I go quiet then. I might not get to show this to David. I glance at the clock. Really, I’ve got to get to bed. I’ve got to grab a couple hours of sleep so I can be halfway coherent tomorrow when I see him again. Because I will see him again.
I feel Linda watching me. If I get worked up, she’ll drop this whole conversation. Or it’ll takes five times as long as it should take. So I swallow down tomorrow and ask, “What year would this be anyway? Way before you were born, right?”
“Way.” Linda forces out a laugh. “Look at her dress. So not nineteen sixty-seven.”
I study the fitted bodice, the row of pearly buttons. The neatly cuffed sleeves. The simple collar, secured by a little scrolling pin at the throat.
“Very mid-forties,” Linda says. “She’s probably about eighteen there.”
“Wow,” I say.
“Wow,” Linda mutters.
“Your parents were married a long time before they had you.”
Linda shrugs. “If ten years is a long time, then I guess they were. My mother was forty when she had me. She wasn’t planning on getting pregnant. I don’t think she wanted a child. I don’t really know. And guess what? I don’t really care.”
I’ve heard most of this before—or pieces of it. But there’s something else, something new she’s telling me now.
“Then—” I stare at Linda for a moment, open-mouthed. “Then who—”
Linda sighs heavily and plops down on the bed. “Like I said, I don’t know anything for sure. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about that woman. But…I think probably her first husband took that picture.”
I look back at the photograph. Justine seems sadder than ever. “You never told me she was married before!”
“You never asked.” Linda sits cross-legged on her bed now and strips off her socks, the better to rub the soles of her aching feet. She rubs and rubs. “Anyway, what’s there to say? The past is the past.”
“Who was he?” I drop down on the bed too, astonished. “Did they get back together?”
It’s terrible, cruel, and I’ll never admit it to Linda, but I want my grandmother and this guy to have gotten back together. I want a love that lasts for once. I want that in my family, no matter the cost.
Linda takes a deep breath like it’s all she can do to get the words out. “He was a soldier in World War Two.”
I gape at her. “A soldier?”
“Oh God. I should have known.” Linda presses her hand to her eyes. “He was killed, okay? He was some kind of hero. My mother left me for a ghost, Penelope. That’s what your grandpa always said.” Linda lowers her voice to a mannish, drunken slur and says, “‘Justine left us for a ghost.’”
“She must have really loved him.” My voice has turned husky with emotion.
“Oh, sure. That made it all worthwhile.”
Linda sounds about as sarcastic as I’ve ever heard her. I stare at her, too shaken up to speak. She goes back to rubbing her feet, playing for time. When she looks up at me again, she seems sad.
“I’m sorry.” She bites her lip. “Penelope, I’m just trying to take care of you. I’m just trying to keep you from getting hurt like I did—like my mother did, for that matter. Justine was eighteen when she married her childhood sweetheart. And one year later she was a widow. That’s not a happily-ever-after ending if you ask me.”
I hold Justine’s photo close to my chest. “You don’t really know her side of it, though, do you?”
Linda falls back on her bed, her coppery-gray hair fanning across the purple spread. “Let sleeping dogs lie, all right, honey? Just let sleeping dogs lie.”
I don’t know if Linda means Justine or the soldier or the past altogether. I don’t know if Linda means herself, lying there, eyes closed already, lips parted in utter exhaustion. I only know that it’s time to get the heck away from her.
So I do, taking the photograph with me. I’ll never tell Linda about the loose floorboard in the attic and, when I know, what’s beneath. Never ever.
In my room, I face the clock on my desk. David leaves at one in the afternoon. About ten hours from now.
I prop Justine’s picture against the clock. I had a grandmother who loved a soldier too. He died. But maybe she still exists?
I lie down on my bed, willing myself to rest up for the worst day of my life. So far.
Four
When I look at the clock again, it’s nearly ten.
David isn’t outside waiting in the shade of the honey locust tree. He hasn’t left a voice mail or sent a text. No Facebook updates. He hasn’t said one last good-bye. I call his cell, but he doesn’t answer. His house. No one picks up there either.
