If You're Reading This

by Trent Reedy

  Michael, I want you to go to church. Learn about Jesus. Read the Bible, so that you have your own understanding of the Lord and of right and wrong, not just what someone tells you to think. These things are important. I tell you, son, if I didn’t have faith, I don’t know how I’d make it through this. I’ve talked to your mother about making sure she gets you to church and Sunday school while I’m gone.

  I remembered that! We used to go to the Methodist church all the time when I was a little kid. I think we only went once or twice after Dad died, though. Now that I’d grown up, maybe I could see about attending services again.

  Speaking … or writing … of your mother. I know I’ve already asked you to help her and your sister out, but I can’t stress that enough. I know that when you’re a teenager, it can be a real challenge to get along with your mother.

  I looked up from the page. Years ago, Dad had meant for me to be reading his advice about God somewhere close to this day. Was it God’s will that I read what Dad had to say about Mom on the night she went crazy on me? Providence or coincidence, I welcomed his thoughts.

  Your mother will annoy you. That’s what mothers do. Remember the Bible says you should honor your father and mother. If you’re reading this letter now, I’ve made it a lot easier to put up with me. But I’m telling you to respect your mom and be kind to her. Help her out, okay? This deployment is rough on her. She hasn’t been didn’t handle this deployment so well.

  Your mom’s had it rough all her life. Her father abandoned his family, and her mother wasn’t so great to her. But your mom worked through all that. She’s one of the hardest-working people I know. Maybe she’s remarried by the time you get this. That would offer her a little help, but even then … Trust me, it’s hard work raising two kids. If she’s brought you up on her own, then she’s working all day only to come home and work taking care of you, Mary, and the house. The next time you’re mad at her, try to think of all she’s done for you, of all she’s sacrificed.

  Likewise, go easy on your sister. She’s younger than you, so don’t expect her to be so mature. When your mom decides she’s old enough to date, make sure her boyfriends are afraid of you.

  That’s your mission this time. Do something nice for your mom or sister or both. It should be something extra. So if you’re already taking out the trash or washing the dishes on a regular basis, find something more, maybe something unexpected that will really make their day. I’m sure you’ll think of something, but if you need help, remember you can always ask Ortiz. He’s a good guy. You can trust him.

  Ortiz again. That part of Dad’s plan hadn’t worked out. Why was the Mystery Mailer staying so quiet through all of this? Why wouldn’t he contact me?

  Some nights Ortiz and me and some of the guys get together to smoke cheap cigars and talk about life, politics, women, the war, and everything. We call this group the Gentlemen’s Smoking Club. The GSC were talking on our first night in Farah, and we were all feeling kind of down. There we were, on this base that wasn’t even close to finished. We don’t have many guys, we have few weapons, and we don’t even have tactical vehicles yet.

  So I said to the guys, “Look. We’re the Army National Guard. Some of our equipment, like our radios and rifles, may not be the newest and best, but we still get the job done. Out here in the middle of nowhere, we’ve had to figure out how to handle things on our own, like cowboys out on the range. We might not always be completely sure how to solve a problem or carry out the mission, but we do it anyway. It’s the Cowboy Way.”

  Cookmaster (our cook — just about everybody out here has a nickname. One poor kid in Bravo team is stuck being called Weebly.) raised his paper coffee cup in the air and made a toast. “Here’s to the Cowboy Way.”

  Saddle up, Michael. Don’t shy away from doing good things because you’re afraid or because you’re not sure how, or you’re not sure if it will work out or not. Follow your heart. Have the courage to do what you know to be right in life and in love. If you don’t feel the courage, then just act like you do. Nobody will know the difference. I didn’t make it, so it’s up to you to live the Cowboy Way.

  Love,

  Dad

  Do something nice for Mom or Mary? Right now, I was too angry to even begin to imagine how to complete this mission. I guess I’d have to figure it out. It was what Dad called the Cowboy Way.

  “How was the Iowa game?” I asked Ethan as he sat down at the lunch table on Monday.

  He smiled. “It was good. A win’s a win. How was your weekend?”

  I shrugged. “It started out okay,” I said. I told him about Mom ruining the end of Isma’s visit.

  He ate a bite of beef and noodles and frowned. “Sorry about how it ended up, but dude, what’s going on with you and Isma?”

  “Not you too.”

  “Hanging out in your bedroom —”

  “Working on a history project!” I said. “Hey, I talked to Raelyn on Friday before the game.”

  He waved a forkful of beef and noodles around. “And?”

  “And you are going to be in the musical,” I said.

  Ethan dropped his fork. “I am not.”

  “She said Ms. Burke is desperate to get someone for these two little parts in the first and second acts. You’re available, and being in this show will mean you’ll get to hang out with Raelyn every night. As soon as her breakup with Moore is official, you can ask her to the dance. Who knows? You might even get to dance with her in the show.”

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  “I thought you liked her.”

  Ethan leaned forward. “Dude, I think I love her.”

  “Then the quest’s the quest.” I smiled. “Take the part. Make it happen.”

  He closed his eyes. “I’m going to kill you.”

