Homefront (36 page)

“Door’s open.”

“My hands are
full.”

“With what?”

“Just open the goddamn
door!”

He opens it and peers
outside. “You alone?”

I push past him into a smoke
haze and he slams the door behind me. He has plants, now. Vibrant
and well cared for. And a jar filled with water to feed a tied
bundle of alstroemerias.

He looks out the window.
“Can’t trust no one out there.” He follows me to the table where I
am setting down my things: his cake, the box that was in my trunk,
the bottle of wine. “What’s that?” He points at the cake in the
plastic pan.

“It’s a cake.”

“I see it’s a goddamn cake.”
He picks it up, then sets it back down and takes off the cover.
“For me?”

“This, too.” I slide the box
across the table. He leans forward to grab it and
staggers.

“Donny…”

“Doctor Donaldson,” he says
and slams his palm into his chest. His eyes are flat,
dark.

“Do you drink
wine?”

He shakes his head. “What’re
you…? When’ve you seen me drink wine? Bourbon! Bourbon,
bourbon.”

He makes his way to the rear
of the room and brings back two glasses, one full, the other half
full. I take mine and sit in one of the chairs at the table. He
sits in the other. Behind him, a young spider plant gets light
through the window.

“How long are you going to
live here?”

“As long as I got to. Why?
What’s the matter with it?”

“Nothing,” I say, and he
laughs.

“Nothin’!” he says. “I was
just playin’ with you. This place is a crackhead shithole. You
know. Next door, guy sells crack. Whores come day and night for it
so much I can’t get sleep unless it’s durin’ the day, but they come
even then. It’s just that I’m so tired by the time two o’clock
comes ‘round that I can’t stay awake.” He picks at the plastic tray
under the cake with his fingernail. “I don’t know, though. Yeah, as
long as I need to, I guess. Wife ain’t comin’ back.” He drags his
sleeve under his nose. “Won’t do it. I tried. I called her and
wrote her a letter, and…”

I look around now and then
while he’s talking, impressed with the plants, which are healthier
and sturdier than anything I could ever grow. The pepper plant is
already dyi—

I hold my breath when I see
it—the smooth, pristine snow on the driveway is unmistakable—tucked
behind the chair.

“…says I drink too much, but
what’s she want? I didn’t drink this much before, and I told her if
we got back together I’d quit it all. I swear I would. What, you
don’t believe me?”

“No. Sure.”

“What’re you lookin’—” He
turns, sees it, and jumps out of his chair. “You didn’t call back.
I told you I had somethin’ for you.”

“I thought maybe it would be
a free
TV Guide
.”

He lifts the canvas. “Why
would I give you that?” He carries it over and sets it in front of
me. “What, you think I’m goin’ to stand here and hold it up for
you? Take it.”

I take it.

“Almost didn’t give it to
you after what happened. Didn’t know what to do with it, though,
since I already took it back from that place even though they said
they had somebody interested. They get a commission, you know.
Fifteen and a half percent.”

“What did they
say?

“I don’t care! It’s my
goddamn painting. Wait,” he says. He slides off his chair and
crawls to the bed, reaching underneath to pull out his drawing of
me. “Take this, too.” He rests it against the other and sits down
again. “Read it.”

I check the back for a
message.

“No, no. The front.” He
reaches out for it. “It’s on the—on the front!”

“Okay.” I slap his hand
away. “Christ.”

A note spreads across the
chalk-streaked strands of my hair in looped, elegant writing: “I
love you today—and pray for you tomorrow.” His signature is a
scribble.

“Thank you. Thank you so
much.”

“I ain’t got no use for a
picture of you.”

“I mean, for both of
them.”

“Yeah. You’re welcome.”
Donny turns his cake and looks at me and smiles. And there,
nineteen years old, there he is. In there somewhere, always, but so
quick to leave. So quick he’s already gone.

“First, this.” I hand him
the wrapped box and he tears at the paper, swipes it to the floor.
He pulls out a clear plastic cube with ‘USA’ floating in the
middle, each letter made of air bubbles the size of pin-pricks. He
raises it to eye level and turns it in a circle, reads the letters,
then sets it down.

He holds out his hand to
shake mine, and when I give it to him he squeezes,
releases.

“Now this.” I nudge the
cake. I get up and walk over to him, lower to my knees on the floor
in front of him. I spread my arms the way Jake does, and Donny
hesitates, then leans into me. Over his shoulder I say, “Welcome
home,” and his fingers tense and curl to clutch my back and his
chin presses hard into my shoulder. “Thank—” he says, but the rest
gets caught somewhere. He pulls back just enough to cup my face in
his hands and pushes my bangs away from my eyes. “You are my
angel.” His thumb strokes my cheek and he kisses me.

His mouth is unexpectedly
soft.

There should be something I
feel, right now. Anger, embarrassment, disgust. Thrill. But all I
notice is his mustache pricking my upper lip and that I’m trying
hard to pretend he has the long hair, the torn jeans. That he’s
even younger than I am.

Before too long, he pulls
away and falls back into his chair. “What the hell’re you
doin’?”

“Me?”

“What the hell—what the hell
was…?” He brushes his hair off his forehead.

I say, “What was
what?”

“Oh, you think I’m that
drunk? Think you can trick me?”

“Let’s have some cake.” I
look for something to cut it with, but he has no utensils. I settle
for a sturdy envelope, unopened, an attorney’s address in the upper
left corner. “I would have put something more on it—a decoration,
something about where you were specifically—but I don’t know any of
it.”

He rubs his foot on the
floor. “You do somethin’ nice for me and I tell you it’s nice and
now you think I want somethin’ from you. Because I kissed
you.”

“Forget the kiss. I don’t
think you want anything from me.”

