The Home Front (2 page)

* * *

Rose had always been a take-charge kind of woman, the kind Todd’s mother would have called a gal, not without a note of warning in her voice. She was working at a used car lot when they met. In sales. She was the only woman on the floor, needless to say. A woman is no more apt to buy a car from another woman than a man is. It’s like having a female cardiologist, something you’d only do if you landed in an emergency room with no other option. The same is true in combat, for that matter. If you’re relying on your buddies to bail you out of an ambush, the more testosterone the better. It’s how everybody feels deep down, when their lives are on the line.

All the salesmen were busy helping other customers. Todd felt self-conscious when she approached him. He couldn’t help noticing her legs, which was annoying at first. He was looking to buy a pickup, not pick up chicks.

“I need a truck,” he said in self-defense.

“You’re in luck,” she said. “I’ve got a Chevy. A real beauty.”

At first he thought she was joking. She sounded like a shyster in some B-movie about gangsters bootlegging behind used car fronts. Except that there was no cigar hanging out of the side of her mouth. Far from it. She wore bright red lipstick, a shade she only wore at work, it turns out. The job demanded a certain brassiness she performed on command. It was like talking to a ventriloquist. She looked at him sideways, the way salesmen tend to look at you when they’re sizing you up.

“I usually buy Fords.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

She dangled the keys just out of reach. Various parts of his body jumped when he looked at her outstretched hand. Her nail polish was several shades darker than her lipstick. He checked her fourth finger and she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. He bought the Chevy.

A year later, they were both wearing wedding rings. They lived in a rented duplex on the base the first four months of their marriage, a blissful period between tours in Iraq. One thing could be said for military life. It could prolong the honeymoon, provided you were lucky enough to have a wife who didn’t punish you for overseas deployments. Todd’s unit was gearing up for their second stint in Anbar Province. They were scheduled to fly out the day after Rose turned thirty. All the more reason to make it a birthday to remember.

There was no doubt in Todd’s mind what Rose wished for every year she blew out the candles. She had a thing for sports cars. She thought it was the guys driving them she liked until she climbed into the driver’s seat of a Jaguar. She may not have been the first person on the planet to get a speeding ticket test-driving a Jag. But you can bet the cop wasn’t expecting to find a woman at the wheel. She never thought she’d actually own a sports car, especially now that she was married to an air force officer. Not exactly a lucrative profession, but a girl can dream. Out loud. A lot.

Todd couldn’t see the appeal, frankly. Guys with four-wheel drive rarely appreciate the finer points of cars that can fit into the beds of their pickups. But he had to admit that the idea of his wife jamming a stick was worth the price of admission. She might have to settle for a used Corvette. Even then he’d practically have to mortgage his mother to come up with the money. Then an impossible deal on a Jaguar turned up. A steal, as Rose would have said in her used car lot days. A fellow officer at the base had to unload it quickly to stave off alimony lawyers. He was older but not too old to relish the idea of Todd’s hot wife sitting in the driver’s seat. His fantasy was simultaneously paternalistic and predatory. He was fond of Todd and wished him better luck than he had with women.

Miraculously, the Jaguar was black, Rose’s favorite car color. Todd arranged to have his friend Bill deliver the present while he and Rose were eating birthday breakfast on the front porch. Bill was almost as excited as Todd. They fashioned a big red bow out of crepe paper and duct tape. News of the birthday present must have traveled across the base. Virtually all the guys had crushes on Rose. Inordinate numbers were taking strolls past the Barrons’ house when the Jaguar rolled up, sleek and festive with that big bow on its hood.

Rose’s eyes lit up when she caught sight of it, but the rest of her face remained impassive. Todd could see she was trying not to get her hopes up. It was her birthday and there was a Jaguar parked in her driveway. But girls like her didn’t own sports cars. She had been raised with very modest expectations, which made surprising her easy and all the more enjoyable. Sometimes Todd wished he had pursued a more lucrative profession so she’d have that look on her face more often.

