The Home Front

by Margaret Vandenburg

  “Todd, are you there?” Rose asked.

  “Roger.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “You. I’m right here.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Call the police.”

  “They won’t know where to look.”

  “Take it easy, Rose. We’ll find him.”

  “We?”

  “You. The police.”

  “They don’t know him like you do.”

  “I can’t be fifty places at once, Rose.”

  “Don’t exaggerate.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I’m so scared, Todd. What if he’s—”

  “Don’t go there, Rose.” He could hear her gasping for air while JSOC confirmed that the second chopper had recovered its equilibrium. She hadn’t been this upset since Max attacked the cat they subsequently put up for adoption. Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures.

  “If you imagine the worst, you’ll manifest it,” Todd said. “Isn’t that how it works?”

  “You’re right, Todd.” Rose took a deep breath. “You’re always so good in a crisis.”

  “That’s my job.”

  He couldn’t believe he’d sunk so low, using New Age lingo to calm Rose down. Hopefully, she was in shock and wouldn’t remember. Otherwise, the power of positive thinking would come back to bite him big time. He’d have no choice but to admit pandering to her. Manifesting, my ass. It was a testament to how worried she was that she didn’t call his bluff on the spot.

  “Should I call 9-1-1?”

  “Call the local precinct. I’ll get home as soon as I can.”

  Todd had been a Boy Scout. He was an air force officer with three tours of active duty under his belt. If he wasn’t prepared, nobody was. He had tacked a list of emergency numbers to the inside of a kitchen cupboard. Their pediatrician. The police and fire departments. The Pentagon. The last one was a joke, of course, to keep things light in the face of almost constant red alerts. He didn’t want his kids growing up paranoid, like all the weird Westerners who built bomb shelters during the fifties. Like anybody would really want to bomb Idaho, of all places. Or Nevada, which was such a wasteland not even the Mormons wanted it.

  Rose was comforted by Todd’s lists. She had been completely self-sufficient until they married. Then a whole new personality emerged, one she had no idea lurked within. She loved thinking of Todd as her protector. At first it was more playacting than anything else, yet another way to spice up their sex life. Then they both grew into their roles until they had all but forgotten how self-sufficient she had been. She dialed the second number on the list.

  “I need to report a missing child.”

  “Age?”

  “Four. Almost five.”

  “Height?”

  “Never mind his height,” Rose said. “He’s a little boy. My son. And he’s lost.”

  Rose started crying. She really let loose, instinctively assuming that nothing cut through red tape more expeditiously than tears. The intake officer was unimpressed. He had been trained in a full battery of interrogation techniques, including how to mollify hysterical mothers. By the time they took down all of Max’s vital statistics, fifteen precious minutes had been wasted. Rose’s tears were no longer primarily theatrical. Completely losing control of her thoughts, she tumbled headlong into negativity. Max could be anywhere. Hiding in a dumpster, seconds away from the crushing maw of a garbage truck. Wandering across the highway, oblivious to traffic. Trapped in autistic silence, unable to call for help.

  If you imagine the worst, you’ll manifest it.

  Rose repeated Todd’s admonition, marveling at how crisis can bring couples together. She had visualized Todd’s spiritual enlightenment and, lo and behold, the universe had manifested it. The Source certainly worked in mysterious ways. She focused her attention on Max, imagining him walking across the lawn, up the steps, through the front door. She stationed herself at the living room window—his window—and surveyed the yard. She blamed herself for the fact that he wasn’t there. Fear was compromising the power of positive thinking.

  The precinct had posted an all-points bulletin. Every cop on the beat was on the lookout for Max. Rose grabbed her car keys but stopped short of the garage. She decided to join the search on foot instead, to ferret out the nooks and crannies police might miss from patrol cars. Maureen was on a play date and wouldn’t be home until dinner, leaving almost an hour to scour the entire neighborhood, if need be. Something told Rose to leave the front door unlocked in case Max found his way back home on his own. Her higher power was leading the way. She retraced every step she’d ever taken with him, trying to expand the parameters of his comfort zone on walks to the playground, the post office, the grocery store, most of them punctuated by sudden, inexplicable tantrums. Just as suddenly, he recovered his composure as unseen threats subsided. Rose stopped to listen, conjuring up her own spectrum of unseen threats. She vowed never to let Max out of her sight again, not even for the minute it took to transfer clothes from the washer to the dryer. How could a little boy slip out of the house so quickly? He must still be there.

