Freedom Flight

by Patrick Jones

  Unlike Josie and Erin, Paige held no high expectations for Homecoming. She’d already expected too much from one homecoming and been nothing but disappointed. How about no drugs yourself, Paige thought, but said nothing. The conversation resumed about the wars, but nothing was said about her dad’s funeral. Like it was classified information.

  10

  OCTOBER 18 / SUNDAY A FEW MINUTES AFTER MIDNIGHT

  HARKINS’ HOUSE

  “You’re late,” Paige’s mom said the second Paige walked in the door, exactly four minutes and forty seconds past her midnight curfew for Homecoming. Her mom sat clear-eyed with gritted teeth on a hard kitchen chair. Paige thought she looked more like a rodeo bull about to charge than her mother.

  “It’s not my fault,” Paige said. “Blake and Erin had a fight and—”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” her mom said. “I don’t want to hear your lies.”

  “I’m not lying!” Paige shouted.

  “Lower your voice.”

  Paige held her phone in front of her. “Call Erin, she’ll tell you. Call David, he—”

  “I might well be calling David, or at least his aunt.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Come closer!” Paige’s mother ordered. Paige hesitated. “Now!”

  Paige took off her heels—her ROTC marching boots caused less pain—and stepped forward. Like she was in line for inspection, her mother’s eyes examined every inch of her.

  “Your dress is wrinkled.”

  Paige tried not to blush. While they’d slipped away a few times during the dance to make out, that was it, thanks to David. Like many students at their school, David took his religion very seriously. It wasn’t something he just said on Sunday. He lived it every day.

  “It seems like you took it off—or maybe David took it off—and put it back on.”

  The pink blush on Paige’s face slowly turned to red anger. “That didn’t happen.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Pug,” her mom snapped. “I was a teenager too.”

  “If I’m a teenager, then don’t call me Pug like I was child or a dog or a pet or—”

  “You don’t tell me what to do,” her mom said. “You understand that, Pug?”

  Paige balled her fists by her side. She wanted to march into her mom’s room, grab a handful of pills, and shut her up. Paige knew her mom was in pain; she didn’t know why her mom felt the need to take it out on her. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Again, you mean.”

  Paige shook her head but said nothing as she turned toward her room.

  “I’m not done inspecting you, cadet,” her mom shouted after her. “Maybe I’ll need to inspect you everywhere.”

  Paige knew what that meant. She pivoted, narrowed her eyes, and yanked off her dress. Her mother stayed seated in the hard chair, her shoulders twitching while Paige stood in front of her in her underwear. “I don’t know what you think you’re even looking for, but see, Ma, no hickies. Why don’t you just trust me?”

  “Because of your father,” her mom whispered just loud enough for Paige to hear. The pain in her mom’s face seemed to drain out of her. “I’m the reason he’s dead.”

  “What are you talking about?” Paige walked back to her mom. She knelt by the chair.

  “We were still in high school when Perry was born. You knew that,” her mom said.

  While much of Paige’s family history went unspoken, she could do the math. Perry was twenty-one; her mom would turn thirty-nine next month. “Both of our parents, well, they were no help.”

  Paige never asked why her grandparents hadn’t been part of her life. She accepted it.

  “So, there we were, young, no money, and a baby,” her mom said softly. “So we joined the Air National Guard at first. It seemed like an easy answer. A few years of commitment, a steady paycheck, a chance at college. We didn’t really intend to stay in so long. But we couldn’t have known what was coming. We started with just weekends on a base and we liked being military. Then just when life seemed good, we found ourselves overseas in combat.”

  Paige closed her eyes tight as her mom continued taking blame for her dad’s death.

  “If I would’ve been strong, I wouldn’t have got pregnant and we would’ve lived different lives. Your father would be here today and I’d be in one piece instead of a crippled wreck.” Paige’s mother’s voice shook almost as much as her hands.

  11

  OCTOBER 20 / TUESDAY / LUNCH

  SAM HOUSTON HIGH SCHOOL

  “Is there anything I can say?” Paige asked Erin. Erin had missed school Monday, and from her fragile emotional state, Paige wondered if she should have stayed home today, too.

