Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel (35 page)

"Oh, God," Sharon gasps.

"Why are you here?"

"I ... I can't tell you right now."

"Can't or won't?" Wendy asks.

Sharon bends over Donna and takes her hands.
"Jim was killed today ..."

Donna falls, falls. Beside her Wendy
moans.

"... by an MP in front of Kim. She's here and
the doctor called me to come be with her."

The hole so big and so black that Donna falls
and falls and there is no bottom.

Sharon straightens up. "I have to find Kim. I
hope ... I hope the baby can be saved. I'll come back to see you as
soon as I can."

Wendy grasps Donna around the shoulders. "The
receptionist said they'll try to see you as soon as possible. Just
hang on."

Donna closes her eyes. From the end of a long
white corridor Miguel beckons. She follows him through a maze of
halls, twisting right, left, left, right. He pushes against a
concealed door and they enter an enclosed garden. Water spouts from
the mouth of a stone nymph. Wind chimes moan as a breeze brushes
her face.

Miguel points to a tiny mound of dug-out
earth – a grave for a baby.

"No!" she screams.

"What's wrong?" Wendy asks. "Is the pain
bad?"

Donna looks up at Wendy. Miguel and the
garden have disappeared. Her body trembles.

The clinic door swings open again. Jerry
rushes in.

He kneels beside her. "I love you,
Donna."

"I think I've lost the baby."

"We'll make more. Everything will be
okay."

She sobs. "No, it won't."

Jerry whispers in her ear. "Darling, I'll
take the exemption. I won't go to Vietnam."

The sobs tear her apart.

“
The pourer should not leave the table until she
is relieved by the next pourer.”
Mrs.
Lieutenant
booklet

Sharon sits by the bed as Kim sleeps.
Hospital personnel moved Kim from the clinic to this hospital room,
where she will stay for observation until tomorrow.

Sharon sits alone; Robert stays out in the
hall – "It's better for only you to be with her," he said. Tears
slide down Sharon's cheeks.

Is she crying for Kim, for herself, for
Donna, or for Wendy? Maybe she's crying for all of them, for their
similar and dissimilar reasons: Kim's dead husband, Donna's dead
first husband and probable miscarriage, Wendy's husband going
Regular Army, and the threat of a Vietnam tour hanging over Jerry,
Nelson and Robert.

Now Jim is out of that. Kim won't have to
worry about receiving a telegram announcing he's been killed. Her
husband was killed in front of her own eyes, the news telegraphed
in less than a second.

Bile rises in Sharon's throat. She gags.

At age 10 she and Howard stand in the
carpeted hallway of a Jewish funeral home in Chicago waiting for
her paternal grandfather's funeral to begin. The rabbi from their
synagogue comes up to them. "Let's go down the block to the Jewish
book store. You don't need to be here now," he says.

It is only later, during
shiva
, the
traditional week of mourning, that Sharon asks her father, "Why did
the rabbi have Howard and me leave the chapel until the service
began?" Her father glances over at his mother sitting on a low
stool talking in Yiddish to one of her sisters.

"Your grandmother is superstitious. She
insisted on an open coffin even though it's not Jewish custom," her
father says. "The rabbi didn't want you to look into the open
coffin so he took you down the street."

And five years later, when this superstitious
grandmother herself dies and her father makes the decisions, there
is no open coffin.

Now Sharon wonders if there will be an open
coffin for Jim. Is this a Southern Baptist tradition? Or maybe his
wound can't be covered up enough and the coffin will be closed
regardless of the tradition.

She brushes her eyes, her head throbs. Her
mother had a first cousin who at seven years of age was struck in
the head by a baseball bat. He lay in bed for several weeks before
he died. When Sharon's grandmother visited her nephew, the boy
whimpered, "Aunt Fannie, it hurts so much."

That's how Sharon feels – it hurts so much.
Jim's death, Donna's probable miscarriage. Kim needed Jim so much
and Donna needed this baby in case, in case ...

