While He Was Away

by Karen Schreck

  Caitlin smirks. “I won’t tell Isaac you said that.”

  “I need to have you over for dinner,” Ravi says. “My sister is an amazing cook. She’s teaching me. The three of us could cook together.”

  “And me!” Caitlin says.

  Ravi smiles at her. “Sounds good.”

  I sit back and drink my coffee then and watch them eat. We talk a little bit about Linda’s accident, but mostly we talk about nothing—movies we’ve seen, the fall season on television, which can’t start soon enough. I give them their posters, and they promise they’ll put them up right away. Ravi will find a way to post his at the Walmart—even if it’s only in the break room. Caitlin has an idea about the factory where her father works.

  “Speaking of which.” I glance at the clock. I have to get ready right away, or I’ll be late for the lunch shift.

  It crosses my mind as they leave that Caitlin’s special date might have been with Ravi. I feel something twist in my gut—not a nice feeling. But then I think, You don’t know that for sure. And more importantly, Friends, that’s what you need, Penna. Just friends.

  •••

  I get to work by ten to prep for the first shift. Lunch turns out to be quieter, easier, and with Isaac’s help not so bad. Really the restaurant seems like it can kind of run itself for a day or two. Isaac covers most of the nitty-gritty details, checking stock, opening the till. To his visible relief—the glaze lifting from his eyes, his shoulders straightening a bit—I do a good job, following his orders.

  Josh is on top of his game today. He moves efficiently around the floor, slapping down drinks and food faster than Caitlin and me put together.

  “Inspiring,” I say as Josh whizzes past, balancing three entrees on his left arm and carrying two others in his right hand.

  “Now don’t get all motivational on me,” he calls back over his shoulder.

  At two thirty we close the place up. Josh heads off for a class; Isaac goes back to his house for Linda; and I drive the VW over to Tom’s. He’s sitting on the front porch, waiting for me. He stands as I approach the house, and when I see the set of his expression—stricken—I start to run. I take the porch steps two at a time, and at the top he catches my arm to keep me from falling with my momentum.

  “What?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know. After yesterday I’m not messing around with urgent care. That was just intestinal distress yesterday. This is…I’ve put a call in to the doctor. The nurse said we might need to look into some kind of medication—the first of the real drugs, I guess. She’s so depressed—hallucinating real bad. She thinks what she sees is real, no question about it. Seeing Linda like that pushed her into a bad place.” Clumsily, Tom pats my shoulder. “You sure you want to come in?”

  I nod.

  “Sure?”

  “Don’t leave, okay?”

  “Not a chance.”

  Tom leads me inside and down the narrow hallway to her bedroom.

  Justine is curled into a ball on her bed, her back to the door. I hesitate only for a moment, and then I go to stand by her. Her eyes are open, she must know I’m there. But she doesn’t look up at me. She doesn’t even blink.

  “Take it down,” she says, swatting at the wall behind me.

  I turn. There’s nothing to see but yellow paint. When I turn back to Justine, she hides her face in the pillow. From its depths, she tells me again to take it down.

  “What?” I glance at Tom.

  “A picture.” Tom shrugs helplessly. “That’s what she told me earlier, at least. I think she means a poster, from the way she describes it.”

  “Down,” Justine says.

  I kneel beside the bed, trying to meet her eyes. But she won’t lift her face from the pillow.

  “What picture?” I keep my voice as quiet as I can.

  She clenches the edge of the pillow until her knuckles whiten. “You can’t see?”

  “No.”

  “She’s everywhere!”

  “She who?”

  Justine’s bitter laugh is muffled. “A real beauty, that’s who. A first-class calendar girl, with her auburn hair and hourglass figure. She gets the letters. She gets them, not me.”

  “What letters?”

  Now Justine peers at me from beneath a white lock of hair. “Letters from her boy. I haven’t gotten any from mine.” Justine shifts her voice to a higher, biting register, apparently mimicking the calendar girl: “‘Longing won’t bring him home sooner. Get a war job!’ Damn it, I got a war job! Isn’t that enough? Why don’t I have any letters?”

