“I’ve got it,” a woman from the team said softly, pen and notebook ready.
Captain Wilson gathered a stack of papers from his leather briefcase, and tugged at his tie, making a minor adjustment. “There’s another child, correct?” He shuffled through a few of his papers until he selected a form. “August Howard?”
“Gus is upstairs,” I answered, taking the seat on the other side of Mom, closest to Captain Wilson. I clutched the black binder I’d gotten out of Mom’s office. It was the very last item in the filing cabinet, just like Dad had told me before he left. “I haven’t told him yet.”
“Would you like me to?” Captain Wilson asked softly. I briefly considered it. Mom was in no state to discuss it with him, and Captain Wilson had probably been trained to deliver information like that. I couldn’t do it though, let a stranger alter the universe of my little brother.
“No. I’ll do it myself.”
April began crying again, but Mom sat as still as ever, vacant, not really here with us. “I want to give him as long as possible before I have to. His world is still normal. He doesn’t know that nothing will ever be the same for him.” I bit back my own sob. “He’s seven years old and everything he knows just ended. So I think I’ll give him just another few minutes.” Before I tear him to pieces. My skin flushed as new tears came to the surface. I supposed that was the way things would go for a while. I needed to get better at pushing them back.
Captain Wilson cleared his throat and nodded his head. “I can understand that.” He explained his role to us, that he would be our guide to Dad’s casualty process. He would help us through the paperwork, the ceremony, the things no one saw coming. In a way, he was our handler, sent here to be a buffer between our grief and the United States Army. I was thankful for him just as much as I hated his sheer existence.
He would be with us until we told him we no longer needed him.
After he finished his explanation, the barrage of questions began. April excused herself, saying she had to lie down. There was no doubt in my mind that within a few minutes, this would all go public on Facebook. April was never one to suffer in silence.
The questions started, and I opened the black binder. Dad’s handwriting was scrawled all over the pages of his will, his life insurance policy, and his last wishes, all the paperwork carefully organized for this exact moment. Did we know where he wanted to be buried? What kind of casket he wanted? Was there anyone we wanted with us? Was the bank account correct for the life insurance money to be deposited? Did we want to fly to Dover to meet his remains while the army prepared him for burial?
Dover. It was like crossing the army’s version of the river Styx.
Mom remained silent, staring at that blank television as I found the answers to what he asked. No question pulled her from her stupor, no tug of her hand, no whisper of her name could bring her back to where I was desperate for her to be. It was becoming blatantly obvious that I was alone. “Is there someone we can call to help make these decisions with your mother?” His mouth tightened as he slipped a discreet glance toward my mother. I was unsure how many shocked widows he’d seen in his career, but Mom was my first.
Grams was a day away. Because she was Dad’s mom, I knew the army had officially notified her, just as we had been. No doubt she was already on her way, but until she got here, there was no one else. Mom’s parents were dead. Her brother had never been around much in our lives, and I couldn’t see a good reason to bring him in now. “There’s just me,” I replied. “I’ll take responsibility for the decisions until she can.”
“Ember?” Gus’s small voice came from the steps where he stood. “What’s going on?”
I placed Mom’s hand back in her lap. It wasn’t like she noticed I was holding it anyway. After the deepest breath ever taken, I walked over to my little brother. I sat down next to him on the steps and repeated everything we knew in seven-year-old terms, which wasn’t anything really. But I had to repeat the one thing we knew for certain. “Daddy isn’t coming home, Gus.”
Little blue eyes filled with tears, and his lower lip began to quiver. “Did the bad guys get him?”
“Yes, baby.” I pulled him into my arms and held him, rocking him back and forth like I had when he was an infant, our parents’ miracle baby. I brushed his hair back over his forehead and kissed him.
“But it’s your birthday.” His warm tears soaked through my running shirt and immediately chilled as I held him as tightly as possible. I would have done anything to take away this pain, to unsay what I knew had to be said. But I couldn’t take the bullet from Dad.
Gus cried himself out while Captain Wilson sat, patiently observing my mother and her nonresponse. I wondered how long it would be until words like “medicate” and “psychologist” were brought up. My mother was the strongest person I knew, but she’d always stood on the foundation that was my father.
Once the last of his little sobs shook his body, I asked him what he needed, if there was anything I could do to make this better for him. “I want you to have cake and ice cream.” He lifted his head off my chest and squeezed my hand. “I want it to be your birthday.”
Panic welled within me, my heart rate accelerating, tears pricking my eyes. Something fierce and terrible clawed at my insides, demanding release, demanding acknowledgment, demanding to be felt. I grimaced more than smiled and nodded my head exuberantly, cupping Gus’s sweet face. I turned my attention to Captain Wilson. “Can we take a ten minute break?”
The captain nodded slowly, as though he sensed I was close to losing it, his one stable person in a house of grieving women and children. “Is there anything you need?”
“Could you please call my Grams and check on her? She lost her husband in Vietnam . . .” It was all I could force out. I inched closer to the inevitable scream that welled up within my body.
“I can do that.”
I kissed Gus’s forehead, grabbed my keys, and ran out the door before I didn’t have the strength to stand any longer. I flung myself into the driver’s seat of my Volkswagen Jetta, my high school graduation present from my parents. Dad wanted me in something safe so I could make it home on weekends from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Too bad he wasn’t as protected in Afghanistan.
I forced the key into the ignition, cranked the engine, and backed out of the driveway too quickly. I tore down the hill, taking the curves, heedless with my safety for the first time since I got my driver’s license. In front of the grocery store, the stoplight turned red, and I became aware of the chill seeping into me, making my fingers tingle. The car read seventeen degrees outside, and I was still dressed for treadmill running. I hadn’t grabbed my coat. I parked the Jetta and walked into the grocery store, thankful for the numbing sensation in my arms and heart.
I found the bakery section and crossed my arms. Cake. Gus wanted a cake, so I would get him one. Chocolate. Vanilla. Strawberry. Whipped icing. Buttercream icing. There were too many choices. It was just a damned cake! Why did I need that many choices? Who cared? I grabbed the one nearest to me and headed for the ice cream section where I snatched a quart of chocolate chip cookie dough on autopilot.
I was halfway to the checkout counter when I ran into a small family. They were average: mom, dad, one boy, one girl. They laughed as they decided what movie to rent for that night, and the little girl won, asking for The Santa Clause. How was it possible these people were having such a normal day, such a normal conversation? Didn’t they understand the world had just ended?
“You know, they’ll write on that for you if you want his name on it.” The masculine voice broke me from my train of thought, and I looked up into a somewhat familiar set of brown eyes underneath a worn CU hat. I knew him, but couldn’t remember how. He was achingly familiar. Of course I would take note of a guy as hot as this one. But in a university with forty thousand other students, there was always someone who looked familiar, and there were very few who I could actually name, or even remember the details of how we’d met. With a face and body like that, I should have remembered this guy, even this shell-shocked.
The guy was waiting for me to say something.