I turn on the radio. I was so out of whack when I got in the car that I didn’t even put on music. Now that is weird. An unfamiliar pop song begins to play. Fifteen minutes and I’m parking in the lot near the Visitors’ Center at UMASS Amherst, across the street from the administration building. Nervously, I lock up the minivan and walk across Massachusetts Avenue. It’s a very unfamiliar environment. The valley overall gives me this sense of space… spread out, with tree covered hills rolling high above the Connecticut River.
There were times over the last five years when I regretted joining the Army instead of going to college. I had the grades—I graduated in the top 10 students in my class. My father was a professor at Mount Holyoke College, walking distance from the house, and that fact meant I could go for free. I suppose I still could, but the Army will pay for me to go to school, and I think I’ll be much more comfortable at UMASS than a smaller college, no matter that my father taught there. Especially I don’t want to be in a tiny all-women college, or one where my father was so well-known.
Some people rebel by drinking, or getting arrested, or picking a different sport than their parents.
I rebelled by joining the Army.
The Veterans Services Office at UMASS is a chaotic space, crowded with posters and flyers and papers and interns. It’s a storm; a whirlwind of papers and pens, and at the eye of the storm stands Craig Stills, the director of Veterans’ Services.
The thing about Craig is, he operates inside his own perfect no-bullshit bubble. All you have to do is look at his prosthetic legs (both of them) and arm (one) to realize he's the real deal.
I met him a few days ago for the first time—that’s when I read the Silver Star citation hanging on his wall. In 2005, somewhere along MSR Tampa just a few miles east of Iskandiriyah, he’d saved a soldier’s life and sacrificed his limbs in the process.
“Zoe!” He calls out in a strong voice. It sounds like broken gravel. “Come in, sit down!”
“Hey,” I say. I walk toward his desk. It’s piled high with files and books. I look at the titles with interest. Achilles in Vietnam. Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury After War.
Huh.
“You can borrow them if you want. My office is kind of a lending library.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You hanging in there?”
I nod. I don’t want to say too much. I don’t want to talk about what’s going on inside. I just want to get down to business. “What have you heard?” I ask. I try to hide the trembling in my voice. I’m starting to realize—I really care about this.
He grins. “It took some doing, since you’re long past the deadline. But you’re in.”
“I am?” As I shout—well, scream—the words, I jump to my feet, knocking half a dozen books and some papers off his desk.
As the books hit the floor, I shift to horror.
“Christ, I’m so sorry.” I kneel to pick them up.
His smile just gets bigger. “Zoe, they wanted you in. Everyone knows you’ve gone through a brutal time. You deserve it.”
I carefully don’t answer as I set the books back on his desk. He senses my reticence. “Here’s how this will work. It’s going to take a while for your veteran’s benefits to come through. Probably a couple months. We can get you a small advance for books and you’ll be able to go ahead and register for classes. You need to do that as quick as you can, classes start Monday. All right?”
I nod. I’m overwhelmed. He walks me through the first steps. I’ve got a long laundry list of things I’ll need to do. Visit the IT office in person, because I can’t wait the days it normally takes to get an account set up. Figure out how to use the online systems. Register for classes. Get my textbooks. Fill out paperwork and more paperwork for the GI Bill.
I don’t care. I’ll do all of it. Most of it I’ll have to do tomorrow, because the elementary school gets out in forty minutes and I need to get home to meet Jasmine. Let’s hope South Hadley’s teachers don’t go on strike, because if they do, I’ll be dragging her along for all of it.
I manage to get back out to my car and on my way home in plenty of time. As I drive back to South Hadley, I remind myself that I’m going to need to work my class schedule around Jasmine’s school hours.
When she gets off the school bus, I’m outside sweeping the wraparound porch. The wind blows dust across the porch, and as I sweep, a few flakes of paint, already peeling, break loose. She shuffles away from the bus and toward the house, her head bowed, eyes on the ground.
I stop sweeping and watch her. I wish I had some clue how to help her. Of course, what she needs is Mom and Dad. And there’s nothing at all I can do about that.
