by Sarah Smiley
I was fading in and out of sleep, and each time my eyes fell shut, I had visions of Dr. Ashley’s blue eyes and the dimples on his cheeks.
That night I dreamed Dr. Ashley was guiding me into Dustin’s favorite restaurant with his hand at the small of my back. Then we were sitting at a table together and he reached over to pat my hand. “There’s no other place I’d rather be right now,” Dr. Ashley said. He leaned across the table, placing his hand on the side of my cheek, and kissed me slowly, until I had chills down my back and warmth in my stomach.
7
I GUESS YOU COULD SAY I KNOW MY &%$@ NOW
The last Tuesday in January, Jody and Courtney came over to watch the president’s state of the union address. Under normal circumstances, when our husbands were home, the three of us would ditch the men and get together to watch Sex and the City or Friends; it was pretty funny that now we were gathering over wine and chocolate cheesecake to watch politics.
Yet no one was laughing when President Bush announced the United States’ plan to attack Iraq even without support from the United Nations. His words seemed to wash over us, and none of us dared say aloud what they might mean for our husbands and our families. None of us mentioned “war.” It was as if we had detached ourselves and were living in a realm separate from our normal lives. Time lost all meaning. I couldn’t remember what day Dustin had left, or how long he had been gone. But it seemed like forever already.
Everything—the detachment-turned-sudden-deployment, the tension in Iraq—just sort of happened, the idea of it seeping into my consciousness like a creaky floorboard, so that when people began talking in line at the grocery store about “the war with Iraq” and “troops heading to the Middle East,” it felt like old news to me. It was like watching friends and family ooh and aah over a newly announced pregnancy, when the mother-to-be has known all along—since that first twinge in her belly and funny taste in her mouth—that she is expecting.
“My husband will be in a war” was all I could think. And the thought never stunned me. It was almost as if the circumstances were meant to be a part of my and Dustin’s lives all along, yet we were only just now remembering.
The most painful sort of déjà vu.
It was around this time that I began to feel sick with loneliness. Like grief, the reality of deployment hits everyone at different times, and my time was now. My trigger had been pulled, and the reality of a long deployment with a yet undetermined ending seemed unbearable. I had hit my “wall,” as it is sometimes called, and momentarily felt I couldn’t go on.
Days were running into nights and I often couldn’t remember if it was Monday or Tuesday or Sunday. But what did it matter anyway? Weekdays are for work and weekends are for family. But I wasn’t working. And my family wasn’t together. I had slipped through society’s loophole and was neither a single girl who could go out and party with her friends, nor a married woman making dinner for her family every night. It was as if my life was on hold, and the long days feeding into restless nights—made even more restless with a newborn baby—began to make me feel heavy and tired.
If only I could curl up in bed and sleep away the next few months, I often thought. But then Ford or Owen would do something really cute, or they would smile at me in a way that was oblivious and innocent, and I knew I had to muster the courage to go on. If only for them.
Ford began asking lots of questions. “Where is Daddy?” he would say, and “Why did Daddy leave us?” How do you explain “serving the country” to a two-year-old? I wondered. My answers—“Daddy’s on that big ship, remember?” and “He’s away doing his job”—always seemed to leave Ford more confused than ever.
I felt myself spiraling down to depression. I was so mentally and physically exhausted, my bones ached.
My one saving grace was the toilet.
No, really!
A mental buffer military spouses can depend on is the fact that household chores continue despite all else. The car doesn’t stop needing gas. Filters continue to need cleaning. And windows still need washing.
Most military spouses eventually find comfort in these daily tasks. One might even say they become a distraction, whether you realize it at the time or not.
My first “distraction” was the guest bathroom toilet that wouldn’t stop running. At first I tried ignoring the steady swooshing sound—which sounded a lot like a miniature waterfall—coming from the bathroom. I even tried willing it to stop. (I had seen something once on Oprah or CNN about using brain power to cause things to happen.) But by midafternoon I had had enough and picked up the phone to call the old safety net: my mom. Who, in turn, passed the phone to her safety net: Dad.
“Check and see if the chain is hanging from the arm,” Dad said.
I put my hand in the cold water of the tank. “What arm? What chain?”
“There should be a thin metal chain hanging from a bar, and a rubber cap on the end of it,” he said.
I will point out here that I am adamantly against toilets. Not that I don’t use them, of course. But I use them for their purpose and move on. I find no pleasure in hanging around, reading a magazine, and having more contact with the toilet than necessary. In college once, my roommates submitted me to the worst kind of torture by tying my arms and legs and placing me bare bottomed on a public commode.
Porta Potties are my enemy.
So it was no surprise then that I winced when I put my hand farther into the water and sloshed it around. “I can’t feel it, Dad,” I said.
“Feel it? You should be able to just see it, Sarah! Are you looking in the tank?”
“No,” I said. “I’m afraid to. I don’t want to see what’s in there!”
“Sarah, it’s fresh water!” I pictured Dad’s eyes bugging out of his ruddy face, the way they do when he gets impatient. “And you’ve already got your hand in it anyway!”
