The Return

by Margaret Guthrie

The next morning the wall phone in the kitchen rang and rang while both Lydia and Margie were busy in other rooms. Margie reached it first, just as Lydia turned off the vacuum cleaner in the living room. She watched Margie nod into the phone, begin to frown and look alarmed.

  The voice of Charlette Harris came into Margie’s ear, rising at the end of her introduction as if asking a question, or as if she were uneasy with what she was about to say. “I’m calling from the Delora hospital. Mike was admitted last night, but we wanted you to know it wasn’t a heart attack.” She gave an apologetic little laugh. “Sometimes it looks like one, these panic attacks, when he can’t catch his breath and doubles over. He always feels so embarrassed, as if that’s not real pain. But it is, I tell him.” Charlette sighed as if she had failed to persuade him. She sounded embarrassed too. “So we take him to the emergency room because you never really know.”

  Margie sputtered something about not understanding. “When we left last night, wasn’t he okay?”

  “Not really, but we went home anyway. It was later, about midnight. He just wasn’t getting any better.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Margie said. She looked over at Lydia watching her. She gave her a shrug, meaning she was puzzled. Meaning she would tell her as soon as possible what she was hearing.

  “He’s going home later this morning, and asked me to see if you both could come over this afternoon, after he’s home. He really needs to talk to you.”

  “Well sure,” Margie told her. Lydia tried to interpret her mouthings but decided she’d have to wait and be told after the fact. “We can do that. We really were concerned about him last night. I hope we weren’t...” She paused, fiddled with the telephone cord. Lydia felt something unpleasant being arranged. “But he’s all right now?” Margie asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Charlette said, as if resigned to the repeated episodes. “There are just things we need to talk about. Like Jennifer, the girls, and things, things Stanley couldn’t say.”

  “Well, sure,” Margie said again. “But you better give us directions.” Charlette did, and then Margie hung up. She stood there by the phone and stared at it awhile.

  “What was that all about?” Lydia asked. She had sat down on the lounge and started looking at The Des Moines Register while she waited, but let the paper fall away when Margie’s call seemed to get serious. They had started subscribing as a way to keep in touch with the world, and the newsboy now threw the paper on their lawn early each morning.

  “Charlette wanted to assure us that last night Mike had an anxiety attack. Not a heart attack. She said he was embarrassed. She was too by the tone of her voice.” Margie spoke in a slow, thoughtful manner as if trying to figure out the importance of such a difference. She came over and sat on the edge of the rocking chair next to the cold fireplace and across from Lydia. “They want us to come over this afternoon after Mike gets home. And talk about Jennifer, the girls, and things.” She didn’t add the part about things Stanley couldn’t say. For some reason, it frightened her. It was easier not to repeat it. “So, here are the directions to their place.” She held up the bit of paper where she had scratched her notes.

  “Today?” Lydia had plans to read over some of their mother’s papers she had brought in from the shed. “Did the girls see too much last night? Are they traumatized?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe they want to call off the treasure hunt.”

  Margie shrugged. “She didn’t say.”

  “Maybe they worry about Mike. Maybe they worry he might die.”

  “I don’t know,” Margie said again, unable to make her mind work, feeling dull, full of dread.

  Lydia sighed. “I suppose we have to go.” What more did Mike have to say? More of the truth? More of life’s complications?

  “Maybe we ought to take something,” Margie suggested.

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Flowers? Any cookies left?”

  “They’ve got flowers. She’s probably made cookies. Let’s just take our-selves.” Lydia did have something, though, that she wanted Mike to have, sometime. She stood up to resume her vacuuming. “There is something from Mother’s papers, though,” she said before starting the motor.

  Margie looked skeptical. Lydia was always looking for explanations. Sometimes she dug too deep. It just brought more trouble. Lydia stood there a moment, frowning, indecisive, then turned toward her desk, there on the short wall by the front door where her computer sat. She retrieved a paper from one of its drawers and handed it to Margie.

  “It’s an essay, or letter, that Dale wrote for mother’s composition class. It’s dated 1966, when he must have been starting his senior year of high school. It may have been a practice letter for his draft board, though I don’t know that.”

  “Hmmm,” Margie intoned. On the one hand she didn’t want to know any more than she already did. On the other, maybe it was her sisterly duty to read it. She took it gingerly. It was on lined paper which had been torn out of a notebook and was written in blue ink.

  “My name is Dale Harris and I am 17 years old. In a few months I will have to register for the draft because this country is at war, having invaded Vietnam to fight a so-called communist take-over. I have been told all my life that killing people is wrong. Living on a farm we have to have a gun because foxes and raccoons sometimes get into the chicken yard and kill off those chickens that we depend on for eggs and meat. We also have to kill animals to eat. But we don’t do it for sport, only out of necessity. But going to war to kill human beings is against the principles of my church and therefore when it comes time to register I will have to register as a conscientious objector.

  This doesn’t mean that I am unpatriotic. This United States is the best country in the world. But it allows people to have their own religious views, as well as other views, and that’s what makes it great. I want this country to keep its democracy, but I don’t think the communists in Vietnam are after us. It is just a big misunderstanding.

  If my government wants me to serve it, that’s fine. I can serve it in other ways than taking up a weapon in the army. I wouldn’t mind working in a hospital and taking care of sick people. If the government wants to give me that assignment instead of fighting I could accept that. I hope this gives you an idea where I stand. Thank you.”

  Margie put it down. “So this is what draft counselors do?” She felt tired. Their mother was getting kids to think like she wanted them to think. Was that morally right?

  “I think they tried to prepare those who would have to register with the draft board soon,” Lydia said. “That’s when they would register as conscientious objectors, as I understand it. Perhaps this letter is practice.” Lydia had not read enough to fully understand the process from registration to induction into service, but knew that conscientious objectors had to start proving their convictions early in the process, or else their sincerity would be questioned.

  “But this has nothing to do with Jennifer and the girls, or Mike’s problems. Maybe you ought to just put that away.” Margie just saw it as trouble.

  “But it might help Mike know more about his brother. I’ll take it along just in case.” She saw Margie’s disapproving glance. “I won’t pull it out unless it seems appropriate. OK?” She folded the essay and looked for an envelope. She found one in the wastebasket that looked okay to use. Then she put it in her purse.

  “Jennifer and Tanya shouldn’t have been there last night,” Margie said. “I didn’t like them seeing me cry.” She felt like pouting.

  “Yeah. Well, can’t be helped. But they’re old enough to understand a few things. They need to know the truth, don’t you think? That real people were hurt?” Then Lydia remembered that she had suggested to Jennifer, or maybe it was Tanya, that perhaps their older brothers had issues with each other. Maybe Jennifer had spouted off about that to her parents. Lydia hoped they weren�
��t going to be in for an interrogation. She didn’t look forward to that at all.