“Hey. How was your day?”
She walks up the steps and looks at me. The boards creak under her feet. “O—O—Okay,” she responds without enthusiasm and with a pronounced stammer. She walks right past me, opens the front door, and disappears inside.
Damn. I set the broom against the wall and go inside the house.
Her book bag is on the floor near the stairs, and I can hear her thumping around upstairs. That was quick. I stand there, listening. This is a very old house, and here and there loose boards make it easy to tell where people are. Jasmine is in her room. That doesn’t last long. I hear her walking again, but no longer in the soft sound of sneakers.
She thumps down the stairs wearing riding boots.
“Homework?” I ask.
She seems to thud to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. “I don’t have much,” she says. “Can I do it after dinner? I want to ride Mono.”
“I don’t know, Jasmine….” My voice is hesitant. I don’t like that—I rarely hesitate when making decisions. What’s the right thing to do here? Her eyes begin to well up with tears.
I sigh. “Yeah. Okay ride until dinner time if you want.” I need to muck out the stalls anyway. Which raises another issue. How the hell am I going to take care of three horses while I’m in school? It’s nearly four in the afternoon, and the horses haven’t been out of the paddock to graze today, though I fed them hay first thing this morning.
Mom pretty much spent all her time with them… feeding them, taking care of their stalls, of their food, of their every little need. I don’t know how I’m going to manage, because horses need a lot of taking care of.
By the time I get to the stable, Jasmine is already on her way to the paddock with her saddle.
“Make sure you run the other two.”
She nods. Jasmine is short of words lately.
I sigh when I step inside the stable. All three stables are soiled, of course. Shoveling out the stalls is a familiar task. Scrape it down to the bottom, then lay out a new bed of shavings. I dump and scrub the water buckets and refill them. The last few days I’ve been able to let them spend a lot of time either in the paddock or grazing, but soon enough winter will be here and they’ll be in their stalls a lot longer during the day and night. And that means mucking out the stalls twice a day, because muddy or wet conditions mean infections.
Shovel in hand, I get started. The thunder of hooves outside tells me Jasmine is running Mono hard, with the other two horses on tethers. In the meantime, I shovel. I scrub. I sweat. I’ve been in the Army five years, and I’m in better physical condition than the vast majority of American women. By the time I’m finished, my shoulders hurt. Shoveling out stalls and scrubbing requires a different set of muscles than I’m used to using.
Maybe I should sell Nettles and Eeyore. I’d hate to see them go, but I’m not sure how I’m going to take care of them.
Selling Mono, however, isn’t an option.
Finally finished.
I step outside of the stable and look down the hill.
Our land stretches nine acres, running mostly behind the line of houses along College Street. Jasmine is down there at the far end, where our land abuts Paul Armstrong’s. Mono is still moving quickly, Jasmine bouncing in the saddle, the other two horses right behind.
I turn to walk back to the house, stretching my arms and shoulders. It’s 5:30 and I haven’t even started dinner.
I look in the fridge with a frown. I’ve never cooked dinner much—living in the barracks in Tokyo, I didn’t have to. Plus, for the last few days, we’ve eaten casseroles and other food dropped off by well-meaning faculty friends of my father’s. That’s all gone now.
When I was in Tokyo, we all ate in the mess hall or on the economy. I have Mom’s old recipe book, though, and sometimes when I was teenager she made me cook with her. And options are limited—all that’s left in the fridge is chicken legs.
Fried chicken it is. I wash my hands and get the meal going, noting that I’m going to have to go grocery shopping. One more thing I’m not equipped to do.
I bread the chicken, then carefully drop the pieces into the hot oil. Despite my caution, a drop of oil burns my wrist.
The phone rings.
I walk over to it and pick it off the cradle, then walk back to the stove, the cord stretching across the kitchen.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Nicole. What are you doing?”
“Cooking dinner.” As I answer I open up a bag of frozen green beans and pour them into a pot of hot water. No potatoes. Or rice. I’ve got half a loaf of bread. No butter, but… best I can manage right now.