  “You’re going to thank me.”

  Gabe and Monty joined us. “Rhodes was talking in bio this morning. He has seriously got it in for you, dude,” Gabe said to me.

  “What did I do?” I asked.

  “I know, right?” said Monty. “He’s mad because you scored a touchdown? How does that make sense?” He took a bite of the beef and noodles. “Mmm, this stuff’s actually good. You gonna eat yours, Mike?” I pushed my tray toward him, and he snatched it up. “Thanks, man.”

  “Well, maybe if the guy didn’t flip out and get us unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties, he wouldn’t have to worry about it,” Ethan said.

  “You had some good tackles,” Gabe said to Ethan. “And some good action on kickoff return.”

  Ethan grinned and showed off his bruises. “Yeah, but the thing is, kickoff return would be a lot better if we hadn’t had to return so often. It’s the only thing I do on the team where I wish I got less playing time.”

  The guys laughed. We told jokes and kept talking about the game for the rest of lunch.

  * * *

  When I went back to fifth-hour study hall, I read in my corner in the library. I was still deep into Hamlet when I looked up to see Isma standing over me. “Hey,” I said, handing back her laptop. “Listen, about my mom. You have to understand that —”

  “No, I get it. Parents are weird.” She grabbed a chair and sat down.

  “Well, I’m sorry. She shouldn’t have been so —”

  “Do you have the list we talked about? The people your dad mentioned in his letters?” Isma said quietly. I pulled it out of my backpack, and she took the paper from my hand to read over the names. “Taylor Ramsey, Todd Nelson, and Ed Hughes.”

  “These are the only people he’s mentioned by first and last name. Except for Marcelo Ortiz, none of them are guys he served with, but I know Ortiz isn’t who we’re looking for.”

  “You think the Mystery Mailer is a soldier?”

  “Or he was. It makes sense, doesn’t it, that if Ortiz didn’t survive to deliver the letters, they would be passed to someone else who was with my dad in Afghanistan?”

  “I guess so,” said Isma. “But they might have been sent to so
meone here in Riverside just as easily.”

  “Well, Hughes lives right in town. His phone number’s listed.”

  “Have you called him?”

  “Well, um … not yet.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I just … I mean, I will.”

  Isma looked up from the list. “It must be tough. The idea of calling these strangers to see if one of them is sending the letters. All of this, really.” She leaned closer to me. “Maybe it’s enough that you have the letters in the first place. Don’t take this the wrong way, Mike, because I can’t imagine how terrible it must be to lose a parent like you have, but in a way, you’re really lucky. It’s been a long war, and a lot of kids have lost parents. How many of them get letters from them? Maybe you should just read the letters as they come and be grateful for what you have.”

  I swallowed. “It’s hard to explain,” I whispered. “Before these letters, all I knew about my dad was that he’d been this brave guy who died in a war. I thought I knew him. I remembered some things about him from before he left, and he called a couple times while he was over there. But all I really remember was how he acted around his two little kids. Mary always says I didn’t know him as well as I thought. The last couple of years I’ve wondered if maybe she was right. It may sound dumb, but it bugs me that I didn’t even know how he died.”

  “It doesn’t sound dumb at all,” Isma said. “Your father was taken out of your life. You deserve to know how and maybe why.”

  I nodded. “These letters have shown me things about my father that I never knew before, things I’d never guess. I’ve got to find out who’s sending them.”

  “Well then.” Isma smiled and turned back to her computer, pulling up an online phone book. “Let’s get started.” She spoke with enthusiasm, but as we ran the names through several different people-finder websites, our chances of finding the right guys seemed to diminish. The sites turned up a bunch of guys named Taylor Ramsey, but none in the state of Iowa. A zillion people named Todd Nelson lived both in Iowa and around the country. The only guy we knew about for sure was Ed Hughes.

  “What am I supposed to do, call or write letters to each one of these people?” I said. “Ask total strangers if they just happen to be mailing me letters from my dead dad?”

  “We could try some of them, at least some of the Todd Nelsons in Iowa,” Isma said. “It’s a place to start.” I must not have looked very hopeful, because she went on, “Don’t give up. The Mystery Mailer might send you a note of his own. And I’ll check in at the post office to ask if there’s any way to find out more about the sender. I don’t know, maybe there’s some kind of code in all those wavy lines on a postmark.”

  She was reaching, and we both knew it. Still, nobody else would have cared enough to try. Having a partner in this made the difficult task of finding the truth much more enjoyable.

  * * *

  That night at football practice, Coach Carter had us all on one knee where we faced what the guys called the Volcano’s Revenge. Coach paced back and forth in front of us, shouting every sentence like always. “The Big Three. Hard Work! You did not give me four quarters of your best work! Integrity! You did not do what was right at the game! We had sloppy plays and penalties! Team! You began yelling at each other! No unit cohesion!

  “You men weren’t tackling hard enough Friday night. That is my fault. I accept the responsibility. I have failed to properly train you. I have failed to properly motivate you. I will remedy this situation today. Today, we will not run drills at half speed. We will not go full contact. Today is double contact! All day. You will learn to take the fight to our opponent, and come this Friday night, when we head over to Kalona, we’re going to show the Pioneers what hitting’s all about!”

