When You Were Older (retail)

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  Not that I really wanted all his memorabilia, or even mine. More because my mother obviously had wanted them. And because, if she wasn’t around to hoard these memories, I’d have to hoard them on her behalf.

  And maybe, just maybe, so that if Ben ever accused me of forgetting all about him, I could tell him, ‘How can you say that, Ben, when I still have the Mother’s Day card you made when you were six?’

  I didn’t exactly write a note for Anat. Because I had no idea what to say. Because I had no idea what had happened.

  Instead I just wrote down all my contact info – cell number, land line in Jersey City, address in Jersey City, email – folded it up, put it in an envelope, wrote her name on the front, and left it on the kitchen table.

  14 December 2001

  IT WAS FRIDAY. Four days from the moment I’d done a complete turnaround on where I intended to be. Geographically and otherwise.

  I was eighty-eight floors above Manhattan. More than halfway through interviewing for a new ad job. It would be a great job, if I ever got it. But it wasn’t likely that I would. Because too many other people wanted it just as badly.

  I sat in a leather chair, trying not to slouch, yet trying not to sit too stiffly, either. Which meant I was losing. Once you misplace the ability to be yourself without thinking about it, without second-guessing it, you’re pretty well cooked.

  And there was another problem I couldn’t overcome. Or maybe they were intertwined. Sitting in the well-appointed offices of an ad firm in a Manhattan high rise was causing my post-traumatic stress to flare. There are only just so many times you can wipe sweat off your forehead before it gets conspicuous.

  I watched my interviewer glancing over my application. Nodding here and there. He didn’t seem to be paying full attention. Almost as if actually sitting down with each of these applicants was a burdensome formality. I took that to mean I wasn’t high on his list. His head was tilted downward, exposing the thinness of the top of his hair. I guessed he was in his mid-forties. I guessed he was a nice guy at heart. But fundamentally tired. On the inside.

  He sat back and looked up at me. Set my application down on his oak desk.

  ‘What do you want for yourself in five years? Where do you see yourself? What do you want your life to be?’

  ‘I just want to be happy.’

  He cocked his head slightly. ‘Happy?’

  I thought, Yeah. Happy. You’ve heard of it. Right?

  ‘I don’t mean to make it sound like I don’t have ambition. I have plenty of ambition. But I’m not one of those people who always wants more, no matter how much I get. The idea of drive is all wrapped up with the drive to be happy, right? I want to work at a job I’m good at, and that’s good at me. I want to contribute. I want to live a good life. Now. In five years. Whenever.’

  He blinked three or four times in quick succession. ‘That’s an unusual answer.’

  ‘In a good way or a bad way?’

  ‘I liked it. Actually. But, anyway. Let me just get this said. We’ve got over a hundred qualified applicants. So it’ll be a long process, deciding. I’m not saying you’re not still in the running. But don’t pull back from your job search just yet. If you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Greg. Sir makes me feel old.’

  ‘Greg.’

  ‘Let me just make sure I’ve seen everything you …’

  He reached for my application again. Flipped it over to the back. Ran one finger down it. Stopped. Stopped cold. Looked up at me. Looked down at the place he held with his finger. Looked up again. Looked down again.

  ‘Is this a joke? No. Nobody would joke about that. Would they?’

  ‘Sir? Greg?’

  ‘Hatcher, Swift & Dallaire? You were with Hatcher, Swift & Dallaire? Through the tenth of September this year?’

  I nodded, my forehead sweating again.

  ‘Then what are you doing sitting on the other side of my desk? Or anywhere else, for that matter?’

  The silence seemed to nearly echo. Like a ringing in my ears.

  ‘Well. Greg. It’s like this. My mother died on the morning of the eleventh. Unexpectedly. I got the call just as I was leaving for work. I have a brother who’s … who can’t take care of himself. And I was told I had to drop everything and get home. And that threw off the timing on my morning.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  Silence. I looked out the window and saw a plane, thousands of feet above the city. The size of a toy. Still, it made my chest constrict. I didn’t answer. What answer is there to ‘Jesus’ anyway?

