Personal Effects (24 page)

Across the room, near the door, is a long table with lots of pictures on it, including a couple of pictures that look familiar, even from here.

I get up to take a closer look. At the far end of the table is the picture of Celia, T.J., and the other two guys around a table with an umbrella, beach behind them, all of them relaxed and laughing at the camera. Behind it is one of Celia standing next to the lighter-skinned guy from the vacation photo, who’s holding Zoe. Could this be her brother? His skin is lighter than Celia’s, but they’re standing close. Here he is in another one. And another. Must be.

“Here,” Celia says, leaning out from the kitchen to hand me a glass with ice and soda, bubbles fleeing up the side of the glass.

“Thanks.” The glass is already slick with condensation. I concentrate on not dropping it.

“I’ll be right back. Then we can talk.”

I turn my attention back to the pictures. I let my eyes slide over them, and slowly move back down the table. A formal picture of a younger Celia in her uniform. One of an older couple — must be Celia’s parents. They look nice. Some of other people I don’t know. One that looks kind of familiar, Celia holding Zoe, like the picture in my pocket, but with T.J. and the tall, darker-skinned guy from the beach pictures, too. Bet this one was taken the same day. A couple more of just Zoe at various ages.

A big picture of Zoe and Celia’s brother. Then a black-and-white one of Celia and her brother at some kind of fancy event — all dressed up and Celia in a fancy dress, holding flowers. Maybe a wedding? Could she and T.J. have gotten married? My heart thuds and speeds up. Was this one from their wedding? I quickly scan all the pictures for their wedding picture, looking just long enough to rule each out before moving on. None. Then back at this one. I pick it up. Needing to see it closer. Something’s weird. Celia and her brother, has to be, but when was it taken? Maybe this was at a family wedding, like a cousin’s or something? Her arm is linked with his. Maybe they were in the wedding? Her dress is fancy, but not like bride fancy, and she’s not wearing a veil.

The front door opens, and a tall guy in a suit shuffles through, juggling some kind of briefcase, two cloth bags, and some other stuff.

“Hi,” he says when he looks up and sees me standing there. “You must be Matt, right?”

Oh. Celia’s brother. A little older than in the pictures, and with the start of a scruffy beard, and glasses, but definitely him.

“Oh, uh, hi.” I carefully put the picture back where it was, adjusting it until it’s exactly like I found it. “I was just looking at the pictures.”

“I think she has some albums set aside to look through with you,” he says, staring at the pictures on the table. “Some pictures of your brother.”

I want to say something, but nothing seems right, with the twisting sick feeling in my stomach and the itching desire to see the pictures she’s put aside right now.

“So, you’re Celia’s brother, right?” I take a large sip of my soda and push my hand out to shake hello.

“Uh, no. I’m Will. Celia’s husband.”

H
IS HAND IS STRETCHED OUT TOWARD ME, BUT MY HAND
falls away before we touch. The bubbles sting my nose. I try to swallow without choking.

“Will?” I sputter and gasp around the burning sensation. “Husband?”

But Will . . . in the letters . . . I thought Will was married to Missy. A different Will? Unless he’s not with Missy, or not with her anymore?

“Yeah,” he says slowly, drawing the word out. He thrusts his fingers through his hair. “She said she was going to have time to talk with you for a while before I got home. Guess that didn’t happen? Damn.”

I look back at the picture. At all the pictures. Watching them realign. Yeah, a wedding — theirs: Celia and Will’s. But in that picture with her and T.J., the vacation one, he’s with them, on vacation. T.J. knew him. She married this guy, not even . . . When? When did she? I look at the wedding picture again. Celia is younger. Will’s younger. Oh, God. My eyes fly over the images in frames. Pictures of Will and Celia, Will and Zoe. On the wall above the table, more pictures. One with him holding a tiny baby while Celia looks on.

“Here, Matt, sit down. I’ll go get. . . . Just sit.”

