A Tattered Yellow Ribbon
(Soldier Boys – Book 1)
by
Rebecca Milton
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Copyright © 2014 - Rebecca Milton. All rights reserved.
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A Tattered Yellow Ribbon
Even in rooms where the sun floods, where hints of laughter from other rooms can be heard, there is a silence that runs deep, runs hard, under it all. He sits for hours, for days, in semi-darkness, a darkness as much interior as exterior.
In his mind, a cinema—what has happened, what was done, what was seen—plays in an endless loop that only he can see. Only he, absorbing the images playing again and again. There is no one to turn to. No one in the seat next to him that he can lean to, whisper, ask, did that awful thing really just happen? No one he can leave the room with, sit and drink coffee with, exchange the feelings with. He is alone in the crushing cinema of a repetitive hell. Day after day after day.
When friends come to visit, they walk on thin glass eggshells. They laugh too hard and smile too much. They pat his back, recall old times, and remember the funny thing that this one said or that one did. They work hard. When they leave, they pause at the door, look in her eyes, lie that he seems better, that it will be better, soon, soon. They offer tentative hugs and solemn handshakes.
She agrees, says she sees the difference, and says their coming by means the world. She drops iron shield behind her eyes because tears would confuse and make them uncomfortable. There is already too much confusion and discomfort. She doesn’t want to add to it. That’s not her place.
Her place is moving forward. Her place is cooking the meals, going to work, coming home with smiles and filling the ever deepening void with words. Words, words, words. At him, for him, around him. Sometimes there are good days, perfect moments of yes, there he is, and so she talks with him. But only sometimes.
She has learned, hard-earned this lesson, the three questions never to ask:
How are you?
Are you okay?
Can I do anything?
Those are the standards, the big ones, the never changing ones. Others—questions that may elicit a bad reaction—range from, did you want something to eat to, I’m doing a load of whites, do you have anything to put in, and all manner of questions in between. She never knows. She never knows because he never knows. So, they move around each other, neither knowing.
There are the fears she has now. Walking into the house, calling his name, getting no response. Then, the rush of the heart, the fear in the mind. She checks the driveway through the front window, did she see the car, maybe he’s gone out to... No, car is there.
Now she runs the rooms, the bathroom, is he there, on the toilet doing normal human things? She knocks. No answer. Is he not answering because he is in the tub naked, wrists slashed, his face blue from pills killing his ability to breathe? She pushes the door open, no resistance so his body isn’t on the floor, blocking the door. Downstairs, the kitchen? No. Basement? No.
She stands, hands to head, looking around the main room. She hears music, looks out the back windows and sees him. He is in the back yard, radio on, attached with an extension cord to the socket by the flower beds. He’s listening to music and raking leaves. Just raking leaves like anyone does on a Saturday.
She puts her hands to her mouth and pushes the cries back down her throat. Fights the tears back. Shakes, her body shaking so hard she swears she can feel the bones rattle. She stands, holding herself, calming herself. Thanking God, blaming God, hating God.
When she is calm, when she is together, she casually steps out back, gives him a wave. He waves back, smiles, gestures around the yard, showing off his work. Showing the bags of leaves, the clear grass. She steps off the porch and walks down to him. He leans his face forward, and she kisses him. Like old times, like the times before he left and came back and bought that ticket to the cinema in his head. He tells her what he has left to do, branches to trim, turn the soil in the vegetable garden, going to grow tomatoes this year. Then, mow the lawn. He is flushed and ruddy. His eyes are bright.
She sees him, the man she saw at the state fair, at a community dance, at a baseball game. She sees him, and she can feel the ache, starting at her toes and rolling up her body. She smiles, tells him she’s going to raise his allowance, and he jokes he wants to take the car that night and meet the boys. She asks if he’s done his homework and they play this game back and forth. He seems fine with it, happy in it.
She feels at the edges, watching all the corners, not completely in it, waiting for the demons to come and pull him away from her. But, for the moment, the demons are sitting somewhere recharging, and he is her husband, doing yard work. She is his wife, going to put groceries away, going to make a pasta sauce.
He asks if they can stand over the pot of sauce and just eat it with chunks of bread. She laughs, says yes. Inside she reels and turns, she knows what he is speaking of but, she wonders, does he?
The first apartment. The first military base. She had shopped and made a thick, meaty red sauce. He had come home from training to be a sniper. To be a hero. He was so hungry, so full of energy and hope and pride that they had stood over the pot, breaking off chunks of warm bread, dipping them in the sauce and eating them. No plates, no bowls, no pasta, just bread and sauce and his passionate stories and her heart pounding because she had never loved anyone or anything so much in her entire life.
The hands ripping the bread, the sauce dripping down their chins. Wiping it with a cloth, then licking it with tongue, then falling to the floor, in the kitchen, in military housing and making love. His strength, passion, flooding into her. Holding her down, picking her up. Her body feeling ravished, taken, filled, cared for, loved, and desired. Spent and sweating, the pot of sauce between them on the floor, crumbs on their
naked bodies. This was perfect. This was who she wanted and what she wanted life to be. Then he went, then returned with the season ticket to the cinema in his head.
