Be Safe I Love You (17 page)

“We should really call Dad,” he said.

“We’ll get ahold of him tomorrow,” she assured him.

“You think there are animals out there?” he asked.

“I think there probably are.”

“Stuff like bears and shit?” He said it really fast, as if getting the words out of his mouth would get the thought out of his head. He sounded pained, embarrassed at needing to be reassured.

“I don’t think we gotta worry too much,” she said. “Unless some wolves come and try to steal you so they can raise you as one of their own.”

“That already happened,” he said. Then he gave a little nervous howl, it boomed and echoed in the empty room, and he took a deep breath and then coughed from the shock of the cold air. She watched him closely, his confidence growing and receding. Making noise to feel brave, to occupy the place. “That already happened,” he said again. “I was raised by Sebastian.”

As uncomfortable as Danny would be this one night, he would be twice as confident in the morning and he’d understand. The place relaxed her, the long-standing emptiness of it. She was happy to get Danny away from staring at a screen, filling his ears with noise. Living through his fucking phone. He’d be afraid to begin with and then he would be better than ever.

She was already better. No cars, no familiar faces, no dust rising, and with any luck no dreams.

It was as though what happened in Amarah shattered all the terror that existed and sent it out into the world in particles and fragments. A mirror bursting into sand and dust, the fear traveled and imbedded itself, hid in everyday objects, blinded people, muffled or enhanced sounds. She was either never or always afraid after that last time. And she knew now the difference between never and always was small. Never and always are separated by a wasp’s waist, a small sliver of safety glass, one bead of sweat; separated by the seven seconds it takes to exhale the air from your lungs, to make your body as still as the corpse you are about to create.

Thirty-three

L
AUREN DIDN’T DREAM
the first night they slept in the hollow of abandoned houses. But Danny did for her. More alert than he’d ever felt, he watched his breath rising, a white cloud above his cold face. He was warm, zipped into the sleeping bag and poncho liner, but still frightened of freezing, of animals or people, or, god knows, some combination of the two; a fur-covered thing, invincibly smart, stalking around beneath the stars, upright and able to look in on them. He knew a lot about animals and he was embarrassed to be so afraid of them.

He watched Lauren, bundled and awake and tending the fire. There was always something about how she moved—like her body had an authority, an ability that made it possible for her not to worry. You didn’t worry if you could run twenty miles, if you were coordinated, if you knew how to fight—you weren’t concerned about things in the same way other people were. She had a kind of physical alertness that he knew he didn’t have. Maybe he missed it genetically and all his agility, all his speed was in his mind. He thought the body must have its own kind of intelligence, one he missed when he missed Little League and swim lessons and soccer and everything else people did instead of go to after-school and go home and then read next to the record player or in his room.

Danny knew his sister’s steadiness well. The sources of his own steadiness were at his desk and in his head, and it was already dark and now was the first time he realized that the stuff he liked to do was very flat. On a screen or on paper and they didn’t technically exist in the real world at all—or they did but you didn’t; you were watching or reading about them. The real world was his sister melting snow and boiling water for them and the smell of woodsmoke and the sound of wind. It was the rough wool of the Swedish mittens she’d bought him, keeping his hands warm. And the boots. The real world was crisp and metallic with cold, and silent in a way that brought songs or images to his mind and played them in disturbing repetitive loops.

In his head Lady Gaga’s voice would not stop singing that stupid radio song p-p-p-p-poker face p-p-pokerface. The stuttered “p”s like chattering teeth. A song he had no interest in, hated, and now it wouldn’t leave, the same few words over and over, giving him some stupid obvious message. Maybe she brought him out here to empty him of this noise. Maybe it was all pouring out of him now into the emptiness.

And where was his phone? If he could just talk to another person or get online or check the news or chat. He could update his status to Arctic or Firestarter. And he could tell people where they were.

