Fort Hamilton’s farewell party was being held in a local church basement. Banners were hung from rafters: ALWAYS IN OUR HEARTS, ALWAYS IN OUR PRAYERS and SERVICE IN THE NATION’S HONOR. Everywhere were black-and-gold army stars, Reserve insignia, and posters of men and women in uniform.
“For once we get our own digs,” Eddie said. “I lose my appetite when I have to stare too long at the jarhead paraphernalia.” Fort Hamilton served army, Marine, and navy units, so the intraunit slagging was frequent.
“Screw the jarheads,” Otis said, testing the waters. Lacey watched to see if he would get reprimanded, but on this day her uniformed husband grinned and made a you-got-it noise.
“But the navy’s okay, right?” Otis went on. “Jon Weible’s dad is in it. So is Ross’s, and—”
“The navy is just fine,” Eddie said. “Don’t let anyone tell you different: they do an absolutely fantastic job”—the other two waited for the punch line—“of getting us real soldiers to where we do the fighting.”
Otis whooped, and Lacey didn’t shush him. The three of them were united in high spirits this afternoon. Eddie was packed and ready; he would ship out day after tomorrow. He looked so fine, she thought, in the dress blues they had carefully pressed and laid out for him. Lacey had never thought she’d be so familiar with an iron, but she now owned four different kinds of spray starch. She caught Eddie patting down the sides of his mustache, a nervous habit—he’d spent forty minutes this morning trimming it in the bathroom.
Early on, she used to tease him about it: how’d he get away with a mustache, given those tight-ass commanders? Until one day he actually showed her a PDF of the Uniform/Appearance reqs, scrolling down until he found the right page. “See? That’s me.” Sure enough, there was a meticulous line drawing of authorized mustache length, shape, and fullness—Eddie’s matched it so perfectly, it could have been a picture of him.
Mustaches are permitted; if worn, males will keep mustaches neatly trimmed, tapered, and tidy. Mustaches will not present a chopped off or bushy appearance, and no portion of the mustache will cover the upper lip line or extend sideways beyond a vertical line drawn upward from the corners of the mouth (see figure 1-1). Handlebar mustaches, goatees, and beards are not authorized. If appropriate medical authority prescribes beard growth, the length required for medical treatment must be specified. Soldiers will keep the growth trimmed to the level specified by appropriate medical authority, but they are not authorized to shape the growth into goatees, or “Fu Manchu” or handlebar mustaches.
Lacey had laughed until she couldn’t breathe. “No ‘Fu Manchu’? No handlebars? Oh my God, I wish they had a drawing of that.”
Eddie tried to close the document, but she blocked him, sitting on his lap at the computer. Back when he let her do stuff like that. “Yeah, well, that’s the army,” he muttered. “You should see the section on tattoos.”
“What does this mean about beards getting the okay from medical authority? If you’re in sick bay, they cut you a little slack?”
“Nah, that’s if you get your face torn up by shrapnel they don’t make you keep shaving right over that.” Lacey had felt chilled, lightly reprimanded. A glimpse of what she was getting into.
Now in the church hall Otis saw two of his buddies and ran off to join them by the punch table. Eddie was standing as straight and tall as he could, shoulders back. As usual at one of these events, Lacey had worn her flat boots; she had an inch (or two) on her husband, which, she’d learned, was not to be joked about.
Kids were gathered around a man twisting balloons into animal shapes; the older ones around a couple of coin-op video games. There was a DJ playing easy Motown hits, and three long tables were set up with food and drink. Soldiers wandered around in greens and blues, covers on; occasionally it was the husband in civilian clothes.
“Should we hit that first?” Lacey meant the table where his commanding officers sat. “Get it out of the way?”
“Nah, I’ll take care of it. You go on, get some food.”
“Really? I don’t mind.” She was relieved to see that the CO wives were in jeans too, like the nice dark pair she’d settled on. Although her Forever 21 blazer was wrong, too uptight, probably too tight. Those women, so sleek and confident, wore thin cardigans and not much jewelry. Lacey tried to look unobtrusive as she slid out her dangly chandelier earrings and tucked them in her purse.
“Where’ve you guys been?” It was Martine, in a short black dress. “Otis found our table—we’re over there. Get me more of the potato salad, all right? And some rolls?”
