—”

  “‘Confused.’ Uh-uh.” I shake my finger at her. “I’ve tried that excuse. Didn’t work so well.”

  “If you’re talking about David,” Linda says quietly, “it was just so soon after that thing in Chicago. I was making sure you were safe. That’s all.”

  “‘That thing in Chicago?’” I have to laugh. “I got hurt in Chicago. I made a lot of bad choices, and ultimately I got really hurt. How well do you know Isaac? I mean, really?” I stalk around the room, suddenly enraged. “You might be making a bad choice too.”

  Linda glares. “I haven’t done a thing with Isaac.”

  “I’m not talking about Isaac now. I’m talking about Justine.”

  Linda claps her hands to her forehead. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Penelope!”

  “You’re making a mistake, and—” I point at the clock on my desk. “Now we’re late for work.”

  Linda glances at the clock. She stares at the photo of Justine there and then opens her mouth to speak.

  But I cut her off. “Don’t say another word.”

  For once, Linda doesn’t. Instead, she gets to her feet and stumbles from my room, exhausted.

  •••

  At work all the tables are full, even though it’s still only five o’clock, and hordes of people are lined up at the bar and at the door. Caitlin is in her element, taking names, raking in tips. Pretty soon I’ve kicked into gear too.

  As I pocket a particularly juicy tip, it hits me. This isn’t just about getting through the summer anymore. I really am making money for college. And I kind of like the work.

  By the end of the night, though, I’m wiped out.

  Caitlin has already cleaned up and prepped her stations for tomorrow. Her family has plans tonight—some sibling’s birthday party—so she’s heading home. It sounds like Jules is busy too. Linda is in the kitchen with Isaac. I go over to Tom, who’s wiping down the bar.

  “How was she when you left?” I ask.

  Tom frowns. “She was still sleeping. I just hope she remembered to eat when she woke up.”

  I think of Justine, her thin frame. Tom scrubs vigorously at a sticky spot. He scrubs and scrubs until I reach out and grab the rag, stopping its swift revolutions. Now he looks up.

  “Go check on her.” I’m su
ddenly breathless with fear. “I can finish here. Remember, I’m good at cleaning too.” He starts to shake his head, and I blurt out, “And you’re good at taking care of her. So please go. For me.”

  •••

  I go slowly, finishing up for Tom. I do it right.

  I’m taking off my apron when I see inside the pocket—my cell phone, flashing.

  The call was from David. How could I have missed him? I sit down at the bar and listen to his message. It’s garbled and shaky. Sometimes his voice is so distorted that it doesn’t sound like him at all. He sounds like a machine. He sounds like an animal. He sounds really, really afraid.

  I play the message again, making sure I heard right.

  “Penna, pick up. Please pick—I gotta talk to someone. I gotta—Oh, I’m just gonna tell you. I was on the truck and saw—a wire. It was going through this lump by the road. I was thinking IED. The Buffalo moved in—stopped. That lump? Dead body. A person murdered—bound, gagged, blindfolded, wired to blow, dumped, facedown. A kid. A little kid. Where are you, Penna? Where are—”

  Even the second time through, the loud static and whistling at the end of his call takes me so by surprise that I have to yank the phone from my ear.

  “Penelope?”

  I turn at the sound of Linda’s voice. She’s come up behind me. She’s watching me, worried. Isaac is just behind her, and he looks worried too.

  “Mom?” I say. It’s the first time I’ve called her that in months. Now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. “Mom?”

  “Penelope? What’s wrong?” She puts her hand to her mouth. “Oh God.”

  I shake my head. “He’s okay.” I can’t seem to stop shaking my head. “But could you take me home now? Please? I want to go home so bad.”

  “Let’s go.” Without another word, Linda wraps her arms around me. It’s like she’s been waiting for this—waiting to be my mom again. In the VW, I babble something about David. I babble something about Justine. It’s not clear what I’m saying, even I know that. But Linda doesn’t ask for clarification. It’s like for once she knows that the last thing I need now is a question. I’ve got too many questions already.

  Home again, she leads me from the car into the house. While she makes some chamomile tea, I text Ravi.

  Heard from David? Anything at all? I’m scared.

  If Ravi can admit he’s scared, I can too. I know he’s working. I probably won’t hear from him until tomorrow. That’s okay. No matter what David says, any news, any time is better than no news at all.

  But Ravi does text me back. Right away.

  On break. Haven’t heard from D. He wrote 1 email from Kuwait. That’s all. You ok?

  A little scared. But ok.

  I text this back. I am as okay as I can be, because now Linda is beside me, a steaming cup of tea in her hand. She slowly steers me toward my bedroom. She situates me under Plum Tumble. She hands me the cup of tea. I drink a few sips, then set the cup on my nightstand. I sink down into bed. Linda lies beside me. She’s still here, I think, finally drifting toward sleep. She came back with me. This is what families do. They come back.

  Come back, I think as I close my eyes.

  Eighteen

  Next morning I wake to my cell ringing. I can’t reach for it through my dream of tanks plowing toward children and David standing in the way.

  Somehow the receiver gets thrust against my ear. I hear Tom’s voice.

  “She’s asking to go for a ride. She wants to see some of the old places. You want to come?”

  I blink.

