The smell of cedar wafts up. Then there’s another odor I don’t like nearly so much: mildew and mold. I sneeze once, twice, and open my eyes to Justine, who’s bending over, nearly tipping in the rocker, so that she can look inside too.
“Careful!” I catch hold of the rocking chair’s arm.
“Bring it all out,” she says. “Everything.
Here’s what’s inside:
1. A yellowed obituary, circa 1945, with a small photograph of a handsome, dark-haired young man.
2. A bundle of church programs tied together with a faded blue ribbon.
3. Two halves of a broken globe.
4. A dark blue silk dress—the same one with the pearly buttons, neat collar, and capped sleeves that she wears in the photograph beside my clock.
5. A cardboard tube filled with what look to be sketches.
6. A shoebox full of black-and-white photographs.
7. A U.S. flag, folded neatly into a tight, thick triangle.
8. A tarnished bugle.
9. A bunch of dried flowers, mostly disintegrated now—but still it’s clear they once were violets.
10. Another letter, this one tucked into an unaddressed envelope.
I start with the yellowed newspaper article. I read it out loud to Justine, who stares out into Tom’s backyard, listening.
“‘To our great sadness, yet another of our brave Killdeer boys made the ultimate sacrifice. Our beloved Owen Delmore was killed while deactivating a mine in the vicinity of Oppenheim, Germany. His young wife, Justine (née Blue), survives him.’”
Then I show Justine the stack of programs from Owen’s service at the First Baptist Church. They played “At the Cross” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Justine dedicated a memorial to Owen.
“For the life of me,” she says quietly, “I can’t remember that day or any memorial.”
We study the two halves of the broken globe, and there, near the banks of the Rhine River, she points out the black X where Owen died.
“His hands were always so cold in the minefields, so I knitted him gloves,” she says.
She turns Owen’s bugle over and over in her hands. Slowly, slowly, so they don’t rip, I tug the sketches from the cardboard tube. The old paper smells like dust and lead.
“That was life,” Justine says wonderingly, riffling through the drawings.
She drew the Killdeer she knew—those old buildings and the landscape that David first showed me. Honey locust leaves. The gnarled oak, gored in the trunk. Oil rigs. Water towers. The viaduct, minus my killdeer. Our little house. But mostly Justine drew Owen—sitting in the cockpit of a plaster airplane, holding a bugle to his lips, climbing a tree, standing with his fists on his hips.
Her Owen is very like the Owen in old photographs. I know this because I take the photographs from the shoebox, and we study those too. Owen is Clark Gable handsome, with shining black hair and a thin black mustache accenting a wide grin. He looks comfortable with himself, leaning casually against things, hip cocked, one foot crossed over the other. In some of the photographs he wraps his arms around Justine’s shoulders or waist. He looks smitten.
Justine nods at the blue silk dress. “It would look lovely on you. Would you like to try it on?”
I dash to her yellow bedroom, close the door, and put on the blue silk dress. There are only a few small moth holes. It fits nearly perfectly. I go back to Justine and she laughs, shaking her head in amazement. But it’s Tom who, seeing me, cries out in surprise and nearly drops the plates of BLTs.
“You’re a ghost,” Tom says.
We eat out on the porch then, but Tom can’t seem to get comfortable, eyeing me warily, like I just might say boo.
After Tom has cleared away our plates, Justine points to the blank envelope.
“Open that,” she says. So I do. When I start to skim it, she gives my shoulder a rap. “No more secrets.”
So I read the letter out loud, so we both can hear.
Dear Owen,
Today is the anniversary of your death. Twenty years gone. I am a middle-aged woman, almost forty. You would not recognize me. I sometimes think this, but mostly I believe you would know me anywhere.
I allowed myself to write this only today. I wanted to tell you that a week ago I received your ring. They found it near a riverbed in Germany.
I want you to know that the inscription is still there, the words we chose, engraved in gold. I want you to know that just when I had given up hoping for you, a little piece of you came back to me.
I cannot wear your ring on my finger or on a chain around my neck. I am married—I have been for ten years. I have the recent surprise of a little daughter. I’ve been raising a boy for some years too. He came into this house needy only a few years after you left it.
I never thought I would be a wife again, Owen, or a mother either. Somehow this has happened. I am still in Killdeer, where we vowed we would never stay.
I have hidden your ring in a place no one will find it. There it will remain, buried again.
I cannot lie: I’ve tried to write you before. I’ve failed, either because of my lack of fortitude or because Ernest came upon me or the baby cried. Linda, that’s what he named her. I never had much of a say, but I like her name well enough. Ernest and Linda are better off without me, Owen. That’s what I think.
Oh, what am I to do?
Someday I will dig up your ring and give it to someone who will remember you, even after I’m gone.
Always yours, as you are always mine—
Justine
I fold the letter and put it back into the blank envelope. I hold this out to Justine, but she doesn’t notice. She’s gazing out into the backyard at something I can’t see.
“That’s what I was looking for.”
Pink has risen in her deeply lined cheeks. She looks at me. She tells me exactly where the ring is.
