Learning to Stay (34 page)

“You’re bringing her in?” I ask.

Brad nods. “You don’t think this is my first choice to take you for dinner, do you?” Then he keeps on walking, forcing me to follow him instead of deciphering what he means.

I expect someone to throw us out as soon as we pass through the door. This is, after all, an establishment that serves food and my husband is leading a pit bull into it. But a graying older man whose belly protrudes well past the rainbow suspenders he’s wearing waves to Brad when we enter. There are only four other people in the place—a hard-looking woman who, I would guess, is about my age sitting at the end of the bar; and a table of three—two men and a woman who looks just as hard as the one at the bar, only much older—playing cards. None of them reacts to the dog. Brad heads to a table opposite the bar and sits down, facing the door. Jones collapses at his feet, laying her head on her paws.

The place smells of stale beer and a good time had by all. Patsy Cline is playing on the jukebox. Every wooden surface is covered with carvings—drunken hieroglyphics—and bras of all sizes, styles, and colors hang from the ceiling behind the bar, making it look like a North Woods Coyote Ugly. A hand-drawn sign advertising
$.25 Tappers
is tacked cockeyed on one wall.

The cracked vinyl seat pinches my leg as I slide into it. I’d swap my chair out for another, but by the looks of them, there isn’t one in decent shape. Brad catches me eyeing the place. “It’s lovely,” I tell him, and he smiles.

“Jimbo there served in Korea,” Brad says, nodding at the man with the belly and suspenders. “He owns it. And he’s cool with Jones. So this is where we come.”

A waitress—the younger old-looking woman from the bar—approaches our table and asks if we’re ready to order.

“We—ah—we haven’t seen a menu yet,” I tell her.

She looks at Brad as if I just spoke to her in a foreign language.

“No menu,” Brad says. “They’ve got burgers and then pretty much anything that you can drop in a fryer—curds, onion rings, shrimp, french fries, mushrooms.”

“Chili,” the woman says to Brad.

“Oh, and chili,” he tells me. “Right. It comes with spaghetti. They’ll do it without, but it’s extra.”

I see the waitress wink at him, and I nod, wholly confused. It costs more to
not
get an item? “I’ll just have a cheeseburger and onion rings,” I say.

“Pickles and ketchup?” She pronounces it katz-sup.

“Sure,” I say, afraid that I might get upcharged for not getting either.

Brad orders a double cheeseburger and fries. “You want a beer?” he asks me. I shrug and then nod. “Two Bell’s Oberon,” he says.

The waitress finishes writing down our order and slips her notepad into her back pocket. She isn’t wearing an apron. She smiles out of the corner of her mouth at Brad. “Good to see you back here, Sabby,” she says, and something in her tone makes my stomach twist. Something in it convinces me I don’t have the slightest clue as to what Brad has been doing up here—or with whom.

Questions swirl. I want to know how he’s managed to create a whole apartment for himself and what has him sleeping in a bed again. I want to know if he’s better—cured. I want to ask him about the woman in the coffee shop. And I want to know if he’s done this for her, because of her. Then again, I don’t want to know. Every attorney worth her salt knows that she never, ever asks a question for which she doesn’t already have the answer. Sometimes more information isn’t always better.

But Brad beats me by talking first.

“Listen, E.,” he says. “I don’t blame you—for wanting to go. I want you to know that.”

I study Brad’s face. He looks tired, but content. I wait for the conditional part of that statement, the “but,” the part where he says that he doesn’t want me to go.

“I know it’s been hard on you,” he continues. “I know what I’m like. Even when I’m doing some of this stuff, I know. I feel like a monster, sometimes, but I can’t seem to help it, to control it. That sounds like an excuse, but it’s the God-honest truth, E. I’m just so angry all the time. Not at you—you know that, right?—but I’m still angry, and it can’t be easy on you. You deserve more than that.”

“I know,” I say.

We sit in silence. Perhaps Brad doesn’t know what else to say. Perhaps he is fresh out of explanations. He looks at me. He chews his lower lip. I stare past him at a tin Schlitz sign tacked to the wall.

“I was going to take the dog for a walk today,” I say. “I stopped at Babycakes. You were there. With a woman. Right?”
Please say no,
I think.

