LeAnne had no idea. Maybe Coreen was right and she should have done better. Maybe it was an impossible situation. This was all so complicated. LeAnne latched on to one little fact before it disappeared. “She has nightmares?”
Coreen, maybe about to burst into tears, pulled herself together and nodded. “Not every night. She’s basically a happy kid, by day. But she’s also very imaginative, and I think that combined with her mother being away—away and in danger . . .” Coreen went silent.
“What kind of nightmares?” LeAnne said.
“She never remembers in the morning. But sometimes in her sleep I hear her sort of . . .” The tears came flowing now, unstoppable. “ . . . sort of crying, ‘Mommy, Mommy.’ ” Coreen lowered her head and sobbed and sobbed, making awful cawing sounds, unbearable to LeAnne. But LeAnne did not go over, did not consider touching her shoulder. That hadn’t helped the first time. What the hell was she supposed to do? She was trying to think of some practical response, when she heard scratching on the window behind her. She swung around and there was the dog, looking like a maniac, if dogs could be maniacs.
LeAnne stood up quickly. “Be right back.” Coreen showed no sign of hearing her. LeAnne ran through the house to the front door, flung it open. Somehow the dog was there and waiting. At the sight of LeAnne, she sprang forward, as though to leap into LeAnne’s arms, as a much smaller dog might do.
LeAnne came very close to catching the dog. For a moment, she had the big animal in her arms, but she staggered and lost her grip, her old strength just not there, plus the dog was wet and slippery. The dog hit the ground running—not a figure of speech: her legs were actually making bounding motions in midair—and raced into the house.
LeAnne fell against the door jamb, recovered her balance, and took off after the dog, through the living room and down the hall that led to the sunroom at the back of the house, where the sobbing seemed to have quieted down to crying and sniffling. The dog darted through the first open doorway she came to. LeAnne followed her through and slammed the door behind her.
They were in a kid’s room—kid-type paintings on the walls, a soccer trophy or two, dollhouse in the corner—LeAnne with her back to the door and the dog darting around, her strange tail wagging.
“What the hell are you doing?”
The dog paid her no attention.
“You want to go to the shelter? Really? Think about it.”
The dog went to the bed, snatched something off the pillow.
“Put that down.”
LeAnne saw what was in the dog’s mouth: a small stuffed animal, in fact, a dog. “I said put it down.”
Instead, the dog shook her head back and forth in a very forceful way. LeAnne strode over to the bed and tried to grab the toy. The dog shifted away. LeAnne took hold of the collar. The dog didn’t like that, started growling.
“Growl at me and you’re done.”
They exchanged a furious look. The dog stopped growling.
“Now give me that toy.”
LeAnne seized on to one end of the stuffed dog—white, with round black eyes. The dog clamped her jaws shut and would not let go. One of the toy’s black eyes came loose and fell to the floor. LeAnne took the dog by the collar and marched her out of the room. The dog did not resist, actually began walking down the hall and out of the house, but started up a new struggle at the door, all about trying to get around to LeAnne’s right and LeAnne not letting her.
“Hey, there.”
A voice came from the blind side. LeAnne whipped around, saw a man in a full suit of yellow rain gear coming the other way, and in that whipping-around motion, she lost her grip on the collar. The dog bolted away immediately, the toy dog flapping in her mouth.
“Fucking shit!” LeAnne glared at the man.
The man looked taken aback, although with the rain hood obscuring his face it was hard to tell. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Scare me?” Who was this asshole? “Scare me?” By now the dog was trying to barge through a hedge several houses away on the other side of the street. LeAnne raised her voice. “Come here! Come here this second!”
The dog disappeared through the hedge, actually taking out a large portion of it.
“Wow!” said the man in the rain gear. He, too, raised his voice, a baritone, not unpleasing. “Here—” He glanced at LeAnne. “What’s his name?”
“Her name. She’s a she. And she has no name.”
“No name?”
“What’s your point?”
“No point. Might make it easier to call her, that’s all.” He raised his voice again. “Here, nice doggie. Come on back.”
The dog did not appear. The man stuck his thumb and index finger in his mouth and whistled, maybe the loudest, shrillest human whistle LeAnne had ever heard. It split her head like a cleaver. She wanted to kill him, and was turning in his direction, all set to do she didn’t even know what, when the dog popped into view far down the street, looking their way and standing in what might have been a questioning posture, head tilted to one side.
“Hey, come on back,” the man said, not even very loudly. Without hesitation, the dog came charging down the street, her speed astonishing. She skidded to a stop on the wet pavement and sat at the man’s feet, the toy dog still in her mouth.
“Who’s a good girl?” the man said, squatting down and petting the top of the dog’s big, square head. His hood fell back and LeAnne got her first good look at him. He had a homely face, although up close the only homely part was the nose, and even it wasn’t so bad. He’d gotten better looking with age, if Marci’s wedding photo could be trusted: this was Harvey. Meanwhile, he was talking to the dog. “How about Goody? You like that name?”
“For Christ sake,” LeAnne said.