He lay on his side and watched her with his hat pulled down over his ears, clutching the crank flashlight she’d given him for Christmas “in case he needed it.” Then he shone it on Lauren, and the shadows of strange objects in the room appeared behind her. She looked bulky from the coat and the layers of thermal underwear but somehow still agile. He studied her for the things that were familiar because there were new things about her, new behaviors, and he didn’t know if these things were permanent.

“Can you sing something?” he asked. It was so quiet. And the building so empty. It had good acoustics. She would like that. She used to sing in the bathroom because of the acoustics. She used to sing in church with Troy. She’d brought him there and he played with LEGOs in the choir loft while she practiced.

She squinted in the glare of his flashlight and put her hand in front of her face. “Like what?”

“Anything.”

She shook her head a little and looked away. Maybe this was how she was different.

“I can’t sing right now,” she said. “Turn that flashlight off.”

“Um, okay.” He turned it off and waited a second, then clicked it back on. “How about now?”

“C’mon, Furious.” She sounded tired.

“Or . . .” he said, turning it off, waiting again, looking up at the ceiling, then turning it back on. “Now?”

She was still quiet. The sound of the fire hissing and popping made it seem even more silent.

“Sing ‘Winter Wind,’ ” he told her. The fire had made him very warm and sleepy and he could suddenly recall the arias and solos she used to practice. “The Black Swan,” “Fair Robin I Loved,” “Lucia’s Aria,” “Ave Maria,” “To This We’ve Come
.”

He remembered her voice sounded like chimes when she first started singing and that later it was different, fuller. And then later she only sang choir songs. He thought about colors while she sang, silver and orange, and it changed the air in the room. On very high notes he could feel the sound buzzing against the windows in the choir loft or in their living room. He could feel it in his chest as if he were singing too, an enormous vibrant ringing; a thing so present and invisible at the same time. At home when she was doing chores she would sing phrases from the same songs very quietly but it still sounded clear like chimes.

He turned the flashlight off again because he knew it irritated her.

She looked at him and the corner of her mouth twitched, her face lit only by the fire. She took a breath and then coughed into the cold air, shook her head, and took another slower breath, then closed her eyes as if she were going back to sleep.

He said, “Please, Low.” And then thought for a moment something must have really happened to her. Maybe she’d been injured and it ruined her voice and she hadn’t told them. Maybe that was why she’d been acting so strange. Lauren had never said no before when he asked her to sing, when anyone asked. It was a free and pretty thing. She sang him to sleep when he was small, and she sang to their father sometimes when she had practiced a song for a long time. She would teach Danny a tune on the way home from school and they would sing it together. She sang alone in her room. Her voice was the sound of their home.

She shook her head.

“I don’t remember how it goes,” he lied, and clicked the flashlight back on so that he could see her face. She took another deep breath and closed her eyes.

She began quietly, but soon her voice rose, light and clear, filling the frozen empty space with sound, high and agile and graceful the way he remembered it.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind.

Thou art not so unkind

As man’s ingratitude.

Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh-ho, sing heigh-ho, unto the green holly.

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.

Then heigh-ho, the holly.

This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,

That dost not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot.

Though thou the waters warp,

Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remembered not.

Heigh-ho, sing heigh-ho, unto the green holly.

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.

Then heigh-ho, the holly.

This life is most jolly.

When she was done he felt calm, relieved, his body warm and heavy. His mind was done racing and he slept and dreamt.

•    •    •

Outside the window of the building a woman dressed in white looked in at them, her face covered with a wax mask. Behind her was a shabby white sled made of chipped particle board, tied to a team of little black dogs with curly tails.

The woman looked through the mask, into the window at him, trying to distract him from seeing his sister getting in the sled. Then she turned and stood—she had only been crouching to look in at him. She was very tall, tall as the building, with long thin legs. In two strides she was back in the sled, and she folded herself up into a crouching position, her back curved and sinister. Lauren sat beside her wearing fatigues and her army shirt, not cold at all, her face blank. He ran out to them but the woman yelled something to the dogs and they began running. The sled heaved and he watched Lauren’s body flop as if she was unconscious. He ran out to help her, to get her off the sled, but the woman pushed her upright in the seat and they raced away silently into the snow.