  “No, nothing. Blake said it all.”

  Josie sat on the other side of Erin. Paige had asked David and Alonzo not to join them for lunch, not only so the three could talk about Erin and Blake breaking up, but because seeing other couples, Paige knew, would make Erin feel worse.

  “I’m sorry, but he was too old for you,” Josie said softly. “What was he, nineteen?”

  “He just turned eighteen,” Erin answered. “That was the problem.”

  “So what happened?” Paige asked. At the Homecoming dance, the two had left the group, but only Erin returned to the table. When she did, tears were running down her face. Paige shuddered at the thought of her and David breaking up. It would be more hurt than she could stand.

  “If he did something to you, I will personally punch his lights out,” Josie slammed her right fist into left hand. Paige laughed but felt bad when she saw Erin’s hurt expression.

  “It’s not what he did,” Erin whispered. “It’s what he didn’t do.”

  Paige and Jose exchanged confused glances. Finally Paige spoke. “I don’t understand.”

  “When you turn eighteen,” Erin said. “You need to register for selective service, and he said he didn’t want to do it. He said he wasn’t going to die or get his legs blown off for his country like some fool.”

  “I will seriously hurt him,” Josie said.

  “Then he said that all those people who died in Iraq and Afghanistan were fools,” Erin continued. “Dying in some foreign country and now look at them both, falling into chaos.”

  Paige nodded. She’d overheard Uncle Jacob and Aunt Tracy express similar ideas. To them, the purpose of the military was to defend the homeland, but nothing more.

  “And then we just got into it about everything,” Erin said. “And now it’s over.”

  “He’s a jerk,” Josie said. “My dad wasn’t injured for nothing.”

  Paige put her arm around Erin’s shaking shoulders. Paige never thought about what her dad’s death meant—she was so young when it happened. He was dead. Where and why and how never mattered. Dead was dead; thinking about it changed nothing, but still she yearned to know more. Air Force fatality numbers were low compared to other branches—maybe there was something weird about his death.

  “I should’ve known,” Erin said. “Blake never came to our ROTC events. He never said anything about it. I thought because we went to the same church, we believed the same things.”

  “If I see him, I’m giving an attitude adjustment,” Josie said, half laughing, half serious.

  As Josie tried to console Erin, Paige found herself distracted by the controlled chaos that was the cafeteria at lunchtime. It was a diverse high school, yet the white kids mostly hung with other white kids, and the black, Hispanic, and Asian kids also hung with their own kind and apart from others. Race-related fights were a normal occurrence in the factionalized school, except on the integrated ROTC squad. There the only color that mattered was Air Force blue.

  “I miss him,” Erin said. “And I hate him. I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  Paige shrugged in agreement, not thinking about Blake and Erin, but about her and her mom. She missed the mom she wanted and sometimes hated the one she had. That’s what made the military so attractive to Paige: it was black a
nd white, right and wrong, salute and obey.

  “It hurts so much,” Erin said, holding back tears. “I just want not to hurt.”

  Paige clutched Erin’s hand, but her mom’s drugged-out stupor invaded Paige’s mind. If I hurt as bad as my mom must, Paige thought, wouldn’t I do the same things?

  12

  OCTOBER 23 / FRIDAY / VERY EARLY MORNING

  HARKINS’ HOUSE

  “Mom, is that you?” Paige asked the figure in her bedroom doorway. The door cracked open further, letting in a beam of light. It hadn’t woken her; she’d spent most of the night imagining her dark thoughts if she broke up with David like Erin had with Blake.

  “What time are we leaving?” Paige’s mom said, her voice sounding almost totally alien.

  Paige sat up in bed and blocked out the light with her right hand. “Leaving?”

  “1400 hours,” Paige’s mom mumbled.

  “Mom, what are you talking about?” Paige asked, but her mom didn’t answer. The door shut and Paige heard footsteps walking toward the living room. Paige yawned, stretched, and climbed out of bed. She checked her phone: 4 a.m. She needed to be at ROTC practice in two hours, all the while running on no sleep. She followed her mom, as silent as a shadow.

