Burned (3 page)

Hey, gorgeous.

Still on for Saturday?

45

Zap!

I was nobody. So

why would I think he wanted to talk to me?

And why wouldn't he want to talk to Tiffany, who had

everything I would never have:

beauty, money, confidence (okay, conceit)?

Justin

slid his arm around her tiny

waist, walked his long

fingers along her exposed

skin. I couldn't keep from watching

out of the corner of one eye, jealousy

seeping from my pores, sourdough perfume.

46

Tiffany

pretended to be

offended. "Stop it,

Justin. Everybody's

watching. And what if Mr.

Trotter comes back right now?"

But she didn't try to move his hand and in fact, curled tighter against his torso.

Zap!

I was nobody.

Someday, would

another nobody slide his arm around my substantial waist, walk his hand up under my homemade

blouse? And would I draw back into the curve of him, close my eyes, and take pleasure in his heat?

47

Daydreams Bite

At least in chemistry lab.

As my body broke out in a bone-chilling sweat,

Mr. Trotter snuck up behind me.

Don't add the oil ijet, Pattyn.

Pay attention!

I jumped, knocking over the beaker of salt water, with an oil float.

Exxon Valdez in miniature!

I'm surprised, Pattyn.

Usually youre so careful.

Usually I wasn't confronted by sex dreams in the flesh;

Irving, breathing sex dreams, with a Tiffany twist.

Clean up your mess. Then

perhaps you'd better start over.

I turned to apologize to my lab

partner, but she and Justin

had slipped out the door, no doubt before Mr. Trotter returned.

Timing is everything.

48

Timing; Was Poor

The next aftemoon--Friday

afternoon. Mom asked me to run out back to the storage

shed to get a jar of Spaghetti sauce from our stash of emergency supplies.

Imagine, storing enough

food and water to nurture a family of nine for a year, "when the shit

hit the fan and it all came crashing down.

Another Latter-Day Saints edict.

Dad's aged Subaru was already

parked out back. Some Fridays he got off early from his Job, working

security at the State legislature.

He saw it as a decent occupation, which paid the bills and provided insurance and retirement.

I saw it as kind of boring most of the time, with the odd takedown to provide a rush of adrenaline and a blush of importance.

49

Anyway, somewhere between stacks of batteries, boxes of bullets, and countless cans of tuna, Spam, and beans was Dad's stash of Johnnie WB.

Weeknights, he'd duck outside for an after-dinner belt. Just enough to allow sleep. But come Friday

afternoon, he'd head straight for his good buddy Johnnie. They partied hearty.

And the party had already started.

50

As
I Approached the Shed

I heard his voice, thick as caramel on his tongue.

Leave me alone.

I can't help you now.

Part of me wanted to run.

Part of me had to listen.

Goddammit, Molly, go away. Please.

Molly. His first wife.

The true love of his life.

I miss Dwight too,
you know I do.

Dwight, who carried soldier in his genes.

I couldnt tell him not to go, could I?

Their first son, killed in a firefight in Somalia.

What's that? Fuck Douglas, the jriggin jag.

Their second son, until he came out of the closet.

No, dammit. No son of mine

will take itfrom another man.

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So he told him never to show his face nearby again.

But you didn't have to do

what you did!

One son dead, the other

shunned, Molly folded.

Don't you know how

much I miss you?

Put a .357 into her mouth

pulled the trigger.

Don't you know how

much I miss you?

Oh God, Molly, please stop crying.

52

T
he Long Pause

Told

me it wasn't

Molly who was sobbing.

I'd never heard

my father cry

before.

How

many

times

had I tried

my best to hate

that complicated

man. But this

tiny piece of me

kept

thinking

back to another, happier time, when

Mom loved Dad.

And me. And

Dad loved

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Mom.

And

me. At

least as much

s he could with that dead, cold space

growing inside him, that place no

amount of love

could

ever settle into.

That impenetrable

arctic land where his ghosts had carried his heart.

54

I Sort of Remember

Crawling up into Daddy's lap, when Dad was still

Daddy, nodding my head against his chest, soaking in the comfort of his heat, listening to the
thump . . . thump,
somewhere beneath muscle and breastbone. I remember his arms, their sublime

encircling, and the shadow of his voice:

I love you, little girl.

Put away your bad dreams.

Daddy's here.

I put them away. Until

Daddy became my nightmare, the one that came

home from work every day

and, instead of picking me

up, chased me far, far away.

