Long Division

by Jane Berentson

  My parents both nodded.

  “Holy. Fucking. Shit.” I said. Loud. Strong. Incredulous. Then quieter: “BabyAldenBrotherAldenDead.”

  Gus’s house has this cool door knocker, a gnarly wild boar with a nose ring. It was close to midnight when I lifted the bronze ring and let it fall in a series of bangs that started loud and fluttered away to silence. I knew Gus was still there because his van was still there, and after all the strange crying and talking and supposing with my parents, I didn’t want to bother them with driving me home. They tried to convince me to stay the night up in my old room, but I lied about having to feed Helen.84 Gus answered the door and I fell into his arms like a typical, flimsy female. I started crying again. I think he said, “Whoa, there.”

  He agreed right away to drive me home, didn’t even go back in the house to collect his things or tell his dad.85 In the van I immediately assumed the slumpy window position that I had used last fall after the whole red pen/fork eye-stabbing incident at school. We both said nothing for the first several minutes.

  “Alden is dead, Gus.” I told him at a stoplight.

  “Baby Alden?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Where Is Brother Alden? Alden?”

  “Yup.” After sobbing fits, I always feel like my brain has been rearranged—kind of like after a night of heavy drinking—and the words I use and the way I say things are like some other mixed-up version of me. “Yup”? I never say that.

  “What happened?” I could tell Gus was upset. He scooted to the edge of his chair, leaned into the windshield, bit his lower lip.

  “He was shot,” I said in my second weird voice of the night. The beaten, defeated version of my previous heat-packin’ persona. “In Iraq.” Then Gus’s curiosity broke out of the pack, leaving his sensitivity and his logic limping in the dust. He just fired out all these questions, and from my slumpy post against the window, looking in the side-view mirror at the way my lips moved and made strange shadows, I just answered him. Gave him every little bit I knew.

  Every Little Bit I Know86

  Bless Her Heart Barbara called my parents the day before. BHH Barbara is Alden’s father’s mother, which we never knew. Apparently it took my father a while to figure out who she was. She had never EVER called before. She must have looked us up in the phonebook. She told my father that Alden had enlisted in the Marines straight out of high school in 1998. He was killed last month during a raid in Fallujah. Bless Her Heart Barbara had thought that my parents should know—that they would be proud.

  “A month?” Gus asked. We’d pulled into my driveway. “Why did she wait so long to tell you?”

  “I don’t know. She probably was busy grieving. Maybe it took her that long to think of us.” And though that thought kind of blows my mind—though I’m so fucked up that I would love to think that within five minutes of learning of her grandson’s death, Bless Her Heart Barbara would lift her soft pointer finger to her lips and think, Oh dear, I must tell the Harpers—I really doubt that’s the case. Then I start rambling to Gus.

  “You know, this is so messed up. Why do I feel such a significant loss over someone who was kind of insignificant to me? I didn’t actually know him. Never fucking met the buck-toothed kid. Technically, logically, I should feel this shitty about every twenty-two-year-old who has died over there. I mean, I’ve spent the last—I don’t know—seven years thinking about this guy and planning some dopey reunion where we become fast friends and suddenly he’s like, the maid of honor in my wedding and we go backpacking around Europe together.

  “I bet the only reason I feel anything is because I’m feeling bad for myself all over again for the same selfish reasons—for never having a goddamn brother.” The engine had been off for several minutes, and it was starting to get cool inside the van. I yanked the hood of my sweatshirt over my head and pulled my hands inside the sleeves.

  “Maybe the grief you’re feeling isn’t for you, but for the full life he didn’t have. Maybe your gut is aching for his family and friends who are going to miss him. Because you kind of already know what it’s like to miss him . . . even though you didn’t know him?” He inflected his voice like a question mark on that last part. Gus reached over and put his hand on my leg. “And obviously you’re also kind of freaking out because the volatility of this whole situation is becoming more real. If it can be Alden, it can be David.”

