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________

Chancey, snoring, wakes me and I’m
strangled by sheets. I try to return to a dream I feel more than
remember—swinging, gliding, and there was water below.

The floor is cold on my feet when I
get out of bed.

Chancey follows me to the
kitchen.

________

Shellie sounds less than happy to
hear from me and reminds me that this is the third day I’ve called
in. One more and Lionel will fire me. “It’s been busy,” she
says.

I tighten my throat to sound sick
and promise her I’ll be there in the morning.

Probably another hour, or so, before
the sun comes up. Another eight hours until the mail comes. Three
in the afternoon, Jake’s time. I dump the rest of my coffee in the
sink and go to the bedroom and climb under the blankets, watch the
shadows on the wall misshape and dissolve as the sun comes
up.

________

“
Denise. It’s Mia.”

“Mia?”

“I—I wanted to ask about the
party.”

“Are you excited?”

“I am. And, I just wanted—It’s on
the…When is it, again?”

“It’s at the end of
April.”

“End of April. The last
weekend?”

“Yes. We tried for Wednesday, but no
one was going for it.”

“Okay, then. I’ll write it
down.”

“Mia, I was joking.”

“What?”

“
About Wednesday.”

“
Oh.”

Denise is quiet, then says, “Was
that all?”

“
M-hm. And, you know, I just wanted
to see how you are. See how William is.”

“
I’m fine. Mia, are you
okay?”

“
You’ve heard from him,
then?”

“
From William?”

“
Yes.”

“
Not recently, no.”

“
Oh.”

“‘
Oh’ what?”

“
It’s nothing.”

“
Mia, it’s something. You don’t
call me.”

“
I call you.”

“
You have never once called
me.”

“
Haven’t I?”

“
What
is
it?”

“
It’s just—it’s been two weeks
since some, I don’t know, mission or something, and—I don’t
know.”

“They’re probably very
busy.”

“
No, I know. I know.”

“
Please tell me you’re not sitting
around and thinking.”

“
Everything’s fine. I just wanted
to make sure, you know, just see if you heard from
William.”

“I’m sorry. I haven’t.”

“
Okay, then. All right.
Thanks.”

“
Oh, Mia—before you go, what are
you doing tonight?”

“
I think—what day is today?—I think
his mother is supposed to call,” I lie. “We have this once-a-week
update thing we do.”

“You’re a better woman than
I.”

“
Thanks again, Denise. I’m off to
work, so…”

________

The popcorn bubbles on the ceiling
are uncountable.

I reach two thousand and lose my
spot, start over.

________

The downstairs door slams and I run
to the window, watch the blue sack wedged between the door and the
frame until it and mailman squeeze out and round the lilac bushes.
Downstairs, I tug open the sticking metal door to nothing, no
word.

Olivia would have called if he were
dead.

The phone lies buttons-up on the
couch and its light is red. I run over to pick it up. “Hello?” Air.
After pushing the on/off button twice, I get a dial tone.
“Chancey!”

________

Dead.

Dead, dead, dead
.

So final, the word, but at the same
time, meaningless. Incomprehensible, even.

Dead. Deceased. Passed
away.

“Dead” is best. Less clinical than
“deceased,” less voluntary than “passed away.”

How is Jake, Mia?

Jake’s dead.

Oh, I’m sorry to hear he passed
away.

No. He didn’t pass away. He’s
dead.

________

Would his casket be open or closed?
Olivia would decide, because Jake never wrote a will, never
specified, and his mother is his next of kin. “But you get all the
money,” he said and smiled. “The death benefits.”

“Oh, goodie,” I said.

Benefits.

Some thousands of dollars, more than
I’ve ever had. What does someone do with thousands and thousands of
dollars all at once?

Open or closed will also depend on
how he died. There’s only so much reconstruction anyone, even the
best, can do. How would Olivia have it, given the
choice?

Open. Jake’s blind eyes staring at
thread-sewn lids.

I’ve never been to a funeral, but
I’ve heard it said that the people in caskets end up looking like
doll-painted wax: pink cheeks, red lips, a “lifelike” skin tone. I
must tell Olivia they can’t do that to Jake, can’t give his light
lips a dark pink finish, can’t blush his cheeks because he doesn’t
blush.

And what then, afterward? After the
wake, after Arlington, because that’s where he wants to be buried.
Heroes are buried there, and non-heroes, too, flat under headstones
as identical as their uniforms and lined up in perfect formation.
What then, after “Taps,” after Olivia takes the flag and Jake is
lowered into a hole? An empty apartment, a fatherless cat, Jake’s
clothes in the closet and his car parked out front and his files on
the computer. I’ll wonder if it was a mistake, if the man in the
casket was a stranger, one who just happened to look like Jake. And
I’ll wait for him to come through the door, wait for weeks, months,
because I won’t believe he won’t be back to eat his breakfast bars
in the cupboard next to the cereal, or the nuts he hides behind the
flour so he doesn’t have to share.

________

He looks out from the shelves,
smiling in a T-shirt and shorts, holding a liter beer from a German
Hofbräuhaus. I get up and flip each picture facedown. Bad
luck,
badluckbadluck
to imagine him alive and three-dimensional because that means
he could also not be.

________

The alarm is going off or there’s a
siren or—

—the phone. I crawl to the desk and
pick up the receiver. “Hello! Hello!”

Olivia says, “How are you, hon,” and
I can’t answer because I can’t breathe because mucus stuffs my
sinuses and I’m gulping and tears adhere my lips like wet glue. I
gasp that it wasn’t worth it, or something that sounds like it,
anyway, that nothing is worth it, that
I
loved him and thank you, thank you for having him so I had the
chance to love him
—

“Mia, what on earth…? Are you okay,
sweetheart?”

