Soldier Mom

by Alice Mead

  “Normally, yes. But there is always a small outside chance that the reserves can be called for mobilization. That means called into readiness to help out, called into action.”

  “You never told me that before.”

  “To be honest, Jas, I never thought this would happen, my being called to go overseas like this.”

  “So that phone call, that officer, told you you had to go in the regular army now?”

  She nods. “Right.”

  “And go overseas?”

  “Yes, but that’s all I know right now. I’ll find out more in the morning. Just go to bed, Jas. And don’t worry. We’ll work something out. See you in the morning.”

  I go to my room. I plug in my seashell night-light and climb into bed, shoving my toes way down into the cool sheets. I smooth a place on my pillow for my cheek and try to get settled. I tell myself little stories at night when I can’t get to sleep. But tonight I can’t think of one, and I lie awake for what feels like hours.

  5

  Mom is shaking me. Why? I wonder in my sleep.

  “Come on, Jas. Come on, sweetie. Get up.”

  I hunch up in a ball. Why should I get up? I’m dreaming.

  “Sweetie’s tired,” I say. “Sweetie needs to sleep in.”

  “Tough. Come on. I have to get a very early start today.”

  In the hall, Andrew tries to stand up. He trips on the rug and falls down on his little rump. Mom scoops him up. I sit up and push off the crumpled sheet.

  “Are you working today?” She’s wearing her camouflage uniform.

  “I have to go to my office to get some more information.”

  “What information?”

  She shakes her head. “About last night. I’m dropping Andrew off at day care, going in to my office, and I’ll be back here to talk with you in about an hour. Okay?”

  I nod. She ruffles my hair, and I clench my teeth and let her.

  “Where’s Jake?” I ask.

  “Asleep.”

  That lazy lummox. My fifth-grade teacher used to say that. Lazy lummox.

  “Oh, can you throw in the laundry and take care of those dishes?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “And take out the trash. To the curb, I mean.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And sort the recyclable stuff.”

  “Okay!”

  “Last night I made a couple of lists of phone numbers and a schedule for things like Andrew’s one-year checkup—”

  “You what?” I stare at her in disbelief. She hugs me.

  “Nothing. Forget it. I’m sorry, Jas. I’ll be back soon.” Mom puts on dark glasses and gets into her car. I hope it stalls. I hope she is trapped and can’t go anywhere. For once, it starts immediately, and she and Andrew back out of the driveway. Mom waves as they pull away.

  I watch our ugly car drive up to the stop sign on Main Street. I’ll never be like her when I grow up. I will never, ever join the army. I will never, ever leave my children. Ever!

  “Ever!” I shout, brushing a few angry tears from my eyes and kicking all the empty plastic milk jugs down the basement stairs, one at a time, happy when they smack against the wall. I hope they wake up Jake.

  After eating my cereal, I do the chores, one after another, hardly knowing what I’m doing. I guess her plan is to keep me busy. It works, because soon an hour is up and there she is. She sits me down at the kitchen table. And before she says one word, I feel my whole heart, my whole life, squeeze up in my chest into a terrible, terrible knot.

  Say something to make this lump go away, I want to tell her. Then I notice that she looks worse than I do. She’s got smoky dark rings under her eyes, and her hair is a disaster.

  She can’t talk. She holds her car keys and sits with her legs close together and her elbows pulled in tight. She says nothing.

  “So?” I say.

  “The plan is for me to go with a small advance team. To Saudi Arabia. I’ll be setting up, ordering equipment and supplies for a large-scale rapid deployment. The first troops from Fort Bragg will be leaving the U.S. on August 8. That’s rapid, all right. Anyway, my first thought was for you kids to go to Grammy and Gramps. But there’s no way you can go to Florida. Gramps isn’t well at all. Their apartment is so tiny . . . It’s better to stay here, at home—so Andrew can go to the same day care, you can stay in the same school.”

  “Florida? You wanted to send us to Grammy and Gramps? To their one-bedroom apartment with all the medical stuff crammed into it? You were going to send us there?” I can barely breathe.

  “No. No, sweetie. It was just a thought . . . I tried contacting your dad to let him know—Anyway it’s better, I think, for you both to stay here.”