Nineteen
“It’s okay,” I tell Tom when he looks wary. “Linda’s already at work. I’m ninety-nine percent sure.”
“Call and check.” Tom sounds really nervous.
I was right. Linda’s helping Isaac shuck corn for today’s lunch special.
So Tom drives Justine and me to my house. “Watch, I’ll lose my job over this,” he says on the way, only half joking.
“I hope I lose my job over this.”
But Tom doesn’t laugh. And I realize it’s not funny. I want to keep my job too. And I want to keep peace with Linda.
Tom parks in the driveway. As he helps Justine from his truck, I find a spade in the garage. Then I go to the honey locust tree that grows just outside my bedroom window. With Tom and Justine watching, I start to dig. The clay is hard and dry. It takes some effort, breaking it into hunks and heaving it aside. In the summer heat, I’m soon sweating hard.
But then there, about two feet down, is a little black leather box, coated in red dust.
Justine gasps. “That’s it.”
I drop the spade, grab the box, and hold it out to Justine. But she shakes her head.
“You open it.”
“You sure?”
She nods.
The box’s lid, caked with clay, resists at first. Then suddenly the spring gives. The lid snaps up. Inside, tucked into a fold of black velvet, is a thick gold band.
Justine cries out. Tom puts his arm around her.
Carefully I draw the band from the box. There’s the inscription engraved inside: Always yours as you are always mine. I hold the band out to Justine, but again she shakes her head. She’s weeping now. She steps away from both of us. She makes it to the honey locust tree. She leans against its trunk.
“I remember now,” she says, “the hurt when this came to me. All those years, I never had a dog tag or a tooth or a chip of bone. Nothing. And then there was his ring, out of the blue like that. Once I’d buried it, I knew there was no use waiting anymore. He really was gone. I lived his death all over again, only worse because I wasn’t numb. I felt it.”
“It was a bad time then,” Tom says quietly. “But you’re here now, with us.”
Justine shakes her head. “Not Linda.”
Tom frowns. “Maybe not. But look.” He gestures at me. He slaps his hand against his broad chest. “Look.”
Justine looks. “Yes,” she says.
“Good girl,” Tom says.
My cell phone shrills like some kind of bad joke. I nearly drop the little black box and the ring too, snatching my cell from the pocket of my shorts. I flip it open to silence it, but then I see David’s number.
“I have to get this.” I give the box and ring to Tom. I say something into the phone to David. “Wait. Hold on,” I say. And then I say, “Hi.”
“Penna,” David says. “You’re there.”
“I’m here. Where else would I be? I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
David is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “This isn’t a test.”
I suck in a breath. “Good. I mean, I know that.”
“I was just talking to my mom, and she gave me this idea, and I had to call you. That’s all.”
There’s a movement from Justine, and I glance up. She’s leaning against Tom now.
“Can you make it?” Tom asks. Justine nods, and Tom helps her across the front yard to the porch. He lowers her onto a step, and when she’s safely sitting, he hunkers down beside her there.
“Penna? Did you hear me?”
“Yes.” I nod hard like David can see. “Go ahead. Tell me.”
“You sure you have time?”
This feels like a test. “Of course!”
“Well, okay. Here’s the thing.” He laughs again, a nervous sound, low in his throat. “Remember that last night when I was home, and Linda said I should let you all know if I need anything?”
I nod again like he can see. “I just sent you a care—”
But he interrupts me. “Well, here’s what I’m thinking I need. Toys. Send lots of toys. They don’t have to be brand-new or anything. My mom says she knows of some great thrift stores, and she’s going to talk to people at church, and she thinks they’ll donate. Maybe you can find some too? And kids’ books and clothes. Get the basics too—baby soap, toothpaste, diapers. Kids’ medicine would be good too, I bet. Like baby aspirin, cough syrup. I hear a lot of bad coughing.” He laughs again, and from the air that rushes through the phone, I get the feeling he’s pacing. “I haven’t even told you what it’s all for, have I?”
I start pacing too. “Go ahead.”
“We’re at that orphanage nearly every day—we’re all obsessed now. It’s like another family here almost. And I figure there’s so much stuff just rotting in closets back home. If we could get some of it over here, that little girl—the one in the red dress—she’d feel like she’d won the lottery. Not to mention all the other kids.”
My heart is beating so hard that I’m sure David can hear it. I’m glad that he’s doing this. I feel the gladness welling up in me, but tears are welling up in me too.
I may be holding on to him, but is he holding on to me?
David clears his throat. “So you’ll help?”
I stop pacing. I draw a line in the red clay with the toe of my shoe, and then I step over it. “I can put up a sign at work. When school starts, I bet I can have a clothes drive or something there.” I’m thinking Jules will be all over this. Caitlin and Ravi will probably help too.
“Great! My mom has all the information about how and where to send stuff. You guys talk. You can work it out, right? And check your email in a little bit. You’ll see what I’m talking about.”
Before I can respond, he’s hung up.
I slip my phone back into my pocket. I stare at the hole I just dug in the ground. From where I’m standing, I can’t see the bottom.
“You okay?” Tom asks.