  ‘You know, I know the only other Hatcher survivor,’ he said.

  ‘Stan Harbaugh.’

  ‘Stan’s an old colleague of mine. We actually started out in the same mail room in the same ad firm out of college. He told me there was only one other guy who wasn’t in the office that day. He must’ve meant you.’

  ‘Must have. I’m having lunch with him after this interview.’

  ‘Tell him Greg Wasserman says hello.’

  ‘Will do.’

  He stood, so I stood, too. He reached out his hand and I shook it.

  ‘I just moved you up a tier in the running. Still a big field, so keep looking. If you haven’t heard from us in four weeks, that’s that.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He shook his head as he walked me to the door. ‘It’s like interviewing a ghost. You’re lucky to be alive.’

  That was one way to look at it. But I didn’t editorialize.

  I’m learning.

  I glanced at Stan again, over my menu. He caught it, and looked back. We smiled just the tiniest bit. Awkwardly.

  Then we went back to studying our lunch options.

  In a few minutes, when we’d closed the menus and set them on the table, he said, ‘I couldn’t have been more surprised when you called.’

  ‘Took me long enough.’

  ‘I figured you didn’t want anything to do with me or the whole thing.’

  ‘Just different coping mechanisms,’ I said.

  ‘Understood.’

  We looked out the window for a while. I think we were still feeling unbalanced. I know I was.

  ‘I was such an emotional mess,’ he said. ‘I figured I’d put you off.’

  ‘Don’t even take that on. We were both a mess. Everybody was a mess. You just tackle things more head-on than I do. You just got off to a better start. You know. Letting it all move through you.’

  More awkward silence. A waiter came and took our orders. I was partially grateful for the distraction.

  ‘You still talk to Kerry?’ he asked. With something tentative in his voice.

  ‘No. I haven’t talked to her.’

  ‘Oh. Not my business. Didn’t mean to pry.’ Silence. ‘Seemed like you two might’ve been … close. You know. Something there. But I don’t mean it like …’

  ‘We didn’t do anything behind Jeff’s back. If that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Affair of the heart. That was the consensus. That’s what most people thought. Anyway. I’m getting off on the wrong foot here. Like I’m trying to get all into your business, and actually I’m just trying to get a feel for whether I should tell you she’s with somebody.’

  I looked up. Into his face. Interested. But … did I feel anything about that? I stopped and put an ear to my own feelings for a moment. Nothing. Well. Not much.

  So I just said, ‘That was quick.’

  ‘Yeah. Like, three weeks out.’

  ‘Well. I hope she’s happy.’

  ‘Really? That’s the most charitable take I’ve heard on it yet. Everybody else thinks it’s scandalous. She hadn’t even had a memorial for Jeff yet.’

  An inward flinch at the mention of memorials. I’d brought my mom’s ashes home with me from Kansas, but hadn’t done anything respectful with them yet. At first I’d been waiting for Ben to adjust. And then …

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Everybody? I thought everybody was gone.’
>
  ‘I’m talking about the SO club. The close network of surviving significant others. Maybe too close. Too much fertile ground for rumors. And opinions. Especially about how other people should grieve. I’m half in that and half out of it. I mean, yeah, it was fast, but who’s to say? Maybe she found somebody to help her with her grief. It doesn’t necessarily mean she didn’t love Jeff.’

  ‘She loved Jeff,’ I said. I’d been in a position to know.

  ‘Things just happen, I guess.’

  ‘Life turns on a dime.’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘Oh. I almost forgot. Greg Wasserman says to say hello. I interviewed for a position with him this morning.’

  ‘Oh, that would be a great firm for you. I really hope you get that. I’ll see if I can put in a good word for you. Greg and I go way back.’

  ‘So he says.’