  “Hush, now.” I try to tuck Justine’s hair behind her ear, but she jerks her head away and hides again in the pillow. Desperate, I look at Tom.

  He leans heavily into the doorway. “She worked at a factory while Owen was overseas. She sewed American flags.”

  This is not my grandmother. I leap to my feet and run my hands over the wall. The paint is cool and smooth to my touch.

  “There!” I give the wall a whack for good measure. “I took her down.”

  “Finally!” Justine sits up in bed, startling me. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” I glance at Tom, who nods. But when I look back at Justine, she’s frowning.

  She points at my throat, at Owen’s ring dangling there. “Where’d you get that?”

  I touch the ring. “From you.”

  “Oh.” Justine pats at her cloud of hair, trying to smooth it, and her focus again seems to shift. “Could you?” she asks, still patting at her hair. Then she gestures vaguely at the nightstand, and I see the silver-backed brush there—the same one from the old photograph. Tentatively I settle down on the bed beside her and start to run the brush through her hair. I brush gently, so as not to hurt her scalp. When there are snarls, strands pull free and settle on the yellow bedspread and me.

  “Where is he, exactly? That’s what I want to know.” Justine speaks softly now, calmed by the brush’s gentle touch. “It’s been nearly two months. I write him every night.”

  Justine’s hair is perfectly smooth, except for the soft curls at the back of her neck. I make one last careful pass with the brush, and then I set it back on the nightstand.

  “There,” I say. “You look beautiful.”

  Justine glances at me, suddenly wary. “You sure? We can’t be messy here. There’s lots of girls far prettier than me looking for work. And that Mr. Schweitzer—well, he ain’t no Albert Schweitzer, as we like to say. He likes the pretty girls.”

  I smile at her. “You’ll keep your job.”

  “Cold comfort.” But she smiles too. Then, just when I think she might be content, her glance shifts back to the wall. “For God’s sake! Take her down.”

  So again I stand, reach up, and pull down nothing. Grudgingly, Justine thanks me. Then she shudders so violently that I catch hold of her arm, afraid she’ll lose her balance on the bed. Justine pushes off my hold.

  She claps her hands over her face. “When they told me—those two men in uniform standing at attention right outside my apartment on that cold and steely day—they brought me a flag. I sewed that flag. I know this. I sewed up my husband’s death. And now I’ve lost it and every little bit of him. I’ve lost my flag.”

  I can feel her panic, fluttering like a bird at my throat, trapped just beneath Owen’s ring. I try to pat her arm, but she bats me away and claps her hand back over her face.

  “The cedar chest,” Tom says from behind me.

  I remember then what’s inside the chest. I tell Justine to hold on. Pushing past Tom, I run from the bedroom down the hallway to the front room and the cedar chest. I open the lid. I scrounge through the things there—the newspaper clippings, memorial service programs, drawings, and photos—until my hands grip the thick, rough cotton of the tightly folded flag. I lift the flag from the chest. Holding it close, I run back to the bedroom and Justine. I lay the flag in her lap.

  “Oh!” Startled, she lowers her hands. She takes in the flag, her e
yes widening. Her hands hover above it for a long moment. Then she slips her hand into the flag’s fold. She searches for something there, loosening the flag’s triangular shape. Finally her fingers ball beneath the fabric as she clenches something in her fist. She draws her hand out. What she holds makes a metallic clinking. She looks up at me, her eyes suddenly clear. “Take these please. I’ll feel better knowing they’re gone.”

  I hold out my hand. She opens hers, and the casings of bullets fall into my palm.

  “They saluted him at his memorial service, an honor, I know. But, Lord, I hate the sound of guns. I hate the look of any part of them,” Justine says.

  Then Justine lays the flag on top of her pillow. She lies down, tucking the flag beneath her head. In a moment she’s asleep.

  The telephone rings then—a shrill jangling that makes Tom and me jump. Tom goes to answer it. His low voice rises and falls in a conversation that goes on and on.

  I am suddenly so cold on this hot summer day. So I lie down beside Justine. I nestle close to her. She smells like dry skin and powder and faintly, faintly like Linda and me.