Later, a chaplain led a prayer, but his microphone cut in and out, interspersing his words with feedback squeal and thumps and finally a long silence. People lifted their heads to check on the status, was he done? He was. Then a performance of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” by a youth chorus. Finally, the chair of the FRG program—a woman named Anne Mackay—said a few words. Lacey made a sour look back at Martine, who couldn’t stand these perfect types, but in truth she watched with envy and admiration. Anne Mackay was a child psychotherapist with soft brown hair and a funny, self-deprecating manner; her husband was a captain. They had been to the Mackays’ home near the base once. Lacey’s eyes had roved the spacious rooms: all the books, all the strange art—real paintings, not posters. She wanted to scoff at Anne like Martine did, but she couldn’t deny that the woman was good at this. She made a face at the malfunctioning mike, and stepped away from it, raising her voice naturally to carry throughout the hall. She talked about how hard it was the first time her husband was deployed, how it was her friends in the FRG who saved her. There was the night two girlfriends stayed over until 1:00 a.m. to help her glue two hundred sugar cubes onto a plastic bowl for her kid’s history project (igloos). The morning everything had gone wrong and she dropped her car keys into a nasty pool of watery mud, and just lost it, how she had called a mil-wife friend who let her vent and cry until it was time to roll up her sleeves and fish around in the sewer water, alone.
“Now I’m sure some of you have seen that TV show,” she said, to laughter. “And whether it represents what our lives are like, I think I’ll just … reserve my comments on that. Find me over a glass of wine later, and we’ll talk.
“But I will say that the show with that title has made me think. Am I just an ‘army wife’? Are you? What does that really mean in today’s world? I have a job, a life, kids … this isn’t my whole world, you know?” Women nodded, clapped.
“And yet, I am an army wife. I’m proud of it. And I know you are too. So let’s be there for each other—army husbands too, I’m not forgetting you guys!—during this next year. God bless our troops, and God bless America.” Amid the cheers and applause, Lacey was surprised by tears, which she quickly blotted away with her napkin.
“What’d you get?” she said to Otis, who was unwrapping a gift that had been passed out to all the kids at their table, and throughout the hall.
He held it up. “Laaaaame.”
It was a book called Daddy, Come Home! Helping Kids with Deployment. The cover featured a cartoon of a saluting dad in uniform with two kids looking up at him, smiling mom observing it all.
Martine leaned over to Lacey and read in a whisper from the introduction, “‘Deployment can be hardest on parents left at home who are not only contending with their own anger, sadness and fear, but must deal with misbehavior issues stemming from their children’s anger, sadness and fear.’ Super. Really psyches you up, huh?”
Her husband Greg raised a hand, a toddler on his lap. “Uh, did someone just say that deployment is hardest on the folks at home?” A couple of guys laughed. Martine tossed a balled-up napkin at him. Eddie was looking elsewhere, scanning the room.
Otis pulled the book away from his mom. He and another boy took turns reading aloud in a high, whining voice: “Daddy, I miss you!” “Let’s draw a picture together of the United States flag. Isn’t that a special symbol?” “Punching a pillow is a good idea to get your anger out. Punch, punch!” “But Daddy, I miss you!”
“That’s enough,” Lacey said, taking Otis’s book away. “Knock it off. Go see if they put out the ice cream.”
Another woman, a friend of Martine’s, said, “You guys’ll think I’m crazy, but I’m actually having one of those Deployment Dolls made for Tara. You seen those? Hug-a-Hero dolls?”
“What are they?”
“I can give you the Web site. You send in a photo of your soldier in uniform, and she prints the image on fabric and makes a stuffed doll out of it. It’s about a foot tall.”
Lacey said nothing. The woman blushed. “Believe me, I thought it was creepy at first too. But my girlfriend is at Fort Hood, and she said it really helped her daughter with the stress of it all. She sleeps with it every night.”
“What’s the Web site?” Martine asked. “They’re not just for girls, are they?”
A doll wasn’t going to help Otis, though. Lacey watched him goof around with the other boys. A chubby kid with glasses, Otis resembled her more than his father, thank God. He had Lacey’s sandy-colored hair and dark blue eyes. The last time Eddie was away it hadn’t seemed to bother Otis that much—or maybe she hadn’t been able to tell. But now that he was older … how hard would it be for him? Lacey knew that it was “cool,” among his friends, to have a soldier dad—most of his buddies did. And she wanted him to have access to every scrap of cool he could afford. Middle school wasn’t easy for a sweet, slower guy like Otis.
“Excuse me, is one of you Lacey Diaz?”
Anne Mackay stood at their table with a clipboard, tucking a piece of hair behind an ear.
“Oh man, am I in trouble already?” She stood up, yanking her blazer down. “I’m Lacey.”
“Of course! So sorry, I know we’ve met before.” They shook hands. “Do you have a second? I don’t want to interrupt your lunch.” Anne led her away from the table a few feet.
“Thanks for the books, by the way.” Lacey held up Daddy, Come Home! “I’m assuming they’re from you.”
Anne made a face. “You know, a friend of mine donated them so we felt they had to be given out, but … honestly, I know it’s not right for your boy’s age. He’s what, eleven or twelve?”
“Twelve.” Lacey was impressed.
