Be Safe I Love You: A Novel

by Cara Hoffman

PJ looked at her from the corner of his eyes. “You sure you not my daughter?”

  At this she turned and looked right at him again. She laughed darkly and he heard the music in her voice. “I’d be interested in seeing any kind of birth certificate at this point,” she said. “I’m pretty sure I was manufactured at FOB Garryowen.”

  • • •

  When Lauren came along Vietnam already seemed like a lifetime ago. Nam and college and Panthers and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. All of it over. The war and then the various wars at home trying to make right the things he’d done. Trying to burn away the memories of fire. He dropped out of graduate school after Donna left him, went back to full-time community organizing, and it was still another eight years before he got his temper under control, another two before he cut back on the drinking. The nightmares, though, they weren’t going anywhere.

  Paul Jefferson of the 82nd Airborne did not imagine he would live to be twenty, or thirty or forty. Never thought that he’d one day call some skinny white boy who wore socks with sandals his brother, or be given the task of holding that skinny white boy’s loud pink baby while a priest poured water on her head. But PJ held Lauren Sophia Clay on the day she was named, in a church full of pale, square-faced people half of them with the last name Donovan, who believed that this ritual would absolve the infant of guilt, protect her from punishment and infuse her with God’s grace.

  PJ knew there was no way the sacrament could protect her. And this strange Irish hippie family was enough to foment guilt in her for the next eighty years, but by the time she had grown into a chatty, dreamy child it was hard not to see her as truly possessing some kind of divine grace. She had an easy kindness and sensitivity, was a slight, delicate kid who sang while she played, who wanted to be carried and was afraid of loud noises, and loved to pretend. She often fell into giggling fits that went on until she was red cheeked and hiccupping, tears streaming down her cheeks. The defining characteristic of baby Lauren was her easy happy laugh.

  When he would come over in the evenings to play Scrabble and talk about work with Jack and Meg, Lauren would climb into his lap and help him spell words. She would fall asleep with her head against his chest and Meg would scoop her up and carry her off to bed.

  When she was older and Danny was born she painted pictures for his room, took to caring for him from the beginning. Knelt in front of him repeating words she wanted him to learn, and was thrilled when he started repeating bigger words. She once called PJ at his office and put the baby on. “Pancake,” Danny’s little voice said over the phone. “Pancake.” He could hear her laughing in the background. It made his day.

  When things got bad for those kids Lauren shut it down hard, created a little household within the one that was coming undone, kept things running. He saw in her then what recruiters saw in her years later when they promised she could be an officer, when they told her about the signing bonuses, and the GI bill and the size of the checks. When they hooked her and reeled her in so the army could give her muscles and fix her posture and pay for all those things she could yet barely understand.

  He told her what he thought about the decision, said, Nah, Nah, babygirl. You know that’s not right. It’s not worth it. You get yourself set up with Curtis and you just keep going, that’s the way to do it.

  Who’s planning for Danny? she asked.

  Ain’t nobody got to plan for him. Danny’s like you and me. He tried to keep his voice easy but he wanted to drive over to the recruiter’s office and rip his motherfucking lungs out. He breathed slowly, concentrated on what was possible in the moment and tore his thoughts from images twenty years old but all too ready to play themselves out in full color and sound and smell. Ready to play themselves out with her in the uniform.

  Danny’s gonna make his way in school and come out fine, just like his big sis. You know how we do.

  She smiled and looked at him, her eyes dark and shining with pride and resolve.

  This is how you did it, she said.

  Thirteen

  Dispatch #53

  Dear Sistopher

  It’s been a few days since you left the country and I checked the difference in time zone and I wonder if you are going to write me an email. I hope you do it soon but I can only get them at school so I wonder before I go to sleep if there will be one when I go to the library tomorrow. I got the package you sent from Fort Lewis. The Zombie Survival Guide should come in handy around here.