  Some time later Tom jostles my shoulder. I sit up with a start. Justine sleeps on. Tom tells me I’ve been out for less than twenty minutes.

  “I have to get back to work,” I whisper, clutching Tom’s arm for balance and standing as quickly as I can without waking Justine.

  Tom nods. He leads me out of the room and to the front door. There, he tells me that the doctor is stopping by soon. “A nice, old-fashioned house call.” Tom says, rubbing his tired eyes. “The doc thinks maybe he can help her better here. It’ll be less disruptive, and if we can get her on some kind of meds, it might really make a difference. He thinks we should wait a day or two before we take her anywhere.”

  “No Linda.”

  “No way,” Tom says.

  •••

  We get through a night, a day, another night. Working two shifts like this, and helping so much with opening up and closing down, I don’t have time to think about much.

  Not even David.

  I haven’t heard from him since he asked me to help with the orphanage.

  I’ve managed to put some big boxes beneath my poster at Red Earth, and they’re filling up quickly with toys, clothes, baby supplies. Bonnie and Beau are stopping by soon to pick up the stuff, and I’ve promised I’ll get together with them to help organize as soon as I’m able. Maybe they’ll have news of David.

  Ravi has texted and called, and Jules too. It’s helped, touching base with them. They’re collecting a lot of donations as well, they say, and so is Caitlin.

  And now, foraging for breakfast, I open the freezer and see the four honey hands. They are cracked at the wrists and broken at some of the fingers—his right thumb and left pinkie, and my right ring finger, where the tattoo of nettles used to be. There are little dried bits of what used to be baby’s breath and nettles, scattered across the ice cube trays and the bags of frozen peas. I take out the frigid baking sheet. That was then, I think. That was like something from another century, another millennium. I swallow the knot in my throat and scrub the stinging from my eyes. Then I dump the hands into the garbage.

  We’re changing. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It will make us stronger.

  I study my tattoo, which is still beautiful, which hasn’t changed at all, and I try to believe this.

  Twenty-Two

  My voice mail is clogged. In the little window of time between the afternoon and evening shifts, I sink down into a booth at Red Earth and listen.

  I make a quick list on a napkin.

  To call:

  1. Linda: “I know it’s been three days now, Penelope, but I’m going to hibernate a little longer here at Isaac’s. Sounds like you’re doing great work…I’m doing great too.”

  2. Isaac: “Your mom wants me to clarify. She’ll be home real soon. She’s just needed a break for such a long time. This is a mini-vacation for her.” (Laughter in the background.)

  3. Caitlin: “It’s not too late. Okay, so it’s one in the morning, but we can still hook up, right? We want to see you! Yeah, so Jules says she’ll come and get you. Are you at home or at work? Don’t tell me you’re still at work? Whatever. Jules’ll pick you up wherever…”

  4. Linda again, cheerily: “It’s garbage day!”

  5. Tom: “I know it’s late, but Justine really wants to talk to you.” (Muffled rustling.) “Here you go, Justine. Hold on there—” (The phone goes dead.)

  6. Justine: “Here? Oh. Hello?” (The phone goes dead.)

  7. Caitlin: “It’s not too late…”

  8. Jules: “Been thinking about you. How you doing? It’s been a sucky week for me. Nothing big. Just lonely. Call when you can.”

  9. Bonnie: “We need you, Penna! We can’t even make it through the living room anymore with all these boxes! It’s a good problem to have, I know, but…when can you come over and help us organize all this? We really want to send it off to David.”

  10. Ravi: “I picked up some of my prep stuff yesterday. The AP materials are massive. How are you doing?”

  11. David: “Hey, Penna. I hope you’re okay. I’m doing…okay. I’ll call back when I can.”

  I try to call David back. Several times. He never answers.

  I notch the ringer on my cell up to the highest volume. I put it on vibrate too. But over the din at Red Earth, I never hear when anyone calls.

  •••

  Two more days pass this way. And then a morning comes when I drag myself out of bed, stagger to the kitchen, and, voilà! Linda is there, tottering around on crutches, brewing coffee, pouring a cup, doctoring it just the way I like it, and handing it to me.