  In the living room, her mom lay on the couch, phone in her hand. The only light in the room came from the phone and the streetlights piercing the darkness. “Mom, are you okay?”

  “I just miss you, that’s all,” Paige’s mom mumbled. Paige thought it sounded like her mom’s lips had swelled shut over her mouth. “It won’t be long until we’re together again.”

  Paige wondered if she should shake her mother awake. She didn’t know if she was sleepwalking, dreaming, or what was happening. Paige knew one thing for sure: she was scared. Her mom had changed from when she was home last, but Paige didn’t know why. Had she gotten hurt again? Last time her mom was home she was her mom; this time she wasn’t the same woman. It was like the Mom that went away last stayed overseas and this new Mom came home.

  “I can’t wait to see you either,” her mom mumbled.

  Paige sighed. She was sad, angry, and confused, but mostly she was determined to figure out what was going on. Who was her mother talking to? Paige left the living room and walked softly on the creaky floors into her mom’s room. She opened the top drawer where she’d found the pills before and found . . . nothing.

  Paige moved next to the small dresser by the bed. There was an open can of Lone Star Light on top and Paige picked it up. It seemed about half empty, half full. Whatever. She flicked on the small lamp on the dresser and opened the top drawer.

  It was October, but not yet Halloween, except in her mother’s room. Pills, like holiday candy, filled the drawer. Some were in bottles, some loose. Paige picked up the bottles: different shapes, different sizes, some heavy, some light. OxyContin. Valium.

  For a second, Paige felt like snatching all the pills and flushing them down the toilet. Just as quickly, she suddenly wanted to grab a handful, wake up her mother, and swallow them all in front of her. Let her see what it looked like to have a zombie instead of a family member in the house.

  Then she heard it, from the other room: laughter. Laughter like she’d not heard from her mom since she had returned. Not loud or drunken, not enough to wake Perry, but laughter nonetheless. Paige pushed in the drawer, flicked off the light, and returned to the living room. Her mom lay on the sofa, her eyes almost rolling back in her head, but her hand still clutching the phone. “No, you say it first,” her mom said into the phone, her voice heavy.

  Silence. Paige couldn’t hear the voice on the other end.

  “I love you, too, Captain,” her mom said. “Come home safe. I miss you.”

  Who? What? Paige felt her knees buckle. Was she dreaming?

  Kneeling next to the sofa, Paige listened as her mother repeated those same words over and over until the phone fell from her hand. Paige picked up the phone and looked at the last number dialed. Voicemail. She stuffed the phone under her Spurs T-shirt and walked into the kitchen. She dialed the number but couldn’t figure out the voicemail password. Who was she calling at two in the morning? Who was the captain her mom was talking to? Did she have a new boyfriend? Paige pinched herself; she was wide awake, but her mom was passed out cold.

  13

  OCTOBER 23 / FRIDAY / ZERO HOUR

  SAM HOUSTON HIGH SCHOOL PARKING LOT

  “Do it again, cadets!” Commander Eckert shouted. Paige thought the rumble of thunder in the background made him sound like the voice of a very angry God. Maybe it was lack of sleep, the distraction of Erin’s inability to focus, or the steady cold rain, but the unit wasn’t functioning. “We only have a few weeks to get this right and you will get it right!” the commander continued.

  The Sam Houston High unit had been selected to be the lead ROTC unit in the San Antonio Veterans Day parade, one of the biggest in the state of Texas. But if the unit didn’t follow orders, Paige thought it would turn into one of the biggest embarrassments in her life.

  “Harkins, get with it!” squad leader Brad Richardson shouted. He always shouted.

  Paige nodded, tried to focus, but her feet wouldn’t cooperate. She felt dizzy, uncoordinated, and confused. The more Richardson or Commander Eckert yelled, the more confused she got. The more confused she got, the more they yelled.