Brad exhales and runs a hand through his hair. He shakes his head.

“Oh man,” he says. “E., that’s not at all—”

But he doesn’t finish because just then, there’s a crash behind us and I see a tray with all of our food clatter to the floor.

Before you live with someone suffering from post-traumatic stress, you never notice how many loud noises—how many triggers—make up day-to-day life: buses backfiring, a medivac helicopter whomping overhead, police sirens blaring, doors slamming, the rip and pop of breaking down a cardboard box, neighbors yelling to each other across the street, trays of food and silverware hitting the floor.

After you live with someone with PTSD, you notice. You notice
and you anticipate and you prepare. And when you can’t prepare, you brace yourself, as I’m doing now.

I have grabbed the table and hunched up against the wall, steeling myself against Brad’s reaction. But when I look up, Jones has her front paws on Brad’s lap and she’s licking his face. Brad’s eyes are wild and his breath is quick and ragged, but he’s running his hands up and down her back.

Brad breathes deeply, repeatedly, and eventually Jones’s licks become fewer and Brad’s breathing returns to normal. Jones lies back down on the floor at Brad’s feet and in a matter of seconds, falls asleep.

Brad looks at me sheepishly. “Well, that was embarrassing,” he says, and it’s hard to tell if he’s talking about the dropped food or having just made out with his dog right here in the bar.

Jimbo yells his apologies and tells us that lunch is on the house. Brad waves him off. “No need,” he says. Then Brad turns back to me. “Anyway, that’s what I’m talking about, E. This dog—she’s changing my life.”

His voice brims with awe—with reverence. It’s the same tone he used to use when we’d be cleaning out the dishwasher or raking leaves or reading the Sunday morning paper over coffee, and I’d look up and find him smiling at me; and he’d say, “Out of all the guys in the world, I can’t believe I’m the one who got to marry you.”

Brad pauses, and I expect him to elaborate, but one of the other card-playing patrons has appeared at our table. She’s an older, grandmotherly woman who sets two fresh beers in front of us.

She places a hand on Brad’s shoulder, and I see him flinch as if her touch burns.

“Bradley, I don’t think you know me,” she says. “I’m Janey—Janey Aho. I was a friend of your ma’s way back when. We graduated together from Negaunee in—in—well, that’s not really important, I guess. It’s not why I came over here.”

Janey Aho looks nervous—or at the very least, ill at ease—and she still has her hand on Brad’s shoulder. He still looks just as uncomfortable.

“I wanted to introduce myself and to tell you how proud I am of you—of your service. We all are. Your ma—I bet she’s looking down on you, just beaming. I’m sure she’s busting her buttons up there over you.”

Janey looks at Brad expectantly, waiting for a smile or a thank-you, for any sign that she has spoken to him. Instead, Brad stares her down with brooding eyes. Janey removes her hand from his shoulder. She doesn’t need to say anything for everyone watching this exchange to understand that she’s taken aback by Brad’s lack of response. I feel the same way. What the hell is wrong with him?

Finally he says, “You must not have known her that well.”

My eyes snap to Brad, but he’s not looking at Janey or me. I kick his foot under the table, hoping to get his attention or snap him out of whatever funk he’s suddenly fallen into. Despite everything that’s happened, I’ve never known Brad to be as downright rude as he’s acting right now.

“Well, I know she’s been gone awhile,” Janey says. “I used to…” She trails off, thinking better, it seems, of prolonging this interaction. “Well, anyway, thank you for your service,” Janey says, stepping away from our table. “You take care, now.”

Well after Janey Aho has settled back at her table, I continue to stare at Brad, who continues to avoid my gaze. Gone is the relaxed, rational guy who greeted me in his apartment this afternoon. Back is sullen, borderline-explosive Brad.

“She was
trying
to be nice, Brad,” I say in a hiss.

His face is hard and a single, tiny vein sticks out against his temple. He’s gone from zero to irate in a matter of seconds, though I don’t understand why. He stands and tugs on Jones’s leash and walks out. The dog follows him through the door.

I am still sitting there when the waitress delivers our food. One look at my face, and she offers to box it all up. “Please,” I squeak. Then I walk to the bar and lay two twenty-dollar bills on it. Jimbo tells me it’s too much.