  She owes me, I think, taking a sip. I’ve been working so hard. She owes me this perfect cup and so much more. Just like I owe her. We owe each other something better.

  I touch Owen’s ring and “I want you to see Justine. I want you to try.”

  Linda freezes, the coffeepot still in her hand, suspended in midair.

  I wait. I wait some more. My hands are a little shaky, so I set my cup of coffee on the table. Carefully, like it might crack, Linda sets the coffeepot on the counter. The kitchen is silent, except for the hiss of the last few drops of coffee dripping onto the pot’s burner and sizzling there.

  Linda hobbles over to a chair and sits down. She rests her face in her hands for a moment. When she looks up at me again, her face seems to sag with resignation. “Maybe. Just give me a little more time, Penelope. Please.”

  “Maybe isn’t good enough. Soon.”

  “Maybe soon. Soon.”

  “Really?” My voice goes high and hopeful.

  “Really.” Linda smiles wearily. “Isaac and I have done a lot of talking. Maybe he’s talked some sense into me. Though bear in mind, Penelope, I’m doing this for you. If it were just me, well, it wouldn’t be happening.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to loosen the knot of emotion in my chest.

  “Promise,” I say.

  Linda shakes her head. “If you weren’t so into drawing, I’d say you should be a lawyer.”

  “I don’t know what I’m into anymore. Maybe I should be a lawyer.”

  And then it happens. I start to cry.

  “Oh, honey.” Linda puts a wary hand on my shoulder. “Honey.”

  “I’m so tired,” I say.

  “You’ve done good,” Linda says, “working so hard like that. With David gone, and Justine—thank you. Have I said thank you? Thank you. And Penelope?” Now Linda’s arms are around me, warm and familiar. “How about this? I’m sorry.”

  That knot? I feel it slowly unsnarling into a thin, dark thread that I’ll just have to absorb, I guess. I lean into Linda.

  “Here,” she finally says, nudging what’s left of my coffee toward me. “Drink up. It’ll do you good.”

  When I’m finished, she pushes herself up, hobbles over to the sugar and milk, and pours me another cup.

  “I did miss
you all that time I was at Isaac’s,” she says, stirring it all together.

  I bite my lip. Then say it anyway, never mind how pathetic I sound. “You seemed pretty happy without me.”

  Linda gives me a look. “You always seemed pretty happy without me too.”

  I shrug. “Only with David.” My face warms, realizing how this sounds. “I mean, it’s not that I was without you, exactly. It was that I was with him.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Oh,” I say, getting it.

  “And you seem to be making other friends. That’s good too.”

  I nod. It is good. I can’t imagine life without Caitlin, Jules, and Ravi. Not now.

  Linda clears her throat. “It’s been forever for me, Penelope. Forever since I’ve felt this way about a man. Actually, it’s been never. I’m way old for never.”

  Linda gives me that second cup of coffee then. She sits down beside me. She tells me a little bit about Isaac. Not too much. Just enough.

  Enough for me to be really glad.

  •••

  I continue to work hard at Red Earth. Tom and Isaac work hard. Josh works hard. Even Caitlin puts in extra effort. Together, we get through two weeks with Linda supervising and getting more involved with every passing day. I see Justine three or four times a week for afternoon tea between shifts. I mostly listen to her stories. A lot of the time she repeats herself. Other times we just sit quietly together. She seems to like that best. Sometimes I do quick sketches of her while we sit, and she likes that too.

  I hardly hear from David. He’s left a few messages on my cell. It’s almost like he prefers leaving messages rather than talking to me.

  “Hi. Missing you. Got your care package. It was great. Especially the cookies,” he calls to say.

  And then, “Penna, I know you’re busy with Linda being laid up and everything. I’m just checking in to see how the donations are going.”

  And a few days after that, he leaves a message saying, “Hey. Only a few more weeks until school starts, huh? Bet you’re excited. Bonnie says she’s expecting you to come over real soon to help with the orphanage stuff. That’s cool.”