I look at Tom and Justine, still sitting together on the step. I walk over to them and sit down on the other side of Justine. Now I’m the one leaning into her.
“Here,” she says after a moment, shifting a bit so that I have to sit up again. “I want you to have this,” she says.
She takes the slender gold chain from her neck and threads it through Owen’s ring. Then she tries to clasp the chain around my neck. Her fingers can’t do this, so mine do.
Owen’s ring is a warm weight against the hollow at the base of my throat. Justine touches the ring gently, and I feel its impression on my skin.
“Remember everything, will you?” Justine asks.
“Always,” I say.
•••
A few minutes later Tom decides it’s time to leave. He helps Justine into his pickup. By the time he’s pulled out into the street, she’s asleep in the front seat. I clasp the ring around my neck, watching them drive away. I’ve always wanted a gift from a grandma. I go into the house, the ring shifting against my skin with every step. I suppose I’ll get used to that. I hope I’ll get used to that, though maybe I should hope the opposite. Maybe every move I make should feel like an act of remembering.
Or would that be too much weight?
I call David’s house and leave a message for Bonnie. “Just checking in. David told me about his idea. Let’s talk soon, okay?”
I start to pull up my email, but then I can’t take my eyes off my screen saver. There’s David, lying in the middle of the big old heart he scratched out of the dust. This David I can hold on to.
I check my inbox.
David has sent me another photograph of himself, this time with the little girl in the red dress. She’s covered with bandages. She looks like she could be David’s little sister. She’s beautiful.
David is crouched beside her in the photograph, holding her close. He’s lost weight. I don’t need a great memory to figure this out. I just need to click back to my screen saver. Now, in comparison to then, his uniform hangs loose on his limbs. If it weren’t a tattoo, that ring would slip right off his finger. He’s not looking at the camera. He’s smiling at the little girl. But even in profile like that, I can tell his face is gaunt.
What happened to bagels? What happened to pizza? What happened to MRE—those Meals, Ready-to-Eat, prepared with care by the U.S. Army? Growing up with Bonnie for a mom, David’s learned not to be a snob about food. David loves food. He eats like a horse. He only loses his appetite when he’s anxious or sad or…what? Or worse, maybe, where he is now. Before big tests he never wanted to eat. Before soccer games. Before he left for OSUT. Even before he left for Iraq. Those chocolate-chip bagels that last morning—that was the most I saw him eat during his whole ten-day pass.
He drops weight fast when he doesn’t eat.
David’s attached another drawing to today’s email as well.
In this drawing, David is straddling a tiny mosque, his arms outstretched. He’s trying to catch the pieces of a veiled woman, blown sky-high.
His email is short and to the point.
Dear Penna,
A picture’s worth a thousand words. Right?
I thought I’d come here and learn something about life? How to be a better person? How to be a hero? How to something? There are no how-to manuals here.
You all think the war is over back home, don’t you? Well, for some of us, it’s just begun.
If it weren’t for the little girl in the red dress, I’d go crazy. She reminds me there’s good in the world, good I can do.
David
I feel like the room is pressing in, tight and close. I feel panicky. I have to do something.
I email Caitlin, Jules, and Ravi. I tell them about the children in Iraq, the orphanages there. I ask them if they’ll help collect donations.
Without hesitation, they all agree.
•••
When Linda picks me up for work, she grimaces at the ring around my neck. Then she looks pointedly the other way.
I think she knows who gave it to me.
I think she’s picking her battles.
As soon as I walk in the do
or of Red Earth, Tom beckons me over to a booth.
“I’m worried,” he says.
I’m worried too. I feel edgy with worry. If it weren’t for the little girl, he’d go crazy…These are the words running through my head now. If it weren’t for Caitlin, Jules, and Ravi, promising to help me, I don’t know what I’d do. And now here’s Tom, worried, which means something’s up with Justine, which means I’d better sit down. Right here. Right now.
I sink down in the booth. “Worried about what?”
Tom sits down across from me. “She was really out of it when I left. It was like she was living in the past. I mean, really in the past. Seeing it. Hearing it. Feeling it. I’ve seen hallucinations like that before, but that was back in Nam, when guys were dropping some crazy stuff.” With a jerk of his head, he indicates Linda, who’s busy packing the salad bar with ice. “I think we should give them a chance before it’s too late.”
“Now?” The word squeaks out of me.
“Soon.”
“Tonight?” Another squeak.
“No way Justine could do it tonight. I’m hoping tomorrow night.”
What can I do but nod? It’s what I want too, right?
I throw myself into my job, trying to think of nothing else. I talk to Caitlin every chance I get too, or rather I listen as she talks about a guy she’s been wanting to ask her out, who just did. She’s going on a date with him tonight, or else she’d love to do something with me. Jules is free, though. Maybe Jules and I can get together and make flyers for a clothes and toy drive. Caitlin thinks this is a great idea. If we do it, she’ll help us distribute them tomorrow.
I think this is a great idea too, but when I text Jules, she says she’s feeling wiped out. Sick. “Let’s talk on the phone, though,” she says.
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