Bill jumped out and made a show of polishing the hood of the car with his sleeve. Then he joined the dozens of soldiers watching from the street. Rose kept looking back and forth, from the car to Todd’s face, trying to figure out what was going on. Then all the guys started singing “Happy Birthday.” Rose’s eyes were flashing with excitement, but she still couldn’t believe it.

“What’s going on, Todd?”

“It’s yours, baby. Happy birthday.”

She threw her arms around him and all the guys started clapping and whistling. She was anything but prudish. Neither were they. But there was something so inherently sexual about the whole scene they started to disperse. Rose was blushing the color of the ribbon and she had never looked more beautiful. Todd had the impulse to pick her up and carry her to the car, but the gesture seemed out of place. This present was all about Rose being in the driver’s seat, not him.

“Let’s take her for a spin.”

They ran out to the driveway, holding hands. Rose circled the car several times, dragging Todd along to look at every gleaming inch of her. She made him pet the hood ornament before they climbed in. When her bare legs touched the leather seat, she collapsed deep into its embrace. The car fit her like a glove.

Jaguars purr. When she turned the key in the ignition the engine vibrated smooth and steady and low to the ground, ready to pounce. She glanced over at Todd. He’d been watching her the whole time. His face looked like the car sounded. She caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror. She looked like the morning after, and they hadn’t even left the driveway.

The security checkpoint guards must have also heard about the Jaguar. They waved her through the gate so she wouldn’t have to slow down. Rose hit the highway already doing seventy. It felt like they were crawling along until they hit ninety. The highway shot straight as an arrow through the desert. Occasional trucks flew by, trailing quick blasts of wind in their wakes. Otherwise there was nothing but the open road and gas stations spaced at strategic intervals, like pit stops.

Todd couldn’t take his eyes off Rose’s hands on the wheel. She let it play through her fingers and then gripped it tightly. The alternating delicacy and mastery drove him crazy. He knew exactly what her hands felt like, taking control that way. Rose was keenly aware of the focus of Todd’s attention. His thigh flexed every time she reached for the stick. Gripping the wheel was a way to steady herself, not the car, to postpone the inevitable as long as possible.

The faster they went, the less clear the distinction between car and driver. Everything was close at hand, intimate. She could flick every switch on the dash without taking her hands off the wheel. The proximity of the engine made every pumping piston feel like an extension of her body. The pavement itself was just inches away, within reach. They could feel it unfurl beneath them, miles and miles of open road with a magnetic vanishing point pulling them faster and farther, irresistibly.

Rose spotted the motel first, a classic roadhouse with flashing neon signage and several semis parked out back. She screeched into the parking lot and told Todd to wait in the car. She disappeared into the office, emerging a minute later with keys dangling from the forefinger of the same hand that had so recently gripped the stick. They spent the afternoon in Room 27.

The Jaguar never lost its luster. Rose was one of those women who could make everything new over and over again, just when Todd feared they might sink into a routine. Before the kids were born, they took road trips every chance they got. They stopped at sleazy motels to commemorate their maiden voyage. When Todd was deployed overseas, the Jag hibernated in the garage. Rose would sit in it periodically, to reminisce in its leather embrace, but driving without Todd felt masturbatory. It just made her feel more lonely.

When Maureen was born they still managed quickies on Saturday afternoons. They told babysitters they were spending the day at the mall. After Max’s diagnosis, the Jag languished in the garage while they figured out the complicated logistics of his treatment. The expense was mind-boggling. They discussed the possibility of Rose getting a job to help pay for the army of neurologists, allergists, nutritionists, and therapists conscripted to rescue Max from his solipsistic fortress. A second income was out of the question. Rose would be needed full-time at home to coordinate the troops. Their son’s brain was like a time bomb that would implode rather than explode if they couldn’t manage to rewire its circuitry by the age of four or five. Every second counted.

Todd pored over spreadsheets, shifting nonexistent money back and forth to cover the cost of the rescue mission. They discussed cashing in Todd’s pension plan, in spite of the penalties. Without a mortgage to leverage cash, their only option was to rack up credit card debt. Even then, bankruptcy was just a matter of time. They considered every option, no matter how farfetched, knowing full well as they schemed late into the night that there was one simple, tragic solution. The Jaguar.