  Rose rushed back home. She must have overlooked one of Max’s favorite hiding places. In the armoire, maybe. Or the crawl space behind the couch. When she rounded the corner of their street, she saw Max sitting on the front porch with some vaguely familiar man. The man waved as she approached. She couldn’t place him until he opened his mouth. His barely perceptible Southern drawl jogged her memory. It was the bakery manager, who was always kind enough to offer Max a free cookie, even when he wasn’t on his best behavior. Rose couldn’t tell whether the man noticed Max was different from other kids. He teased them all indiscriminately, holding cookies up to his wire-rimmed glasses, one covering each lens, until they laughed or hollered or in some way acknowledged the joke. Then he handed over the cookies. Needless to say, Max never even cracked a smile. But he seemed more attentive than usual. On several occasions, Rose could have sworn he actually focused on the man’s face rather than just looking at his round glasses before accepting his round cookie.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” the man said.

  “Bless you,” Rose said. She tried not to cry again for fear of unsettling Max. He hated to be touched so she tried to keep her distance. But she couldn’t help herself. He either let her hug him or was too oblivious to even notice. He went limp and stared across the street. When she finished he straightened back up and kept staring at the same thing or at nothing.

  “I’m Matt.”

  “Yes, I know. From the Flour Patch. How did you know where we live?”

  “Dumb luck. One of your neighbors dropped by for a baguette and recognized your son. It was almost closing time, so I thought I’d bring him home myself.” Matt patted Max on the head as he stepped off the porch. “I should probably warn you. I had to give him quite a few cookies to coax him along. He might get sick on you.”

  “How can I ever thank you enough.”

  “For making him sick?”

  “For bringing him home.”

  “All in the line of duty. This isn’t the first kid I’ve found on my doorstep. Cookies make a powerful impression on little boys.”

  “Just little boys?”

  “I’ve had a girl or two. But mostly boys. Adventurous little tykes.”

  “There must be something they like about you. Boys in particular.”

  “Cookies,” Matt said. “I’m just the middleman.”

  Rose’s cell rang. First the police and then Todd checked in. Matt slipped away before the squad car pulled up to verify Max’s safety and file their report. He had an adversarial relationship with the police, who expected free coffee with their morning pastries.

  Rose sat on the porch with Max until Todd finally came home. Todd looked tired and anxious. His initial expression was tentative, as though he were expecting fallout for not leaving work to join the search. Rose had already forgiven him, the minute he mentioned
manifesting the power of positive thinking. If only he knew how easy it was to patch up their differences. They were just a happy thought or two away from happiness.

  “Thank God he’s okay,” Todd said.

  He leaned over and gave his wife her requisite home-from-work kiss, being careful to steer clear of his son. They were sitting surprisingly close together on the top front step. Todd couldn’t really squeeze by them without disturbing Max. He was bone tired and wanted to collapse on a porch chair. His relief at seeing Max home safe and sound was all but eclipsed by exhaustion and annoyance. The fact that he had to remain standing at the base of the stairs was the last straw. He’d been on his feet all day, supervising the aerial arm of the assassination. On a good day, he routinely mustered up the energy to juggle his family and the war on terror. Today was not a good day.

  The white flag had, in fact, been a decoy. The raid had degenerated into a fire fight so fierce the SEALs were forced to blast their way into the compound. As a result, documenting the success of the mission was a particularly grisly procedure. Todd had to listen to every graphic detail in one ear while JSOC processed the information in the other. Both voices were unflinchingly professional. Dispassionate. In the background, his own squad was complaining about how they had wasted the day babysitting SEALs. He finally told them to shut up, pretending he couldn’t hear his headset over the racket. The truth was, he couldn’t handle the discrepancy between what was happening on the ground and in the trailer. He didn’t know which was worse, witnessing the carnage of combat zones or being too far removed to give a damn.

