Something Like Normal

something like normal

Trish Doller

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Acknowledgments

For LCpl David Backhaus
(and Andy)

Chapter 1

At the end of the concourse I can see a few kids from the high school marching band playing the “Marines’ Hymn” and a couple old guys—their blues straining at the waist—acting as an unofficial color guard.
Jesus Christ, please tell me my mom didn’t hire a band
.

Mom’s arms are stretched wide, holding a sign painted in cheerleader-bright colors that says
WELCOME HOME, TRAVIS!
Tied around her wrist are the strings to a metric shit-ton of helium balloons. It’s bad enough I have to come back to Fort Myers. This is worse. I can’t pretend this whacked-out welcome wagon is for anyone else—I was the only Marine on the flight.

The sign crackles, crushed between us as my mom flings her arms up around my neck, standing on tiptoe to reach. Balloons drift down and bump softly against the top of my head. There is a year and a half’s worth of hugging in this one embrace, and I get the feeling that if it were an option, she’d never let me go again.

“Thank God you’re home,” she whispers against my chest, her voice breaking with tears. “Thank God you’re alive.”

I feel like shit. Partly because I don’t know what to say, but mostly because I’m alive. “It’s good—” The lie sticks in my throat and I have to start again. “It’s good to be here.”

She hugs me too long and strangers walking past touch my back and arms as they say
thank you
and
welcome home
, and it pushes me beyond uncomfortable. Common sense tells me these people in their Ohio State T-shirts and New York Yankees ball caps are just tourists. Regular people. But I’ve spent the past seven months living in a country where the enemy blends in with the local population, so you’re never sure who you can trust. My position is vulnerable and I hate that I don’t have a rifle.

“I need to get my bag,” I say, and I’m relieved when my mom lets go. She thanks the color guard, hugs a couple of the band girls, and then we head for the escalator to the baggage claim.

“How was the flight? Did they give you anything to eat? Are you hungry? Because we could stop somewhere for lunch if you’re hungry.” She talks fast and too much, trying to fill up the silence between us. A metallic female voice tells us the local time and weather so tourists can reset themselves. My watch is still set to Afghanistan time, even though I’ve been in the States for a couple of weeks. I forgot, I guess.

“Clancy’s was always your favorite,” Mom says. “You used to love their shepherd’s pie, remember?”

Anger ignites in my chest and I want to snap at her. Clancy’s is still my favorite restaurant and I haven’t forgotten I love shepherd’s pie. Except her intentions are good and I don’t want to be disrespectful, so I offer her a half smile. “I remember, but I’m not especially hungry,” I say. “I’m tired.”

“Dad wanted to be here to meet you today, but he had an important meeting,” Mom continues, in a tone that makes me wonder if she believes what she’s saying. Maybe she’s talking about someone else’s dad. “And Ryan has been working at the Volkswagen dealership until he leaves for college.”

After his professional football career ended, my dad bought three car dealerships. When I was in high school, I’d have worked at the VW dealership for free, just to have access to the shop and the parts for my car. But since I was his disappointment son, he refused and I ended up working on a landscaping crew for eight bucks an hour. Figures Dad would give Ryan a real job.

“And Paige …” Mom’s lips pinch into a disapproving frown as she trails off. My mother has never liked my girlfriend—correction, my ex-girlfriend. My mom thinks she looks cheap. I think Paige belongs on the cover of
Maxim
in nothing but her underwear, which is exactly why I was attracted to her in the first place.

Stowed in the bottom of my seabag is the one and only letter she ever sent me. It came in a care package with cigarettes, dip, coffee, and porn. Only Paige would soften the blow of a Dear John letter by sending it with the stuff deployed Marines want most.

It wasn’t a long letter:

Trav,

I thought you should know before you come home that I’m with Ryan now.

~P

I wasn’t surprised she broke it off clean like that. Paige has never been one for diplomacy. She usually says what’s on her mind, even when it’s hurtful or bitchy. Another thing I’ve always appreciated about her. Well, that … and the sex. Especially after we’d been fighting, which we did often. I still have a faint scar on my cheek from where she threw a beer bottle at me after she caught me making out with some random girl at some random party. We cheated on each other all the time. That’s the way it was with me and Paige—insane and toxic, but always fucking awesome.