  A brutal and endless series of sprints and tackling drills followed. Then I had extra running to do after practice. After my day wrapped up with a rough night on the farm, I was hungry, tired, bruised, and filthy.

  My spirits picked up as soon as I walked in the door at home. Mary was standing in the dining room, waving an envelope in front of her. “Okay, this is getting weird. Who is writing to you all the time?”

  “Isma,” I said, snatching the envelope from her fingers.

  Mary laughed. “Yeah, right. That address is so not a girl’s handwriting, and it’s from Iowa City.”

  I walked right past her and went up to my attic to read the letter.

  Friday, July 23, 2004 (310 Days Left)

  Dear Michael,

  I’m not supposed to be writing this right now because I’m on guard duty, roasting in the blazing heat in a cement room at the top of a two-story tower. My job is to stare at the empty, dead desert to make sure that it stays empty and dead. To do that we have to keep our eyes open and staring out the window. So writing letters is against the rules.

  Reading books on guard duty is also against the rules. We must be staring at nothing at all times. It kind of drives me nuts. Anyway, that brings me to the first thing I guess I want to tell you. Always have a book going. Always take it with you. That way, if you get stuck someplace, like the dentist’s waiting room, you’ll have something to read besides those terrible magazines.

  I smiled after I read that part, amazed at how often Dad would tell me to do something that I already did all the time. Working hard in school? Reading? No problem. I was my father’s son.

  In all this heat, we sweat constantly. When we come back from missions in forty pounds of body armor, our uniforms are soaked so much that they look like we wore them swimming. That and the low rations have actually made me lose quite a bit of weight. If you are like I was in high school, you work out pretty hard. You’re in good shape. You’re also constantly hungry, and it’s hard for you to gain weight. That will change at about age twenty. It will be like someone flipped a switch, and suddenly, it will be a challenge to keep off the fat. Be ready. Watch what you eat. Keep working out.

  You should find someone to work out with. That way you’ll always have a spotter and someone to make you go to the gym on the days you’d rather take it easy. For me that guy was Todd Nelson. I mentioned him in an earlier letter. It’s kind of cool how we met. Near the start of my sophomore year, Nelson, this big senior, steps up to where I was sitting in the cafeteria. He tells me I’m in his way and I need to move, but there was plenty of room for him to go around. When I told him this, he said he’d have to make me move.

  Remember how I told you about not fighting unless you were attacked or unless your honor was absolutely on the line? Well, I figured this was one of those times. I shot up out of my chair and faced him. “Fine.” I shoved him hard in the chest, knocking him back a couple steps. “See if you can make me.” I thought for sure he was going to punch me, and then I’d have to hit him back.

  Instead, he laughed a little and slapped me on the shoulder. He said, “You got guts, kid.”

  I tell you all this because friendship can be a tricky thing. Nelson turned out to be one of my best friends that year. He really helped change things for me for the better back then. I was sad and angry about the death of my parents and pretty much everything else. Somehow during all that time I spent hanging out with him, I started to see the good in life too. I hope you have lots of friends and that you’re making many more.

  Just … be careful who you trust. Don’t share all your deepest secrets with just anyone. I think lots of times in high school, because it’s the first time you have the chance to be independent with people who like you and seem to understand you, you feel like you can tell those people anything. When your mother and I started going out, I told a couple guys some things about our relationship that I thought they would keep quiet. After your mother found out what I’d said to them, she was so angry, I thought I’d lose her. Sometimes people seem more trustworthy than they really are.

  Still, once you are absolutely sure that you’ve found a real, trustworthy, loyal friend, do all you can for him. You’ll never make friends like the ones you make in high school. Later
in life, like when you start a new job or go off to college, you can reinvent yourself, decide who you want to be and then BE that person. But your high school friends do a lot of growing up with you. In your case, they’ll know you basically since you were in diapers. You can’t fake the funk with those guys.

  I miss you all. This is easily the longest I’ve ever been away from home. In fact, apart from basic training, I haven’t been away from your mother for about fifteen years. That may seem like a long time, but it feels like it’s just flown by.

  It was actually Todd Nelson who introduced us. We’d just won a great game, and I got invited to the victory party out at Nature Spot for the first time. Your mom was the only freshman on the cheerleading squad, and when I saw her sitting across the fire from me, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, she was so beautiful. But I didn’t have the guts to go talk to her. Nelson was fearless, though, and physically dragged me over to sit on the log with her, making the introductions.

  Allison and I talked for a long time. Then, as the party was winding down, I walked her home. We held hands for the very first time that night, and we’ve been together ever since. She’s an amazing woman. So beautiful, hardworking, with the ability to cope with a lot of pain in her life.

  I met your mother and had some of the best times of my life with my friends at parties. Your mission, then, is to go to a party, or to throw one if you have to. Be safe, be smart, but have fun. The thought of you doing all of that as a young man helps keep me going through this tough time.