•    •    •

Lauren watched him sleep, brushed his hair away from his forehead, grateful that he had made her do it; here in the middle of nowhere with Danny at least it was possible, if nowhere else. She checked the fire. She knew they couldn’t really live there long without more wood and kindling. But there was plenty of furniture in the other houses and there was the woods to hike through and gather more fuel. She fed the fire, then pulled her hat down around her ears and pulled her hood up to keep her head warm. She lay down close to Danny, put her arms around him, and felt his chest rise and fall. Sebastian came and curled up to the sleeping bag, tucking himself behind her legs.

She felt a chill in the core of her stomach for a second as the dog’s body huddled beside them, and she knew someone would have to pay for what she’d done. It seemed unreasonable that it should be any other way. She simply had to make sure it wouldn’t be him. It wouldn’t be Danny who paid, with his black hair and dark eyes and his lanky, barely muscled form.

Thirty-four

December 30

“H
ELLO, IS LAUREN
there?”

Jack recognized the voice, it was the doctor who’d called earlier in the week.

“No, I’m sorry, she’s gone to visit her mother.”

“To whom am I speaking?” the voice inquired.

“This is Jack Clay, I’m Lauren’s father.”

“Mr. Clay, your daughter has missed an important appointment which is part of her PDHA, and there is a small but significant chance she could be considered AWOL, which obviously would jeopardize the conditions of her terminal leave and discharge.”

“I see,” he said calmly, though his heart was suddenly pounding. “Well, she should be back in a few days, I’m sure we could reschedule something. She just got home, you know, she’s been settling in.”

“Sir, I need to speak frankly with you,” Eileen Klein said. “I don’t normally pursue these matters so rigorously, but I spoke with Lauren the day before she left for home and there are some very problematic discrepancies between her PDHA and military records I was unfortunately not privy to at the time.”

“Listen,” Jack said, “can she make another appointment or not?”

“Mr. Clay, your daughter gave some orders that were recently under investigation. She is not in trouble, yet. But based on my evaluation with her and subsequent conversations with those in her unit I believe she is at high risk for recapitulating a violent scenario. Do you know where she is? Is she by herself?”

Jack said nothing.

“Mr. Clay, this is important. Do you know where she is?”

Thirty-five

Dispatch #1

Dear Sistopher,

I got a calendar today at the bank while I was running errands with PJ. There are pages and pages until you come home. How is it going at ‘learn to boss people around school’? Are you good at it?

I saw a movie yesterday called
The Endurance
which you would love. It’s about Ernest Shackleton. (Which is a great name for a rich prisoner.) It’s about his expedition on his boat called the
Endurance.
You probably don’t remember this at all but he was an Irish polar explorer and then he decided to explore the Antarctic. He spent his whole life traveling around by ship and on foot in the frozen parts of the world. Anyway the
Endurance
got trapped in the ice and so the toughest guys set out on foot for help. His crew was trapped in the frozen ship for TWO YEARS. TWO!!! YEARS!!! and they lived. He went back for them and got everyone out alive.

Another time his ship went down and he and his crew had to camp out on an ice floe. They were at sea on this big hunk of ice for a week! Camping! I want to do that so bad, Lowey. That’s what I’m going to do when I graduate high school.

I just thought you would want to know that. I miss you but I’m glad you’re in Washington State bossing people around. PJ says you’re going to be good at your job because you’re a natural and you always watch out for everyone. I miss you, Sistopher. Be safe, I love you,

—Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton

Things looked very different in the bright daylight. She awoke before him and got the fire going strong, took out packs of granola and two burrito MREs. She put several bottles of water near the fire so they would thaw, and set a pot of snow by the fire to boil it, then put tea bags directly in the pot to make a dark bitter tea. Give them energy for the day.