When I enlisted, I didn’t pretend she’d sit at home waiting for me. I didn’t tape her picture inside my helmet the way some of my buddies did with pictures of their wives and girlfriends. I always knew she’d hook up with someone else. The only surprising part was that the someone else was my brother.

The thing is? I don’t
really
care.

I mean, yeah, I might be a little curious about why Paige would be interested in Ryan. He doesn’t seem to be her type, which makes me wonder if she’s playing some sort of mind game with me—or him. I have no interest in being played and I’m only in town for thirty days. Ryan can have her.

I didn’t even want to come to Fort Myers, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’d rather be with my friends. I want to be with the people who know me best.

I want to go home.

As soon as the thought crystallizes in my mind, I feel bad again. Especially with my mom standing beside me at the baggage carousel, wearing the biggest smile in the history of smiles and rattling on about how happy she is I made it home before Ryan leaves for college. To keep from sniping a smart-ass comment about my level of give-a-shitness, I look around the room at the hugging families and businessmen with laptop bags slung over their shoulders. Beyond a cluster of people waiting for their luggage, I see a dark-haired guy wearing desert camouflage leaning against a support column. It looks like my buddy Charlie Sweeney. We’ve been friends since boot camp and were sent to Afghanistan in the same platoon.

“Charlie?” I take a step toward him and this weird sort of happiness fizzes up inside me like a soda bottle, because if my best friend is here in Florida, it means he’s not—

“Travis?” my mom says. “Who are you talking to?”

—dead.

My stomach churns and my eyes go hot with tears that never seem to come. Charlie can’t possibly be in Fort Myers because he was killed in Afghanistan and I’m standing in the middle of a crowded baggage claim talking out loud—to an empty space. And all that happy just leaks right out, leaving me empty again.

“Are you all right?” Mom touches my sleeve.

I blow out a breath and lie. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I can’t get over how you’ve changed,” Mom says, hugging me again. I’ve always been tall, but I’ve grown two inches in the past year. Also, I used to have hair that hung nearly to my shoulders that Mom was always nagging me to cut. “You look so handsome.”

The black-flapped opening spits my bag onto the conveyor and I’m relieved to walk away from this conversation. I grab the bag with one hand and hoist it onto my shoulder, sending little puffs of dust into the air around me. Afghanistan has followed me home.

“Welcome home, Marine.” An old man approaches me, his sleeve pushed up to display the Marine Corps EGA—eagle, globe, and anchor—tattooed on his upper arm. Showing me he belongs to the brotherhood. “Semper Fi.”

“Always, sir.” I shake his hand.

He pats my elbow and lets me go. “God bless you, kid.”

Mom chatters endlessly on the drive, mostly about school. She’s the secretary at my former high school, so she thinks she knows all the gossip. I don’t care who’s dating who, or which teachers won’t be hired back next year, or that the soccer team had a losing season, but letting her talk means I don’t have to.

The house looks exactly the same as it did when I left, including Mom’s ceramic frog next to the front steps. She keeps a spare key hidden underneath in case we get locked out. All my friends know the key is there, but Paige is the only one who’s ever used it. She would drive over in the middle of the night and sneak up to my room. I wonder if she does that with Ryan now.

My mom leads me through the house to my bedroom, as if I don’t remember the way. She opens the door and—like the rest of the house—it looks like it was frozen in time. Gray paint? Check. Color-coordinated comforter? Check. Concert flyers taped randomly to the walls to disguise the decorator paint job? Check. Curled-up photo of Paige and me at my senior prom stuck in the corner of the mirror? Check. Even the book on the bedside table is the same one I was reading before I left. The whole thing is… creepy.

“I left everything the way it was,” she says as I drop my bag on the floor. “So it would feel familiar. Like home.”

I don’t tell her it doesn’t feel like home at all. I pull the photo from the mirror, crush it in my fist, and lob it at the trash can.

“Why don’t you rest?” Mom suggests. “Take a nap. I’ll come get you when Dad and Rye are home.”