On my desk, Justine seems to nod in the flickering sunlight. Find him, her expression seems to say. Now.
I peek into Linda’s room. Still fully dressed in her black work garb, she is sprawled facedown and spread-eagled on her bed. This is the way Linda sleeps when she’s really wiped out from work or me, or both. There’s no danger that I’ll wake her.
I clean up fast. I get on my bike.
Usually I’d wave to the clockwork lady, who is picking her delicate way around the block. But this time I don’t think to raise my hand until after I’ve sailed past her. I don’t look back to see whether she hesitates the way she always does when she sees me, whether she unclasps her own hands to wave back—her gesture more question than answer.
Bonnie doesn’t know where David is. “He left about an hour ago, I think—about nine. He promised he’d be back for a late breakfast. I went out and got chocolate-chip bagels and cream cheese—his favorite. He was expecting you. And here you are!” Bonnie forces a smile and runs her fingers through her spiky blond hair.
When I pulled up on my bike a few minutes ago, she was standing in the driveway, looking down the street as if David might appear at any moment. She had her hand to her forehead, shielding her blue eyes. She said the sun was hurting them—that’s why they were so red and watery. But I could see at once that she’d been crying.
We stand in the O’Dells’ kitchen now. It’s still a mess from the dinner Bonnie made last night, which was not a culinary success. The lasagna and garlic bread burned. The Fresh Express salad wilted in the bowl. The soda frozen in the freezer. Bonnie, forced to copy umpteen files, had stayed too late at her real-estate office to pull off anything more gourmet. And she had so wanted to pull off something memorable—in a good way. So had Beau. David’s dad kept our conversation moving right along, peppering every other sentence with a silly joke or bad pun. Beau wasn’t about to let anyone break down. He wanted to remember everyone—especially his son—smiling.
Any assumptions I’d had about adoptive families went out the window the moment I met David, Bonnie, and Beau. They have their differences, sure. But they get over their differences—or if not over, exactly, then past. They see each other as individuals, not just extensions of themselves or their history. Like right now, if David is late for breakfast, Bonnie will probably say, “David will be David.” She’s right. David makes a habit of late. That’s one of the many reasons why he decided to enlist.
“I need the structure,” he’s told me more than once. “I gotta learn some organizational skills.”
I seize a suspicious-smelling, damp rag from the O’Dells’ notoriously clogged sink and start swiping at the counter.
“Do you think he needed to get something from the store? I mean, he went through his duffel again yesterday, right?” I scrub furiously. Did Justine do this? Did she clean when she got scared?
“I checked the list again this morning.” Bonnie is pacing the kitchen. “He’s got everything. I don’t know why he took off. But he promised he’d be right back, Penna. ‘Soon,’ he said. So why don’t you just wait for him? Sit down. I’ll make you a cup of coffee. I’d love to talk for a minute.” Her voice falters, and then she continues. “I think—I don’t know for sure, but I think…do you think David is having any last-minute regrets? I’m concerned.”
&
nbsp; I sweep a pile of crumbs into my palm. Once, when he called me from OSUT, something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. He was barely holding back tears, I could tell. I wonder if Bonnie ever got a call like that.
“Why, Penna!” Bonnie exclaims.
I look up from the solidified splotch of lasagna sauce, dreading what’s next. Bonnie must have just realized what nobody else has. She must have realized what I haven’t let myself think about too much, or even say. She must have realized that something has happened—is happening—to David, something I don’t understand.
But then I see Bonnie’s sweet, crooked smile—an expression that David has claimed for his own. Her expression is amused and puzzled. She has grabbed on to some kind of distraction.
“Did you streak your hair blue?”
I touch my hair and the stiff blue paint there. I have to smile too, remembering the best part of last night.
It hits me then. The viaduct.
I fold the rag and drape it over the kitchen faucet.
“I’ll be back,” I tell Bonnie and tear from the house.
•••
Luckily the O’Dells live near the center of town too. I zip right over to the viaduct.