  Somebody had started a fire on the ground floor of the compound, presumably to destroy evidence. SEALs eventually managed to put it out, but nowhere near in time. Several charred corpses were huddled in corners of what remained of the kitchen. One of them was conspicuously small. The body of the militant commander himself was retrieved from the roof, where he had been picked off by a chopper gunner. Fortunately, he had escaped the inferno, which simplified the process of identification. SEALs zipped him into a body bag and loaded him onto one of the birds, proof positive that the raid had been justified. One less Taliban warlord terrorizing the region into submission.

  Mission accomplished. Todd missed the days when the phrase hadn’t been so fraught with ambivalence. He didn’t question the efficacy of taking out high-value targets. In theory, he didn’t even question the means to that end. It was perfectly possible that targeted assassinations actually saved lives in the long run, just as laser-guided missiles did, minimizing the footprint of collateral damage. But the proliferation of information seemed to suggest otherwise. Documenting every limb of every conspicuously small corpse made it increasingly difficult to bask in the glory of a job well-done. Back in the day, the target had been out of sight, out of mind. Even if pilots botched the mission, they could hash it out over dinner in the officers’ mess, or at the very least sleep it off in a barracks bunk. Instead, Todd punched the clock and drove home to his wife and kids.

  Trying to engage with his family in the wake of torching a family was beyond him. He was sick of blaming himself for shutting down. No amount of training could prepare a man for this level of emotional complexity. He kept trying to muster up the energy to actually feel his feelings, as Rose put it, a valiant effort that usually backfired. Anger surfaced much more readily than anything else. Under normal circumstances, he might have fended it off. If only he could gather Max in his arms, summoning up the spontaneous love buried beneath layer upon layer of protective detachment. But he knew better. The only way to keep the peace was to keep his distance. He resented the fact that Rose didn’t come to the rescue. She seemed even less accessible than Max, completely oblivious to his profound need to reconnect. As far as she was concerned, everything was hunky-dory 24/7. She had shut down even more completely than he had.

  “That guy from the bakery walked him all the way home,” Rose said.

  “Which guy?”

  “Matt. The one from Alabama.”

  “Unbelievably nice of him.”

  “Can you believe Max figured out how to get there? All by himself?”

  Todd decided to choose his words carefully. He didn’t want to blame Rose for letting Max run off any more than he wanted to be blamed for not joining the search party. They were both doing the best they could. But asking him to marvel at their son’s incredible journey was going too far. Max should be spanked, not praised.

  “Have you told him it’s wrong to wander off alone like that?”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “It’s dangerous.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “It’s precisely the point, Rose. He wanders off and gets rewarded with cookies.”

  “He’s still working on understanding yes and no. Somehow I don’t think he’s ready for right and wrong.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  Rose gave him that look. In the good old days, she would have said something withering, like how for a smart guy he could be pretty stupid sometimes. Now all he got was that goddamned Zen expression of hers. She and Max had practically the same look on their faces, sitting side by side like twin Buddhas. What a family.

  “I’m not going to have this discussion right now,” Rose said. “With him sitting here.”

  “Why not? Afraid he might understand and learn something?”

  “Can’t you see that this is a huge step forward?”

  “Several huge steps forward. Across two busy streets.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “Me?”

  “Max finally shows some initiative. And what do you do? Complain.”

  “I’m not complaining. I’m concerned.”

  “Concerned that he’s finally reaching out? Making connections with other people?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Max perks up every time we go to that bakery.”

  “A bakery is a far cry from connection with another human being.”

  “He’s crazy about Matt.”

  “He’s crazy about cookies.”