  “But who will take care of us?”

  “Jake.”

  “No way!”

  “I’m going to leave you the pediatrician’s phone number. I’ve already called her and told her what’s going on. And I’ve asked the Parnells to keep an eye on things.”

  “The Parnells? Are you crazy?” I shout.

  I can’t believe this is happening. Mothers don’t leave their kids. They just don’t. I am no longer angry. I am furious. I miss most of what she is saying.

  “. . . back I hope by five. There’s a homemade pizza in the refrigerator. Cut it in pieces and heat it in the microwave. And there’s a tubful of sliced-up carrots and applesauce for Andrew.”

  “When did you make pizza?”

  “Around two in the morning. I had a lot to do.”

  “But, Mom, I mean, Jake can’t . . . he’s never even taken care of Andrew. He’s late all the time!”

  Maybe this is illegal. How can the government take my mother away? I want someone to stop her from going.

  “Let’s not think about that now, okay? There’s still a chance someone will let me stay because of Andrew. Listen, Jas, I’m going back to the office. I have to. I’ll be home before five. See if you can go over to Danielle’s. And no swimming down at the cove.”

  “Mom, the water’s freezing!”

  “See you. Gotta go.” She’s at the door.

  “Mom! No!” I yell. Panic is choking me. “You can’t go. Quit! Quit the army, or I’ll hate you forever and ever, I swear to God.”

  Jake comes in, toweling off his hair from the shower. “Hey, hey, let’s calm down in here. Give your mom a break, Jas. You think this is easy for her? Stop that yelling.”

  I turn on him, sobbing. “You . . . you . . . shut up! This isn’t even your house.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Jas,” Jake says, “but it looks like I’ll be moving in here for a while to help out. So you better get used to it.”

  “Yeah? Well you can stay here for Andrew, then, but don’t expect me to follow your dumb rules. I can take care of myself!” I yell.

  Now Mom is yelling. “Don’t be ridiculous. Stop it, Jas. Stop that!”

  Jake gives me a fake smile. “Nice tantrum, but I’m not impressed.” He grabs a tee shirt and his car keys. “I’m out of here. I’m going to get a newspaper while you ladies fight this out.”

  Typical Jake, he disappears before anyone else can. Two seconds later, Mom hugs me, kisses the top of my head, and runs out the door. “See you soon.”

  And I’m the only one left in the house. Tantrum. What a jerk.

  With everyone gone, our little house seems big and empty. I can hear the thunk, thunk, thunk of something noisy tumbling over in the dryer. Probably Mom washed Andrew’s sneakers. Washed sneakers are never the same. One trip through the washing machine and a sneaker is changed forever. It turns stiff and unfriendly. The laces get weird.

  I don’t want to be here when Jake gets back with his newspaper. So I call Danielle’s house. She’s sleeping in. Her mom will have her call me a little later. I go back to the living room and flick on the TV to that cable news station. Sure enough, there’s the map. The same one. Someone from the White House is talking.

  This type of aggression will not stand. Right now, we have
aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. We have fighter aircraft. And we are not alone. The Egyptians and the Saudis are right there with us. Together, with our allies, we will show Saddam Hussein that he cannot invade a defenseless country like Kuwait and get away with it. With our new technology, our new weaponry, Saddam will never know what hit him. Bullies must be punished.

  How can this huge, strange thing be happening to me? Who is this general with the double chin and tiny hat? General Schwarzkopf? Stormin’ Norman? Never heard of him till yesterday and now he’s ruining my life. I click the TV off fast.

  Fighter aircraft. Tomcats. F-16s. I know a little about that stuff from having an air force parent. Mom said that my dad’s jet, the Tomcat, can fly eight miles high at the edge of the atmosphere, almost in outer space. He took my mom up in it once, against orders. She said it was like riding in a roller coaster, it was so rattly and noisy. You’re in a glass bubble cockpit, and you’re spinning around above the earth. And the G forces warp your eyes and face.

  The Tomcat is an interceptor. It’s supposed to catch enemy planes and lock on to them with radar and then blow them up before they get near their targets.