The glass is removed from my fingers, and I’m nudged toward the couch. But I can’t move. The pictures. There are no pictures of just T.J. and Zoe. None of just T.J. and Celia, either. Like . . . almost like . . . Oh, God, I am a fucking moron. Have to leave. Get out, before they come back. Bag. Where’s my bag? . . .

“Matt?”

Worried voice. Fast footsteps.

“Oh, God, Matt, I wanted to have a chance to talk before . . . Come on and sit down.”

“Sorry.” That’s my voice. “Sorry — I’ve made a big mistake. I . . .” Dizzy. “I found the picture, of you and Zoe, in T.J.’s stuff, and the letters . . .” Did they have an affair? God, does Will know? He can’t know — he was nice. Shit. Need to leave.

I look at her. Her eyes, wet and sad. But knowing. She knows what I thought. She knew. Before I got here. This afternoon. She knew and she let me come here anyway. She lied to me.

“You thought we were together,” she says, “Theo and me, and that Zoe was his.” It’s gentle, and not even a question, and it burns. “No, we weren’t. And Zoe isn’t his daughter, but she loved him. She called him Uncle T. Come on and sit down. We need to talk.”

What the hell? “Why did you invite me here, if . . . ?” God, she must think I’m really stupid.

“Wait.”

Before I can get to the door, she grabs my arm. I shake her off but she reaches again, and her words start to filter through the raging in my head.

“I wanted to be able to talk to you, talk it through. Forgive me, but I didn’t think springing all this on you in the library was a good idea.”

Something in her tone, and the
all this,
pulls me back. The tingle down my neck. The need to know what
all this
means. “All this?”

“Yes,” she says, “all this.” She holds out one of the pictures from the table.

I don’t want to take it. Not even sure if I trust myself to take it. But she’s insistent. As soon as I reach for it, she takes a step back toward the couch. I have to follow. Once seated, she lays the picture frame down on the table in front of me. She reaches her hands toward me, like she’s gonna touch me, but stops. I can’t help but stare at her hands, still too close to me. She’s talking. All these words. Nothing’s making sense.

“So, I’m sorry, about Will,” she says, then grimaces. “Well, not about him, just that you met him before we could talk.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me in the library? I mean, how hard would it have been to say . . . ?” I trail off because I don’t know what the truth is. Will is Celia’s husband. Has been her husband for a while. Man, Will is Zoe’s dad. So what were Celia and T.J.? An affair? Do I want to hear this?

“Matt,” she says gently, touching my arm. “There are some things you need to understand. I’m not sure I’m the right person to tell you, but it looks like it’s mine to handle anyway.” She squeezes my arm. “This is actually so much like the both of them, making me do all the hard work so they don’t have to.”

“What?” Them?

She smiles. It’s confusing. “Maybe we should start over.”

“How can we start over? Everything, everything is all wrong.” I can hear my voice rising as my throat tightens. “What the hell were the letters, the . . . Did he know? Did Will know that you . . . ? Did T.J. know, about Will?”

“Of course he knew,” she says gently. Too gently. It pisses me off.

“Then what the hell is with the letters and the love crap? You write all that crap to him when —”

“I didn’t write them.”

“What?” The hell she didn’t. Lying? To protect Will?

“They’re not my letters.”

Bullshit. I can see them, in my head. The address labels. This address. The
Love you, C.,
on every fucking letter. “You signed them. And the envelopes, the return address. I’ve
read
them.
All
of them.”

“No, I didn’t,” she says, shaking her head. “I didn’t write the letters.”

My head spins.
Love You, C.
CELIA CARSON
, on the envelopes. “I don’t understand.”

“I know,” she says. After several attempts to say something else, she shifts so she can face me more and starts again. “Your brother could be so stubborn, especially when he was trying to protect someone he cared about. I think he was just trying to protect you.”

I can see him, on that last visit, in the half shadows around the fire. “Protect me from what?”

She pushes her braids over her shoulders, stares at her hands. “How much did he talk about his life here?”