When she’s gone, I dive onto the bed. It’s the one thing I’m very happy about. The mattress is soft and the comforter is clean, luxuries I’ve lived without since I left for boot camp. I stretch out on my back, my boots hanging off the bottom edge of the bed, and close my eyes. I can’t get comfortable. I roll over onto my side and try again. Then my stomach. Pry off my boots with my toes. Finally, I grab my pillow and hit the floor, dragging the comforter with me. I’ve slept on the top bunk of a squeaky metal rack in the squad bay at Parris Island, on a cot at Camp Bastion while we waited to start our mission, and in February the temperature dropped so low one night I had to share a sleeping bag with Charlie. All things considered, the thick carpet is comfortable, and I fall asleep fast.

I’m walking down a road in Marjah. It’s a road we’ve walked often on patrol. I’m on point with Charlie and Moss behind me. It’s cold, clear, and quiet, except for the crunch of our boots and the sound of prayer we hear every morning. The street will come alive soon with people going to the mosque, washing in the canal, or going to work in their fields. Right now, though, the street is empty. The hair on the back of my neck prickles and I know something is going to go
down. I stop and try to warn Moss and Charlie, but no sound comes out of my mouth. I try to signal with my hands, but I can’t lift them. I want to run back to stop them, but my legs won’t move no matter how hard I try. I watch, helpless, as Charlie steps on the pressure plate. Boom! He’s enveloped in a cloud of dust. The bomb, hidden in the base of a tree, sprays him with shrapnel. Charlie falls to the dirt road, motionless. My limbs unfreeze and I walk slowly toward his body until I’m standing over him. The world shifts and I’m on my back, pain radiating through my body, as if I’d stepped on the mine, not Charlie. I open my eyes and there’s a face above me. An Afghan boy I’ve seen before who smiles as he fades away.

I shoot upright on the floor, my eyes open and my body on alert, but my brain is still in the hazy space between nightmare and awake. My mother is shaking me. My hands curl around her wrists, squeezing until she cries out in pain. “Travis, stop!”

I let go immediately and just sit there, blinking, my heart rate going crazy. I’m shaking a little. Mom smoothes her hand across my forehead the way she did when I was small and had a fever. “It’s only a dream. Let it go. It’s not real.”

I’m fully awake now and I know she’s right.
It’s not real
. This nightmare is a patchwork of my worst fears. But my imagination wraps itself in this quilt of horror whenever I sleep. I haven’t averaged more than a couple hours a night for weeks.

As my heart rate drops back to normal, I watch her rub her wrists. I could have broken them. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” I say. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s okay.” She looks at me sadly. “I wish I could erase whatever troubles your dreams.”

Except the past can’t be rewound and this is the life I chose.

I didn’t have a noble purpose in joining the Marines. I didn’t do it to protect American freedom and I wasn’t inspired to action by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I was in grade school then, and the biggest priority in my life was any bell that signaled it was time to leave school. I enlisted mostly because I wanted to escape my dad, who’d made my life hell since I quit the football team at the end of sophomore season.

I hated football. Not because I wasn’t good at it or because it wasn’t fun, but because I hated the way it took over my life. Dad signed me up for Pop Warner Tiny Mites when I was five. So while other kids were learning to ride two-wheelers, I was practicing my receiving. It was fun when I was little—the game was still a game—but as I got older, I hated the pressure. I hated that run-through-a-woodchipper feeling I got after he’d critique my game films. But what I hated most was that in practically every reference to me—in newspapers, game commentary, post-game TV recaps on the local news—was a reference to him. I was never just Travis Stephenson. I was
son of former Green Bay Packer Dean Stephenson
. Sophomore year he started talking about scouts and college ball, and all I could think about was how I was going to be stuck living my dad’s dream. So when the season ended, I quit. He went ballistic, and I became a nonentity.

The day I turned eighteen—three days after I graduated high school—I went to the Marine recruiter’s office and signed up. More or less. The process is more involved than simply signing your life over to the US Marine Corps, but the result is the same: four years of active duty, the next four years in ready reserve. It might not make sense to want to go from a lifetime of coaches yelling in my face to a drill instructor yelling in my face, but I figured it couldn’t be that much different. Except that at boot camp I wouldn’t be
son of former Green Bay Packer Dean Stephenson
. I’d just be me.