Nicole launches into a story. “Okay, so classes start on Monday, and all the kids are moving in, right? You’re not gonna believe what happened.”
She pauses. Waiting for me to ask, I guess. “What happened?”
“A bunch of freshman guys get into a fight in the North Residential Area at the dining hall. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of—one of the guys wanted sushi, and another one called him a not-so-nice name, and the first one punched him. It turned into a brawl.”
“A brawl? Seriously?” The chicken is sizzling now, a satisfying sound. Smells nice too. I see Jasmine through the window… she’s leading the horses back to their stalls for the night. Third grade or not, she knows how to take care of the horses. At least I don’t have to worry about that.
“Yeah, seriously. We made fourteen arrests, and classes haven’t even started yet.”
I throw my head back with a full-throated laugh. I am so glad I didn’t consider applying for a job as a cop.
“So what happened next?” I ask. I walk to the bare pantry trailing the phone cord behind me. Nicole goes on telling her story, elaborating with more and more outlandish facts.
What the hell?
I kneel. There’s a hole in the baseboard of the pantry, and it looks like something’s been chewing near there. Then I see the tiny black dots.
Mouse droppings. I shudder.
Then I hear Jasmine scream.
Instantly I jump to my feet, dropping the phone. The phone’s on the end of a long wound-up cord, which retracts suddenly, yanking the handset across the floor until it crashes into a cabinet.
Jasmine is at the kitchen door, eyes wide, staring at the pan of frying chicken, which is now burning with foot high flames. She screams again, and I launch myself across the kitchen to the sink, searching for the fire extinguisher. It’s not where it belongs. I shove cleaning fluids and various unnamed items around until I yank the extinguisher out from the very back of the cabinet. Without hesitating, I pull the pin and aim the extinguisher.
It’s empty. Nothing at all. Damn it!
I search, my mind first turning to the sink, but water will just make an oil fire worse. Then my eyes fall on the five-pound bag of flour.
I tear it open wide and pour it on the flames. With a loud whomp! the flames are smothered and the kitchen is enveloped in silence and smoke.
I gasp for air and stare at Jasmine, who stares back at me. In the background, I can hear Nicole shouting into the phone. “Zoe? Zoe? Is everything okay?”
I hesitate, then lean down and reach for the phone. “Everything’s okay,” I rush out. “Pan caught fire, but it’s out now.”
“Are you shitting me?” Nicole screams.
“Nicole, I gotta go.”
“Zoe, wait —”
“I gotta go.” I hang the phone up.
Jasmine is still staring at me.
“What?”
She says, “I’ve never seen a fire in here. Mom never did that.”
Mom never caught the kitchen on fire? I don’t know what to say, but my chest tightens and I want to say something unkind. I can’t even imagine what to say that might be appropriate. I just turn back to the pantry and look for something for dinner, because we sure aren’t having fried chicken.
I stand in the pantry. Pretty slim pickings. Some staples, like flour, but I’m no baker. Pasta is all gone (we ate it), so is the spaghetti sauce, the tortillas, the rice.
I need to go grocery shopping.
High at the top of the pantry is a box of Lucky Charms. Every once in a blue moon, Dad would buy a box. He wouldn’t let anyone else have them, which is why it’s way up there. I step on the bottom shelf to be able to reach to the very top and pull the box down.
It’s half full. “All right,” I say. “Change of plans. We’re eating Lucky Charms.”
Her response is caustic. “We’re eating what? Mom never made me eat cereal for dinner.”
“Well you know what, Jasmine? I’m not Mom.” I drop the box on the table, then walk to the fridge.
Ahh, damn it. There’s no milk. I sigh, then say, “Okay. Okay. That’s not going to work.” I look back at her. “Pizza?”
She nods. Then she says, in a very low voice, “Sorry, Zoe.”
I suck in a breath. Jasmine should not have to apologize to me. She’s going through hell, and I need to remember that.
“It’s okay, sweetie. Pizza it is. We should both go shower though. You go first.”