  And the word hit me like a fucking anvil. David. Ever since Alden’s name tumbled out of my father’s mouth trailed by that betraying verb “is” and that wicked adjective “dead,” I hadn’t actually thought about David. Not once. I know it seems weird, especially because of the circumstances of them both being soldiers and them both fighting in the same war and me having a very substantial history of fretting about said war, but I don’t know why, I just didn’t think about it.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said to Gus. And then I felt the weighty urge to talk to David. Whether the weight was emotional need or straight obligation, I felt it. It got heavier and heavier very, very quickly. A suit of armor that stiffened my joints and kind of made me feel like an anonymous robot. I exchanged a brief hug, thank you, goodbye series with Gus and I got out of the van. I let myself in the front door and collapsed at my kitchen table. I folded my hands on top of the woven placemat and sat very, very still. After a few minutes, I adjusted the fringe tassels on both sides of the placemat. Perfectly straight and orderly. Perfect placemat. Easy life! Then I got up and walked toward the garage.

  In the garage, I puttered about the cabinet where I keep gardening equipment and tools. Then I found it. It looked smaller and felt lighter than what I remembered from the one time David and I took it to his buddy’s house in Spanaway to pop soda cans off a fallen tree trunk.

  I walked around the side yard.

  Let myself in the back gate.

  Stealth.

  Powerful.

  Sleek.

  Alone.

  And then I shot my beautiful chicken.87

  17

  Today I’m calling my book Almost Perfectly Innocent, and obviously I did not murder Helen. It’s just that while I was writing and thinking about Alden being dead and David’s chances being just as gloomy, I guess I was craving a sort of drama I could control. Yes, it was a nasty, sick fantasy—especially considering how much I adore Helen—but there was a power in making up that scene that felt kind of good. If I shot Helen, I’d be entirely the one to blame. It’s like people who chew their fingernails when they’re going through tough times. Michelle—from college—she smiles when people tell her bad news. Someone is saying how their best friend from junior high just tested positive for HIV, and stupid jerkface Michelle is fighting the corners of her mouth from curling upward and baring her pretty teeth.

  I don’t know what I’m talking about. But I do know this: Grief makes people do weird shit. And this nutso breed of brother-I-had-for-two-months-and-don’t-remember-and-never-met-is-dead grief has really got me flirting with absurdity.

  How’s this for absurd? In the past three days I’ve shampooed my carpets, rearranged my bookshelves, filed my taxes, experimented with four corn bread recipes,88 read two books,89 and laundered all my bedding. I’m pretending it’s the normal spring cleaning that I do every year, but honestly, it was a lot of putzing around the house waiting for David to call. He’s been really busy, and I didn’t want to tell him about Baby Alden as a response to one of his generic, three-line e-mails.

  Hey Annie,

  I only have a minute to write, but I just wanted to let you know that things are going okay. Things have been a bit more tumultuous lately and I’ve been going out on these extra two-day missions that are a total bitch. Miss you love you. Yours, D

  Things? Things are both okay and tumultuous? Since when did David make these kinds of equations? I need to e-mail some of those blahgers and see how they get by on such meager communication. These bare bones of vague facts. Wee little snips of status reports. Logical inconsistencies, for
Christ’s sake. Back when David was here, there was so much to discuss and so much time to indulge frivolous conversations. I would tell him a whole twenty-minute story about an oral book report I did in seventh grade and how my bedsheet toga fell off during the presentation. He’d explain to me why a good cornerback is so important to a high school football team. We’d argue over which beers to have on tap at the tavern we fantasized about opening on the waterfront. But now things are going okay. I guess I shouldn’t complain. So far he’s been luckier than poor Alden.

  I’m painting my toenails90 and watching a television program about modern-day shepherds in France when my cell phone r ings—finally—displaying the telling “012345678.”

  “At last!” I answer the phone.

  “Annie?” David says. Unconventional greetings often throw him off for some reason.

