3
Less than a month after Frank left, Mom put a “for sale” sign in the front yard of the house that backed up to Chippewa Lake. Three days later she signed the papers with the new owners. A week later she had all our things boxed up and packed in the back of our station wagon. Mike and I sat with her in the front bench seat, Joel squeezed in between us.
Three minutes after that, she pulled into a neighborhood across town and told us we were home.
It was a smaller house. Mom called it “cozy.” It needed a bit of fixing up. Mom said it had “charm.” It was set in closer to the other houses than we were used to. Mom said it was “neighborly.”
The day we moved our belongings into that house was the first she’d smiled in too long.
There was little trace of Frank there and only new memories to be made. Memories that wouldn’t include him.
The only trouble was that the old days weren’t so easy to forget. Still, she did her best.
Oma and I hadn’t even reached the front walk before my little brother Joel rushed to the screen door to hold it open for us. At thirteen, he’d grown nearly as tall as me, and I tried to think of when that had happened. It seemed he’d sprouted up overnight.
“Thank you, lieve,” Oma said, reaching up and patting Joel on the arm.
“Well, you’re welcome, Oma.” He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. Then he turned his attention to me. “Did Walt Vanderlaan really send you a letter?”
“How did you hear about that?” I climbed the steps, handing him the paper bag. “That’s for dessert, by the way. Don’t eat it yet.”
“I won’t.” He tried peeking into the bag to see what I’d brought home. “Is it true? Did he?”
“None of your beeswax,” I said. “And try not to tell half the town, all right?”
“Jeepers, Annie. You know I’m good at keeping secrets.”
“Don’t let Mom hear you say ‘jeepers.’ She’ll make you bite a bar of soap for cursing.”
My kid brother was like a tall, lanky teddy bear. A bit of heaven’s mercy for Mom. He did not possess an ill-tempered bone in his body. If ever he did get himself into trouble, it wasn’t out of mean-spiritedness. Usually, it was more that he was one part naive and another part goofball.
Mom had often said, “I can deal with naughty. What I can’t handle is mean.”
In all his thirteen years, I had never known Joel to be mean.
I let him hold the screen door for me, and we found Mom in the dining room, a stack of plates in her arms. Oma had gotten to work already, folding the napkins and putting them at each seat.
“Well, I had to send Mike out to pick up supper,” Mom said. “I hope nobody minds. It was just too hot to cook.”
My mother could do just about anything. She could hem a pair of pants faster than anyone I’d ever met. She kept the doctor’s office organized and running without a single hitch or double-scheduled appointment. Never did she leave the house without every hair in place and her makeup done just so. And she’d brought my brothers and me up with a gentle strictness that kept us in line.
Her one failure was in the kitchen. No matter how hard she tried, she never developed a knack for cooking. She could stick to every instruction of a recipe and somehow still get it all wrong. If she had any insecurity, it was in the fact that she could burn a pan of water even if she kept her eye on it.
“Don’t worry about it, Mom,” Joel said, taking the remaining plates from her and setting them on the table. “We aren’t picky.”
As if on cue, Mike came in, a bucket of fried chicken in one arm and a bag of sides in the other. The mingling aromas of grease and potatoes and biscuits made their way through the room, and I could have sworn I heard Joel’s stomach grumble.
“Hi, everybody,” Mike said, smiling. “Hi, Oma. I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Give that here.” Mom reached for the food, taking it to the table. “Let’s eat it while it’s still hot.”
Mike and I met eyes in the hallway before taking our seats at the dining room table. I raised my eyebrows at him, hoping he’d know what I meant. By the way he nodded, closed his eyes, and smiled, I knew he did.
He mouthed, I will.
The five of us sat around the table, eating fried chicken and coleslaw off Mom’s everyday plates. Conversation hopped from one topic to another. Weather, last night’s church baseball game, stories about the day’s work. Mike, however, didn’t say much, and when asked a question he gave nothing more than one-syllable answers and he hardly ate more than a drumstick and half of his potatoes.
Mom watched him from her seat on the other side of the round table. Her eyes moved from his downturned face to the way he crumpled the napkin in his left hand. It was something he only did when he was anxious, the crumpling of napkins.
“How did your appointment go, Michael?” Mom asked, narrowing her eyes at him. Somehow she kept suspicion out of her voice.
“Huh?” He lifted his eyes to her as if he was surprised to see her sitting there. “My what?”
She smiled and nodded. “You had an appointment today.”
“Right.” He sat up straighter before noticing the wilted napkin in his hand. “That. I was going to tell you . . .”