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Wasn't Sure Which Dad

I would find inside the shed, although I had a pretty good

idea he wouldn't want me to witness him crying--not the macho man he wanted the world to believe him to be.

Truth was, in his day, Dad was about as bad as they came.

Way back in the late sixties, when

everyone eise ducked the draft,

Dad ran right down and joined up.

Wanted to "waste gooks."

Left Molly, his wife of only a few weeks, at home while he toured Vietnam in an A-4

Skyhawk, a not-so-lean killing

machine designed to deliver

maximum firepower.

And Dad was just the man--

boy--to deliver it.

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He came home long enough to get Molly pregnant, then joined up for a second tour of duty.

Dwight was almost two before he met his dad.

Sad.

57

Not Dad's Fault

Any more than I'm entirely to blame for what Fve become. It's all in the molding.

Dad's dad, Grandpa Paul, with the scary

gray eyes (scary because, if you dared

look into them, somehow you'd see the things he'd seen), served his country too, "slappin' Japs" in World War II.

He slapped them good, taking a patriot's

revenge for buddies lost at Pearl Harbor.

Justified. Glorified.

Deified with a Medal of Honor and a Purple

Heart for the leg lost to shrapnel.

Grandpa Paul refused prosthetics, said Irving with a stump was no more than the Good Lords daily reminder of wrongs still in need of righting.

Mistakes in need of correction.

58

But It Only Takes One L

(And what's located next to it) to create a whole brood of kids.

Dad was number three of five.

Hard to stand out

when you're number three.

Hard to be the apple of your

mothers eye. Härder still to gain the affection of a father whose love for any

Irving thing was lost along with his buddies and his leg.

Even Grandma Jane, his wife tili death did part them, prematurely, would never regain the love she lost to battle scars.

Distance begets distance begets . . .

Well, that was yet to be decided.

59

One Thing Already Decided

Was Spaghetti for dinner.

Mom was waiting for the sauce,

Dad

had already hit the sauce, and it wasn't tomato

Now Dad hadnever laid a hand on us

girls (not so far, any-way).

I wasnt afraid of that

ButIdidn't want todisturb his demons anymore than he already had.

Plus, Iknew he was sick of spaghetti.

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I
Started to Sing

Loud, so he'd know I was coming.

To make double-sure, I clomped across the wooden walkway, sounding pretty much like a cow.

Dad was too far gone to care.

He had quit talking to Molly.

Now he whispered to the other spirits who crowded his life.

You're dead, you fucking gooks.

North, South, who could tell? You

all looked alikefrom the air. Go on hack to hell. Your hahies need you.

I creaked the door open. "Dad?

It's me, Pattyn." Didn't want him to think I was a gook in the flesh.

"Mom needs some Spaghetti sauce.

The shed feil silent for a second or two as Dad tried to collect

himself. When he finally did, my words sank in.

61

Spaghetti? Again? You tell your

mother I won't be sharing the dinner table tonight. I'm

going lookin for Julia Child.

I didn't dare mention she was dead, although he probably

would have felt right at home in her Company.

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Even Without Dad

,

The dinner table remained

earily quiet, as if each of us, even the little ones, intuited what was to come.

Mom rarely expected Dad for dinner on Friday night.

Johnnie, it seemed, was always on a diet.

Usually we chatted and giggled, hoping

Dad would wander in late, settle down on the sofa, and watch mindless

TV until he and Johnnie

fell deep, deep asleep.

Relatively harmless.

Often, it happened

that way. We'd all tiptoe off to bed, leaving

Dad to his nightmares.

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In the morning, we'd wake to irrefutable proof of Mon's

undying love--Dad, snoozing on the couch, under a blanket.

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But on That Night

Dad staggered in, eyes eerily lit.

The corners of his mouth foaming spit.

His demons planned an overnight stay.

Mom motioned to take the girls away, hide them in their rooms, safe in their beds.

We closed the doors, covered our heads, as if blankets could mute the sounds of his blows or we could silence her screams beneath our pillows.

I hugged the littlest ones close to my chest, tili the beat of my heart lulled them to rest.

Only then did I let myself cry.

Only then did I let myself wonder why

Mom didn't fight back, didn't defend, didn't confess to family or friend.

Had Dad's demons claimed her soul?

Or was this, as well, a woman's role?

65

When the House Fell Quiet

Jackie and I whispered

very late into the night.

We talked about Mom.