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Then another song played, a
favorite of Jake’s.

How long had it been?
Minutes? An hour? Forever.
That
could have been the moment he died, his absence
from my thoughts a sign, a goodbye.

I open the kitchen window
and pull up the blinds to let out the smoke.

“I can feel it,” she says.
“About William and Jake. Sometimes you just know.”

“How can you feel that? How
can you be sure?”

Drip.

Drip.

“Your faucet is
dripping.”

“Is it?”

Denise crosses to the sink
and turns the handle tight and stands beside me. “I haven’t heard
from him in days,” she says. Heavy powder—too heavy—shines in
flecks under her eyes and her hair, up close, looks stringy.
Normally so put-together, so well maintained.

“You will,” I
say.

“It must mean
something.”

“He was probably
busy.”

“I don’t know. It’s not like
him. Even if he’s busy, he usually finds a way to contact
me.”

“I’d be more worried about
him being alive.”

“Oh, he’s alive, all right,”
she says. “But, you’re right. Sometimes I wish he were dead. It
would make all of this a hell of a lot easier. Not
really
, of course. But,
have you ever—”

“Jesus Christ, Denise. You
know they fly together a lot.”

“What are you talking
about?” she says, and, “Oh, no. Oh…Mia, I was—” She runs water over
her cigarette and drops it in the disposal. I almost don’t hear her
say, “I wasn’t talking about William.”

I understand, then, why
she’s so sure of their safety. It’s the confidence of someone with
nothing at stake.

________

“
Mia…Are you there…? Pick up
if you’re there.”

“What are you doing?” Denise
mutes the television and stares at me. “Aren’t you going to pick it
up?”

“Damn it. I just can’t seem
to catch you at home. . .You don’t know how bad I want to hear your
voice…The machine isn’t enough…If I could hear you laugh,
then—”

“Mia,” Denise says, “if you
don’t pick it up, I’m going to.”

“—everything, this whole
day, would be just a little better…Something happened … don’t want
to talk about it, sorry, but—well, maybe it’s on the news—but I
just want you to know—”

I can’t breathe, but she is
right. I have to pick up the phone.

“You have to pick it up,
Mia. You can’t just—”

There is a knock at the
door. I wait for more from Jake. Wants me to know—wants me to know
what?

Can’t just breathe, and it
should be easy.

“—that I love
you.”

Denise sets her glass on the
desk. “I’ll get the door. You talk to Jake.”

“I love you so much…and I
kind of hoped I’d be able to use this time to ask you about your
last letter…You sounded so angry, M…and that you would write to me
and accuse me—”

There’s a pause, a wait, and
I rush to the desk and pick up the phone. “Jake?”

“Talk to him!” she screams
from the hallway.

“I am,” I say, and Jake says
nothing. “Jake?” Still nothing. I blow into the phone and hollow
air comes back, then two, three clicks, like connecting to
something that won’t connect. I slam down the receiver, and then I
slam it down again, again, again, and squeeze and twist it in my
hands.

Denise stands in the
doorway, her arms and body limp, heaping forward. I hang up the
phone, pick it up to check for a working dial tone, then hang it up
again.

Denise says, her eyes not
quite focused on mine, “It was a shorter speech than I thought it
would be.”

________

She fixes drink after drink,
not saying a word, and smokes cigarette after cigarette. Her
fingers shake.

Jake hadn’t wanted to talk
about it.

But Jake is okay. Jake is
safe. Jake is alive.

William is not.

________

It could have been
Jake.

But it wasn’t.

I don’t feel like
smiling—there’s nothing to smile about—but I have to fight not
to.

I can’t look at her. When I
do, my lips, my cheeks, all of it tugs toward a grin.

Jesus. I don’t want to
laugh. I don’t feel like laughing.

If Jake died, would I be
this way at his funeral?

When I feel her looking at
me, I pretend I have an itch on my upper lip so my hand covers my
mouth. My eyes water and I look down. There is a hole in the toe of
my sock.

Denise says, “Are you
smiling?”

________

She stares out the window
and smokes. “Green-suiters,” she says. “That’s what they call them.
Did you know that?”

I tell her I
didn’t.

“Captain James Collins. That
was his name, the one who talked.” Her ash falls on the floor.
“It’s funny—I think he looked at me after a few words like I was
going to stop him. But I wanted to hear the whole
thing.”

________

“
The Secretary of the Army
expressed his regret,” she says. She laughs and wipes her eyes. “I
don’t even know who the secretary of the Army is, and I’m pretty
sure he doesn’t know me. Or William. So what’s he have to be so
fucking regretful about?”

________

“
James—Captain James
Collins—asked if I was Denise White. I almost said no. I could have
been you, if I’d wanted. Could have sent him away. Anyone could
have left your address on my door. I can’t believe he actually
came, you know? I didn’t think they’d actually come.” She slides
her glass around on the table. “But then he asked if I was the wife
of Chief Warrant Officer William H. White.” She picks at her finger
until a line of blood spreads around the base of her
nail.

________

“
I can’t leave,” she says.
“I just can’t. I don’t know where I’ll go. Or do I? What if I know
exactly where I’ll go?”

“You can stay,” I tell her.
I bring out a pillow.

________

“
I didn’t want it to happen,
Mia. Do you believe me?”

“I believe you.”

________

“
He wasn’t shot down,” she
says. “Somehow, that’s worse, isn’t it? Or is it better? I don’t
know.”