He trailed off and Mom leaned forward, putting her elbows on either side of her plate and lacing her fingers together.
“I have something to tell you,” Mike said, looking at her and swallowing hard. “You’re going to be mad.”
Joel put his fork down, a pile of potatoes still on it. “What’s going on?”
“Mom, promise you won’t get too upset or worried,” Mike said.
I kicked him under the table to let him know he wasn’t starting things off so well.
“What?” he asked, turning toward me.
“Michael Francis Jacobson, what have you done?” Mom asked, her voice stern and eyebrows lowered. “Is it something to do with that Gaines girl? I told you she was trouble.”
“No, Mom. No,” he said. “Golly.”
“Don’t curse at the table.” She pushed her chair back and shifted to the very edge as if she was preparing to pounce. “I just want to know. What was this appointment about and why didn’t you tell me?”
They locked eyes from across the table. His jaw tightened and he breathed in through flared nostrils. She raised a brow and narrowed her eyes even more. It wasn’t the first time they’d engaged in such a standoff. I nudged Mike with my elbow, hoping to break the seal of tension.
“I enlisted.” He said it so quietly, yet we all heard it like a shout.
“You did what?” Joel asked, turning and squinting at Mike.
“Should I excuse myself?” Oma whispered to me.
“No, please stay,” I said.
“I enlisted in the Army,” Mike said again, his voice stronger.
“Why’d you go and do that for?” Joel’s mouth hung open.
“I was 1-A,” Mike answered. “You know what that means?”
Joel shook his head.
“It means I would have been drafted anyway.” He threw his wrinkled-up napkin onto the table. “I figured it made better sense to join up. At least this way I have a little more choice in how it goes.”
He put his hands in his lap, and I wondered if he was trying to keep the rest of us from seeing how they shook.
“This is why I wanted you to go to college,” Mom said. “You were accepted and everything. You could have avoided all of this. Do you know how many boys would kill to be in that position?”
“How many times did I tell you we’d work the money out?” She waited for him to say something.
“I know you’re angry,” he said. “You have a right to be. Just know, I didn’t see another good choice.”
She leaned into the back of the chair and rubbed at her temples with her fingertips. All the fight had fallen from her face. Eyes softened, she looked at Mike the way she had whenever one of us had skinned up a knee when we were little.
“Mike.” She sighed his name. “Sweetheart, I’m not mad at you.”
“I told the man at the office that I was an Eagle Scout,” Mike said. “He said that was good.”
Mom nodded and bit at her bottom lip. “Maybe they could put you on a desk job.”
“Maybe.” Mike shrugged. “I don’t know what they’ll have me do.”
“When do you leave?” Joel asked. His forehead furrowed, and he blinked faster than usual, the way he always did when he was trying not to cry.
“I go Monday morning for basic training.”
“Gosh, Mike.” Joel shook his head. “But today’s Friday.”
“I know.” Mike couldn’t bring himself to look at Joel. “The sooner I go, the sooner I get back.”
“You’ll do well, honey,” Mom said, standing and reaching across the table to put her hand on his cheek. “I’m proud of you.”
Under the table, Mike grabbed my hand and gave it a quick squeeze before letting it go. I was glad no one asked me to say anything. I wouldn’t have been able to talk if they had. A rock had formed in my throat.
“Annie brought home some dessert,” Mom said, lowering herself back into her chair. “Maybe now would be a good time for that.”
I breathed in relief and stood to get the banket. It was nothing more than flaky crust wrapped around almond paste. Still, I knew it would help. From what I understood about life, there was nothing so bad that a little Dutch pastry couldn’t remedy it.
I sat on my bed, Walt’s letter resting on my lap, trying to remember the last time he’d given me so much as the time of day. All I could think of was when we were in junior high school and he’d made fun of my glasses in front of all his friends, calling me “four eyes.” I recollected how broken my heart was and how I tried to cry secretly so he wouldn’t see. It wasn’t because the boys had laughed or because it was a zinger of an insult. I’d cried because it was Walt who had said it.
Up until then, I’d still considered him my friend even if at school he’d treated me like dirt.
I held the feather that Walt had folded into the letter up to my bedside lamp. It was mostly green with little shimmers of blue and purple. I wondered how something of such beauty could have escaped the world’s notice. But Walt had noticed. And when he did, he had thought of me.
A hissing sound made me jump, and I dropped the feather onto the letter in my lap. Turning, I peeked out my window.
“Psst, Annie,” Jocelyn called from the few feet that separated our houses. She was on the other side of her screened-in window, grinning at me. “Did I scare you?”
“No,” I lied. “I was just reading.”
