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Personal Effects

Page 9

by E. M. Kokie


  I don’t know a lot of the people, but some of them had to be his friends. People who wanted T.J. to come home soon. Talking about what good times they’d have when he came home and news of other people I don’t know. He hadn’t really lived at our house in years, so I guess I always knew he had to have friends all over. Maybe some were guys who got out. Or maybe people he met near base: North Carolina, Georgia, and Wisconsin. A lot of the letters are from Wisconsin. Makes sense — that’s where T.J. had been posted before this deployment. But seeing the letters, from so many different strangers, drives it home, how little I really knew what he did when he wasn’t here.

  Dad’s letters are short. To the point. How proud he is of T.J. How he hopes T.J.’s staying focused. Asking if T.J. needs anything. Mine are all lame.

  Through the first bag, and all I feel is guilty, and kind of sad. It’s embarrassing how few letters I sent. We sent e-mails back and forth all the time, and T.J. sent me postcards sometimes, but we just didn’t write each other letters. I really only wrote a letter when we were sending a package. But I still feel like a total jerk. Even Dad wrote more than I thought he had. I guess I just never saw him do it. But Dad’s and mine together aren’t nearly as many as some of the others. Dan wrote more letters than I did.

  I grab the next bag out of the box. Almost as full as the last one. The first three I grab are all from Madison, Wisconsin. The fourth and fifth, too. C. CARSON, on the first label, and second, and then CELIA CARSON, but the same address. Tingles start in my hands and ears and shiver through me. I feel like I’m floating off the bed.

  Another handful: the same. I dump the bag and fan them out. All of them from C. or Celia Carson, 754 River Road, Madison, Wisconsin 53703. The whole bag, all of them are from her. Fuck. My mouth goes dry. Hands shaking, I open one at random.

  Theo,

  Theo? Who the hell is Theo? I scramble for the envelope: T.J.’s name and address. A shudder crawls down my back. Since when was T.J. “Theo”?

  Dad, Theodore Sr., was “Ted.” Dad always called T.J. “Junior” or, when introducing him to people, “Ted Jr.” Mom called him “Teddy.” To everyone else, T.J. had always been “T.J.” He didn’t even like it when I said it like “Teej.” More than a few guys ended up in stitches for calling him “Theodore.” But . . . “Theo”?

  It’s just after midnight here and this is the first chance I’ve had today to write. I read your letter last night and actually started a letter back, but I didn’t get it finished, and decided to start fresh tonight instead (last night I was missing you just that much too much).

  Whoa.

  I’m working on another package — the magazines and supplies you asked for, some more of the tees and socks, two CDs that came in the mail (bet you miss eBay almost as much as you miss me), a few other things (and tell Tito I found more of the cookies he’s been nagging you about) — but it won’t get sent until at least next week because there’s something special I’m waiting for. You’ll like it. Wink.

  Holy shit.

  Your letter sounded tired — and yes, I can hear that in the letter. Trouble sleeping again? Me, too.

  In case I haven’t made it clear, I really miss you. It’s turned suddenly cold here, and it makes me miss you even more, if only for the warmth at night — just kidding. . . .

  Holy fucking shit!

  I grab the pictures. Dig through the bag. Knowing what I’m gonna find but still needing to see. The one of her in uniform. Has to be her. I squint at the uniform. Is her name there? Could be Carson, but I can’t see it clear enough to be sure. I dig for more of her. The one at the table, with T.J. and the guys, all of them toasting the camera. Another of her with some people near a swing set. Another of her, but her hair’s longer.

  In the meantime, know I love you, I think of you day and night, and I hope you are being safe. All my best to the guys. Lol. Xoxo.

  Love you, C.

  I look at the picture of her in uniform, then at the letter, and then back at the picture of her at the table, sunglasses on top of her head, back to her in uniform. Celia — in uniform and in regular clothes. The one of T.J. lifting her off the ground. Has to be her. One of a bunch of people near water, the sun glinting off the surface behind them: Celia and T.J. and their friends?

  My heart pounds so hard it might crack a rib, and still I feel like no blood is reaching my brain.