  There’s a murmur from beside me in the bed. I start, realizing Linda’s still lying there. She’s the one who put the receiver to my ear. Her eyes are closed. She’s fallen back asleep. Quickly, I slip my hand under my pillow and slide my list of reasons—Why I Fell in Love with David and Why It’s a Good Thing I Did—away from Linda. Funny, I haven’t thought about that list in days. Still, I don’t exactly want her finding it. I extricate the phone from between Linda’s fingers and turn away from her toward the window. “I’ll come.”

  “Pick you up in half an hour,” Tom says and hangs up.

  I study the familiar curve of Linda’s hip, the dip at her waist, the slope of her shoulder. I could be little again, seeking my mother after a restless night, pressing against her spine or spooning into her belly. Whenever Linda woke, she was always glad I was there. She’d hold me closer, tell me stories, listen to mine. It wasn’t so long ago that we did this. I’d forgotten. I’m glad I remembered.

  I pull myself out of bed, check my cell. There’s another message from Ravi.

  You want to talk?

  I text Ravi back:

  Soon.

  •••

  I sit between Tom and Justine. In comparison to Tom, Justine barely takes up any space. I’m trying not to think about David’s message last night. The panic in his voice, the things he said. I can hardly breathe, thinking about it. I’m so afraid.

  Justine is staring out the window. “So much has changed. But then there are other things—oh my goodness, like that weather vane—that are exactly the same.”

  I watch her watching Killdeer roll by and try to feel reassured. She’s here now. I wanted this. I wanted her to come home. She did. David will too. I tell myself this over and over again.

  Tom ends up taking us out on the road that David and I always used to drive, looping through the outskirts of Killdeer and into the country. We’re approaching the bankrupt shopping mall when Justine rolls her window down all the way. She rests her arms on the frame like a little girl. Her gossamer-fine hair whips back in the wind, revealing her scalp. “I’m looking for something,” she says. “I’ll know it when I see it.” She grasps at the window frame until the pink beds of her fingernails turn white.

  “Look!” Just past the mall’s parking lot, she points out at a big tree, shading the vacant JCPenney. “I climbed that.” She reaches across me and grabs Tom’s arm. “Oh, Owen. Do you remember?”

  I look at Tom, who looks at Justine, who looks at Tom.

  “What did I just say?” Justine asks.

  “Never mind.” Tom tries to smile. “Tell us about the tree.”

  Justine nods, relieved. “Pull over,” she says. “Please.”

  So Tom turns into the empty parking lot and drives right up to the big old tree—the kind of blackjack oak I’d never seen before I moved here and David showed me.

  Justine clasps her hands tightly to her chest. “I’m almost positive this is it.”

  I lean forward to get a better view of the tree. The bark is rough and very dark, nearly black, cracked and broken into small pieces. It looks almost charred, like it’s been struck by lightning, but somehow it has managed to thrive.

  “This was the tree between our farms. I’m almost sure of it. It’s where Owen and I first met, the day his family moved to Killdeer. We were just kids. We were playing right here, not even knowing each other was close by. It’s like yesterday. It’s clearer than yesterday!” She laughs.

  “What happened then?” I want to hear everything. I want her yesterdays.

  “That mean old bull from the ranch down the road got loose and charged us! We ran smack-dab into each other, stumbling for this very oak. We scrambled up it and tucked ourselves out of reach. The bull gored the trunk, but the oak held strong. Finally the bull wandered off to another part of the field, but it was most of the afternoon before someone came and herded him home, so we had plenty of time to get acquainted.”

  Justine looks out at the oak as if it’s a long-lost relative. “When we finally climbed down, I showed Owen the little violets I loved best, nestled over there in the shady spot near the creek.” She smiles, remembering. “We picked violets from that very bed so that I could carry them on our wedding day. On our honeymoon we hung them from the Ford’s rearview mirror. By the time we came home from South Dakota, they were dried into a tight little fist of flowers.” Justine frowns. “I put that bouquet somewhere. I jus
t know it.”

  “Maybe in the cedar chest?” Tom asks.

  And Justine says, “Oh, maybe that’s where it is. Let’s go look. Right now!”

  But then she heaves open the truck’s door and steps carefully out into the parking lot. She goes over to the oak and touches the trunk. She shows Tom and me the ancient marks there, deep gouges in the cracked, black bark that very well could have been made by the horns of an angry bull.

  •••

  We drive back to Tom’s house, Justine remembering all the way. “Every fellow in the town was serving back then,” she recalls. “Felt it was his duty.”

  Tom turns down the street to his house. He says, “I knew I had to serve too. No matter the consequences.”

  David, I think. David.

  I was on the truck, looking through my binoculars when I saw it. A wire. It was going through this lump by the road.

  A kid. A little kid.

  What are the consequences of seeing something like that?

  •••

  Tom leads Justine and me out onto the back porch. The Gold Star banner is still draped over the porch railing. I study Justine’s thin, lined face. She’s looking weary now too.

  Tom gestures to an old cedar chest, shoved off in a corner. “There she blows.”

  “You can stay,” Justine says, as Tom turns to go.

  He shakes his head and claps his hand to his gut. “We need to eat. At least, I do. How do BLTs sound?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he heads off toward the kitchen.

  For a moment Justine looks confused. She grasps the porch railing for support. “I have to sit down,” she says. I take her arm and lower her into the rocker. She relaxes there, resting her head on the wooden back. She closes her eyes then, and as soon as they’re closed, her mouth opens. She’s asleep.

  I wait for a few moments. I shift my weight, but Justine doesn’t awaken. So finally I squat down beside the cedar chest. I lift the lid.