The first time I saw Jocelyn Falck was when she stepped out of her house and down her front porch for the first day of school. Her family had moved into their house the fall after we’d moved into ours. She had on a red plaid dress and the same kind of saddle shoes I was wearing. When she saw me in my yard, she smiled and waved. That was when I noticed that she had glasses too.
I knew right away that we’d be friends.
Ever since, we’d had nighttime talks through the screens, even sometimes in the winter. I’d never had a friend quite like her.
“How was your day?” she asked, pushing a lock of her dark hair behind her ear.
“All right,” I answered. “Mike joined the Army.”
Her eyes grew wide, and she let her mouth gape. “He did?”
I nodded. “He leaves on Monday.”
“That’s so soon.”
“I know. I’ll tell you about it later.” I shrugged. “How was your day?”
“It was all right, I guess. Just a normal workday.”
Jocelyn worked as a reporter writing articles for the Fort Colson Chronicle. It was a small newspaper operation. Mostly stories about local happenings with a few national stories sprinkled throughout.
“Anything exciting happen?” I asked.
“Nah. It was a slow news day.” She smirked. “I wanted to write up something about the race riots in Florida, but the chief said it was too controversial. So, I interviewed a few fishermen who caught a salmon in Old Chip. So, really, I’m living my dreams of being a serious journalist.”
“Fishing is serious business,” I said.
“Don’t I know it.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, and I guess he’s hiring a second reporter.”
“Huh. That’s interesting.”
“He said he was worried about me quitting to get married and have babies.” She shook her head. “I don’t even want to think about that right now.”
“Well, I have a bit of news. Aside from Mike. You wanna hear it?”
“Of course I do,” she answered, pushing up her wire-rimmed glasses.
“Remember Walt Vanderlaan?”
“Do you realize how many articles I was forced to write about him? Quarterback Walt, homecoming king Walt, valedictorian Walt.” She sighed. “I only wish I could forget. What about him?”
“He sent me a letter,” I said.
“Hold on,” she said. “He did? What did he want?”
“I don’t know.”
“You mean you didn’t read it?” She shook her head. “Annie!”
I slumped, leaning my elbow on the windowsill. “I read it. But it was strange. He sent me a feather.”
“Excuse me? He sent you a feather? From Vietnam? Is that even legal?”
“I don’t know. He said that he remembered how much I liked birds when we were little,” I said. “It’s a bit unsettling. Does that make sense?”
“Yes. He was a bully,” she said. “But why would he write to you? You know he’s engaged to Caroline.”
We both rolled our eyes. The quarterback and the captain of the cheerleading squad. It was the All-American, gag-worthy love story. A story that, in my less proud moments, I found myself envying. Not that I would have ever admitted such a thing, not even to my closest friend.
“Do you think he wants you to write back?” Jocelyn asked.
I nodded. “He asked me to.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t know. Do you think I should?”
She shook her head as if she had no idea what I should do.
“I’m not going to,” I said. “What would I have to say to him? I can’t think of a single thing.”
“Well, if you’re okay with that, I am too.” She looked at her wristwatch. “Gosh, I should go to sleep.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Before she shut off her light, she said my name again.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Mike will be okay, don’t you think?”
“I hope so.”
“He’s really a good guy.” She smiled.
“I guess.”
“No, really. He’s always been good,” she said.
“I’m not sure he ever had the choice not to be.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” She shook her head. “He could have chosen to be horrible. But he didn’t.”
I nodded, that lump forming in my throat again. She told me good night, and we gave each other the peace sign. She turned off her light, and I went back to looking at Walt’s letter, laid flat across my thighs.
“I’m not writing back,” I whispered, as if to make steady my resolve.
Folding the note and sliding it back into its envelope, the feather secured inside, I reached under my bed for the small cedar chest that held certain treasures I liked to keep for just myself.
Opening the lid, I pushed through the items with my finger. A few old coins that Frank had left behind. A postcard from Jocelyn when she’d visited Niagara Falls with her family. A picture of me and Mike sitting in a boat out in the middle of the lake with Grandpa Jacobson, fishing lines in the water.
I dropped the letter in and snapped the lid shut, as if I didn’t want it to fall out and be lost forever. It wasn’t the letter I wanted to keep or the feather even, but the memory. The memory of when Walt had still been good.
Across the hall I could hear Joel and Mike in the room they shared, their low voices nothing but a steady humming sound. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought Mike was probably reassuring our baby brother that all would be well. No matter what happened, we would all be okay.
Mike was constantly reassuring one of us.
He had chosen to be good. He certainly had.