“Bullshit.” He shakes his
head. “Bullshit.” He looks at my glass. “You ain’t had a drink.
Why’re you bein’ such a little girl?”

“Donny. Can you
please
just be
nice?”

He lights a cigarette. “I
don’t know what the hell just happened.” He looks through the smoke
at his cake, then back at me. “You got me a cake,” he says, jabbing
his cigarette into the space between us. He tilts his head and
looks at me, his face softer. “I love you.”

I smile and take a taste of
the bourbon, just a layer to numb my lips.

“I do,” he says. “You think
I don’t mean it? Why’re you smilin’?”

“When someone says they love
you, you smile.”

“Naw,” he says. “You’re
laughin’ at me.”

“I’m not laughing at
you.”

“You’re goddamn laughin’ at
me.”

“Donny.”

“Forget it.” He stands up to
look out the window.

“That’s a nice plant,” I
say.

“Forget it. It’s a fuckin’
plant. Who cares? I won’t ever get out of this place.”

“Aren’t you still
working?”

“Do I look like I’m
workin’?” He turns back to me. “What, you tryin’ to help me? What
do you think you can do? I ain’t gettin’ out of here ‘cause I got
fired. All that shit with Emily. I told her to take the house, but
she wouldn’t, and I don’t got the money to pay what’s left of the
goddamn mortgage.” He finishes off his glass and says, “I’m out.
Take me to the store.”

“‘Take me to the
store’?”

“Aw, well,” he says and
bows, but only a little before he has to grab onto the table. “I’m
so sorry. Mia, my darlin’ angel, will you
pleeeease
take me to the
store?”

I drive him to the nearest
one, a dingy building the size of a kiosk with a blinking ‘Q’ on
the sign and a skinny man in torn jeans standing by the front door.
I forget his name, but he lives on Lucy Drive. He nods at me and I
nod back.

When we get back to the
hotel parking lot Donny says, “You comin’ in?”

“I don’t think so.” I
haven’t been home all day. I want dinner on my bed with a movie
playing on TV, Chancey purring somewhere I can hear him.

“Come in. I got cake.” He
smiles.

We eat half of it. I drink
water because he doesn’t have milk, but he sticks with bourbon
until he can’t stand at all, anymore, without having to steady
himself on a chair or the table, or slide along the wall to the end
of the bed.

“I’ve had it,” I say with my
hand on my stomach. “Time to go.”

“You’re leavin’?”

I check my watch for show.
“It’s late.”

“Aw, it ain’t late. C’mon.
Have a drink.”

“Donny, I’m really
tired.”

“Five minutes! Stay five
minutes. I have to show you somethin’. From the war.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a—well, damn it,
you’ll see what it is when I show you. You keep askin’ me where I
was and so I’ll show you. If you stay.”

“Okay,” I say. “Five
minutes.”

“Five minutes! Well, that
hardly gives me enough time to—”

“Five.”

“Have some more cake. You
only had a little bird bite. Lookit that.”

I stand. “I’m
going.”

“Wh—? What for? Are you mad
‘cause I kissed you?”

I’d let it slip my immediate
memory, but now that I’m reminded, I don’t like the way it feels.
Not quite as uncomfortable as having been molested by an old family
friend, but maybe as uncomfortable as having been flirted with by
that old family friend. “No. What do you have to show
me?”

“Damn. Why’re you in such a
hurry?”

“Because,” I say.
“I’m
tired
.”

“Well, you don’t got to be
like that.” He takes his time lighting a cigarette. “Ain’t you
goin’ to sit down?”

I sit and fold my arms on
the table.

“I miss my wife,” he
says.

“I know you do.”

“She’s gone.”

“I know.”

“What d’you mean, you know?
I’m tellin’ you.”

“Donny, you already told me.
We talked about this ten minutes ago.” I get up and push my chair
under the table. Through the window the sky is
purple-blue.

“Where’re you
goin’?”

“Home.”

The canvases are awkward to
carry with one hand, but I can’t count on him to open the door for
me. I set the smaller on top of the larger and flatten my hand
against the bottom, a server with a tray.

Donny leans forward in his
chair. “I’ll take those back.”

“You can’t. You already gave
them to me.”

“I can take ‘em back right
now.”

“Nope,” I say, turning the
knob. “Too late.”

He kicks over a chair. “You
can’t do that. You can’t take a present from someone and leave.
Ungrateful. Bitch!”

“Nice try.” I open the door.
Even if he won’t remember any of this tomorrow, I say, “I’ll come
over again soon, okay?”

“Sure. Soon. Right. But,
where’re you goin’, now? What do you have to go home for? You hear
from your husband lately?”

“He’s not my
husband.”

“Awww,” he says. “I see. I
see. How long’s it been? Days? A week? Month? What, d’you think
he’s out bangin’ someone else? Some of them soldier girls ain’t bad
lookin’. Wouldn’t want you to worry, though. C’mon. Talk to me.
Tell Donny.”

“Fuck you.” I toss the
drawing across the room. A corner of the canvas ricochets off the
wall and my face lands undamaged on the bed.

“Hey!”

I step outside, cut him off
when I slam the door.

I set the painting against
my car—carefully—and check on him through the motel window. He sits
at the table in dim lamplight with his legs out straight, drink
balanced on a narrow thigh. He picks up the remote control, points
it at the TV, shakes back his hair and watches the channel
guide.

JUNE 13, FRIDAY

“
Mia, hon, it’s Olivia. Are
you there?. . . I’m just checking in to see how you are…You know,
this kind of thing can be very stressful…Anyway, hon, I hope you’re
well and that you’ve started eating better…Oh, and thank you for
sending Jakey that last package…That’s one less trip to the grocery
store for me! So… …Okay…Well, you take care, and make sure to tell
my Jakey that I love him…See you soon, all right?”