  T.J. had a girlfriend. I scan the letter again. T.J. had a girlfriend, and he never told me. And she called him Theo. And she sent him sexy letters, and packages, and . . . Fuck. I start reading as fast as I can.

  MY HEAD’S BEEN SPINNING SINCE SATURDAY NIGHT. EVERY time I think I’ve wrapped my brain around what I found, it hits me all over again.

  I read all night Saturday, slept for a few hours, and then started over again.

  By Sunday night I’d read all of her letters twice, sifted through all of the pictures to find the ones of her.

  I was already dreading Monday, but the lack of sleep and all the stuff whirling around my head made it a soul-sucking hell.

  As if I’m not rattled enough, Tuesday starts with a nice long session with Mr. Lee in Guidance. And I have to play nice.

  When I came in this morning, they made me sign some paper that said if I don’t cooperate in the guidance sessions and be a good boy, I’m gone for the rest of the year, I’ll miss finals, and I’ll have to do summer school to be a senior next year. And they’re putting a hold on my grades until I pay for the display case. Not sure how I’ll even know if I have to do summer school if they won’t release my grades, but I decide I don’t care enough to ask.

  I’m supposed to be reading some article about the stages of grief or something, but my head is pounding and my mind keeps wandering.

  After some Googling around yesterday, I have a little more than a name and address. The online phone book showed a bunch of addresses for C. Carson and Celia Carson, but it looks like she’s still at the River Road address. I also found a listing in a staff directory at the university. And from there, I found a picture. A group shot at some kind of event, small and hard to see, and I think from a few years ago, but clear enough to see that one of the women in that picture sure looks a lot like the woman in T.J.’s pictures.

  “Matt.” Mr. Lee sighs. “Are you here? I mean, really here?” He rubs his eyes.

  It’s only 8:42 a.m. and already this day sucks. I sit up in the chair. Focus.

  “Yeah,” I say, so he knows I’m paying attention. “Sorry.”

  I’m not sure I can take much more. Mr. Lee shuffles through the file in front of him, then picks up his clipboard again.

  “Your brother’s death isn’t the first loss you’ve suffered, Matt. How did your family cope when your mother died?”

  It takes everything in me not to walk out the door.

  “Take a few minutes. Think about it. You have to have done something,” Lee says, reaching for his coffee.

  I’ve been dreaming about her a lot. Just fractured images mostly, but sometimes in full-out Technicolor replays. Sometimes I can even smell her, or more how our house smelled when she lived there. I don’t dream much about the good stuff. Mostly of Mom right before she left, her wild, fast talk, eyes all shiny and weird. Crazy or silent, somewhere else in her head. Lost before she even left.

  That last fight, T.J. threw me in the closet and then tried to get between them. Dad yelling: It isn’t worth it. None of it’s worth it. After everything I do for you . . . Her screeching and tearing the house apart. Wild.

  T.J. was only thirteen, and no match for Dad, but Mom was the one throwing things, and he could usually get her under control if Dad let him. T.J. ended up with a split lip. She took off three days later.

  It’s worse when I dream about the nicer times. Her hands, soft and gentle, even when she could barely hold herself up. She used to make me butterscotch pudding with chocolate-chip faces on top.

  How do you grieve for someone who kissed you good-bye one morning when you were fi
ve years old and then left while you were at preschool, so that you came home to an empty house and never saw her again? Do you even grieve when you spend the next year and a half confused and scared and sometimes worried that she might come back?

  I can see Mom’s face behind my eyes: twisted like in every fucked-up memory. The smell of her: sour-sweet breath and sweat, or, when she was doing OK, that perfume she loved. T.J. trying to get her out of the car. Dad yelling while counting pills and trying to clean up the mess. Breaking glass. Like I’m still cowering in the corner, listening through hands fisted over my ears. Choking on the sudden sour burn in my throat.

  “Matt.”

  Shudder. Head rush. My throat burns. Lee’s half out of his seat. I’ve never seen his face like that.

  “Are you OK?” he asks.

  “Yeah.” I rub my sweaty palms over my knees to dry them. “Fine.” I pull the paper closer to me. Stages of Grief.