After a long, painful five minutes of Dad failing to see the humor in my fear of toilet water but walking me through the process of plumbing repair anyway, the toilet was fixed, and I felt proud of myself, like I had won a battle or faced one of my worst fears.
But I don’t think Dad laughed when I closed the lid of the tank and said with a grin, “So I guess you could say I know my shit now, huh, Dad?”
“Uh, do you need to talk to your mother?”
The following Sunday, Tanner woke me up early. Despite being a patient, even-tempered dog who could almost be overlooked, she was so quiet, at six a.m. she was barking and scratching her paws on the wood of the back door.
I got out of bed and walked hunched and shivering into the living room. The silvery morning light coming through the windows in horizontal beams made me squint and, unfortunately, highlighted all the dust on top of our television. When the stress of deployment hits, useless household tasks such as cooking and cleaning are unfortunately the first to be forgotten.
Tanner was standing with her nose pressed to the door.
“What is it, Tanner?” I asked.
She barked again and her hind legs nearly came out from under her.
My teeth were chattering. “Do you need to go out? At this time of the morning? Or is there a squirrel somewhere in the bushes?” I peered out the window but couldn’t see anything.
Tanner cocked her head and whimpered. Clearly she needed to go, and in a hurry.
“Well, let me get some clothes on,” I said and started to walk away.
But Tanner whined and barked louder. I was afraid she would wake up the boys, so I turned on my heel and said, “Shh! Quiet, girl!”
Her eyes were pleading now, and I knew there was no time to put on clothes. I looked down at my nightshirt with cowgirls on the front, which came down just long enough to cover my rear end. But the backyard was fenced, and who will see me? I thought. So I slipped on a pair of pink flip-flops and headed toward the door again.
“All right, Tanner,” I said. “Have it your way. But make it quick.”
I pressed buttons on the alarm
system keypad and waited for it to beep and flash green before I opened the door. A burst of cold air brushed across my legs and the wood blinds banged against the door.
“Go on, girl,” I said, and Tanner scurried over the threshold, limping slightly on her right hind leg. This was a new ailment, adding to the growing list of signs that my childhood pet was aging.
Tanner hurried toward the fence and did her business in the same spot as always: right beside the flowers I’d planted last spring and seen die sometime around Halloween. Lifeless bare twigs poked up through the ground where thriving plants were once covered in tiny blue flowers.
Why that same exact spot? I wondered as I watched her. She could be so neurotic sometimes!
I laughed to myself thinking about the time Tanner chased a leaping gecko into our living room from the back porch. I had run around in my bathrobe trying to catch the lizard in a plastic cup, while Ford squealed with delight, “Mommy, it’s not gonna hurt you. The wizard just wants to sit on our couch!”
I had always thought Tanner was mocking me as she watched me hop and leap across the room, screaming each time the gecko got away. She sure could get spiteful!
“Come on, Tanner, let’s go!” I called out from the doorway now. She seemed to be finishing up. But after glancing in my direction and seeing me standing there with bare legs and that ridiculous nightshirt, she quickly got interested in sniffing around a pile of discarded seeds under our bird feeder.
I was worried about a cold draft making it into the house and waking the boys, and because this was apparently turning into a morning jaunt, I stepped out onto the concrete patio and closed the back door behind me.
Birds were beginning to chirp from nests high in the trees, eyeing the pile of seeds Tanner was nosing, no doubt. I jogged in place to warm my bare legs, but goose bumps were already spreading from my shins, up my knees and to my thighs. Thank goodness for the privacy fence: I didn’t even have on a bra.
“Come on, Tanner!” I called. “Let’s go back in.”
She turned and stared at me.
“Come on, Tanner! Now!”
She sat on her haunches and stared.
“I’m not kidding! Come on!”
I involuntarily stomped my right foot—a common signal to Tanner (and Dustin) that I am getting mad. But Tanner just lay down and placed her muzzle on her front paws. She looked at me with sad eyebrows that dipped in the middle.
“Oh, all right,” I said. She could be so demanding. And manipulative!
“Want a treat?” I yelled and she bounded toward the patio.
What a sucker I was! I mean, who had trained whom here? I patted her head and said, “Good girl,” and tried to open the door with my other hand. The shiny gold doorknob was stiff and wouldn’t turn. “Oh, come on!” I said and kicked the stoop. Tanner looked up at me and blinked. She seemed to be laughing.
“It’s not funny, Tanner! The door won’t open.”
She whined and turned in a circle.
I tried the knob again and pushed on the door with my hip.
Nothing.
“No!” I said under my breath. “No, no, no, NO!”
Tanner sat back down on her haunches and looked up at me.
“We’re locked out, Tanner.”
I stared at the door in silence for a moment, trying to think of all the neighbors who might have a key to our house. Jody did, of course, but I’d have to walk past three houses to get to hers, and I may sleep in a cowgirl nightshirt, but I do have my modesty.
I tiptoed through the wet grass, toward the boys’ bedroom window. The blinds were closed, but I smooshed my head against the glass trying to get a glimpse between the slats. I couldn’t see anything except the yellow glow coming from the Superman night-light Lauren had given Ford.