  “Right, march,” Commander Eckert shouted. A move she’d done hundreds of times, yet Paige couldn’t make herself do it. She bumped into Erin, almost knocking her over. She heard Eckert shouting, but it was her mom’s ramblings that filled her ears and her mind. “Collins!”

  Erin froze in place. Paige stopped, staring at her uncoordinated feet. A pair of boots moved toward her. Paige didn’t look up; she braced for the verbal blow. As rain landed on their shoulders and caps, soon the spit from Eckert’s mouth also dotted Erin’s uniform as he yelled at her.

  Rain. Spit. Then tears welling up. Paige made herself look at Erin and willed Erin not to cry.

  “What is wrong with you, cadet?” Eckert asked. Behind him, Richardson shouted more questions at Erin. Before she had time to answer, they’d cut her off with another question.

  “If she doesn’t have what it takes to be a solider,” Eckert said, now speaking to the rest of the unit as if Erin wasn’t there, “then maybe she should reconsider her options.”

  Faster and harder than the rain, the questions without answers from Eckert and Richardson continued. This wasn’t about Erin, Paige knew; it was about discipline, order and obedience. Erin happened to be the wounded animal that walked into a trap.

  “I should remind all of you,” Eckert bellowed, hands on hips, chest pushed out, “that the purpose of this unit is to develop citizens of character dedicated to serving their nation and community. And the way you develop character is by showing discipline, but Collins here—”

  “That’s enough,” Paige said, her voice soft but sharp.

  “What did you say, cadet?” Eckert asked.

  Paige stared at the middle-aged man who suddenly seemed so very angry about something so small. This wasn’t life or death, not even close. “I said, enough, leave Erin alone.”

  “If Collins can’t take it,” Eckert snapped, “she can hand in her uniform.”

  Erin said nothing, but standing next to her, Paige heard swallowed sobs. It was as if she could feel Erin’s muscles tightening, pulse racing, and her heart breaking. Paige thought of the hurt and loss and sacrifice in her family, in Erin’s, David’s, Josie’s, everyone’s, and for what?

  Maybe Blake was right; maybe none of this mattered. Paige’s dad’s body had come home in a wooden box; her mom lived her life out of a pillbox; and Paige felt boxed in by Eckert. Like the Texas sky above her, the world was gray, not black and white. Eckert started in on Erin again.

  Paige stepped forward. “If you want her uniform, then you can have mine, too.” She reached for her cap and handed it to Commander Eckert. She stared at the man’s eyes, wild and al
most out of control. A far cry from those of her mom, even if they were fruit of the same rotten military tree.

  And then Paige never looked back as she walked, not marched, out of the parking lot.

  14

  OCTOBER 24 / SATURDAY / AFTER DINNER

  HARKINS’ HOUSE

  “I’m going to David’s house to study,” Paige announced to her mom as she cleared the kitchen table of their two plates from the dinner Paige quickly had prepared.

  “Where’s Perry?” Paige’s mom asked. Like most nights over the past few weeks, Perry hadn’t joined them for dinner, nor would he be around for most of the evening. Paige knew he was in college, but she also knew Tracy and Jacob had asked him to be around to support Paige and help out. Paige thought her brother maintained his state of denial about their mom’s pill problem by avoiding the house after dark. The few times he was home, he’d stayed in his room, door closed, lights off, TV on.

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll be back from David’s by midnight.”

  “Eleven, Pug.”

  “Midnight, Mom.”

  “Eleven.”

  “Fine, eleven thirty.”

  “I said eleven,” Paige’s mom said and sighed like she was in pain. “End of discussion.”

  Was it all adults or just those in the military, Paige thought, who assumed the world revolved around their ability to shout orders and the willingness of people like Paige to obey?

  “If you’re late, you’re grounded for another week.”

  “I won’t be late.”

  “If you are, then—”

  Paige tossed the plate in her hand into the sink. It cracked in half. “And if I am late, you know what, you won’t even notice, you’ll be passed out or talking like a zombie on the phone.”

  “You clean that up and clean up your attitude. For a cadet, you don’t have control—”

  “I quit.”

  “You quit what?” her mom asked.

  Paige said nothing.