  Mr. Lee pushes the paper aside right out from under my fingers. “OK, let’s try a different tack.” He settles back into his chair. “Yesterday was Memorial Day. What did you do to honor your brother’s memory?”

  Worse than Mom.

  Dad got up, got dressed, and left, like it was any other Monday. No idea if he actually went to the office or what, but he left around the usual time and he came home around the usual time, and then he spent the rest of the night in his recliner, as if there were nothing at all unusual about the day.

  I tried not to lose my fucking mind. I had no idea when Dad might come home, and in what kind of mood. I sat in my room, wishing time would move faster, doing some research and looking at the letters, but with my shoes on and backpack at the ready, just in case he came home and decided to look at T.J.’s stuff. If he’d even paused outside the door to T.J.’s room, I’d have been out of there.

  “Come on. You and your dad, you have to have done something to honor him.” He motions with his glasses. “Or be planning on doing something?”

  Mr. Lee taps his pen against his clipboard. When I look up, he glances down at my lap. My hands are clenched. I force them to relax, wipe them on my jeans. He clears his throat, raises an eyebrow, the message clear: I’m gonna have to say something.

  I just sit there, picking at the inner seam of my jeans. The rhythmic flick of my nail over the edge is nicely distracting. Mr. Lee’s clipboard clatters onto the desk. Other papers shoved aside.

  “Come on, Matt. One thing. Cooperate. Talk to me. So I can tell Mr. Pendergrast you’re complying.”

  I shift, rub my temple, try to make a show of thinking about it. Dad’s honoring T.J. by pretending he isn’t dead and ignoring every bit of evidence that proves him wrong. But me? What am I doing? Well, aside from kicking the crap out of losers who call his death a waste? And breaking into his personal effects? And wondering why he never told me about Celia?

  But there is something I can do. And I already know what. But doing it, actually doing it, will be hard. A little crazy.

  “This is it, Matt,” Lee says. “Last chance time. Talk to me. Convince me that you’re ready.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek. Because I’m not ready. For school, yeah, fine. I’ll lie low. Whatever. But for what I really need to do? I’m nowhere near ready. And I’m running out of time. Finals next week. Then my regular work crew starting the week after. Can’t miss work. Can’t let Mr. Anders down, or make him think he can’t trust me.

  “There’s something, isn’t there?” Lee asks.

  I swallow hard. Nod. But that’s it. That’s all I can do.

  “You’re not going to tell me what, though, are you?”

  I shake my head. “Can’t,” I say. Bite down to hold it in. Take a deep breath. “Sorry.”

  “Well, something is progress, so long as it’s something good. Something productive, positive. Something worthy of your memory of him. Something that isn’t beating up your classmates,” Mr. Lee says. And despite everything, I smile.

  Mr. Lee’s face flashes some new emotion and then resettles into his bland nonjudgmental mask. He grabs the clipboard again.

  “Well, then that’s your homework for next week. I want to know three things you did to honor your brother’s memory, and three things you want to do in the future. They can be small things, even personal things, like looking at a photo album or writing down a memory — even talking to someone about your brother. But three things you actually did, and another three you want to do. Take the time to put some real thought into this, Matt. I think you might surprise yourself.” Mr. Lee grins at me. I want to wipe the smile off his face, but I can’t bring myself to say anything that might. Not with this little gnawing feeling inside that he’s right.

  Time to step up.

  I reach for my backpack, but Lee waves me back down.

  “Now,” he says, like we’re best buds, “let’s talk about some strategies for dealing with anger in a more productive way, OK?”

  Sure. Whatever. Talk away, Guidance Man. I’ll be over here plotting.

  I nod in the right places. Offer a suggestion or two. Watch the clock. Finally, he’s satisfied.

  “I think we’re making some progress, Matt. Good work.”

  Good work. What a crock. Yeah, I’m gonna do something for T.J. Something big. Biggest thing anyone could do for T.J. now. But somehow I don’t think Lee will approve.

  I take my time leaving Guidance, hoping the halls’ll be clear before I have to stop at my locker. Instead, Shauna’s there, frantically looking at her watch, waiting for me. When she looks up and sees me, she relaxes for a second, then tenses up again with a whole new kind of anxiety.