Todd surprised Rose one Friday afternoon, coming home for lunch without calling ahead. He brought a babysitter along, a nurse from the base so Rose would agree to leave Max in capable hands for a few hours. His head-banging had gotten to the point where they couldn’t trust him with regular sitters. The last one had called 9-1-1, scaring him half to death. With the exception of trips to doctors and pharmacies, Rose had been housebound for weeks, tending to Max.

That morning, Rose finished interviewing potential ABA therapists. She offered the job to Sasha, an abnormal psych graduate student with a little brother on the spectrum. The fact that Sasha didn’t consider her brother abnormal convinced Rose she was right for the job. She was scheduled to begin work the following Monday, the official start date of Max’s treatment program. All that remained was to set up the payment plan.

“Grab your purse,” Todd said.

“Where are we going?” Rose asked.

“To the mall.”

They revved up the Jag for one last vertiginous spree on the open road. They raced by one sleazy motel after another without even slowing down. Todd couldn’t tell if she was angry or just too sad to consummate the trip. When they got back home, Rose parked out front. She left the keys in the ignition. They hadn’t talked about a thing, had just driven to the vanishing point and back in silence. Her sixth sense had already relinquished the Jaguar.

“You’ll have to go without me,” she said. “I can’t bear it.”

It was almost five and the dealership would be closing for the day. Todd climbed out of the passenger seat for the last time. He had prepared a speech about how selling the car didn’t mean forfeiting the feelings attached to it. Actually naming the feelings would be impossible, but Rose would know what he meant. She was already halfway across the lawn. He called her name and she disappeared into the house, pretending not to hear. She hadn’t even said good-bye to the hood ornament.

* * *

Max always lined up his potatoes in two rows of four. Todd appreciated the military precision of the configuration. He knew he shouldn’t. There was something terribly wrong with a boy who would only eat round, tan foods. Most of Max’s dinner was on the floor halfway across the room. Green beans were not tan. Tofu steaks were not round. Rose refused to stop dishing a full meal onto his plate, no matter where it ended up. Max’s behavioral therapist insisted that giving in to his whims would reinforce them, and all would be lost. Todd understood this to mean they were engaged in a battle of wills. Max versus everybody else. He couldn’t help admiring his son’s determination. It had been months since he’d eaten anything that wasn’t round and tan.

Everyone was pretending they were a perfectly normal family eating a perfectly normal dinner. Rose was helping herself to another gooey dollop of tofu surprise. Todd was politely refusing seconds, having already devoured a Big Mac and fries on the way home from work. A preemptive strike. Maureen was clamoring for dessert. Once she finished her so-called meal there was nothing to do but badger her parents. Teasing her younger brother was no fun. He barely knew she existed.

“What’s for dessert?”

“I already told you,” Rose said. “Carob sorbet.”

“Can I watch videos until you guys finish eating?”

“How many times do I have to say no, young lady?”

Maureen was sick and tired of her mother’s random rules. She turned to her father, hoping she could leverage him more effectively. In her experience, fathers were pushovers. They weren’t around enough to keep track of all the regulations laid down by mothers, who apparently had nothing better to do than sit home all day terrorizing their children. Fathers went to work and earned what they called a living, which gave them the right to be grumpy when they got home.

“Daddy?”

“You heard your mother.”

“I’m bored.”

“Smart people don’t get bored.”

“What do they do?”

“They make conversation.”

“Yada yada yada.”

“Tell us about your day at school.”

Todd was careful to pay as much attention as possible to Maureen. Having an autistic brother was like sharing the nest with a gorilla. Miraculously, she didn’t seem to mind all that much. She was a classic eldest child whose ego was even bigger than the gorilla. Rose attributed it to the fact that Maureen was a Leo. Max was a Sagittarius, but either autism or his rising sign must have eclipsed his sunny disposition. Given the circumstances, their daughter was remarkably well-adjusted. She tripped off to school without throwing tantrums. She played with her dolls without ripping their heads off. She ate her supper without herding it into two rows of four.