Yes, she tells him and leaves him to his yard work while she goes and makes the meaty red sauce he loves so much. He leans in and asks for another kiss that she gives gladly. Inside, she chops, dices, sautés, now and then checking out the window. He is still doing his Saturday chores. He moves with that grace she loves, the muscular control, the ease, the bright, unforced sexiness that made her eye follow him every time he walked into the room.
She concentrates on the sauce like it’s a magic brew, a witches' potion that will rip back the current scene and behind it will be the what was, and how nice, and this is. She wonders if the sauce and the bread will lead to the floor. To sex, to touch. Things she hasn’t had since he returned almost eight months ago. She is patient. She has been instructed to be so. She is wanting, needing, wishing, but she is patient as she has been instructed to be so. She looks out the window, into the back yard and doesn’t see him.
Again, the rush, the heart... No, there he is, the wheelbarrow full of rich, dark soil. She follows him with her eyes as he wheels it to the back garden, dumps it, spreads it and steps back. He is still. Stillness, that’s always a tough thing. Stillness can be good. Stillness can be horrible. Horrible when it starts and goes, doesn’t turn, doesn’t change to action or statement, but simply remains, still, straight, never ending. She watches, waiting to see what kind of stillness this is.
Then, he snaps to, moves quickly to the shed, comes back with slats of wood and places them in the new soil. What is he doing, she wonders. Graves? Memories? She puts the sauce on low and steps outside. Checking herself first, holding tight, making sure she is calm. She crosses the yard and stands beside him. He is looking at the slats, his attention on them. She stands beside him, raises her hand, almost touches his back but stops, hand hovering inches from his thick work shirt. Must not touch, not when he is staring, still. She learned that quickly, day three of his return.
She had found him in the hallway, staring into a closet full of coats and boots. Standing still, staring, straight ahead, silent. She asked if she could help him find something, at the same time placing a gentle hand on his back. How does he move that quick, she remembers thinking in the second before his hand was on her throat, and she was against the wall. Thrown hard enough to crack the plaster, hard enough to cause a mirror with candle holders to fall and shatter. How does anyone move that fast, she wonders and why? So, her hand hovers over his back, her instinct to touch beaten down by her memory.
She misses, in moments like this, touch. She asks what he’s got going. She has learned new phrases to replace how are you doing, are you okay. What have you got going, she asks, and he turns, present, smiling. He puts his arm around her shoulder and pulls her close. She hears nothing for a moment because all she does is feel—feel safe, loved, real. She slowly comes back and listens as he explains the plan for the garden, the tomatoes, squash, cucumbers. Each slat marks a place for a specific vegetable that will occupy the fertile soil in the coming season.
She listens, drops her guard, and she believes. Maybe this is it, she thinks. That turn she had heard about. That moment when all the fears, the horrors finally slip away, and he returns. She asks questions, he answers, he moves among the slats, explaining how this variety needs light, this one doesn’t, so it goes here. This one needs the deep soil, so it goes here. She asks if they could plant herbs.
He stops and looks at her. She feels the fear return. He looks past her. He seems to be drifting, distant, and she fears she is going to lose him.
Then, he will build boxes, he tells her, his eyes bright, his energy bubbling. He will build boxes and hang them right outside the kitchen window. That way, she can reach out, pick fresh herbs, and make them delicious dinners.
“Sure did miss your cooking over there,” he says and she freezes. “Used to brag about your cooking all the time.” She waits. Will this cause a shift, an upheaval? It doesn’t.
He goes on talking about plants and herbs. He plans the garden. Paints pictures of summer salads and the smell of fresh herbs. She feels herself relax. She feels herself breath in hope. He laughs and smiles as he makes more and more elaborate plans. Sunflowers by the fence. A cherry tree, he had always wanted one as a kid. Loved the story of George Washington chopping the cherry tree down. Loved the cherry trees in D.C. He remembered those when he was there, getting the medal. A cherry tree would be beautiful. She agreed. She agreed. She would agree with anything to keep him in this moment, in this mood. Sure we can have a fountain that spills bourbon, sure we can have a giant cave made of cheese. Sure we can have goats. Sure, sure, sure...
Now come make love to me. Now, come back to me and stay, and we can have anything you want. I will build you a Ferris wheel of Twizzlers, whatever you want, just stay as you are now, as you were when. He returns to her side, arm over her shoulder, laying out the plans. He talks. He talks for long moments. He speaks, out loud, and his voice begins to fill one of the vacuums that he opened when he returned. His voice heals her, and she smiles, laughs. She dismisses the battalion of guards she has at her ready because she doesn’t need them now. She won’t need them anymore.
“The sauce is simmering,” she says.
“Sauce,” he says like it’s magic, gold, wonder, life. She is going to take a shower, he is going to put tools away, wash up in the guest bath.