  The day after you left Mom called and asked how I would feel about moving to Buffalo. I said I didn’t think Dad had plans to move and she said, no, move to Buffalo to live with her. And I was like, I just started middle school! She said Dad has a disability and it would be better if I lived there. I could start middle school there.

  Does Dad have a disability? Is it that he thinks he’s Obi-Wan Kenobi? (hahaha) He wears the same brown robe all day long and he’s let his beard grow in—he’s kind of a long haired Obi-Wan. You should see it, it’s pretty funny. Sebastian has those white whiskers now so the two of them make a good team. He’s worried about you but I’m not. I know nothing can happen to you. Dad’s worried, that is, I don’t know about Sebastian, maybe he’s worried too but mostly he’s into napping and begging.

  You probably don’t want to hear this kind of bullshit. I don’t want to leave here obviously. Mom’s house is nice and she has a great garden but what’s the point? She said there was really good schools there and she has the Internet at home so we could talk to you all the time. I would rather come and live there with you if you can have families on the base in Iraq. Is Garryowen a big base? PJ says it’s not very dangerous like Vietnam was and that you are with the best army the country has ever had, and with the best medical care the country has ever had, and the best transportation so nothing can happen to you. Do they ever let family visit there? Do they have schools on the bases like in the U.S.? If Dad is disabled more than being a Star Wars character then I should probably come and live with you, right?

  PJ’s been hanging out for a couple of days and he told me that you almost don’t have to do any combat either, that it’s just really hot. And that you are making more money than Dad and Mom put together so you’re going to be rich and tan and pretty when you come home. I wasn’t really even crying or anything but he keeps telling me how great it is there in Iraq. He’s such a fucking boner sometimes and he talks a lot but I’m glad he’s here, it’s good for Dad.

  The thing is I really don’t know what to do now. I don’t think anyone takes me seriously like you do or like they act when you are around. So I can’t get them to be normal. Or just go away. I can’t live with Mom because all my friends are here. And Dad can’t live alone. Don’t I get to say what I want? If I wait and ignore everyone they’ll forget I’m here. I’m pretty sure of that. But just let me know anyway if it’s possible to visit or if they have a school there.

  Be safe I love you

  Danny

  When she read the letter in the barracks at Garryowen she felt sick and had to stand up and turn away from the screen. She’d just gotten in from patrol and was still covered with sweat and fine gritty sand, sand in her mouth and inside her nose, and a smell like burning rubber and brake fluid clung to her uniform. She felt she might cry but she didn’t deserve to cry. It was her fault. She’d fucked up. Miscalculated. Of course someone had a plan for Danny. But it was too late.

  The loud hollow whump of helicopter blades beating the sky reverberated above the CHU and she felt it in her gut. Lauren wracked her brain for how she could have done things differently but there was nothing else. There was no money. She’d made the right decision. She couldn’t have taken care of him if she’d gone with Curtis. And it looked like no one else was going to either and now this new plan just made no sense, would take him away from the only security he had.

  She felt the gulf, the free-falling feeling of being thousands of miles away, completely powerless. She could not order people back home to do things
, and that thought enraged her. Why would her mother do this? Why hadn’t she even asked Lauren to visit before she left? She felt alone and unwanted, sitting in the shitty barracks, everything perfectly ordered; the neat squared-away life that makes it possible to act in a single second. The neat squared-away life that makes inaction close to physically intolerable. A rush of fear and sadness and something unnameable, the taste of tears at the back of her throat. She tried not to think about the only thing that was coming to mind. A question that was beneath her in every way, but beneath her like the whole surface of the earth was made from it. Why hadn’t their mother tried to get custody of both of them a long, long time ago?

  She wrote Danny. She told him he could make his own decisions. He didn’t have to go anywhere. She told him she’d be home in a year. She told him he was old enough to decide to stay where he was. She told him to call PJ. She told him she’d take him on vacation when she got home. She told him to focus on school and that Dad wasn’t his responsibility at all. She told him the smarter he was the sooner he could get away. She told him she loved him and if they ever needed she could be his legal guardian, but that he was a champion, a champion in every single way, and he could rely on himself.