“Well, we’ve got something better planned for later. Tell him not to worry. But listen, I’ve been hearing such great things about your FRG volunteer work—”
“Oh…”
“And I’m hoping to ask you for a favor. I’m starting a series of weekly counseling groups for wives, and I was wondering if you’d run one for me up in Yonkers. As an informal leader, of course. I’ll handle the base groups with more serious issues around depression, anxiety, substance abuse … but yours would basically be a group of women who come together in a safe space to talk about their feelings during deployment. Managing stress, nightmares, how to deal with the news—that kind of thing.”
“But you’re a therapist, and I’ve never done anything like that.” Never even needed therapy, Lacey thought.
“That’s perfectly fine. Like I said, you’d be an informal discussion leader, just kind of helping the women feel welcomed, and encouraging people to talk—or to take turns listening, as the case may be. I have a feeling, especially with your volunteer expertise, that you’ll be great. And you might also get a lot out of it.”
Lacey hadn’t really thought of herself as being a volunteer “expert,” but she liked the sound of it. For a moment she imagined herself holding a clipboard and wearing ballet flats like Anne’s, holding out a box of tissues and murmuring, “Tell me about your mother.”
“I guess … Sure, okay. I’ll have to figure out my work schedule, and—”
“Oh, fabulous,” Anne said. “This year we really need some of the older wives to step up—I mean,” she said, waving her hand across her face. “Scratch that. Not older, but…”
“Wiser. I’ll set a good example, with all my wisdom.”
Anne held out her pen. “If you can put down your e-mail, I’ll be in touch and we’ll work out all the details.”
When she returned to their table Martine mouthed, “What was that all about?”
“I think I just became a shrink.” But Lacey’s eyes were on Eddie, talking with some of the younger men in berets who had come over to say hello, nervous around their major. Eddie put them at ease; he stood up when they approached, and spoke quietly, making them laugh. No one could have a better company leader. He’d take care of them; they’d have his back.
Lacey twisted her hair up into a knot; a powerful surge of pride hit her hard. Two days, only two days until he left. She stood abruptly and began to stack up the table’s empty cups, paper plates. The DJ was spinning Bob Seger and she wanted a drink bad, deep down, a cold pull. You think they’d have some beer at least.
“Where you going?” Martine said. “Leave that stuff, don’t worry about it.”
“I’m good.” Lacey dumped the trash and went over to Otis, who was crowded next to the couple of arcade games. “You doing okay?” He nodded without looking at her. She gave him a five-dollar bill, said she would be right back. The church hallway was quiet, empty. Lacey wandered up and down past darkened offices and child care rooms until she found what she was looking for. Then she hurried back to the main room.
“C’mere,” she whispered to Eddie. “I need you for something.” He frowned but allowed himself to be tugged away from their group. She led him quickly down the hall; there probably wasn’t much time.
“Where we going?”
“Just … in here, right in here.” She pulled him into the small supply room and shut the door behind them before he could protest. Lacey kissed Eddie, pressing her body against his. Startled, for a few seconds he kissed her back, before breaking away.
“Lace. What are you doing? What is this?”
“What am I doing?” She put her face in the crook of his neck, ran both hands up the inside of his thighs. “You tell me.”
“This is nuts. Come on…” A sharpness of bleach burned her eyes. She kissed him again, rubbing his crotch through the pressed blue fabric until she felt him get hard. “We gotta get back out there,” Eddie mumbled against her mouth, but his hand went dutifully up her shirt and into her bra. “This is a church,” he pointed out, thumbing her nipple. Lacey moaned. She unbuckled his belt, pushing the dress coat up and out of the way. Medals clinked.
“No. Let’s wait. Tonight, okay?” Lacey hated that chuckling sound in his voice.
“Let me go down on you,” she begged, opening his pants. “I’ll do it quick, you know I can—”
“Not here! This is—”
When her mouth reached his skin he shut up for a moment. The quiet in the janitor’s closet was broken only by Eddie’s sharp intake of breath. Then he pushed her aside and Lacey rocked backward off her heels where she’d been squatting. Eddie had pushed her aside hard. He turned away to zip up. “Jesus, Lacey. What’s wrong with you?” Sprawled on the cold concrete, she gaped up at him, her husband.
He tried to help her stand but she scrambled to her feet, pissed. They faced each other in the smelly dark. “It’s my boss out there! And Otis, and—”
“I know! Forget it!” She shut her eyes. “Go back. I’ll be there in a sec.”
“But why would you—”
“Go!” She kicked a wheeled mop bucket and sent it crashing. He left. Lacey stalked around the small space, hands over her ears. What would Anne Mackay think now? I always fuck it up. Eddie’s face … Bewildered. Kind of angry. And—yes—disgusted, a little. If she didn’t have to go back out there, Lacey would have smacked herself in the face, again and again. Instead she let humiliation jet through her, and left the closet with it still flooding her insides.