Harvey glanced up at her. “Isn’t she a beauty? Did you just get her?” And at that moment he caught sight of her bad side; there was an almost imperceptible change in the expression of his eyes, vanishing at birth.
“Why do you ask that?”
He smiled. His teeth were on the small side, but white and even. “Just that you haven’t given her a name yet.” He rose and held out his hand. “I’m Harvey Wald.”
“LeAnne Hogan.” She shook his hand and added. “I know who you are.”
“Yeah?” he said.
“Marci’s first husband.”
He looked past her to Coreen’s house. “You were a friend of hers?”
LeAnne nodded.
He came real close to checking her face again; she could feel the hidden back-and-forth inside him. “From the military?”
“Correct.”
“What a horrible thing,” Harvey said. “I don’t know the words.”
They were in agreement on that. LeAnne kept silent. The rain fell harder.
“Not that I really even understand what happened to Marci,” Harvey went on. “Meaning the whole story. Coreen’s been a bit all over the place, not that I blame her. In fact, I was on my way to sit with her for a while—care to join me?”
“I already sat with her,” LeAnne said.
“I hear you,” said Harvey. “She’s in a bad way. And the situation we’ve got now, on top of everything.”
“You mean Mia? I don’t get that part at all.”
“It’s baffling,” Harvey said, pulling up his hood. “How about we get out of the rain?”
“I thought you liked the rain.”
“Who told you that?”
LeAnne shrugged.
“Marci?”
She shrugged again.
“Your conversational style reminds me a bit of her,” Harvey said.
“We can sit in my car,” said LeAnne.
They sat in the Honda, LeAnne and Harvey in front, the dog in the back, stretched out and fast asleep, the toy dog beside her. Raindrops hit the hood and bounced, and the car steamed up inside.
“She was driving M35s on the Baghdad Airport Road, and she hit an IED,” LeAnne said. “They
just couldn’t keep it clear back then. It’s supposed to be better now.”
“I know the IED part,” Harvey said. “But she survived that.”
“Not the way I see it.”
“I meant she got home, or at least stateside. Did they make some kind of mistake at the hospital?”
“I don’t know. All I remember . . .” LeAnne couldn’t recall the facts of Marci’s death, or how she’d learned of it. Marci’s kiss was still out front, blocking the rest.
There was a long silence. She felt Harvey’s gaze. He was in the passenger seat, and she sat behind the wheel. “You were there? At Walter Reed?”
“That’s how I know Marci. Didn’t I explain that already?”
More silence. Then he said, “The lousiest thing you can do is say, oh, if only I’d done this or that, she’d be all right. Beating yourself up but at the same time making it about you, if you see what I mean. Of course, I’m not talking about you personally.”
“You’re talking about you personally.”
Harvey nodded. Then he tapped his fingers softly on the dashboard. Something about the contrast between the worn, scuffed plastic and his skin, so healthy and alive, caught her attention. “So,” he said, “unless I’m misunderstanding, you only knew Marci in the hospital?”
“Correct.”
“But you’ve come all this way.”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing. I’m just thinking out loud.”
“Ever been in the military?” LeAnne said.
“No.”
“What you’re missing is how fast you get to know people in war.”
“And the hospital is part of the war?”
“Christ,” LeAnne said. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“Probably should have been,” Harvey said. “I don’t know anything about war.”
“Keep it that way,” LeAnne said. “What do you do?”
“I’m a schoolteacher. That’s how I got to know Mia. Mia was—she is in my class this year.”
He began describing the time sequence—Marci’s enlistment, she and Mia moving away to Fort Lewis, Marci getting the call-up, Mia coming back to live with Coreen—but LeAnne couldn’t hold it together in her head. With Marci’s whole backstory scattered all over the place, she tried to focus on what was absolutely central in the here and now.
“What’s on your mind?” he said.
And for some reason, she told him. “I’m trying to focus on what’s absolutely central in the here and now.”
“Which would be finding Mia and bringing her home safe, right?” Harvey said.
“That’s part of it.”
“Only part?”
“Or maybe all. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the rest will come automatically.”
“You’re losing me, LeAnne.”
The truth was she’d sort of lost herself. For a moment or two she also lost all sense of where she was, or why. Her life stood on nothing solid, stood on nothing at all, like a magician’s trick. Poof and gone. Poof was a kind of explosion, of course, so it couldn’t have fit better.
And then—poof!—she got past the kiss and had a clear memory of Marci by the cherry blossom fountain, vivid all the way down to the taste of the apple brown betty liqueur. What’s her future if something happens to me? That’s my biggest worry.
And just like that, everything made sense, as though LeAnne had been following a script the whole time, the magic rules of life.
“I can feel you thinking,” Harvey said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
LeAnne didn’t explain herself to him. The point was how clearly she saw that finding Mia was all that mattered now. She hadn’t understood anything so completely since . . . since before everything went bad. And maybe even before then: how well had she understood Katie, to take one example? But she didn’t want to think about Katie, or all the doubts Stallings had tried to plant in her mind, or those six girls, or IEDs under the pole-vault pads. What could she do about any of that?