“Put it toward the new front steps,” I say.

The waitress comes out carrying two plastic bags bulging with Styrofoam cartons. I look at Jimbo: “Or give it to her.”

On my way out, I stop at Janey Aho’s table. “I’m sorry,” I say to her. “He’s not normally like that. I don’t know what—it’s just—I’m sorry.”

“Oh, that’s okay, honey.” Janey Aho smiles a sad smile at me.

I should be happy to hand Brad and his problems off to the woman in the coffee shop. I should feel relieved to be free of them. But there was a moment this afternoon—when I saw what Brad had done with the barn, when I saw how relaxed he was—when I thought that maybe I was making a mistake. A moment when I thought that maybe I hadn’t given Brad enough credit. Maybe I hadn’t believed in his recovery, or in him, enough. There was a moment when I thought that maybe I’d stay. But walking out to the truck with two bags full of burgers and fried food, prepared in a kitchen that probably lacks even a food permit, because that’s the only place my husband can take his dog, I see this situation for what it is: unworkable, unfixable.

We drive in silence nearly the entire way back to Mert’s place. Jones has her head on Brad’s shoulder, nuzzled into his neck like a lover. I’m driving, because Brad was waiting in the passenger side when I emerged from the restaurant. His driving issues haven’t been resolved after all.

The whole time, I’m thinking of what Brad said to Janey Aho. What was it that made Brad so angry that he up and left? I’m putting on the turn signal for Mert’s driveway when I get enough gumption to ask.

“Drop it, E.,” he says, staring straight ahead.

“No,” I say. “You can’t treat people like that, Brad. It’s rude. And she’s right; your mom would be proud.”

“What the fuck do you know?” he says. He spits the words at me.

“Because I am,” I say. And I mean it. I’ve never been one to dote on Brad, to tell him he looked handsome and I felt lucky to have him, even though he usually does and I always did. In that way, I guess I’m a little like Mert. In the midst of all that we’ve been struggling through since Brad’s been back, I’ve never told him I’m proud of him. My pride got lost amidst all the anger and fear and resentment that
his deployment and return stirred up, but it was always there. I would look at Brad before he left, or think about him as his e-mail rolled in while he was gone, and I would think,
How many guys would join up like he did?
He didn’t need to go, but he did, and despite what I told Mert, it wasn’t only to court his father’s approval. He felt he owed a debt—to his best friend growing up who was killed in a helicopter crash over there, to a country that had given him so many opportunities, and to the rest of the men and women who enlisted. The night before he left, lying in bed next to him, I clutched at Brad so hard that I could feel my nails digging into his skin. I didn’t care, though; it meant he was close. I begged him not to leave me. And I knew I shouldn’t have. I knew I was only making it harder on him, that I was already failing as a military spouse. He was right there, right next to me, and I was already sick with fear and loneliness.

“If I go, someone else won’t have to, E.,” he said to me, and my heart swelled with pride then, at what an incredible person Brad was and at this man with whom I got to spend the balance of my life.

I tell him now: “I should have said this before. I should have said it more often, Brad, but you’re part of the less than one percent of the people in this country who volunteered to go to Iraq. To help its people rebuild their country. And that’s something to be proud of. I don’t know what it was like over there, but I know that back here, a lot of people genuinely admire you—your sacrifice and your service. I know because I’m one of them. Your mom would be, too. And when people like Janey come up to you, you need to let them be thankful.”

“And you need to shut your fucking mouth,” Brad says. He pounds a fist on the dashboard and Jones starts to lick his face, but he pushes her off. “Get off me!” he yells at her. “Get the fuck off!” She keeps trying to lick him, and he keeps pushing her head away so it bumps into my arm. To avoid an accident, I start to pull the truck over, and that’s when Brad strikes Jones square in the jaw. I don’t know if it was on
purpose or an accident, but she yelps and scrambles into my lap. I throw the truck into park and fling my door open, jumping out and pulling Jones with me. I have a hand on her collar and I’m telling her it’s okay, but she’s trying to wriggle away from me. Then I realize that she’s trying to get back in the truck.