Kisses her. “See you in the morning.”
Jack drives the hills too fast, the truck rattling like a son of a bitch, his window cracked open to help him stay awake. The February air is cold enough to sting. He’s got the heater going full blast, trying to warm the ache in his feet and legs. Crap circulation ever since the war. Coldest winter on record across Europe. And they lived in frigging tents.
He turns on the radio. As usual the reception is terrible. Until: American fighter-bomber and a rescue helicopter have been shot down inside North Vietnam. All crewmen aboard both aircraft are listed as missing in action bursts through the static.
“God help us,” he flips it off.
Movement along the shoulder catches his eye. He takes his foot off the gas, sees a coyote top the berm, dark against the snow, and disappear into the trees. His first impulse: it could have been a girl; it could have been Megan. Thinks of her somewhere on the side of some road. Feels sick to his stomach.
At least Billy is home. In pieces, but home.
He pulls up in front of the American Legion to find Trevor sitting on a bench outside, asleep. Place locked up tight. They couldn’t have waited? Called a cab?
Jack touches his brother’s shoulder.
“Jesus, Jack! You trying to scare the piss out of me?”
“Thought I’d take you home.”
“Took you long enough.”
“Where’s your truck?” Jack asks.
“Repo man.”
“No cabs tonight?”
“No cab fare.”
In the light from the streetlamp Jack can see cuts and bruises on Trevor’s face. His knuckles look like hamburger.
“Fight?”
“What’s it look like?”
Jack opens the passenger door, tries not to watch as his once athletic brother wrestles himself into the truck.
“What’s all this?” Trevor knocks a can of soup off the seat.
“Grabbed a few things from the pantry.”
“I don’t need your charity.”
The cabin is dark when they pull into the drive.
“Where’s Ida?” Jack asks.
“Wichita. Visiting her sister.”
“For how long?”
“Awhile.”
Trevor lets himself into the house and lights a lantern. It’s colder inside than out, Jack notes as he walks through the door.
“What’s with the lantern?”
“They cut the electric.”
“Heat?”
“I’ve got the woodstove.”
“What’s going on, Trevor?”
“You’ve done your duty, boy scout. You can head on home.”
“I’ll call the electric company in the morning.”
“You gonna pay my bill, too?”
“You working?”
“Too cold for roofing.”
“Nobody’s working inside?”
“Nobody who hasn’t fired me at least once,” Trevor laughs. A bitter sound.
“I thought Ida was working at the cafeteria at the grade school.”
“Maybe she got tired of my sorry ass.”
The lantern hisses in the quiet.
“Peter? Tommy?” Jack asks.
“I’m not calling my kids for help.”
“You should get that hand cleaned up.”
Jack rinses out a dirty pan in the sink, fills it with water. The gas for the stove is still on, he sees with relief.
“If I could get my truck back, I could look for work in Syracuse, maybe.”
“How much you owe?”
“More than I’ve got.”
“Let me see what I can do. Who’s got it?”
“McBride’s, up in Geneva, that son of a bitch.”
Jack buttons his coat. If he leaves now and doesn’t get nabbed for speeding, he might be able to climb back into bed for an hour.
“How’s that boy of yours doing?” Trevor asks.
“Coming along.”
“I never liked Marion much.”
“You’ve said.”
“But that woman stuck by you. All those years after the war.”
“She did.”
“You were in rough shape.”
“True.”
“She pulled you through.”
“That’s right.”
“I respect that. Still don’t like her much. But I respect that.”
“You tend to that hand now, Trevor.”
“You worried about a little infection? It’ll take more’n that to bring me down.”
“I’ll call the electric and McBride’s. We’ll get this sorted out.”
“You got a bottle of whiskey in that truck of yours?” Trevor calls to his retreating back.
“Fresh out,” Jack replies.
Another gurney, a thick medical file crammed beside him, no X-rays, lost, apparently, wheeled down the stinking hallways, into the grumbling elevator, the slow descent, through the basement to a rear exit, for the morgue, maybe. Another ambulance, a nurse seated at his head, orderly at his feet, no lights, no siren, thank God, it hurts his head, an hour-long ride to Strong Memorial in Rochester and the best hand surgeon in the area. His parents are suddenly paying for private care; he can’t imagine what this is costing them. Light splashes through the window, bouncing off the snow. He squints in the unaccustomed glare; then closes his eyes, basking in its warmth.
The nurse touches his head and neck, feeling for fever, then rests one hand on his forehead, the other on his good shoulder. Remarkable how soothing it is. She’s young, skinny like Nell, almost pretty. No wedding ring. Her coat is shabby; cuffs frayed. Maybe she has a boyfriend in country. Maybe she’ll come with him into the hospital, keep her healing hands on him.
Billy’s field journal arrives home inside the trunk with all his other gear, courtesy of the U.S. Army. Marion runs the washing machine all day trying to wash away the sand and the smell of smoke.