“Can I ask you something?” Harvey said. “None of my business, so if you want me to fuck right off, just say so.”
LeAnne twisted around so she could see him. Would everything important always be happening on her blind side for the rest of her life? However long that might be?
“ ‘However long that might be?’ ” Harvey said. “I don’t understand.”
What the hell? She’d spoken that thought aloud? “Nothing. Forget it. I—” She paused, sniffed the air. “What smells in here?” Which was way off track—the track being all about finding Mia, thank God she had a firm grip on that—but her head hadn’t stopped hurting since that whistle of Harvey’s, and with the windows so steamed up she was feeling closed in; and now this smell on top of everything.
“Wet dog,” Harvey said. “You don’t seem to be a dog person.”
“That’s what you wanted to ask me about—the dog?”
“No. Well, yes, that too, as long as I don’t forfeit the other question.”
LeAnne twisted around even more so she could take a good long look at him. His nose was actually perfect, in a strange way.
He smiled. “You’re scaring me a bit—like you’ve got X-ray eyes.”
“Ha,” said LeAnne, and she looked away. “The dog’s a stray who’s somehow become my responsibility. No one’s claimed her, and her chances at the shelter are not too good. In the market for a dog, Harvey?”
“This isn’t a good time,” Harvey said. “I’m considering a job offer out of state, starting September.”
“Where?”
“California—in the Anderson Valley, to be specific. Ever been there?”
“No.”
“Heaven on earth.”
LeAnne tried to get rid of the windshield condensation with the back of her hand, but all she did was make everything streaky. Through the streaks appeared a distorted world. “Marci had this theory about Iraq, all about hell being under the surface and sometimes popping through.”
“And those pops are the IEDs?”
LeAnne nodded. Then came a silence, and when she looked at him again, there were tears on his cheeks. Too bad for him, but worse for Marci.
“Let’s have your question,” she said.
Harvey wiped his face on the sleeve of his rain jacket, only making everything wetter. “It’s not really my place to—” There was a beep. He took a phone from his pocket, checked the screen, his attention turning outward right away. “They may have found something.” Harvey zipped up his jacket and reached for the door handle.
“Where are you going?”
Harvey pointed with his chin at a pickup across the street, somehow missed by LeAnne although it was right in front of Coreen’s house. “My ride,” he said.
“I’ll take you,” said LeAnne.
“There’s my school,” Harvey said after they’d turned off Apple Street and gone a few blocks east, meaning back toward the river. “That monkey bar set?” Harvey said. “Built and paid for by volunteers.” He cleared his throat. “I designed it.”
“Yeah?” Maybe it would have been polite to slow down for a good look, but LeAnne didn’t think of that till they were past it.
“Well, not from scratch—I adapted something I saw on the internet.”
LeAnne almost smiled. There was something about his tone—a combination of making fun of himself and pride—that she didn’t recall hearing before from anybody.
“Does Mia play on it?” she said.
“She does, as a matter of fact. Mia’s an athletic kid, goalie on the eight-year-old soccer team, runs like a deer. She used to do flips off the top bar until the principal stepped in.”
“She’s got athletic genes.”
“On both sides, actually.” The fun, or liveliness, or just plain pleasure in talking went out of Harvey’s voice.
“Max—what’s his last name again?”
“Skelly.”
“—was an athlete, too?”
“Back in the day,�
�� Harvey said. He glanced over at her. “Max is ten or twelve years older.”
“Older than who?”
“Me and Marci. Ten or twelve years older than Marci was. We were only twenty when we got married—kind of ridiculous, in retrospect.”
“Why?”
“A little on the young side, don’t you think?” Harvey said.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On how long you end up living,” LeAnne said. She didn’t know what to make of Harvey: he seemed not in possession of some important facts about life, but she kind of liked him anyway.
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Harvey said. “I must seem stupid.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Or maybe innocent is a better word, at least in contrast to you.”
“How do you mean?”
“That’s sort of in the territory of the question I was gearing up to ask,” Harvey said. “You’ve obviously been through a lot.”
“Obviously?” she said.
They came to a stop sign. LeAnne turned to face him. He looked afraid. That was good. “Obviously, like how?”
“Poor choice of words,” he said. “I didn’t mean obviously. I—”
LeAnne reached up to her right eye, her movement slow and deliberate, and then even more slowly and deliberately, she tapped it with the tip of her fingernail three times, making three hard clicks. “Obviously like this?” she said.
She’d come to the end of kind of liking Harvey, was swinging the other way and fast, but he surprised her. Harvey didn’t flinch. He stopped looking afraid. Neither did he look shocked or disgusted. What was the best descriptor? Solemn? Something like that. He simply faced her right back in a solemn, homely way. “What can I do to help?” he said.
“I don’t want any help,” LeAnne said.
“Then that’s what I’ll do,” Harvey said.
Had he meant that as a joke? Whether or not he had, LeAnne came close to smiling again. How was that possible? LeAnne had no idea. Someone honked behind her, a soft, small town kind of honk. The rain stopped falling. LeAnne drove on. She settled down inside.
The Right Side Page 19