  “Why walk all that way just for a cookie? He could have just raided the cookie jar.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” Having made his point, Todd was ready to move on. Their little spat was in danger of escalating into a fight he didn’t have the energy to win. “There must be something we’re not thinking of. Something about the bakery we don’t see.”

  “Listen to you.”

  “Now what?”

  “I can’t tell if you’re hell-bent on disagreeing with everything I say. Or just constitutionally incapable of seeing anything in a positive light.”

  Todd anticipated the trap in the nick of time. If they continued in this vein, Rose would accuse him of being disingenuous on the phone. If you imagine the worst, you’ll manifest it. A more narcissistic philosophy was inconceivable, as though the universe gave a shit what people thought. Or was it just infantile, a bunch of little girls wishing upon a star? Todd assumed the majority of Source groupies were women, whiling away idle afternoons, if they were lucky. And then there were the unlucky ones, contending with autistic kids and disaffected husbands. Trying to feel less powerless. At least Rose had an excuse. If she wanted to believe Max had negotiated two busy streets and remembered to make three left turns and a right, just to see his buddy Matt, so be it. Let her have her theories if they made her feel better.

  “Have it your way, Rose,” Todd said. “It’s not worth arguing about.”

  Rose was right about one thing. It had been a prodigious journey, even if Max wasn’t a prodigy. For once he had deviated from his rigid routine, initiating what appeared to be a spontaneous act rather than robotically performing the same rituals day in and day out, month after month. Todd had his own theory, which he kept to himself. No doubt Rose wouldn’t approve. He suspected that Max’s apparent spontaneity masked a deeply embedded fetish, one so powerful Max felt compelled to sacrifice smaller obsessions in serv
ice of this larger one. He decided to retrace his steps, to try to discover the source of his fixation. He didn’t mean to pathologize his son’s motivation. If it was, in fact, Matt the baker, he would owe Rose an apology.

  Todd got up earlier than usual the next morning, to give himself time to walk to the bakery before driving to work. He put on his jogging shorts to camouflage his intentions. No need to let Rose in on his little experiment until after the fact. She was still all excited about Max’s breakthrough with Matt. As far as she was concerned, it was a turning point. They now had concrete evidence that their son could form meaningful relationships with people rather than just things. She actually called it a friendship. Next thing you knew, Max would be on Facebook.

  Todd slipped out the back door and ran down the street a block before slackening his pace. He tried to imagine what Max would see as he walked along. That lady curbing her dog? Probably not. Max had zero interest in pets, let alone their owners. A dog might as well be a chair as far as he was concerned. In this, they were told by his doctors, he was an atypical child with autism. As if there were such a thing as a typical child with autism. Everyone had their theories.

  A school bus roared by. Todd was amazed at how fast they drove, with such precious cargo. Their flashing lights and robotic stop signs must have made their drivers feel invincible, like firefighters careening around corners with official impunity. Todd remembered idolizing not so much firemen as fire trucks when he was a boy. The attraction was speed. It had always been all about velocity for him, trucks breaking the speed limit, planes breaking the sound barrier. That little boy had grown up to be a pilot. But Todd had lapsed back into his own mode of perception. Speed meant nothing to Max. He had a fire engine in his truck collection, but its most salient characteristic was its color, not its function. He always placed it fourth in his lineup, presumably to maintain the sequence of red, tan, and brown established by the first three trucks.

  Would Max have noticed the school bus? In a manner of speaking. He probably would have seen a streak of yellow, without bothering to identify the object itself, since color was so much more interesting than actual things, let alone people. Of course Rose had figured out a way to see even this in a positive light. If Max’s color palette was any indication, he was capable of expanding his comfort zone when he put his mind to it. A year and a half ago, he had had only one favorite color, and a dull one at that. Tan. Now, in addition to a penchant for red and brown, he could also tolerate orange, yellow, and sometimes even blue. Perhaps this little boy would grow up to be a painter. In the spirit of saving their marriage, Todd refrained from pointing out that their son could barely pick up a fork, let alone a paintbrush. Details, details.