While He Was Away (6 page)

I sweep a pile of crumbs into my palm. Once, when he called me from OSUT, something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. He was barely holding back tears, I could tell. I wonder if Bonnie ever got a call like that.

“Why, Penna!” Bonnie exclaims.

I look up from the solidified splotch of lasagna sauce, dreading what’s next. Bonnie must have just realized what nobody else has. She must have realized what I haven’t let myself think about too much, or even say. She must have realized that something has happened—is happening—to David, something I don’t understand.

But then I see Bonnie’s sweet, crooked smile—an expression that David has claimed for his own. Her expression is amused and puzzled. She has grabbed on to some kind of distraction.

“Did you streak your hair blue?”

I touch my hair and the stiff blue paint there. I have to smile too, remembering the best part of last night.

It hits me then. The viaduct.

I fold the rag and drape it over the kitchen faucet.

“I’ll be back,” I tell Bonnie and tear from the house.

•••

Luckily the O’Dells live near the center of town too. I zip right over to the viaduct.

But David’s not there. Nobody’s there but our painted selves, the six-foot-tall killdeer, and, of all people, Ravi, who’s practicing tricks on his skateboard. He’s wearing that same gray sweatshirt. Maybe this is how he winds down after the night shift. When he sees me, he jumps off his board and propels it into his hands. If Ravi thinks I’m staying, I realize, he will hightail it out of here before I’m able to ask what I need to ask. So I keep my distance, circling on my bike at the viaduct’s opening.

“Seen David?” My words come in a rush.

Ravi shakes his head.

“He wasn’t here earlier?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

A stormy expression flickers across Ravi’s face—he has dramatic features: high cheekbones and forehead, a strong jaw. “Do you want to ask me again? I could lie.”

Ravi’s voice is deeper than David’s, and he speaks more deliberately, like he’s putting together a puzzle. He talks the way I’ve heard other people talk when English isn’t their first language. There’s a kind of music in his voice that comes with this, a kind of care.

But I want to hear David’s voice. I want to hear David say my name.

“I’m not asking you to lie. I’m just—”

I’m just what? Just
who
? I hardly recognize myself, the way I feel, so panicked.

“He’s leaving for Iraq today.”

The words burst from me, fierce and defensive. Ravi looks surprised, and his expression holds something else too—fear? guilt?—but before he can respond, I turn my bike and head off. Ravi’s skateboard clatters as it hits the ground again. The board’s wheels grind against the concrete, and then there’s a gap in the sound as Ravi gets some air. He lands again. I’ve put nearly a block between us. Now I glance back. Ravi’s banking up the side of the viaduct and swooping back down. Kind of like David liked–
likes, will like
—to do. The way David did only a few hours ago, running up that wall and flipping off it, always a daredevil. Always, always lucky.

I fly down Main Street. There, finally, I spot David’s motorcycle, parked in front of a cinder-block building. Tattoo You, the local tattoo and piercing parlor. Open twenty-four hours.

I remember now. Months ago David had said that he wanted to get his first tattoo to commemorate this day. I let my bike fall to the ground and run inside.

The parlor is an open, neon-tinted room. Tattoo art covers the walls—dragons and hieroglyphics and roses catch my eye. The place smells and looks almost as clean as my dentist’s office. I hate the dentist. But I love David. And there he is, lying in the last chair at the back of the room. Looks like he’s the only one with the guts or desire to get tattooed this early in the day.

He appears almost comfortable, reclining like that before a mirror. But then I see his mouth, a tight line of pain. A mullet-haired, tattooed dude is holding what looks like a gun to David’s chest. The whining buzz coming from that instrument sounds like a dentist’s drill. The guy is drilling a hole into David’s heart.

The tattooed dude curses and yanks back the gun as I throw my arms around David’s neck.

“Watch out!” David cries.

But he’s hugging me back, not letting go.

The dude has taken himself off to some other part of the room, so we’re nearly alone when I look down and see the tattoo transferred onto David’s skin—still only outlined in black like a coloring book. It’s a circle of barbwire and tumbleweeds around a manga guy. With his curly hair, the manga guy looks a lot like David before OSUT. He’s wearing fatigues and jumping around inside that barbed circle like he’s kill-crazy, his mouth open in rage. He’s packing some heavy artillery, this manga guy.

“Wow.” I can’t think of what else to say. Plus, I’m out of breath from my bike ride. Not to mention the sight of that tattoo.

“It’s great, right? That’s what I’m going for, anyway. Color can hurt more, at least that’s what Felix says.” David nods at the tattoo artist, who’s busily cleaning his needle. “So I’m not going to do as much red as I was planning to.”

“It’s still great.”

He grins. “So you
do
like it?”

“Yes.” What’s the point of saying anything else? Now that he’s gone this far, there’s no turning back. And besides, I do like it. I always will. I kiss the skin around what hurts on David’s chest until he eases me away.

I call Felix over. I tell Felix the other thing I have to do with David before he leaves. David and I talked about it earlier this summer, and he wanted to do it too. For us.

“Tattoo us some rings, matching braids around our right ring fingers,” I say. “Don’t worry.” I pull out my driver’s license. “I’m eighteen.”

•••

Four and a half hours, one chest tattoo, two ring tattoos, and a whole bunch of chocolate-chip bagels, cream cheese, and coffee later, Beau, Bonnie, and I drive David to the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City. David and I sit in the backseat of the O’Dells’ massive pickup truck. The heavy smell of antibiotic ointment overpowers the smell of the coffee that both Bonnie and Beau are drinking. David and I are hesitant to hold hands—even left hands—in case we bump the right ones somehow.