  “Oh David, I’m so glad you called. It’s been forever.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve wanted to. You know how it is.”91

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Yeah . . . So what’s new? How was your spring break? Tell me about camping.” And it’s weird because I want to tell David all about camping. About Stephen and all the fish we caught and the beautiful Girl Scout fire I made each night. But then it just feels so unbalanced to foist the details of my life onto him when it seems like he is not so into foisting details back my way. And also because I’m holding this load in my arms about Alden.

  “Camping was awesome,” I say.

  “Cool. Catch any big fish?”

  “David, Alden died.”

  “What? Alden?”

  “Yeah. My once-upon-a-time brother Alden.” And then David gets real quiet. I tell him the whole story, and he stays all shushed up for a long time. Then he says he’s sorry—in this tiny, tiny voice—over and over and over and I keep telling him that it’s okay and that I’m really just sad for Alden’s family and the devastating brevity of his life. And, of course, because I never knew him. David assures me that marines are always doing more dangerous stuff than the army, and he asks a few questions about where Alden was stationed in Iraq, what his MO was, and of course I don’t know much beyond Fallujah and a lucky enemy gunshot. I most definitely don’t know. Change seats! Now it’s Annie Harper with a dry mouth of paltry details.

  “What’s weird, David, is that he died over a month ago, and I never noticed him in the Names of the Dead section.” I’ve been puzzling this quite seriously.

  “Well, maybe you missed a day?”

  “Yeah, maybe. Because I know I’d have stopped at an Alden.” Silence. Silence. Silence.

  “David, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m alright.” And then I ask him if anyone in his company has died yet. I can tell this always makes him a little uncomfortable, but they haven’t lost a man yet and now I’m superstitious about it. Like if I keep asking, they will all keep not dying. And I know it’s odd that I ask because obviously if something happened, he’d tell me. He tells me that no one has died and that one guy I don’t know hurt his leg pretty bad in a non-combat-related accident. I say that I’m sorry and that I hope he gets better fast. He’s quiet again.

  “David?”

  “Yeah, babe. I’m sorry. I’m just tired. Worn out. And I’m kind of sad. I just wish I were there with you. I think that since I’ve been gone, this exact moment is the one moment where more than anything, we really need to hug.”

  “Seriously,” I say.92

  “Well, I hope you feel better about Alden and everything. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that he was here too.”

  “I know.”

  Silence. Silence. Silence.

  “I kind of hate the universe sometimes.” String theory is beautiful; war is not.

  “Annie, I better get going. I have to work in about a half an hour and I should try and grab some food before I go.” Before we hang up I go through my regular be safe, wear your helmet, never wear earplugs kind of talk. I say things like Don’t forget to engage in thoughtful inquiry; it’s more likely than your brute strength to save your life. And David is so kind that he doesn’t tell me I’m silly and that the U.S. Army has already got strategic thinking down pat.

  I’ve been thinking I might want to print out all the e-mails David has sent me since he’s been gone. I will cut super close around the text and pin them up, flush against each other on a bulletin board. Then I can stand before them with three colors of highlighters and study them for subtext and hidden codes. I can count certain words and make a graphical depiction of how his mood has fluctuated throughout this experience. But I don’t think I need the graph to know that right now, he’s suffering. But I think I do need the graph to find out exactly why. Right now I’m picking up a blanket war sadness. I want him to kindly toss me more details.

  The penultimate day of spring break (Easter Eve) I go down to V-Meadows to visit Loretta. Right away she asks to inspect my fingernails for “muck and fish scales.” I tell her all about the camping trip: the fires and the quiet nights. She gasps when I describe the freedom of wearing the same socks for three days. And I’m right in the middle of describing Hobo Lake when I start to feel kind of bad about it, wondering how long Loretta has been cooped up in this dismal prison. Will she ever get out? What would her freedom look like? I imagine her hair down, the wind’s fingers gently plucking out each of her trusty bobby pins and swirling them to gather in her hand. She clasps her fingers around the pins and does that twirly thing with her arms outstretched; sloughing a year off her age with each exuberant spin. She’s in the middle of one of those perfect meadows where they shoot television commercials for fabric softener. She’s breathing deep, robust breaths, and the mountain air is filling her feeble lungs with nourishment and life.