  After the food came, I told him everything. I told him all about my time in Kansas. I don’t know why. Or, I don’t know … then again, why not?

  I said, ‘It’s like things took a turn for the horrible that morning, and I just couldn’t get them to turn back again. Everything just kept going wrong.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that a lot,’ he said. ‘You know there are some really ancient theories about that, right? It’s like the same theory as to how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It’s like my mom used to say, “Bad luck comes in threes.” ’

  ‘Any theories on how to break the pattern?’

  ‘I guess we just have to set our sights on being OK again. I think we just have to believe it’s possible to get there from here.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ he said.

  ‘Well, then you’re doing better than I am. See, that’s the thing about people who hit emotion head-on. They have a head start over people like me. I just keep thinking about what happened. And it’s like … I just don’t know about this world. I don’t know what we’re supposed to make of a world like this.’

  ‘Unless you’ve got another one in your pocket,’ he said, ‘we’re going to have to make our way in this one.’

  ’See? I’ll just have to hang around you more. See if it rubs off.’

  ‘Anytime, Russell.’

  That’s when we promised we’d do it again. Soon. And, all things considered, I figured it was possible that we actually might.

  15 December 2001

  I WOKE UP and cleaned the place. Literally top to bottom. I even took down all the draperies and carried them to the dry cleaner’s. I paid all my outstanding bills with a credit-card advance. I found a storage spot in the hall closet for my box and Ben’s box. I found a spot on the dresser for my mother’s ashes. For now.

  How could I have a memorial for my mother that Ben couldn’t attend?

  I forced the thought away again.

  I set up the Christmas village on the top of my bookshelf in the living room. I was hoping it would be cheery.

  I knew exactly what I was doing. I was trying to force a change. I was trying to reset life, in any way I could. Send it off in a new direction.

  By three thirty in the afternoon, I was exhausted. I sat staring at the lighted village, realizing that, without the drapes, I had no real choice but to see the changed skyline of lower Manhattan.

  Reset, I thought. Reset. But how do you reset the skyline of lower Manhattan?

  I don’t know if it was a dodge or just inevitable hunger, but I decided I couldn’t live without Pad Thai another hour. I set out on foot to a Thai restaurant, even though it was snowing, and the closest good one was twenty-two blocks away.

  Then I caught a cab home so my food wouldn’t get stone cold.

  I emptied my mailbox on my way through the lobby, and took my mail and my Pad Thai upstairs. I knew I didn’t really want to be in my apartment, but it was cold out. And I had to be somewhere.

  I changed into sweatpants and sat cross-legged on my couch, staring at the Christmas village and eating with disposable chopsticks. Halfway through dinner, I opened my mail. Despite the fact that it was only my second foray to the mailbox since arriving home, there were only two things. One was a final turn-off notice on the electricity. But I’d paid it online that morning, so I figured it could be safely ignored. The other was a plain envelope, no return address, made out by hand, and postmarked Wichita. Which probably really meant Norville. All Norville mail was shipped overnight to Wichita for postmarking.

  My heart began drumming in my chest, an old and unwelcome feeling, and I slaughtered the envelope ripping it open. But it was not a letter from Anat.

  In fact, it was not a letter. And I had … have … no idea who it was from.

  Inside was nothing but a clipping from the Norville Weekly Leader, Nowhere-ville’s thin excuse for a local paper. The title of the article was ‘Army National Guard Admits Norville Soldier Killed by Friendly Fire.’

  I unfolded it. And Vince Buck the soldier smiled at me from the page.

  I began to read.

  When two soldiers came to notify Betsy Buck of her son Vincent’s death, the first thing she asked was how it happened. The soldiers said Buck, 25, had been killed by sniper fire while trying to secure a prison in Kandahar on 9 November. Later, the 58-year-old Norville native said, she called the local National Guard for more details and was told the unarmored Humvee in which Buck was traveling hit an improvised explosive device en route to the prison battle, in which five soldiers – four American and one British – were killed.

