chapter 6 | house no. 13

May, 2008

People. There are too many of them. They are everywhere. People outside wearing cameras and people inside wearing black. People with lasagne. Concerned, sincere faces and sharp, questioning faces. Some I know well, some I know vaguely, some I don’t know at all. There are so many that they’ve stopped ringing the doorbell—they just walk in, invade my home, my personal fortress for their own comfort. Staring at me for signs of weakness. They are vultures, searching for the chink in my armour so they can push their questions, their guilt, their pain on me. It only adds to the leviathan of shame within me. Their eyes are like lead weights on my soul.

Go home. Go away. Go back to your spaces and leave me alone in mine.

After too many handshakes and too many concerned tears, I excuse myself to the solitude of my bedroom. I close the door and stare at the knob for a moment, exhausted with the effort of walking in my own home. I click the lock. A pile of unrecognizable coats towers on my bed, so I sink down and sit on the floor. The phone rings, and I jump, but not as high as I would have before. Family, friends, military officials, government big-wigs and television reporters have all called—my phone has rung off the hook since that awful night. Today I let it ring until someone else answers it. I hate the phone. I don’t want to be big news and I don’t want to talk to people I don’t know. I want this to end.

Oh God, let this end!

After what seems like mere seconds, quiet footsteps sound on the stairs. I steel myself, knowing the knock will come. In this I am not disappointed.

“Mom?”

Maria. I need to be strong for Maria.

“Just a sec, sweetheart.” Everything but the floor groans as I force myself to get up and unlock the door. Maria’s tearstained face peeks through. Her innocent grief shines on her cheeks, and she is more beautiful because of it. So like John.

“Can I come in?” she asks quietly.

“Sure.”

I lock the door after her and then look around. I want to sit with her, hold her, but there is nowhere to rest. The coats have covered everything. It makes me angry. I bend and grab the coats in my arms and throw them onto the floor. To hell with them.

I crawl up onto the bed and lie down, motioning for her to do the same. The scent of John catches me as I pat his pillow. I want to scream. I will never wash his pillowcase again. There’s nothing left for me but a scent.

Maria’s face is shredding me. What’s left of my sanity threatens to evaporate, but I hold on. This is the first chance we’ve had to be alone in days.

Unexpectedly, I find myself as the comforter, not the comforted.

Instead of offering asinine platitudes, I simply hold her and let her cry.

I am forty-four years old. A widowed empty-nester. I abandoned my career at nineteen to follow my husband in a never-ending succession of moves. Correction: in a continuous succession of moves that brought me here, to this place that is not where I’m from—where I have no family and no roots. I’ve been dumped here without choice, like chattel—like a car or a bed or a carpet—as part of his DF&E—Dependents, Furniture, and Effects. In just over eleven months, I won’t even have this place to call my home, and the succession of moves will cease.

“Section II. B. In the case of the service member’s demise, the surviving dependents will be allowed twelve (12) months’ time to vacate the married quarters which they were allocated.”

My husband gave his life to his country. And while he was giving it to them, they took mine from me.

What is left for me to live with? A meager year’s salary. Some retirement savings and mementos from all corners of the earth. An insurance policy which I will likely have to fight to receive, even though my situation is textbook easy—my husband died in uniform, while on duty, due to a tragic accident—the money that is to be mine is tied up in an endless reel of red tape.

I have no home. No future. Nothing.

Somehow I must manufacture the pieces to pick up, put them back together, and keep going.

This is not something I do well.

Maria and the boys can go back to their lives. Their friends, their lovers, their schools, and their jobs. They are young. Years of constant motion have made them resilient. And the immediacy of John’s death only stalls them for a moment.

I can only crash and burn.

After the first week, the people still come, but their faces have changed. They no longer want me to ease their pain. They see their visits as obligations. They check on me because I am the poor widow down the street. I fake-smile and fake-welcome and fake life.

The house is filled with lilies. Creased and rotting white lilies on the table, in the kitchen, on the bookcases—I hate lilies. I have hated lilies since I was seven and the scent of them surrounded me at my grandfather’s funeral. Lilies are death. Their stink follows me into my dreams—lilies and lies haunt me even there. I want to rid myself of both, but I have no starting point and no energy. So I ignore them and they just sit and rot.

After the second week, I have sworn off lasagne forever. My freezer is full of it. A stack of empty, unnamed casserole dishes sits on my counter. At night I wash them by the same sink I stood by on that night, waiting for my husband to come home. I find myself searching the street for his car, listening for the slam of the door, waiting for his kiss on the back of my neck. A chance to gain back what I have lost. A chance to say goodbye. A chance to redeem myself. But all I feel is the subtle draft which this house has, lifting the hairs on the back of my neck like a ghost, while my hands are stained red in the dirty lasagne water.

One by one, the owners retrieve their dishes. I can almost hear the stories they will tell their friends and husbands.

“I went by to see Ellen today! She seemed . . . okay. No, the kids have gone back to the city. I know, it’s so sad!”

In some corner of my mind, I know I would be doing the same thing—if the roles were reversed. I would be sipping hot coffee and speaking in a fake high-pitched voice, bringing muffins and sympathy as I walk through the door. But I am doing none of those things. I am floating alone.

Bob and his wife are my most regular visitors. There are endless reams of paper to sign. Benefits to allocate, futures to plan. Insurance companies to argue with. I hate his briefcase as much as I hate the telephone. I want to burn it, light it with gasoline and throw it out the window. I try and focus for Bob’s sake because I know he just wants to get it over with. But my mind wanders incessantly. Tonight we sit at the kitchen table, drinking hideous black coffee from the coffee shop on the base. The legalese on the paper blurs to gibberish as he reads it to me. I smile and sign. Smile and sign. Beside my hand on the dented oak is an L-shaped burn mark. Beside the pile of death certificates is a pink stain that looks suspiciously like a happy face.

This table used to be a place of joy, a place of promise and hope. Giggles and laughter echo beneath it. As Bob drones on, I see John sitting in his chair, mouth full of food and wide open in triumphant display, and I’m in a different place, a different kitchen, a different home. A high chair sits in front of me, and David is in hysterics, laughing at Daddy’s silly faces. Spaghetti sauce smothers David’s cheeks. Noodles stick to the tray, the seat, the floor, and David’s hair. My heart is so full, sitting here watching my two favorite men laugh.

But time shifts in an instant. In this time, this place, nobody’s laughing.