Sharon strides across the room and pulls the
room door open. Robert jumps off the hall bench.

"Is she asleep?" Robert reaches out his arms
to Sharon.

She pummels his chest with both fists. "It's
all your fault! It's all your fault!"

Robert grabs her hands and holds them at her
side. "Be quiet or we'll upset the other patients. The staff might
even call the MPs."

Sharon shudders, gulps air, and allows him to
pull her down onto the bench. He wraps his arms around her.

"It is your fault," she sobs into his chest.
"You and your adolescent dreams of being a war hero, proving to
your dad you are as good as he. Why are all you men so hung up on
playing war, proving how macho you are? Shooting toy guns when
you're little, then real guns when you're older?

Robert rocks her back and forth. He says:

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high we bring you home,

And set you at your threshold down,

Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay,

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.

She sobs. The beginning of A.E. Housman's
poem "To An Athlete Dying Young." Robert recited it when they first
met, minutes after they escaped the ROTC protest.

Men and war games. She thinks of the times
she played cowboys and Indians with Howard when they were little;
the fort they built with a blanket over a card table; the time he
tied her to a tree so that he could pretend to ride up and rescue
her; his collection of metal soldiers that their mother melted down
on moral grounds. The movies, the television shows, the books – all
glorifying men who go out to fight, their guns strapped to their
sides, to protect their womenfolk and their homesteads.

Robert holds her chin in his hand and looks
in her eyes. "I know now it's not a game. It's serious and people
get killed. I can't take back what I've committed to, but I can be
as careful as possible."

His chest heaves. "And I pray to God I don't
have to go to Vietnam. I don't know whether I believe this war is
right. I just don't want to shoot another person, to choose between
his life and mine."

Sharon pulls Robert's face down to hers. She
presses her lips against his. Please may she not lose him. She
already knows too many widows.

**

Sharon has brushed her hair and put on some
lipstick in the hospital bathroom. Kim still sleeps.

"Let's go visit Donna now," Sharon says.

"Are you up for this?" Robert asks.

She nods. She has to see Donna, who's also
being kept overnight for observation.

"She's one floor down," Robert says. The
soles of their shoes squeak on the wooden stairs.

On the lower floor Wendy and Nelson sit on a
bench halfway down the hall talking to Jerry. Wendy runs to Sharon
and flings her arms around her. "Is Kim okay?" she asks.

“For now.”

"What really happened?" Nelson says as he and
Jerry come up beside Wendy.

Robert shakes his head. "Apparently Jim
pulled a gun on an MP and another MP shot Jim."

"Jim pulled his gun on a black MP," Nelson
says. "That's what I heard."

"Why did he do that?" Wendy asks.

All three of them look at Sharon. "He ... he
was obsessed. He thought men were looking at Kim. He must have
thought ..."

"He needed help," Robert says. "After what he
said at the club about Nelson I should have known he was coming
unglued. I'm the one who spent the most time with him. I failed
him."

Jerry puts his arm around Robert. "It's as
much my fault. I was at the club too. I should have realized his
reaction was way out of line from his usual behavior. I'm supposed
to be sensitive to others' feelings – I didn't realize what was
going on."

Jerry's eyes blink. "And now Donna has lost
the baby. It was a spontaneous abortion. Doctor told her it happens
often."

“She can still have children, can't she?"
Sharon asks.

Wendy nods. "It's just that she wanted this
baby so that if ... if ..."

Jerry puts his hand on Wendy's arm. "There
will be no if. I'm going to use the Vietnam exemption I'm entitled
to."

"What exemption?" Nelson asks.

Oh, no, Wendy doesn't know.

"Donna's first husband was killed in Vietnam.
That gives me ..."

Wendy slumps to the floor. Her body sags
against the wall, her head on one side. "Wendy, Wendy," Nelson
yells.

Sharon bends over Wendy, holding Wendy's head
down between her knees. "Take it easy," she says.

Nelson crouches next to Wendy and strokes her
head.