  ‘I knew it had to be one or the other,’ she said. ‘I don’t like to think this way about my own government, but I got the impression that somebody was trying to blanket over the truth.’

  Today, nearly four weeks and dozens of phone calls later, the official story has changed. The deaths of all five soldiers are now being attributed to ‘friendly fire’, the army’s term for a harmful or fatal mistake on the part of non-enemy troops. In this case, the troops who made the mistake of firing a missile at an Allied convoy were American.

  I looked away from the text of the article for a moment. Into the photo of Vince’s smiling face. And I remembered offending Larry by telling him going to war would be pointless. In a weird way, I’d been right. Righter than I ever meant – or wanted – to be. But it turned out more pointless for Vince than for Larry.

  I hated to even remember that. Suddenly I wanted to think like everyone else seemed to think. That military retaliation was honorable and just. But that’s only wanting. War is always pointless. That’s what I think.

  I continued to read. For a moment. Mrs Buck was quoted as saying, ‘I’m as American as anybody, but—’

  My cell phone rang. And I didn’t want to stop reading to answer it.

  I figured it was Cheryl Baker-Keene. My real-estate agent. She’d called yesterday to deliver an offer on the house, which I’d authorized her to accept. Not as much money as we were asking, but it was fast, and fast was what I wanted.

  Slightly irritated by the distraction, I grabbed up the phone and clicked it on.

  ‘I’m going to have to call you back,’ I said.

  Silence on the line.

  ‘Oh,’ a small voice said.

  It froze me, through and through. It hit me in a way I didn’t even know I could be hit any more. I thought I’d armored up better than that. It felt sad to fail at something so basic.

  ‘Anat?’

  ‘Yes. Me.’

  Disjointedly, I thought: Note to self, just say hello. Don’t assume it’s not Anat.

  A long, long … long silence.

  I looked out the window. It was nearly dark already. At not even five thirty. It was coming on to winter. This horrible year was nearly over. I took the phone to my drapeless window. There was no furniture by the window, so I sat on the freshly vacuumed rug. And I did what I’d been avoiding doing, at least as much as humanly possible, since arriving home. I stared at the place where the lights in the windows of the towers should have
been. I think up until that moment I’d been wanting to avoid it as a way of moving on. But, in that moment, I got it. Not so much in my head, but more instinctively. Part of resetting your life is accepting where you are in your life right now.

  ‘Russell. Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes. I’m still here. Are you still there?’

  It was a silly question, I know. I think I’d halfway said it to make her laugh. And she did. Just a little.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner.’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Mostly so. I will be, I guess.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘It would not make you happy to know that.’

  I leaned my shoulder against the bare window. Felt the coldness of the world through my sleeve. I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing.

  ‘I still can’t really use my hands,’ she said.

  My heart fell to about my knees. ‘I didn’t know it was that bad.’

  ‘Well, I’ve had to have some skin grafts. And afterwards I need to be very careful with them. I had to figure out how to push the numbers on the phone with the eraser end of a pencil. I held it between my wrists.’

  ‘Does it hurt a lot? Are you in a lot of pain? Will you tell me about how it was for you, how it is? I haven’t known, and I’ve been going crazy.’

  ‘I will. But maybe not right now, if that’s OK.’

  ‘Does it hurt to hold the phone now?’

  ‘I have it on speaker.’

  ‘Oh. Good. So …’ I wasn’t sure how to say what I wanted to say next. ‘So you did have my phone number the whole time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Long pause. It had to be said, though. ‘So is that really the only reason you didn’t call? Or is there more?’

  Silence.

  I was not about to fill it.

  ‘Well. There was also the fact that I was not alone. My father gets someone always to stay with me. Because there’s so much I can’t do on my own. And there were other problems. I had to get a neighbor to buy me a pre-paid phone card. So my father wouldn’t see this on the phone charges. But to be truthful …’