I ask her what
happened.

“That was the only thing I
asked them. How did it happen?” She brings her empty glass to the
kitchen and says, “Wires. They said he hit some wires.” She comes
back out. “He always said he was such a good pilot. Do you think
maybe they made a mistake? Maybe it wasn’t even him.”

I shouldn’t say it, but I
do. I say, “Maybe.”

________

“
He was so sweet,” she says,
and grimaces on ‘sweet.’ “It’s a dumb word, but you know what I
mean. He didn’t deserve it.” She crushes her fifteenth cigarette in
the ashtray. “I didn’t deserve him.” She brushes her hair off her
face, gently at first, absently, but then with harsh
yanks.

I say, “I’m sure you were a
wonderful wife.”

She looks at me while
lighting another cigarette. She’s smoked them so constantly that
imagining the taste of yet another pull on a filter almost makes me
gag.

“I mean, as far as he knows.
And that’s what’s important.”

“Shut up, Mia.
Okay?”

________

“
William was good to me. He
was a good husband. A good—a great—friend.”

“He knew you loved him,” I
say.

“Maybe,” she says. “But what
if he didn’t?”

________

Denise cries. She says, “It
happened at midnight, his time. Do you know what I was doing at
three o’clock yesterday?”

I don’t ask.

She doesn’t say.

I sit beside her with my
hand on top of hers.

“I’m going to hell,” she
says.

________

Strands of hair cling to her
cheek. I pull the blanket to her shoulders even though it’s not
cold, and I start to pick up Chancey from behind her legs. She
makes a noise, then mumbles without opening her eyes, “Leave him,”
and tucks her fingers under his chin.

I watch her from the chair,
watch the moon’s shadows roll over her face.

MAY 6, TUESDAY

“
I’ll be leaving soon,”
Denise says, “but when I come back we’ll do something,
okay?”

I turn up the volume on the
phone. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” she says. “You
know.” She pauses and takes a breath. A moment passes. I watch a
cat outside tug at a low-hanging pair of pants on the clothesline.
She says, “I just wanted you to know I’d be gone so you wouldn’t
worry if you called and didn’t get an answer.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t
called,” I say. “I just thought you’d have so much going on, you
know. And I didn’t want to—I didn’t know what to say, and I
thought—”

“It’s okay.”

“Take care of yourself,” I
say. “And tell his mom—tell her that Jake is sorry. Or
something.”

“I will.”

I didn’t know William very
well, and so I don’t know what to say. He was Jake’s friend. “He
liked the chicken joke,” I say.

“What?”

“The chicken joke. Remember?
He told it twice that night, after the ball. He thought no one
appreciated the humor, and the second time he told it, we all
thought about it. And we all laughed. Remember?”

“I don’t know.”

“He was funny. Or—Denise,
I’m sorry.”

“Listen—um—I gave Brian your
address because I left my lighter at your house, the silver one
with the—”

“I found it.” With the
initials engraved on the back. W.W.

“So, he’ll stop by sometime
in the next few days and get it so I can take it with me. I would
do it myself, but he lives just a few blocks from you—did you
know?—and…anyway. If you have to go somewhere and he hasn’t come
by, yet, maybe you can just put it in an envelope with his name on
it and tape it to your door. His name is spelled with an ‘i’.
‘B-R-I—”

“I know how to spell
Brian.”

“Right. I know.” She pauses.
Takes a breath.

“I’m sorry. That was
unnecess—”

“It’s over,” she says. “So
you know.”

I say nothing.

“Did you hear
me?”

“I heard you. It’s none of
my—”

“Whatever, Mia. Okay? I’m
telling you. It’s over. I just wanted you to know.”

________

May 6

Jake,

I’m sorry. About William.
Were you there? Did you see it?

Dumb question. How could
you have, unless you were there?

Was there a lot of blood,
and was it fast? I shouldn’t ask these things, I know, but they’re
what I’m thinking. I hope it was fast.

Poor William.

How could he have been
alive last week and be dead this week?

I’m back to watching the
news, now. I stopped for a while. Did I tell you? It’s never good,
so I stopped. But now, maybe it’s useful. For something. I have it
on, never turn it off. Never again, because what if I miss
you?

Please be alive next week.
Please be alive, stay alive, do whatever it takes because I can’t
stand to think of Denise at William’s funeral and I wouldn’t know
what to do with your clothes and your aftershave. But that’s not
what I mean at all.

Denise was here when they
came. Were you not flying with him? Were you with him, but you
survived? What happens to a helicopter when it flies into wires? Is
it an electrical fire, or is there tangling? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t
wonder. It doesn’t matter what happens except what
happens.

I was there when you
called, but I missed you. Again, I missed you. But I heard your
voice and thank you, thank you for calling. They came when you
called. Denise left a note on her door, and they came to our place
looking for her. I never thought they would come to our place and
they did.

Did you get my letter? The
one after the one about your mom and your sister? I’m sorry. For
all of it. For what I said about all that.

Don’t die. Don’t
die.

Too much unresolved. Don’t
die. Denise didn’t even see it coming. There was something on the
news and she was fine and she said she knew you two were okay. But
she was wrong. Do you see? She was wrong, even though she was so
sure she was right.

I’m not sure of anything,
anymore. I can’t be, can I? Not that I ever was. But, sometimes, I
would think that if I just knew you’d be okay, you would be. But
it’s not true.

What do I do
now?

No. Don’t worry. These are
just my thoughts today.