I say, “Jake.”

“That’s why I’m calling you, hon. I
just got off the phone with him. He’s doing very well. And you have
some mail coming. Isn’t that exciting?”

I wipe my nose and my mouth on my
sleeve. “He called you?”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll—well, Mia, you
have to—I
am
his
mother. I’m positive he’ll call you soon.”

APRIL 16, WEDNESDAY

Forty-eight Maple. Rainwater pours
from a gutter onto a slant of driveway that funnels it into a
flooding patch of soil. Donny jogs to the cab with a newspaper held
over his head and climbs in. Glinting raindrops cling to the ends
of his hair.

“Where’ve you been?” He drops the
paper on the floor, sets his muddy feet on top.

“Sick,” I say. “Same
place?”

“It is if you’re talkin’ about the
construction site.”

I pull away from his house and see
him staring. “What.”

“Nothin’. ‘What.’ I can’t look?
Damn, girl, you’re in a bad mood again? It’s been almost a week
since I saw you. You said you was sick, and I was just seein’ if
you looked sick.”

I don’t know why it matters—it
shouldn’t—but I say, anyway, “Do I?”

“Naw. Uh, uh. I ain’t sayin’. If I
say no, I’m callin’ you a liar. If I say yes, well—I ain’t even
goin’ to—”

“Never mind. Forget it.”

A mile and a half of silence, and
then a long red light. I say, “How’s your wife?”

“What do you mean, how’s my wife?
Why’re you askin’ about my wife? You know her?”

Too early. It’s too early for this,
and I’m too tired. “I was just being polite. Fuck it.”

He laughs. “‘Fuck it’!” He slaps his
thigh and his laughter goes on for a quarter mile. “Girl, you’re
all right. ‘Fuck it.’” He lights a cigarette and drops the lighter
between his feet, picks it up. “I ain’t havin’ such a good day,
m’self.”

“What’s the matter?”

He shrugs and looks out the
window.

“Will you please open
the—?”

“Sorry,” he says and opens it, blows
his smoke outside. “Ever since the anniversary… I don’t
know.”

I give it a minute, keep from asking
what happened, but soon he sighs and shakes his head, so I
ask.

“Don’t know,” he says. “Somethin’s
just—She changed, she’s different.” He taps the window. “She’s
leavin’, she says. Wants a separation. From me. From Donny. I’ll
give it to her, y’know, if she wants it, but she…four years. That’s
it?”

“Why?”

“I told you. Don’t like me goin’
out. Wants me home all the time when she’s home, and when I’m not
home she thinks I’m cheatin’, that there’s a girl at the bar, or
somethin’. But, goddamn, because—see, now, I don’t even think
that’s it. Control. It’s got to be. She’s mad if I’m out and she’s
mad if I’m home. I come home sometimes—sure, I was out a few hours,
okay—and when I walk in, she’s on the couch wrapped in that
blanket, from her neck to her toes like she’s in some damn cocoon.
Can’t get her out of there. And she won’t talk to me. Just stares
at the TV like she can’t hear me, can’t see me. Know what,
though…If she stays out ‘til eleven, I’m supposed to be okay with
that.”

“Is there a girl at the
bar?”

“Hell, tons of girls! Beautiful
ones, too.” He looks at me. “But I don’t want ‘em. What, you think
I’m cheatin’, too? I don’t cheat. I don’t do that. Why would you
ask somethin’ like that?”

“I just—”

“You just drive the car and watch
the road. Thinkin’ things like that. You…What kind of a person just
thinks that about another person?” He flicks the butt outside and
says, “Don’t even know me, and you—now, what’s the matter? Are you
cryin’?”

“I’m fine,” I say, but the
windshield is a blur of black and white. I wipe my eyes.

“Hell, I didn’t mean to make you
cry. I’m sorry. Here.” He fumbles in his pocket for his soft pack
and holds it between me and the steering wheel.

“No, thanks.”

He waits, then takes one out and
lights it for himself. “Yeah, somethin’s botherin’ you. I can tell.
You want to tell me what it is?”

“I’m fine, really,” I say, but now I
want a one for later, when I can stop and smoke it alone. “Can
I—Well, do you mind if I take that cigarette, after
all?”

“Thought you didn’t want
it.”

“Never mind.”

He shakes the pack until a filter
slides up and then pulls it out and hands it to me. “Want me to
light it for you, too?”

“I’m going to save it for
later.”

“You’re takin’ my cigarette and you
won’t even smoke it?”

“I’ll smoke it, but later, if it’s
okay.”

He plucks it from my fingers and
wedges it back into the box. “If I ain’t good enough for you to
smoke with me, then—”

“All right. Okay? I’ll smoke
it.”

“Now, why do you want to talk to me
that way when I’m givin’ you a present?” He takes it out again and
lights it, a steady flame held just short of the tip and his lips
tightening to puff, puff, sending small bursts of smoke into car
space. He holds it in the air, just over the center console. I
reach for it and he jerks it away. “You goin’ to tell me what’s the
matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter.”

“Doctor Donaldson. That’s me. You
need help. I can—I can! Come on, now.”

“I don’t need—”

“You’re goin’ through somethin’, and
don’t say you ain’t.”

“Everyone goes through
something.”

“But here, I’m givin’ you the chance
to talk about it. Not everyone gets that. Some people don’t have
people to talk to. Look here, I’m gettin’ out of the car in, what,
five minutes? Then you’ll be rid of me for good, if you want, but
don’t you think you’d feel better if you just said? Please,” he
says. “Now, I don’t say please very—I
want
to help, see?”