Letters from War (15 page)

Leah opens her mouth and her face contorts to an expression of exaggerated surprise. Richard once told
Beth that all southern women have this look and this expression, one of mild shock.

“How can she not be?”

“Because it's been so long,” Beth says. “She wants to move on. And I don't blame her.”

“You won't be able to move on until you know what happens.”

“And I've told her that. But still—it's the way she's coping.”

Sonny comes back over to their table to say good-bye and to pat Beth on the back. “You let me know if you can make it. It'd sure mean a lot if you could. Y'all ladies have a great day now.”

Leah smiles and then rolls her eyes when Sonny is leaving the shop.

“I can't,” Beth says. “I just can't.”

“I know and I get it. But understand something, okay? When you walk or ride in the parade, you don't walk as a soccer mom or a politician or a woman telling everybody about her new coffee shop. You walk as one of us. You walk as James. You walk to have people remember—to have people realize the real meaning of this holiday.”

The coffee is still warm against her hands, but the rest of her is cold.

“People grow so accustomed to not knowing anything and frankly, to not caring. But, Beth, when
you walk, people who do know will remember. And they'll tell others. They'll say, ‘That's the mother of James Thompson, the MIA.'”

“I know. I just don't know if I'm up for being a poster child this year.”

“Sometimes in life—many times, I think—God wants us to be someone or something that we don't want. But you know, it's not up to us. We don't control anything. We have to be the people He wants us to be. That might be a heavy responsibility, but He's not going to give it to someone who ultimately can't handle it.”

“I can't handle this.”

“You can handle anything that comes your way and I know it,” Leah says. “I might weigh twice as much as you do, but you're a lot stronger than me.”

“Stop being silly.”

“I might be silly but I
always
speak the truth. Always.”

Beth hangs up the phone but feels like doing more. She feels like digging a hole in the backyard and tossing the cordless inside it. Along with the television and the radio and the computer and any connection to the outside world.

“Who was that?” Emily asks.

“Another reporter.”

“Sorry. I shouldn't have picked it up.”

“It's okay. By now I know what to say.”

“So why are you so upset?”

“Most of the times the reporters know what to say back. But this woman didn't want to take a no. As if she was calling for Oprah herself.”

“Was she?”

“No.” Beth laughs. “And I'd say the same to her, too, if she still had her show.”

Over the past two years, Beth has learned about the media and its bloodthirsty machinery. Everybody wants a good story, and everybody wanted
her
story. After granting a few interviews with the local news, Beth decided to stop doing anything more. But the fact that Sergeant First Class James Thompson was one of the only two MIAs so far in the Afghanistan war didn't make things easy.

Don't forget about Sabi. Don't dare forget about her.

Sabi had been MIA for fourteen months.

She served with a joint Australian-Afghan army patrol that was ambushed in September 2008. After the battle, during which nine troops were wounded, there was no sign of Sabi, and the subsequent months of searching didn't result in anything.

It wasn't until November of 2009 that she was found. Where she had been, nobody knows.

And they never will, either, since Sabi's a black Labrador.

Every now and then, Beth liked to think of Sabi. She sometimes invented stories involving Sabi and James. Of course, James went missing in 2009, but logic didn't factor into those fantasies.

If a dog can go missing for fourteen months in the wilds of Afghanistan, my son, an Eighty-second Airborne Division paratrooper, can still be alive after two years.

“What's wrong?” Emily asks.

She can't tell Emily since the name “Sabi” has been banned from the Thompson house by Emily. It became an anecdote of the war that soon grew into a grim punch line as the months became years.

“Just wondering when it will stop. If it ever will.”

“The calls?”

“All of it.”

“Maybe you do one big interview and that's it. That's not waving the white flag, Mom. You can say so in the interview.”

“I don't know. I don't want to open the floodgates.”

“Maybe we should disconnect the phone.”

“I've already thought about doing that. But they've caught me on the street, on my lawn, even at church.”

“Who?”

“Nobody worth mentioning.”

“It's like you're someone famous being hounded by the paparazzi.”

“It just gets worse around this time of year. People
want a moving story to show on television to the families gathering for their July Fourth parties.”

Emily wears a familiar look of sadness and confusion on her pretty face.

“I don't blame them for wanting that story, either. I just keep…”

She doesn't finish.

Emily doesn't need her to finish, either.

They've heard it over and over and over again.

I just keep hoping to know the outcome.

But maybe there will never be one.

Maybe this story will have to be told when she finally takes her last breath and walks through the pearly gates of heaven.

“You sound like I normally do.”

Beth chuckles. “Maybe you're being a bad influence.”

“And maybe you're just being a mother. Have you ever thought of that?”

“Something about this summer—about having Emily back home and her attitude—about the coming anniversary. I don't know.”

“It's okay,” Marion tells her.

“Is it? I don't know. This isn't like me.”

“If you didn't grieve you wouldn't be human.”

“But sometimes I just—I feel like I'm being tested.”

“I've been tested every single day of my life since becoming a mother. Raising that Francisco was enough to kill me, and that's
before
he went missing. Sons don't understand what they do to their mothers.”

“Neither do daughters.”

“If you're being tested, so be it.”

“What do you mean?” Beth asks.

“Ace it. That's what I used to tell the kids. Ace the exams. Not just those in the class but those in life. Take the test and do your best and make sure you come out with your head held high.”

“You're rhyming.”

“Am I?” Marion asks. “Maybe I should be a poet.”

“Are you reading me something from a motivational handbook?”

“Now you're really sounding a lot like me.”

“Or my daughter.” Beth lets out a sigh. “They're wanting me to be in the July Fourth parade again.”

“And you will, of course.”

“Of course.”

“That is part of the drill. Or maybe I should say part of the test. You can't decide not to take it anymore. That will be with you the rest of your life.”

“What?”

“Your role. Our role. We are mothers to soldiers who have given their lives for their country. It's just—the country is holding its breath along with us to see
whether or not those lives are still there or not.”

“I wish everybody would just continue breathing.”

“That's what I see you doing. That's what you've been doing for almost two years now.”

“I'm turning over a new leaf,” Beth says. “And it's wet and rotten on the other side.”

“No you don't, young lady.”

“You're just a couple years older than I am.”

“Don't get that way. I'm the one who freaks out and you're the one who stays grounded. We can't shift roles.”

“Not even every now and then?”

“No way. I need to have my July Fourth freak-out and I need to know that my Elizabeth Thompson will be there to anchor me.”

“I will always be here, Marion. Even on days like this.”

“There will be a time, you know.”

“I know.”

“There will be a time when we find out. And I just—
I'm
going to need you.”

“We're going to need each other.”

“Ace it. Go out and show every single person at that parade how dignified and proud you are. Show them and ace it.”

The colors bleed over her. Beth sees the crowd in slow motion, the tiny hands waving little flags, the lawn chairs resting on the grass, the T-shirts and smiles passing her by. There is so much red, white, and blue, yet all she can think is that there should be only one color today.

Everyone should wear red to mark all those killed in every war since the beginning of time.

Her grin and her wave are permanent fixtures on this float. She can get through this. People know who she is and why she's here, and she's smiling and waving to show support. But to these people this holiday is just that: a day off, a chance to eat and mingle, an excuse to lounge around, a leisurely day topped off by colorful fireworks.