She went outside and climbed back up to the car and surveyed the landscape with her binoculars. They were near the coast, she was sure of it. It was overcast and she didn’t have the visibility she wanted, but she could see there was a steady slope to what she thought was the ocean. And a wider, well-plowed road in the distance.

She looked over into the pine woods and then back toward where they’d come from. Then pulled a map from beneath the driver’s seat and studied it for some time. Satisfied, she ran back down the slope and woke Danny, and they sat before the fire eating the ready-made military food. His face was blank but he looked well rested.

“Why did you pick singing instead of some other instrument?” he asked her before even saying good morning.

“It was free,” she said.

“Isn’t it weird that you were singing all this classical stuff and then you went into the army?” he asked, almost to himself.

“Why is that weird?”

“They’re so different.”

She raised her eyebrows. “They’re not different at all.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I wasn’t like you,” she said. “I didn’t do good at anything you could make money at. Not like I was going to have a career running track or singing, you know?”

“Why not?”

She thought about how Troy had taught her to hear properly. Without him she would have been listening to her parents’ records forever or whatever crap was on the radio, iTunes, the boring songs people sing in school chorus. Troy played the music for her that first let her escape, let her leave home and the neighborhood and the town and the world.

And when the sounds of artillery and mortars and diesel engines, bad southern rock and hip hop, calls to prayer from the mosque, and dogs and officers barking took up space in her head she had the power to hear these things differently. Amidst the hot and dirty noise of war and waiting she had the promise of Arvo Pärt, cold and white and unreachable.

“Time for pushups,” she said, clapping him on the shoulder.

He rolled his eyes and she felt the familiar flash of anger. He was so resistant to anything that required the slightest physical discomfort. And he was poor at taking orders.

“Seriously, Daniel, you gotta get strong.”

“What the fuck are we doing?” he said.

She ignored him, got down and did ten and then stopped, did ten more, then ten more. She knew he was competitive enough to at least try. “C’mon, bud. Drop. Don’t be a fucking wimp.”

He got down next to her and did four, then stopped, struggled to do two more. It was beyond pathetic that a boy his age couldn’t do a full set of pushups. But she knew people could be made to do pushups. Just like they could be made to cook meals and pick children up from school or live in a filthy dust cloud and dismantle other families’ homes.

“Keep going,” she told him. “It’s early, dude. You can definitely do fifty by the end of the day.” She browbeat him into fifteen and watched the look of genuine pride on his face when he finished. She knew his body must feel good too. Building strength is its own addiction. She high-fived him and then gave his hand a squeeze. Told him she was proud. Situps weren’t a problem and she made him do eighty. Then jumping jacks. Then stretching. It was important to establish a routine. Boys are made for growing muscles, and she would make sure by New Year’s he was doing what he should, would keep going with it. He could have everything she didn’t. He could be smart and strong and free of all the stupid ideas that tie you down, family and nation and god. He could save a life.

She put out the fire with snow and gathered their gear together in one of the little rooms off the living room. Sebastian shuffled around behind her, sniffing in the corners of the house and sneezing, and she remembered again that he was dead and ignored him.

“Now we’re going to run,” she said.

Danny didn’t look at her like she was joking this time.

“Low, this is stupid,” he said. “Dad’s prolly freaking the fuck out. And I thought we were going to your friend’s house.”

“I’m sure he thinks we’re in Buffalo and we’re fine. And we are fine, so we don’t need to contact him. You don’t have to be in constant contact with people. You can trust that they are doing well. You can write them letters. You want to write him a letter? He’s getting a week to hang out alone, big deal. When’s the last time that guy had some time to himself?”

He said nothing. She could tell he liked camping and was overwhelmed by the surroundings. When she got him out into the woods she knew he would understand. He would see the things she saw.