  But there are other kinds of jets, too. And spy planes, radar jammers, refuelers, missile carriers. And Apache helicopters. All kinds for different jobs. I don’t want to think about this. Any of it. So I tie my sneakers and run outside. I usually go down to the beach when I’m upset or want to be alone.

  Today it’s hot out and a little hazy. The soft, sweet smell of the pink beach roses that grow along the cement steps means there’s a little bit of a breeze lifting off the water. I run past the Parnells’ house. Muffy is tied up in the backyard, and she yaps at me with her squeaky little bark. “Yap. Yap, yap, yap!”

  “Shut up!” I yell back. “Shut up!”

  I don’t care who hears me. I can’t yell at anybody else, so Muffy’s going to be the one. Wrong place at the wrong time, as they say on the crime shows.

  Across from the Parnells, on the other side of the street, live a man and wife, no kids. The O’Neills. They’re lawyers and work late and aren’t home a lot. Sometimes I have to walk their dog, Alfonse, an ancient golden retriever with arthritis in his back legs. Alfonse hears Muffy barking and me yelling, and he stands up, tail wagging. Oh no. Maybe he thinks I’m going to walk him, the poor guy.

  I run past Alfonse and head down the forty-eight steps to the beach. Most of the rocks here are huge boulders covered with shaggy wet seaweed hair, hanging at low tide like dreadlocks. At low tide, there’s sand, some anyway. At high tide, the beach is narrow and rocky. Most of the seaweedy rocks are covered up. Sometimes kids go swimming. Not for very long, though. The water’s freezing cold. The warmest it gets is maybe sixtytwo degrees, which is cold enough to make my ankles ache in ten seconds.

  It’s low tide, or almost, and I stumble, trip, and rattle across the rocks to the narrow sandy part. I pick up a big rock and approach the water. I put the rock on my shoulder and heave it. It makes a big, ka-klunking splash with a hollow sound to it. Again and again, I heave another rock, as hard as I can. I’m out of breath now, and I’m crying a little, but I won’t stop. I just keep throwing and throwing until I can’t anymore. She can’t do this to me. Us.

  I drop to the sand and roll over onto my stomach. This isn’t much of a beach for finding seashells, but there are a few small white cone-shaped twirly ones. The inside curve of seashells reminds me of the soft shape of ears. I sit up and throw a little shell, hard, into the sea.

  6

  At the top of the steps, I see Shawn and Jake coming down the street.

  “Shawn!” I yell.

  “Jas.”

  “Hi!” I try to sound a little more cheerful. The first yell came out like a croak. I clear my throat and try again. “Hi!”

  Jake must have brought Shawn to look for me. Shawn rolls his eyes at me from behind Jake’s back. I smile. Laughter is rising up inside me like a gigantic bubble about to pop.

  I squint my eyes against the sun’s white glare. The early morning breeze has died down. It won’t be until about three o’clock that the onshore breeze starts up and cools things off.

  I’m sweaty and my hair is sticking to my forehead. I hate my shirt. Why on earth did Shawn have to show up right now? A half hour later would have been a whole lot better.

  Jake seems to be in an awful hurry. He has to be at work by ten.

  “Hey, listen, Jas. You better behave yourself today, you got that? No more tantrums. Don’t you dare give your mother a hard time when she gets back tonight. Can you imagine what she’s going through?”

  He turns around and heads back up the street.

  I want to say something sarcastic, but manage to keep quiet. I glance at Shawn and make a face.

  “Wow,” says Shawn. “Is he stressed out or what?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s your mother’s boyfriend, right? What’s going on?”

  I shake my head, tears rush to my eyes. As I look up-hill against the brightness of the sky, Shawn’s a blur of white.

  “Is it something really bad?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I whisper.

  “Can you tell me?”

  “Yeah, in a minute. Come on.”

  To make up for not untying Alfonse earlier, I go sit with him in the O’Neills’ driveway and scratch him behind his ears. He loves that. Shawn sits near me, watching us. After a few minutes, Alfonse goes over to him and sniffs Shawn’s bare arm, then his T-shirt. I brush away my tears.

  “Isn’t he a great dog?” I ask.

  “Yeah. He’s cool.”

  “His name’s Alfonse. I visit him a lot because the people who live here are hardly ever home.”