  She sent it but she would call him later too. Because really there was no way he could rely on himself. He was just a child. One more way she had fucked up. Doing everything for him, thinking it would be better that way. But now he was at everyone’s mercy instead. She sat on her cot facing the dented gray locker, looking at a picture of Danny and Sebastian she had taped there. Danny was laughing, holding something in his hand, and Sebastian was jumping to reach it. Their father’s slippers and part of his leg were in the right corner of the photograph. She sat for a while unable to think at all, then shut the computer and dressed to go back out on patrol. They were going house to house for insurgents.

  And it was her job to search the women.

  Fourteen

  AFTER SHANE LEFT, Holly filled a bar towel with ice and pressed it to Patrick’s mouth, standing close and quiet beside him. He was subdued, eyes narrowed in thought, breathing heavily through his nose. Holly didn’t know how many times she’d administered barroom first aid to this man but it was losing its charm.

  “He thinks I’m looking for some stage or some pulpit,” Patrick said quietly, reasonably. He sounded genuinely puzzled, like he was disappointed in his nephew, couldn’t figure out how to reach him. “And he’s wrong, of course. I don’t give a fuck if anyone knows my inner thoughts, or what I’m reading. That’s not what this place is to me. If I cared, why would I live like I live? I wouldn’t choose to live in obscurity. I’d live like he does. I’d go to school for the pat on the head, get pedigreed, have my name on papers.”

  She said nothing, handing him a glass of water to rinse out his mouth, then walked through the back door out onto the deck and lit a cigarette, listened to the rain on the awning. There were only five people in the bar and she was praying it wouldn’t be a long night, that they’d wander off and find something else to do. Once she shut down she could go home to Gracie, make plans with Lauren, read the book Patrick had lent her until she fell asleep.

  She didn’t know what had happened in the parking lot between Lauren and Shane, and she didn’t much care. Lauren had looked tired and a little nervous, but she’d also never looked so fit or alert. Holly wished she could walk right out of the bar now and pick her up, drive around in the rain and talk.

  It was rare that they could get away even in high school. Most of their time from middle school on was spent playing in Lauren’s driveway, doing homework, watching television, calling boys on the phone, and always hanging out with Danny, making up games, pretending with him. When Danny was at a friend’s house they’d walk down to the river, or skateboard in the industrial park and build their fires.

  By the time they were seniors all of Lauren’s time was taken up with rehearsing for recitals or competitions or auditions and all of Holly’s was taken up with Grace. The rare times when they got away and could drive out to nowhere were the best. Confirmed their imminent flight. They were like animals that were getting stronger and braver every second, and they surveyed the land from which they’d come with a kind of angry pitying awe, knowing even then the dead town had given them sight, had made them understand things, see the connections people ignore. Had made them ready to fight anything that got in their way and fix anything they wanted to keep.

  Holly wished for those feelings now. She watched the rain striking the puddles in the gravel parking lot, smelled the mud and cool air like it was spring, how different it was from the crisp smell of snow and woodsmoke. She thought about Christmas break their last year of high school. That was the year the nurses union went on strike and her mother stayed home the end of December. NYSNA paid part of her wages so Bridget treated it like a preholiday vacation. Making cookies and watching Gracie every day. Just before Christmas she invited Danny over to bake with her. The kitchen was warm and smelled like chocolate and cinnamon.

  “Go on now,” Bridget said. “You girls go out! We need some time to ourselves, don’t we, Dan? Me and these short people got plenty to do before Santa gets here.”

  “Gracie’s not short,” Danny said. The baby was a pale blob of soft features with bright, strange and searching eyes. She wore a onesie covered with tiny pink stars and a green sweater. She clutched Danny’s finger in her tiny fist and he looked back at them smiling, his lank black hair falling into his eyes. “She can’t stand up yet, so she’s more flat than short.” He turned his attention again to the infant, touched her round cheeks. Gracie stared at Danny, kicked her feet excitedly, and tried to draw his finger to her mouth; she made contented sounds. “Look at how small her nose is,” he said. “Look at her fingernails.”