Our right ring fingers will kill for a while, Felix said, but David said that’s okay. He’ll have some downtime. His flight is about twenty-four hours long, with stops in Newfoundland and Germany for refueling. And then David has two weeks in Kuwait before he heads to Iraq. Kuwait won’t exactly be downtime, of course. Far from it. David said he’ll be learning specific in-country stuff. He’ll finally get to try out the special vehicles he’ll be using for security patrol. He’ll be working up a sweat, getting even darker out there in the Kuwaiti desert, where the heat reaches 120 degrees by day this time of year and drops to a cool 90 by night.

And then there’s Iraq.

“By the time I get to Iraq,” David said over bagels this morning, “I’ll be healed up great. For a while I’ll probably just be cleaning out latrines anyway. If something goes weird with my tat, I can always hold a toilet brush—or whatever—with my left hand.”

You can’t hold a gun with only your left hand, I realize now, way too late. We should never have gotten them.

David is staring out the truck window, as distracted by his thoughts as I am.

“Are you sure we can’t drive you all the way to Iraq?” Beau asks this for about the millionth time—a feeble joke. Beau would stay in a motel in Iraq for the duration of David’s deployment too if he could. If they even have motels in Iraq anymore. If they’re not all blown to bits.

“
Dad
,” David says.

For a few minutes, we ride in silence.

Then, because Bonnie is crying softly now and I can’t stand to hear her cry, I ask David again how long before we’ll be able to email or talk.

Again, he says, “They said a few hours after we land. Remember? I won’t be able to get my own cell and SIM card until I get to Iraq. But of course they’ll have phone providers in Kuwait. You know me. I’ll get through to you.” He leans his head against his window. He looks tired all of a sudden. “At training, one guy told me that in Iraq we’ll have to earn privileges to talk on the phone, though other guys said he was just pulling my leg. Or maybe he had a really tough unit. But they all agreed that reception can still be bad over there, even around big cities. Even Baghdad. Phone lines and the Internet can still go down. Depending.”

Depending on what?

I don’t want to ask. Not with Bonnie crying like that.

Carefully, I take hold of David’s tattooed hand. The gauze looks whiter and cleaner against his dark skin than it does mine. In the tattoo parlor I couldn’t help but think
war
wound
, looking at the bandage on his chest.
Survivor
, I make myself think now. I make myself believe. As we pull into the airport’s entrance, I trace a heart in the air just over the barbwire on David’s chest. I am careful not even to skim his jacket, for fear of hurting the tender part beneath.

We park in the parking garage. Bonnie, sobbing now, doesn’t want to leave the truck. Or rather, she doesn’t want to leave the truck because David doesn’t want her to leave the truck. He warned us a week earlier, when he first came back from training, that he didn’t want any of us to go into the airport with him.

“I can’t deal with it.” That’s how he explained it. “I can deal with the TSA hassles, but I can’t deal with saying good-bye in front of everyone. I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair. It’s not right. But please. You’ve been asking what you can do? Say good-bye to me in private.”

David leans over Bonnie now and hugs her for a long time in the pseudo-privacy of the parking garage. He flinches in pain as her head rests on his chest, right where the tattoo is, but he doesn’t pull away. He whispers something into Bonnie’s ear.
I
love
you,
he’s probably saying.
Don’t worry. I’ll be home on leave before you know it.
Finally he looks up and checks the clock on the dashboard. I see the realization flash across his time. He has to say good-bye.

Beau and I walk with him to the elevator that will carry him up into the airport, where he will meet his brigade and fly away. I thought it was bad when he left for OSUT. It was nothing compared to this.

We stand in our small huddle of three. Fluorescent tubes of light hum and buzz above us—a lethal sound. Cars sail past, probably filled with happy families and couples going on fun vacations. Or coming home.

I draw David’s arm around my shoulder. I try to melt into him. Blend, merge, meld, blur. Stay or take me with you, I want to say.

“You okay?” My voice breaks.

David smiles reassuringly. “Be cool. Atta girl.”

I pull a new book of manga from my bag. I give it to David. “For the flight. For inspiration too. You’ve got to work on your portfolio over there, okay? We’ve got to get into art school.”

David looks skeptical. “You know I don’t get much done without an assignment.”

“I’ll assign you stuff then,” I say.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“Hold me to anything.”

Beau takes our picture holding each other. Then he takes David’s picture alone. David stands at attention. He looks strong. He is strong. Army strong. Hero strong. I take David’s picture with Beau. David leans his head on Beau’s shoulder, and Beau cups his hand over David’s head like something might fall on his skull and shatter it.

David throws his arms around Beau then, like it’s just hit him, what’s happening.

“This is just something I have to do, okay?” I hear David say. “Something for me. Something for our country.” He looks over Beau’s shoulder at me. “The right thing.”

David steps away from Beau. He comes over to me. He cradles my face in his hands. He kisses me hard. Lets go. Turns away.

He’s gone.

I drag myself out of the humming, buzzing light. I follow Beau back to Bonnie in the truck. We make the long drive back to Killdeer, sudden rain battering the windows.

David would call this a real Oklahoma summer storm. The wind nearly tips us over.

•••

Late that night, after the long ride home with Bonnie and Beau, after cold cereal for dinner and a couple of hours watching I don’t even remember what, I sit down at my desk and pick up the photograph of Justine. Just that simple act—picking up a photograph—and pain radiates through my right ring finger. The feeling makes me so jittery that my hands start to shake. Last fall, after David and I kissed for the first time and we were officially “a couple,” my hands shook like this. They shook like this when he first told me that he’d signed on to join the army. We were standing under the honey locust tree right outside my bedroom window.

“I joined before you even moved here,” he told me, as the leaves rustled above. “Maybe if I’d known you, I wouldn’t have done it. But I believe it was the right decision.” Then he’d kissed my hands until they were steady again.