  “I thought you were going to tell me what’s up,” Shawn says.

  “Yeah. My mom, she got called for mobilization to Saudi Arabia. For the army.”

  “Whoa. You’re kidding.”

  I shake my head. “I wish I was. She’s leaving on Saturday. Tomorrow. And Jake’s going to take care of us.”

  “Wow. That’s terrible, Jas. Aren’t you scared?”

  “Yeah. You think there’s going to be a lot of shooting and dropping bombs and stuff?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I rest my head on Alfonse. He licks my cheek. I guess he doesn’t like to see me cry.

  “You were great at the tryouts last night,” Shawn says, patting Alfonse, smoothing the hair back on his head. He’s looking at Alfonse, not me, when he says this. “It’s not every day you get to see Bigfoot try out for basketball.”

  “Oh. Thanks. But I mean, why did you come? Out of total boredom?”

  Instantly I regret what I said.

  Shawn looks away and doesn’t answer. He takes Alfonse’s paws and lays them on his chest. Alfonse thumps his orange tail.

  “Hey, Shawn, how about if you don’t call me Bigfoot anymore?”

  “Yeah. I’ll try. But it’s asking a lot.” He lowers his head. “Do you miss your family, Alfonse?” he asks in a goofy voice. “Where’s your mommy and daddy? Huh? Did they go off and leave you?”

  I feel bad that I put Shawn on the spot. I want to make it up to him. I want to make him smile. But the only time I can remember jokes is when I’m lying in bed, trying to fall asleep.

  “So . . . ummm . . . what have you been up to all summer?”

  “Not much. I’ve got two ox yearlings that I’ve been raising, which you probably already know, getting ready for the fall fairs. I was helping my dad some, doing a lot of haying. Went swimming. Went to Eric’s house a lot. Hey, Jas, want to come out to my house and meet my oxen sometime?”

  “Meet oxen? They’re not exactly pets, are they?”

  “They’re better than pets. They’re awesome. A lot of people are telling me they might win best in New England. So, do you want to?” He glances at me hopefully.

  “Nah. I don’t think so.”

  Shawn nods and puts Alfonse’s paws back down. He gets to his feet
and brushes off the seat of his jeans.

  I feel rotten. Here he came to my tryout and rode his bike five miles to visit me, and I was mean to him. Twice. I don’t know why. I guess he caught me at a bad time.

  “I better go,” he says. “See ya.”

  “Yeah.” I nod. “See ya.” I get to my feet. I have a big lump in my throat, and I let my hair hide my face so he won’t see I’m about to cry again.

  He heads off alone up the street to get his bike at my house. Then he stops and turns around.

  “Oh, wait.” He pulls a turquoise envelope out of his jeans. “I meant to give you this.”

  I take it. “A card? Thanks, Shawn.”

  He nods and leaves. I open the envelope. Two cartoony cows are standing upright, holding hooves. Inside it says, “I find you udderly delightful!” It’s signed “Love, Shawn.”

  The word “love”—he wrote that! I stare closely at his handwriting. No scribbles, no cross-outs, it’s not even teeny writing. He wrote “love” in a normal, confident way.

  I kneel there a little longer, hugging Alfonse. I really like the card. What’s wrong with me? I guess I’m surprised that Shawn likes me, even though kids were saying it all last year. Still, why was I so mean? All I can think of is that I wanted to hurt him because I’m upset about Mom.

  When I get back to the house, I find a mess in the kitchen—Jake’s mess: newspapers spread out on the table and a half-empty bowl of Froot Loops. Jake better learn to clean up after himself, I think, because I sure don’t want to do it.

  I hope Danielle’s awake by now. Even if she isn’t, I’m going to head on over and sit on her front steps until she is, just to be near some normal folks.

  But Danielle is up.

  “I have to tell you something important. I’ll be right over, okay?”

  “Okay, but Stevie’s here. The noise level is deafening.”

  I run through the kitchen and out the back door. I leap onto my bike, no safety helmet, liking how the hot wind blows my hair back away from my face. I ride like a madwoman down Prince Street.

  At the Roberges’, I push Danielle into her bedroom and shut the door.