  “Oh, she’s a keeper,” Bridget said. “Now wash your hands.” She handed Danny an apron and a wooden spoon. “And you,” she said to Holly. “Move it before I change my mind.”

  The air was shockingly cold and still after being in the warm kitchen; large snowflakes came down, dusting their hair and coats. She and Lauren let the car warm up, watching the frost and ice melting and receding across the windshield. Holly pulled the box of Newports out of the glove compartment, punched in the lighter, and turned on the radio.

  It had been a long time since they’d made their rounds, the aimless driving and occasional stops at scenic points, 7-Elevens, the thrift store, the playground outside of Lourdes Church, old industrial sites, waterfalls, or boys’ houses. Lauren called it “field research.” They’d listen to the radio waiting for the ads to end and Dido or Eminem or Outkast to come on so they could sing along, have a soundtrack.

  That evening they drove past the neighborhood porches strung with colored Christmas lights. No one was out except for some boys in puffy coats, walking a strong square-faced dog on a leash, passing a cigarette back and forth, their conversation visible as white clouds about their mouths.

  They drove by the bare branches and blanketed tennis courts of Thompson Park, watching the swirling snow strike the windshield before them. Then out to the wider, better-maintained streets lined with houses set back from the road, their windows glowing and tall, ornately decorated trees visible, delicate strings of white light wound up the columns that framed their front porches. They cruised slowly by Asshole’s house, looking for his car in the drive. They passed the frozen falls at the black river, and the vast abandoned brick expanse that once housed some industry or another but was now empty. The place they made their fires was frozen.

  Holly said, “Someday, Lowey, all this will be yours.”

  The sky was at once pale and rich, a glowing violet color as they cruised past the boarded-up shops of downtown out to nowhere, watched the flood-lit, razor-wire fences of the base slide by. The farther they drove the better. It was exhilarating to be out for no reason and away and free. Holly turned up the heat and once it was warm, almost hot, she rolled down the window so they could feel the
fresh cold air, and occasional electric sting of ice against skin. She headed along Dutch Settlement Road and then took a narrow turnoff with no shoulder that ended in an unplowed dirt path. She was headed for the quarry.

  Lauren took a CD from her pocket and slid it into the player, Joan Sutherland singing “Lucia’s Aria.” Again. She’d been playing it for a whole month now, but something about the quiet all around them and the weirdly contemplative drive made it sound different. The soprano’s voice rose like something so perfect and controlled and enormous it dwarfed the fleeting, darkening landscape and seemed to swallow the car.

  Holly pulled over to the edge of nowhere, clicked off the headlights. She remembered how the stars shone bright upon the snow. How Lauren turned up the stereo so they could hear it when they got out of the car, how she stood in her old wool coat with the worn elbows and frayed collar wearing PJ’s watchcap, how dark the sky was that far out of town and how still everything seemed with the snow coming down silently all around them. It might have been as far away as they had ever been. And she could feel how happy her friend was, how excited and relaxed.

  Lauren smiled and squeezed her hand, her eyes bright with love for the song. Then she walked to the edge of the vast tiered cliffside in the dark, her boots crunching over the snow and ice. And Holly came and stood beside her. Massive blocks of stone were faintly visible below, silvery black in the starlight. The place felt like a crater. Like standing at the end of the continent. A whole hollow universe of emptiness lay before them. The place echoed like a massive cradle of stone.

  “Lucia’s Aria” drifted from the car, and now Lauren began to sing along. Sing into the belly of the quarry, her white breath like a spell being cast upon wreckage and emptiness and darkness. The air was filled with nothing but her voice and its reverberation, a haunting echo in the snowy, starry night.