  But really, as I’m thinking this, Loretta is coughing up a wad of phlegm that she then deposits into a tissue in a way that’s so graceful and elegant, I almost think it’s a move in an interpretive dance routine and not the viscous product of her gradual decay. I walk over and rub my hand across her shoulders and notice for the first time how petite she is. She’s probably a good six inches shorter than me, and her frame feels tinier than those of my students.

  “So, what do you want to do today?” My relationship with Loretta has progressed to the point where I don’t feel the need to talk all proper Southern belle anymore. Two months ago I’d have said, “How do you wish to pass the afternoon?”

  “Well, Annie. Why don’t we just relax? Make some iced tea.”

  “Sounds great,” I say. I love how making iced tea is an activity. Making iced tea is enough. We walk down the hall together, slow baby steps to the kitchenette. I pull a box of tea bags from a cabinet, and we talk as Loretta slowly removes the paper wrapping off half a dozen bags.

  “So, Miss Harper, how’s that big, handsome boyfriend of yours? He behaving himself over there in the front lines?” And I don’t correct Loretta when she says “front lines,” because I’ve already tried to explain that David mostly does computer stuff. She just doesn’t seem to get it.

  “Oh, he’s doing okay. Plugging along, I guess.” Loretta’s shriveled hands struggle to tie the strings of the tea bags together. The way they move reminds me of what it must be like to make a sculpture out of overcooked sausage links. I’m not sure whether or not to intervene and tie the strings myself, so instead, I keep talking. “He’s been kind of down lately. He was so upbeat for the first few months. Now I think it’s all really wearing on him.”

  “Poor dear,” Loretta says. “I remember when Ron hit that point. I could almost see the sorrow in his handwriting. His script began to sag and slant more. He wrote me the saddest poetry. Some of it was published, you know?”

  “Oh yeah? I didn’t know Captain Ron Schumacher was a writer?”

  “Indeed, he was.” She smiles, either with the pride of having had such a sensitive mate or because she’s finally succeeding with the strings of the tea bags. Probably a combination of both. The pot of water on the
range is starting to bubble around the edges and she places the tea bags into the fury. Patiently watches them sink and steep. “Ron’s poetry has been published in numerous literary reviews. Several of the poems are anthologized in collections about the war.”

  “Oh, wow, Loretta. Do you have copies here? Would you mind if I read some of it?”

  “Regrettably, I don’t. They’re packed up at my daughter’s house somewhere. I’ve been asking her to bring them by. My room has that little bookcase above the desk, you know.”

  “That’s too bad. What did he write about? If you don’t mind me asking.” Loretta is so interesting. So tough and so interesting.

  “Oh, the usual things. Blood. Death. The tragedy of war. The devastation of the human race. That’s a title of one of the poems, actually—“The Devastation of the Human Race.” She leans against the countertop and folds her arms across her chest. “I was really worried when he sent me that one.” And then for some reason we laugh. She starts it. I join. The Devastation of the Human Race! Chuckle. Giggle. Guffaw. Are we laughing at Captain Ron? Are we laughing at devastation? Somehow, it feels really good. I’m comforted by the realization that the wide generational gap between Loretta and me can still accommodate a shared irreverence. An ability to recognize shards of absurdity within blood, death, and the tragedy of war. She has turned the burner off, and we stand there sighing a bit, watching steam collect and condense on the side of the yellow refrigerator. It happens so fast, changing from gas to liquid—sad to goofy—with the simple temperature of the surrounding air.

  We finish making the tea and settle down in Loretta’s room. I tune the radio to a classical station, and we end up trading stories about sleeping with men. Not “sleeping” the euphemism for sex, but actual sleeping. Loretta slept with Ron three times before their wedding night. She says she was never able to really rest on those three nights. She kept waking up, startled by the weight of his arm across her waist. Jumpy at the smell of someone else being there.