  We haven’t talked since I blew off our plans on Saturday night. She’s left three messages and sent a bunch of texts since Sunday. I didn’t call her back. Not even yesterday. Unreturned calls and texts are pretty much the worst thing I can do to her — she always assumes the worst, every version of the worst in turn. The last time she worried herself into a fit, I promised never to completely ignore her calls again. I’m an asshole.

  From the look on her face, now that she knows I’m alive, she’s heading past worried and sliding into pissed off. I know it’s up to me to fix things. And I’ll need her help. But there’s no way I can explain in thirty seconds in the middle of the hallway.

  “Hi,” she says, but it sounds like “Fuck you.” Definitely pissed.

  “Hey.”

  “Everything OK?” Not too pissed, if she can bring herself to ask.

  “Yeah.” I wave my pass at her. “Another soothing encounter with Guidance.”

  “Mr. Lee?” Small flicker of something there. Maybe not too too angry.

  “Yup, Mr. How-Does-That-Make-You-Feel? himself.”

  “And how do you feel?”

  “Now that I can’t smell his particular blend of coffee, smoke, and aftershave anymore? Fine. A little tired, but . . .” I try my best grin, and get only a small pink smile in return.

  “So, things are . . . OK?” There are so many questions wrapped into that, and I don’t think any of them are about Guidance.

  “Yeah. I still have a ton of crap to make up by next week. And finals.” I make a gun with my hand and shoot myself in the head. She doesn’t laugh. “Yeah,” I say, “fine.”

  “I meant . . . yesterday?”

  Fuck. I thought she’d let it go. “Just another Monday,” I say, ducking into my locker.

  She blows out a breath, loud near my ear. “OK,” she says. “Look, are we . . . ? Did I . . . ? Are you mad at me?”

  “What?” Buzzing, in my ears. “No. No, I’m not mad at you.”

  “Because you’ve been acting really weird, and you blew me off on Saturday night, and I waited for you to call Sunday, or yesterday, but . . .” She throws one of my own shrugs back at me. “Look, I know I was a bitch when you blew me off on Saturday, but . . .” She blows her hair out of her eyes. “When you didn’t call me back, not even yesterday, I got worried, and . . .”

  “I’ve just been brea
king my ass trying to get all this stuff done. And I had to do the storm windows on Saturday, and then —”

  “If it’s your dad, you know you can —”

  “There’s nothing —”

  “Matt.” She tucks her chin to her chest. “This is me.”

  Well, there’s no arguing with that. I’m gonna tell her anyway. But not here.

  “It’s not Dad.” Her eyebrows arch. “Well, not any more than usual.”

  “But there is something.” She steps a little closer, uses all her skills at intimidating me with her eyes. “I know there is. So talk.”

  The bell rings, jolting me, even with pass in hand. Not so much her.

  “The bell.” I cringe at stating the obvious. She couldn’t care less. “I’ve got to get to the library, Shaun.”

  She doesn’t react. Or move. She’s not going anywhere. She sets her jaw and holds on to my locker door. Great. Her line in the sand. Terrific. The second bell sounds and she doesn’t even flinch. Shit.

  “Go. Meet me here after school.”

  “And?” she asks, already shifting her bag to run to class.

  “And we’ll go somewhere.” Not enough. “We’ll go somewhere and I’ll tell you.” I look her in the eyes. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  That gets me a real smile and a quick squeeze of my arm. Then she’s gone in a blur, her curly hair bouncing around.

  The morning limps by in a kind of fuzzy-around-the-edges haze. I do Spanish and Ritzler’s class, but then retreat to the library to work on a makeup English paper.

  In the bend past the cafeteria, I run into Pinscher, literally, as I am rounding the corner. He’s got a couple of guys with him, like they’re on guard, on alert, for me. Pinscher steps back and out of my way before he can stop himself. I hold my ground.

  In the stalemate, I can’t help but stare at his face, still kind of puffy or something. Like he’s wearing a floppy mask of his own face. I almost feel sorry for him, almost, but then I remember all the shit he said, and that shirt. My hand clenches into a fist.

 

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