But David’s not there. Nobody’s there but our painted selves, the six-foot-tall killdeer, and, of all people, Ravi, who’s practicing tricks on his skateboard. He’s wearing that same gray sweatshirt. Maybe this is how he winds down after the night shift. When he sees me, he jumps off his board and propels it into his hands. If Ravi thinks I’m staying, I realize, he will hightail it out of here before I’m able to ask what I need to ask. So I keep my distance, circling on my bike at the viaduct’s opening.
“Seen David?” My words come in a rush.
Ravi shakes his head.
“He wasn’t here earlier?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
A stormy expression flickers across Ravi’s face—he has dramatic features: high cheekbones and forehead, a strong jaw. “Do you want to ask me again? I could lie.”
Ravi’s voice is deeper than David’s, and he speaks more deliberately, like he’s putting together a puzzle. He talks the way I’ve heard other people talk when English isn’t their first language. There’s a kind of music in his voice that comes with this, a kind of care.
But I want to hear David’s voice. I want to hear David say my name.
“I’m not asking you to lie. I’m just—”
I’m just what? Just who? I hardly recognize myself, the way I feel, so panicked.
“He’s leaving for Iraq today.”
The words burst from me, fierce and defensive. Ravi looks surprised, and his expression holds something else too—fear? guilt?—but before he can respond, I turn my bike and head off. Ravi’s skateboard clatters as it hits the ground again. The board’s wheels grind against the concrete, and then there’s a gap in the sound as Ravi gets some air. He lands again. I’ve put nearly a block between us. Now I glance back. Ravi’s banking up the side of the viaduct and swooping back down. Kind of like David liked–likes, will like—to do. The way David did only a few hours ago, running up that wall and flipping off it, always a daredevil. Always, always lucky.
I fly down Main Street. There, finally, I spot David’s motorcycle, parked in front of a cinder-block building. Tattoo You, the local tattoo and piercing parlor. Open twenty-four hours.
I remember now. Months ago David had said that he wanted to get his first tattoo to commemorate this day. I let my bike fall to the ground and run inside.
The parlor is an open, neon-tinted room. Tattoo art covers the walls—dragons and hieroglyphics and roses catch my eye. The place smells and looks almost as clean as my dentist’s office. I hate the dentist. But I love David. And there he is, lying in the last chair at the back of the room. Looks like he’s the only one with the guts or desire to get tattooed this early in the day.
He appears almost comfortable, reclining like that before a mirror. But then I see his mouth, a tight line of pain. A mullet-haired, tattooed dude is holding what looks like a gun to David’s chest. The whining buzz coming from that instrument sounds like a dentist’s drill. The guy is drilling a hole into David’s heart.
The tattooed dude curses and yanks back the gun as I throw my arms around David’s neck.
“Watch out!” David cries.
But he’s hugging me back, not letting go.
The dude has taken himself off to some other part of the room, so we’re nearly alone when I look down and see the tattoo transferred onto David’s skin—still only outlined in black like a coloring book. It’s a circle of barbwire and tumbleweeds around a manga guy. With his curly hair, the manga guy looks a lot like David before OSUT. He’s wearing fatigues and jumping around inside that barbed circle like he’s kill-crazy, his mouth open in rage. He’s packing some heavy artillery, this manga guy.
“Wow.” I can’t think of what else to say. Plus, I’m out of breath from my bike ride. Not to mention the sight of that tattoo.
“It’s great, right? That’s what I’m going for, anyway. Color can hurt more, at least that’s what Felix says.” David nods at the tattoo artist, who’s busily cleaning his needle. “So I’m not going to do as much red as I was planning to.”
“It’s still great.”
He grins. “So you do like it?”
“Yes.” What’s the point of saying anything else? Now that he’s gone this far, there’s no turning back. And besides, I do like it. I always will. I kiss the skin around what hurts on David’s chest until he eases me away.
I call Felix over. I tell Felix the other thing I have to do with David before he leaves. David and I talked about it earlier this summer, and he wanted to do it too. For us.