“Meet you in the kitchen in half an hour,” he says, like a quarterback laying out the game winning play, “and we’ll have sauce.” He kisses her again. He holds her in the kiss. She lets her hands touch his face, hold his neck. She lets her mouth respond. He breaks the kiss slowly. Tells her to shower, tells her he can hardly wait for the sauce. She turns to go, and he smacks her bottom and laughs.
She turns and sees him as if in sepia tone, the sun reflecting off the shed roof, but, like a photo. She sees him in his dress uniform. She sees his pride. She sees his strength, his readiness to serve, his positivity. She sees him as he was. Right there, in front of her. She sees him returned in full to her, to their life. He smiles, grabs the rake and shovel and heads to the shed. She watches him walk and feels the flutter in her tummy. She heads to the house, struggling not to run, trying to keep her feet firm on the ground.
She showers, goes through a careful epilation, washes her hair. She steps from the shower, wipes a path through the fog on the mirror, looks at her face, and recognizes her once-lost smile. She dries and steps into the closet. In the back, behind winter coats and boxes of shoes she is sure will come back in style, she finds the large bag. She pulls it out, places it on the bed. The pink Victoria’s Secret bag. The shopping trip she made when he told her he was coming home. The realization that she would have to wait when she saw him. She had almost forgotten it was there.
She lays out the sexy lingerie. She takes her time making her choice. She pulls the smooth, silky panties up her legs, looks at herself in the mirror. She has kept herself in fine shape, for him, for herself. She puts on the matching brassiere.
Again, she looks herself over. How could he resist this? She knows how. She knows it’s not her, it’s not him. It’s that cinema in that dark room, that film that plays and plays. It’s not him. Him is in the back yard. Him is going to be in the kitchen. Him is going to be eating sauce, with bread. Him is going to pull her to the floor. She knows he couldn’t resist. She knows he is rarely there any longer. But tonight...
She puts on jeans and a T-shirt, a look she knows he loves...loved...loves, she assures herself. Light makeup, because she’s his natural-look girl. Down the stairs, around the corner, into the kitchen. He is there. Standing by the stove. The pot still covered. He is in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt. He is staring at the pot. He is... still.
She stops in her tracks. She is just outside the kitchen, looking at him from around the corner. She moves backward. He hasn’t seen her. She looks at him, watche
s him being still. Her heart is sinking. The guards are mustering, putting on their uniforms, heading back to their posts. She steps forward, slowly, quietly. She moves into the kitchen. He is still. She steps closer.
“This smells so good,” he says, his eyes still on the pot. “I was wondering if I could wait because you took—almost—too long.” She sighs. She feels her body release and relax. The guards undress and go back to their bunkers.
“I wanted to look good for you,” she says, striking a sexy pose. He laughs.
“You look great, but,” he says, “you’re competing with this sauce right now.” She pouts comically, and he breaks bread. She takes the cover off the sauce and steam rises, the smell of garlic, oregano, basil explodes into the room, and he sighs. They stand, almost shoulder to shoulder, dipping in chunks of crisp-crusted, soft-centered bread, blowing it cool and stuffing it into their mouths. He closes his eyes, chews slowly, and she watches his face.
“Yes?” she asks and he nods chewing, moaning. He opens his eyes, and they are sparkling, and wet. She worries.
“Just perfect,” he says, tearing more bread, dipping it deep, stuffing it into his mouth. She laughs. He chews. They eat in silence for a few moments. He talks about how he missed her cooking. Like he was eating for the first time even though he had been home for close to eight months. She didn’t mind. Maybe, again she thought, this was that turn, that change, that return. She listened, watched, and enjoyed his joy. He talked about a night when he and three of his buddies slipped into the kitchen late night, opened cans of sardines, packages of crackers. Stood around a table and ate them, using their hands as plates. He laughed. He ate.
“My hands were covered in oil,” he said, holding out his hand, looking at it, imaging the oil from the canned fish. “This thick, stinking oil, and you had to scrub to get it off. It stayed …for...days...”
He stopped talking. He stopped chewing. He stopped smiling. He stopped being with her in that present moment. He stared at his hand, and he was stillness again. She looked at him, waited for the story to continue. Waited for the sauce to drip onto his chin so she could lick it off, and he could take her to the floor and they could be a couple. He stared. She waited.
He wrapped the stillness around himself and vanished. She waited. If there was a warning, she thought, a car backfiring, an image on the TV, anything. She had no way to know, so she had nothing to fight.
She covered the pot. She turned off the heat. She wrapped the bread and put it in the refrigerator. She cleaned the crumbs off the counter. She whispered his name. He looked at her, and she could see he wasn’t sure who she was. She told him to go lay down, to go sit in his chair, that everything was fine. She was going to sweep the floor and that she would sit near him. He walked Frankenstein-awkward to the other room. She followed. He sank onto the couch and stared at his hand. He was still.