Nell sorts through the pages, organizing them by date, if Billy had even bothered to date them. Then she reassembles their combined journal, his pages interleafed with her own. Better than letters, Billy used to say. They’d done fairly well sending entries back and forth while he was training in Texas, and even through the first months of his tour.
The early pages from Vietnam alternate between scenes on the base: insects, common birds, sketches of his crew; and pages where he was off the base: acres of green, rice paddies, water buffalo. There are birds Nell has never seen before, drawn as only Billy can; each of them so individual, so full of personality you expect them to sing.
Black crowned night heron
Glossy ibis
Pacific swift
There are fewer entries as the months drag on: a lone man crouched in tall burning grass, the shadow of a gunship passing over him, mountaintops ringed with clouds, ravines dark as the far side of the moon. These give way to drawings of the dead, downed helicopters, the last pages full of fire. Page after page: birds, trees, fields, burning.
Her own observations seem insignificant in comparison:
Clover leaf—found in schoolyard
Norway maple seed
October 5: Sunrise: 6:40 A.M. Sunset: 4:38 P.M.
Billy stopped taking notes, words increasingly inadequate to what he was seeing. Nell’s pages continue:
American beech tree
Close view of male and female mergansers
In the bottom of the box, beneath a rusty rag, a stack of letters from Megan, held together with a rubber band. Childish, loopy handwriting, little hearts on the envelopes. SWAK.
Had she ever told him? Megan had been inconsolable after the abortion. For weeks, her family thought she was sick. Nell avoided her, too confused and upset to offer comfort and understanding, or
even simple acceptance. Nell only realized how angry she was as the weight of the secret and her acquiescence grew heavier. It could never be spoken of; she would never be able to set it down.
She went to confession and sat mute, Father O’Rourke gently prompting her. She longed to be absolved, but it was not her secret to tell. She was an accomplice, drawn inside this sin against her will, by accident, out of love and loyalty. And then she watched as love and loyalty frayed beyond recognition.
Inside one of the letters, there’s a series of photos Megan took of herself in her bedroom. A ninety-five-pound seventeen-year-old’s idea of sultry. On the back of one:
I want you to imagine what I’m going to do to you when you’re home on leave.
Marion appears in the doorway.
“I came up to see if you wanted to come to the hospital with me.”
Nell hands Marion a stack of unopened envelopes. “He saved our letters. But didn’t open all of them.”
Marion flips through. “Not that many, considering all we sent.”
“It just seems . . . ”
“What?”
“Sad, I guess.”
“You coming?”
“Not today,” Nell surprises herself by saying.
She picks up the scrap of cloth to rewrap the journal. Fine red-brown dust falls to the floor and she realizes it’s a bloody rag, a piece of a shirt. She drops it back in the box and shoves it under Billy’s bed.
In the bathroom she scrubs her hands under water as hot as she can stand it, then bolts down the stairs to join her mother in the car.
Strong Memorial is another world after the VA Hospital: clean, quiet, a private room, adequate nursing staff. Marion won’t let herself think about the expense. Not yet. They’re making progress. The burns on Billy’s face, neck, shoulder, torso and arm are nearly healed. A second surgery to repair tendons and ligaments is scheduled for later in the week. The nurses tell her that they don’t know yet how extensive the nerve damage is but suspect shrapnel has done a great deal of harm.
When Marion leaves to consult with Billy’s hand surgeon, Nell opens the book she’s brought, Audubon’s Birds of America. Billy traces the image of the Arctic Tern with his good hand.
“Four ounces powered by instinct and desire. The longest migration of any species: 25,000 miles, half the globe.”
“Listen, Billy, I need to tell you something and it’s never a good time.”
“Megan.” Not a question.
“She’s missing.”
“Off on a joyride with the new boyfriend?”
“No. She . . . She disappeared the day after you got home. There’s been a search.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The investigation is ongoing.”
“Wait a minute. You’re serious.” He looks at her now, the book forgotten. “They can’t find her? That’s ridiculous.”
“I know.”
“Did she talk to you?”
“Ever since she moved into town with her mother . . . ”
“Her parents separated?”
“Mrs. Alsop took a job at the bank. And then she left the farm, got an apartment.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was probably in one of my letters you didn’t open.”
Billy is silent.
“Megan’s part of a different crowd at school. I didn’t . . . I don’t see much of her anymore.”
“You’ve been friends your whole lives.”
“Not lately.”
“That doesn’t sound like Megan.”
“Did you stop writing to her, too?”
Marion appears with coffee and a sandwich, stops in the doorway.
“Megan Alsop,” he accuses his mother. “Is anyone doing anything?”
“Nell, did you have to . . . ?” Marion asks.
“It would be better if he heard it from someone else?”
Billy begins pulling at the needles in his arm.
A nurse pushes past Marion; speaks quietly to Billy, one hand on his shoulder.
Marion moves toward the bed. He turns his face away from her.
“I’m on night duty,” the nurse says. “I’ll keep my eye on him.”
“Billy . . . ” Nell tries.