“Tattoo us some rings, matching braids around our right ring fingers,” I say. “Don’t worry.” I pull out my driver’s license. “I’m eighteen.”
•••
Four and a half hours, one chest tattoo, two ring tattoos, and a whole bunch of chocolate-chip bagels, cream cheese, and coffee later, Beau, Bonnie, and I drive David to the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City. David and I sit in the backseat of the O’Dells’ massive pickup truck. The heavy smell of antibiotic ointment overpowers the smell of the coffee that both Bonnie and Beau are drinking. David and I are hesitant to hold hands—even left hands—in case we bump the right ones somehow.
Our right ring fingers will kill for a while, Felix said, but David said that’s okay. He’ll have some downtime. His flight is about twenty-four hours long, with stops in Newfoundland and Germany for refueling. And then David has two weeks in Kuwait before he heads to Iraq. Kuwait won’t exactly be downtime, of course. Far from it. David said he’ll be learning specific in-country stuff. He’ll finally get to try out the special vehicles he’ll be using for security patrol. He’ll be working up a sweat, getting even darker out there in the Kuwaiti desert, where the heat reaches 120 degrees by day this time of year and drops to a cool 90 by night.
And then there’s Iraq.
“By the time I get to Iraq,” David said over bagels this morning, “I’ll be healed up great. For a while I’ll probably just be cleaning out latrines anyway. If something goes weird with my tat, I can always hold a toilet brush—or whatever—with my left hand.”
You can’t hold a gun with only your left hand, I realize now, way too late. We should never have gotten them.
David is staring out the truck window, as distracted by his thoughts as I am.
“Are you sure we can’t drive you all the way to Iraq?” Beau asks this for about the millionth time—a feeble joke. Beau would stay in a motel in Iraq for the duration of David’s deployment too if he could. If they even have motels in Iraq anymore. If they’re not all blown to bits.
“Dad,” David says.
For a few minutes, we ride in silence.
Then, because Bonnie is crying softly now and I can’t stand to hear her cry, I ask David again how long before we’
ll be able to email or talk.
Again, he says, “They said a few hours after we land. Remember? I won’t be able to get my own cell and SIM card until I get to Iraq. But of course they’ll have phone providers in Kuwait. You know me. I’ll get through to you.” He leans his head against his window. He looks tired all of a sudden. “At training, one guy told me that in Iraq we’ll have to earn privileges to talk on the phone, though other guys said he was just pulling my leg. Or maybe he had a really tough unit. But they all agreed that reception can still be bad over there, even around big cities. Even Baghdad. Phone lines and the Internet can still go down. Depending.”
Depending on what?
I don’t want to ask. Not with Bonnie crying like that.
Carefully, I take hold of David’s tattooed hand. The gauze looks whiter and cleaner against his dark skin than it does mine. In the tattoo parlor I couldn’t help but think war wound, looking at the bandage on his chest. Survivor, I make myself think now. I make myself believe. As we pull into the airport’s entrance, I trace a heart in the air just over the barbwire on David’s chest. I am careful not even to skim his jacket, for fear of hurting the tender part beneath.
We park in the parking garage. Bonnie, sobbing now, doesn’t want to leave the truck. Or rather, she doesn’t want to leave the truck because David doesn’t want her to leave the truck. He warned us a week earlier, when he first came back from training, that he didn’t want any of us to go into the airport with him.
“I can’t deal with it.” That’s how he explained it. “I can deal with the TSA hassles, but I can’t deal with saying good-bye in front of everyone. I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair. It’s not right. But please. You’ve been asking what you can do? Say good-bye to me in private.”
David leans over Bonnie now and hugs her for a long time in the pseudo-privacy of the parking garage. He flinches in pain as her head rests on his chest, right where the tattoo is, but he doesn’t pull away. He whispers something into Bonnie’s ear. I love you, he’s probably saying. Don’t worry. I’ll be home on leave before you know it. Finally he looks up and checks the clock on the dashboard. I see the realization flash across his time. He has to say good-bye.
While He Was Away Page 4