I think hard, sorting back through fragments from lots of conversations from the last few years. “Not a lot, I guess. He never seemed to want to talk about Army stuff, so we talked about . . . other things.” She nods, but her head dips lower over her clasped hands. “I mean, he talked about some stuff, some friends, and, like . . . I knew where he was when he was stationed at home — Georgia, here, but . . . he never even talked about you. If I hadn’t found the letters . . . But if you didn’t . . .”

“Theo and my brother did Basic together. After Basic, they got different advanced-training assignments, but by then . . .”

She smiles, shaking her head, but suddenly her mouth snaps tight and pinched. She looks away. When she looks back, she nods toward the picture, forgotten on the table. I pick it up and look at it. Celia holding Zoe, just like the picture in my pocket, but standing next to them is T.J. and the tall guy from the vacation photos. T.J.’s arm slung over his shoulder. Huge smiles.

“That’s my brother, Curtis,” she says, her finger drifting into my field of vision to point to the guy standing on the other side of T.J. “They met in Basic. With different advanced training assignments, and later different bases, it wasn’t easy to get a lot of time together, especially without drawing attention, but they made it work. Eventually Curtis got assigned to an admin post here. Theo visited as much as he could. He spent a lot of time here between his first and second tours. And when he re-upped after his second tour, he got himself assigned to the closest post he could. In the last few years, Theo practically lived here — next door — with Curtis.”

My hands shake. I pull my picture of Celia and Zoe out of my pocket. A thin blue line along the edge, clearly part of T.J.’s shirt. My picture is only part of a copy of this one.

Celia’s breath hitches. She reaches across me. Her finger traces along the same minuscule line of blue at the edge of my picture. “I guess he cut it down to be able to fit the other piece in his wallet, or somewhere on him. Somewhere close. He’d have kept it close, and hidden.”

There’s a buzzing in my head, thoughts fighting for dominance like swarming bees. All I can do is stare at T.J.’s arm around that guy, Curtis, and try to understand. They’re both smiling, mugging for the camera. Curtis’s arm is wrapped around T.J.’s waist. His shoulder pressed into T.J.’s side. T.J.’s fingers gripping Curtis’s shoulder, tugging Curtis closer. A hard half hug. I can remember what T.J.’s one-armed half hugs felt like. But T.J.’s fingers, digging into Curtis’s arm, are too tight. T.J. never hugged me like that. Like he couldn’t get me close enough.

“The letters,” Celia says, her voice more steady. “Curtis wrote them. It wasn’t safe for them to write each other directly — not with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Too risky, for both of them. A lot of the guys in Theo’s old unit knew, but this last tour he was assigned to a new unit. He didn’t really know them yet. A few he especially worried about. One stray letter, one guy who didn’t like him, and there could be trouble. And because of his position, Curtis was always going to be a target — all it would take is one jerk who didn’t think he got a fair shake . . . So, they used my name instead of his on the envelopes, and Theo sent his letters here.”

Buzzing louder, fighting for space with the pounding, tight in my chest, burn creeping up into my throat. It hits me like a punch to the gut.

“No way.” I drop the picture with a clatter of metal on wood. I’m on my feet. The room sways. I fight to keep my balance, using the nubby arm of the couch for a crutch. Have to get out of here. “You’re a fucking liar.”

“Matt, it’s a lot to take in, I know. But calm down. We’ll talk some more. I’ll try to answer any questions. Curtis will be home soon, and then you can talk to him.”

“Fuck.” I’ve gotta get out of here. She tries to touch me and my arm flails away, knocking stuff over as I stumble and bounce toward the door. “Don’t touch me. I don’t believe a word of this crap.”

“They loved each other,” she says, voice cracking.

“Shut up.” I need to get out.

“We kept telling Theo to tell you,” she says, talking faster, louder. “We thought he was going to tell you, on his last visit, because he said he was ready —”

“Shut the fuck up.” The door won’t open. Knob won’t turn.

“Curtis is devastated. Can you try to understand that?” she rasps through angry tears. “After Theo was killed, he fell apart. He’s really struggled. He’s separated from the Army now, and losing Theo . . . He’s lost even more than —”