She runs out. I sag against the counter, exhausted.
I’ll call Nicole back later and apologize. Meanwhile, I’m looking at the disaster of the kitchen. Flour covering the stove. Oil splattered everywhere. Oily black soot coating the range hood and the wall above that.
That’ll take some cleaning.
I turn to walk upstairs, but stop in my tracks when the phone rings again. Who the hell is that?
I pick the phone up off its cradle once again. I need to get a shower and change into not-horse-and-fire-smelling clothing, and go to the bank and get some cash, then we’ll head to the pizza place up the street. Hopefully this will be a quick call.
“Hello?”
“Zoe? It’s Matt Paladino.”
My mind stops in place, and my body follows. I breathe a sigh and say, “What … what can I do for you?”
He hesitates. I’m guessing that means it is bad news. “I wanted to let you know—the teachers union met this afternoon. The vote was near unanimous to strike.”
I close my eyes. “Do they even care how this is going to disrupt people’s lives?”
I can almost hear his sigh. “Zoe…”
I exhale. “I know. I get that there are reasons. But … you can’t just disappear, Matt. You can’t. She’s lost everyone she depends on. We don’t have any other relatives, and she barely knows me, and you’re the only adult she even knows. You can’t just disappear.”
There’s a long silence. Then he says, “I’ll do the best I can, all right?”
I guess that’s the best I can expect.
Chapter Six
Red (Matt)
Red Jackson wasn’t called Red because of his hair. It was because of his temper. He’d always had a bad reputation as a scrappy little bastard, a dirty fighter, a not so smart guy with a chip on his shoulder. I encountered him for the first time when his family joined the Ringling Brothers Circus when I was twelve. Red was about two years older than me, and at that age two years makes a big difference in size. He had the frame and muscular power of someone already well into puberty, who regularly worked out on top of that. I wasn’t in bad shape… after all, my parents had me up on the rigging by the time I was
10. I was still considerably smaller than he was.
We were on the northern tour that fall—New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia—when Red’s father, a cat handler, joined the circus. If Red ever had a mother around, I never heard anything about her. That Saturday afternoon, I was hiding out. I’d spent the morning doing my chores, laying out the spare ropes, arranging the costumes and laundering them, and cleaning up the trailer. It was almost one in the afternoon when I finished that, and the adults were all practicing for that night’s show. I made myself scarce.
No matter where we were, we always tried to arrange the trailers and equipment in the same way. It made for a much quicker and better organized set-up and teardown. Most of the time, when I wanted to hide, I picked a spot behind the funhouse—it was invariably a dead spot on the lot, surrounded by generators, trailers and ticket booths.
That particular day, I couldn’t take my usual spot. I’m not sure where we were. Allentown? Pittsburgh? Somewhere in Pennsylvania anyway. The lot shape was unusual, long and narrow and curved, so we were configured very differently than normal. I found a spot not far from the ticket booths where I settled in, sorting through my Yu-gi-oh cards.
The cards were precious to me. I didn’t get much of an allowance, though every once in a while Papa would give me spare change. Whenever possible, I would pick up extra work on the lot. Shoveling manure, cleaning out trailers, whatever, it didn’t matter to me. I didn’t get paid anywhere close to minimum wage for those jobs, but over time I’d used that occasional pocket change to amass a sizeable collection of cards, including some rare collectible ones.
Those days were gravel and dust, the heat and humidity of Indian summer, the longing I felt whenever I saw Carlina Herne, the daughter of one of the animal trainers. She was thirteen and had long flowing locks of black hair that hung well below her shoulders. Her eyes were sapphire, her lips curvaceous and inviting.
Or I suppose they were inviting to somebody. Not to me. She was a year older than I was, but she was so far out of reach she might as well have been the daughter of the President.
That didn’t stop me from thinking about her constantly, watching her whenever I could, fantasizing that one day, she would realize that I wasn’t just a kid… I was a flyer; one day I’d be the star of the circus just like Papa. As it was, the only words she’d ever spoken to me were, “Get out of my way, runt.”