Jerry looks at Sharon. "I thought you all
knew."

"Robert and I do. I didn't tell Kim or
Wendy."

Jerry leans over Wendy. "I'm sorry, Wendy.
This has been a terrible day for you."

Wendy raises her head. Tears plop onto her
lap. "And Nelson's insisting on going Regular Army!"

"Honey!" Nelson puts his arms around her.
"I've explained it to you. Regular Army is a great opportunity for
us. I'll have the same chances for promotion as everyone else."

"Not if you're dead."

**

Sharon stands behind Wendy, who sits in the
only visitor's chair in Donna's room. Both Kim and Donna have
single rooms, aren't forced to share with cheerful or depressing
roommates.

"I'm sorry you had to find out this way,"
Donna says. "I thought Sharon would tell you."

Sharon shrugs. "I didn't know whether you
wanted me to. And I thought Kim especially would be upset. I didn't
want her more worried than she already was."

The three of them look at each other. No one
says the obvious: Kim needn't have worried about Vietnam. Jim
didn't even make it through AOB training.

"Jerry's going to take the exemption," Donna
says. "He told you, right?"

Sharon nods.

"We're still going to sign up for vol indef.
He wants to go to Europe."

Sharon smiles. "Robert told me. Maybe we'll
be stationed near each other. And, Wendy, you'll have a European
tour if Nelson goes Regular Army."

"If he survives Vietnam," Wendy says,
crushing tissues between her hands. "He'll probably go in a couple
of months."

Sharon hugs her. "I don't have a crystal
ball, but I'm betting on Nelson. Robert says he's a terrific
soldier."

“
Unless she can be positive that her pocketbook
will not slide from her lap, the pourer should place her bag under
the skirt of the table or under her chair, making sure that the
other guests will not trip over it.”
Mrs.
Lieutenant
booklet

Sharon answers the phone the next
morning.

"It's Nelson. Do you know where Wendy
is?"

"No. Why?"

"She's not here. She doesn't have the car and
she's never gone away when I've been home. I was just up the road
for a few minutes getting milk."

"Maybe she went for a walk."

"In this heat?"

"What about the hospital? Maybe she went to
see Donna and Kim."

"How would she have gotten there?"

"Good point," Sharon says.

"I'm sorry I bothered you."

"Call me when she gets in so I won't
worry."

Robert comes out of the bedroom. "Who was
that on the phone?"

"Nelson. Wendy's not home and he's
worried."

Sharon glances at the pancake mix ready to be
poured onto the griddle. "Do you mind if we don’t eat right now? I
just want to drive around Muldraugh. See if I spot Wendy."

Sharon pulls out of the lot. How silly. Wendy
will be home any minute. Maybe she's at a neighbor's, borrowing a
cup of sugar.

Sharon drives up the main street of Muldraugh
and parks the Fiat in front of the post office. Behind the building
lies a small park Wendy sometimes visits. It's better Sharon come
here than Nelson in case Wendy's walking back into the trailer
right now.

Across the mowed grass a flower-edged path
leads to a small pond. Scum floats on the still water.

Wendy sits on a bench, her knees pulled up to
her chest and her head bent over. Sharon sits down next to her.
Wendy doesn't look up.

Wendy clutches a newspaper in her arms.
Sharon pries the paper from Wendy.

"New Vietcong Offensive Claims Many American
Lives." The headline screams its news across the whole front page.
Wet blotches dot the story.

Lower down on the front page another headline
reads: "Bomb Explodes in ROTC Building on University Campus."

"Wendy," Sharon says.

Wendy raises her head. She stares at
Sharon.

"What's going on?"

Wendy shakes her head.

"Nelson's worried. He called me."

Wendy's eyes flash. "Let him find out what
it's like," she says. "Worrying about the person you love."

Sharon wraps her arms around Wendy.

Wendy pulls herself away from Sharon. "I want
to go home."

Sharon squeezes Wendy's hands. "You would
never leave Nelson."