“Just go.”
What the hell are they talking about: Megan Alsop missing. What does that even mean. A runaway? Kidnapped, or murdered? In sleepy little Geneva, New York. Impossible. Girls don’t just disappear. He tries to reason it out, push through the panic and think: what might have happened, where she could be. But he can’t think about Megan without sensing her in his arms, on his tongue. The whores in Saigon taste of cheap bourbon and cigarette smoke, their skin smells of sandalwood and other men. Megan tastes like apples and smells like new mown hay and good clean dirt. She’d wrap her legs around his waist. He’s losing . . . what’s that sound? Why is it so hard to think this through? Someone is weeping. He just needs to concentrate. His face is wet; his chest aches. He turns to see the nurse injecting something into his arm and then he’s sinking into the South China Sea: deeper, colder. Gone.
At home Nell sits down to work on her biology project, still wearing her coat. The front room, as usual, is freezing. The piano is closed, all her music put away. She plays so rarely now.
She’d rather be outside, gathering materials for her work in the field, checking nets, finding her notebook, the blood collection slides and sleeves. Wishes for spring and the freedom of the woods. Turns back to the cell diagram, knows instantly she’s too physically wound up for the detailed concentration this project requires. Tries closing her eyes, breathing deeply. Puts her palm on Billy’s painting propped on the piano, her touchstone. A juniper titmouse in profile, its black tufted head somehow looking tired and unkempt and sad, titled: The Unsung Magnificence of Half-Remembered Songs.
Yesterday her favorite math teacher asked who was helping her with her work. Not exactly an accusation of cheating but close. She completed a more difficult problem in front of him and he was still skeptical. He doesn’t believe girls are capable of higher-level mathematics. When she protests, his parting shot is: Time will tell.
Lately she’s been wondering if she has what it takes to claim a place in the inhospitable, competitive world of science. With Billy in the hospital it suddenly feels nearly impossible, like she’s lost her compass. She sometimes wishes she were a child again, climbing into the boat with her brother, the day theirs to explore. Coming home in the dark, filthy, exhausted, a pool of light on the end of the dock, the lantern their father lights for them.
She pushes out the back door, ignoring Marion’s protests as she climbs the path to the railroad tracks, shining thinly in the moonlight. Her breath puffs around her, snow crunches under her boots in the stinging cold. She kneels, puts her hand on a rail, feels the distant vibration of a train, thinks of Billy’s accusations, all he doesn’t know, might never know. Hears the buoyant wingbeats of a barn owl and looks up in time to see its pale shape pass close overhead. The long drawn-out hiss of its call sends shivers down her back. It feels as though she could reach up and touch its white underwings, its downy breast.
Nell is at her locker on Monday digging out a notebook when Rob Chandler stops beside her. Much too close for comfort.
“What did you tell the police about me and Megan? I know they questioned you.”
“They’re questioning everybody. Back off, would you?” She tries to duck under his arm. He slams her against the locker. “Get off of me!”
One or two students look up, see it’s Rob Chandler, and walk on. Jamey Conley, her lab partner, starts toward them, but is stopped by Miss Rosenthal ushering him into class.
“They have some idea we had a fight. Like I might have been a little rough with her. Where are they getting that idea?”
“How should I know?”
His face is inches from hers. “Because of you, they think I’m a suspect.”
“Did you treat her like this? What a tough guy, pushing Megan Alsop around.”
She shoves him with both hands, to no effect. “I told them she seemed sad that day. That’s all. But if they question me again, how should I describe this, Rob?”
He moves one hand from her shoulder to her throat. “Maybe whatever happened to Megan was her own damned fault.”
“How could any of this be her fault?”
“I broke up with her because she was messing around with one of my friends.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe you didn’t know your little friend all that well.”
“Just who was she supposed to be flirting with?”
“Tom Clifton.”
“That’s crap. She thinks he’s an idiot.”
“I know what I saw.”
“You made that up. An excuse to break up with her.”
“Best theory I’ve heard is that her father kidnapped her and has her hidden away somewhere. To get back at his wife,” Rob says. “It’s somebody we know. That’s what the police say.”
“I heard they found a hair ribbon in your car.”
“Big deal.”
“And blood.”
“She was always tearing at her fingers.”
“Are the police buying that explanation?” Nell asks.
The bell rings, the last scramble to class. Students steer around them.
“Her mother found a packed suitcase under her bed,” Rob says.
“So?”
“Who and what was that all about? It wasn’t about me. We didn’t have any plans.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“It could happen to anybody. Anytime.”
“Are you threatening me?”
A teacher walks by, fast, late: “Is there a problem here?”
“Not at all, Mrs. Lawrence,” Rob says, remembering her name.
“Get to class, you two. Now,” she says, smiling at Rob, ignoring Nell.
Nell feels a jolt of fear so sharp it takes her breath away. She has never allowed these thoughts to surface. How easy it would be for Rob to hurt Megan, to erase her. She can still feel his hand on her throat.