Owen would wake up soon, and then, like dominoes, his crying would wake up Ford, who would be scared when he couldn’t find me in the house. I had no choice but to leave the backyard and the safety of the fence to find someone to help.
When I came around to the front yard, Brent and Danielle’s house still looked dark and sleepy. There weren’t any lights on as far as I could see.
But maybe that’s a good thing, I thought. Then they’ll be too tired to notice my pajamas and unshaven legs.
I rapped my hand on the glass door and pulled on the hem of my shirt, trying at least to bring it far enough down to cover my panties. Puffs of white breath escaped between my chattering teeth. I hopped up and down to warm myself.
Several seconds passed and no one answered.
I knocked again, a little louder this time.
Still, no one came to the door.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” I said and rang the doorbell.
A few more minutes passed; then lights started coming on, one by one, until I could see Brent’s silhouette shuffling toward the door.
I waved sheepishly, then pulled down on my hem again.
Brent opened the door and squinted. “Sarah? What’s going on?” he said.
I shivered in the cold and hugged myself.
“Come on in,” he said, waving his arm toward the foyer and taking a step back. “Danielle’s still sleeping, but—”
“I can’t,” I said. “The boys are inside. I’ve locked myself out.”
A smile came across Brent’s face as he looked me up and down. “For some reason I thought you’d be a flannel jammies kind of girl.”
I laughed. “Well, usually, yes. But my heater is stuck on high and I can’t figure out how to reprogram that little computer thingy on the wall. So it was hot last night, but freezing this morning. I don’t understand it. . . .”
Brent rubbed his chin and smiled.
“Anyway,” I said, “please tell me you have a key to my house.”
“I’m really sorry,” he said, “but I don’t think we have one.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Afraid not,” he said. “We had one when we took care of Tanner while you were on vacation, but I’m pretty sure we gave it back. You want me to call a locksmith or something?” He opened the door wider. “Please, come on in.”
“I can’t . . . the kids . . .” I looked back in the direction of my house and saw Tanner going to the bathroom again, this time on Danielle’s chrysanthemums.
“Oh, no! Tanner, get out of there!” I yelled, but she didn’t hear.
“Don’t worry about it,” Brent said. He was looking past me, out across the yard at Tanner. “The flowers will be fine. But, Sarah, is Tanner sick?”
Sick? I stared thoughtfully at Tanner in the middle of the flower bed. “Well, I don’t know,” I said softly. “I hadn’t thought about it, really.”
Tanner was old, for sure, and she seemed to be aging even faster since I had children. But she couldn’t be sick . . . could she? Tanner and I had been through so much together: high school, my first car, going off to college (she went with me), marriage, two deployments, and two children. At times she felt like an extension of myself. She was part of me. The idea of her being sick or dying was as unfathomable to me as a parent’s imperfections are to a child.
I looked back up at Brent and realized how pathetic I sounded for not knowing whether or not my own dog was sick. So I shook my head and said, “But, gosh, no, she’s not sick. Of course not.”
Brent went inside to call a locksmith, and I went to comfort Tanner. When he came back out, he was carrying one of Danielle’s bathrobes and two plastic lawn chairs. He had thrown on an Old Navy sweatshirt, but he was still wearing flannel pajama bottoms and slippers that looked like men’s loafers. I wrapped myself in the bathrobe and hugged my knees to my chest as I sat in the chair on the driveway. Brent went to the backyard to look in the boys’ window.
“Still asleep?” I asked when he came back around the corner.
“I can’t see anything,” he said. “But I don’t hear them crying either. I’ll go back and check again in a minute.”
He sat down and pulled out a pack o
f cigarettes. “Want one?” he said, and I shook my head. He offered every time, even though I never accepted.
I watched him strike a match and light the end of a cigarette until it was aglow and crackling. Just the sight of the red fire seemed to warm me. He blew out the flame and placed the used match inside his pack of cigarettes; then he pulled Tanner up into his lap and stroked her back. No one else ever paid so much attention to Tanner. Well, except for me . . . and my dad, who in his quiet way, seems to have a kinship with animals. (I once saw Dad calm down a rattlesnake at the zoo just by staring at it through the glass.) When I was still living at home, Dad always took Tanner out with him when he rolled up under the cars to change the oil or fix the brakes. “How’s life treating you, Tanner Wanner?” he would say, as if someday she would finally answer. Sometimes, in a weird sort of way, I think I was jealous of the attention Dad gave Tanner.
Brent puffed on his cigarette and blew smoke at the sky. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he said.
I looked out at the chilled grass. The neighborhood was so quiet and still, I felt like I had cotton in my ears.
But it was freezing.
And it was early.
Yet, still, Brent was smiling.
“Yes, I guess it is,” I said and smiled to myself.
Brent had such an optimistic view of the world, a perpetual smile on his face. Sometimes when I asked, “What are you guys planning to do this weekend?” he would say, “I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s going to be fun.” Nothing seemed to get him down, and he was capable in every situation. I was sure his marriage was perfect and that Danielle was one of the luckiest girls around.
“Hey, Brent,” I said suddenly, “how long do you think a marriage is supposed to stay—how should I say this?—romantic?”
“What are you asking?” he said, squinting in my direction.
