the case. I could find a more definitive answer for myself, though it would take more than dog tags to do it.
“Well, you do what you want. Don’t be so sure this place will be the same when you get back. Things change, people eventually fill in those rips that get made in their lives—Dougie, for example. I don’t know what you hope to gain from doing this,” she said, having always had this strange attachment to my husband, perhaps because he treats her better than her own sons do, but who could say with her, what she thinks being treated well and not so well are, where she makes those distinctions?
“Have you filled your rips in?” I turned and walked out of the room. “T.J.? You ready?” I asked out the window, gathering my purse.
“Yeah, just about,” he said, climbing down. “You had a couple frays on the wire, Mrs. Mounter, where it had rubbed up against the aluminum over the years. There are some parts where the roofing’s coming loose too. I covered the bare wires and I taped the whole connector wire in place, so that shouldn’t happen anymore in the future. I hope that’ll work. But that roof, you should get someone to look at it pretty quick. I taped it for now, but that won’t last. Maybe Floyd Page will be willing to do a side job, off the books.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ll be back, eventually, Ma,” I said.
“When?” she asked, never a fan of vague words except when she was the one using them to shroud some information.
“Eventually,” I repeated, and we neared the door. That was when she tried to draw me back in.
“Does he know you’re coming—” was the final thing my mother asked. She’s always been this way. She knows the kind of small phrase to use regardless of the occasion that once it is out of her mouth it grows, and continues on, spreading out from inches to miles across our lives.
“He will, soon enough,” I said. “Besides, I have got to get away from here for a bit,” I said.
“So you said.” My mother picked up her needle and threaded the eye, letting me know our conversation was coming to a close.
“You have no idea.”
“I think I might. Just that some of us can’t pick up and leave whenever we feel like it. We have to deal with what’s in front of us.” She reached for her glasses. She was supposed to wear them all the time but only picked them up for delicate work, maybe preferring the world fuzzier around the edges, as if everyone she eyed had halos or auras. Perhaps she just had no fondness for clarity.
“It’s probably just for a couple weeks, maybe less,” T.J. said. He eyed the newspaper, making us appear guilty of something in which we were definitely not engaged. He always looked this way when we appeared together in front of my mother or anyone else from the reservation for that matter. I think he liked the idea. “I have some things to take care of down there,” he added and for a second I was nearly certain I had been the one to speak.
“I bet,” my mother said. As we headed for the door, my mother went back into her bedroom. “Annie?” she called from her screen door a few seconds later. I sat in the driver’s seat, letting her know I was not changing my mind.
“Come and get this.” I got out and walked up the steps to her porch, where she reached a hand out the screen’s frame, holding a letter. “I always keep copies, anyway. This one came back. You can read it, if you want, but I want you to give it to him.” I didn’t know what it was, at the time, but I had an idea. The RETURN TO SENDER stamp was smudged but clear enough, and the address was a post office box in Big Antler, Texas. I set it in the glove compartment. I didn’t want to read anything that would potentially change my mind. The letter could be safely read once we were on the road, once we had committed to the destination.
T.J. and I left the reservation long before the sun went down. As the reservation disappeared in my rearview mirror, I noticed my ears, to which honestly I have rarely given a second look, except to try on earrings. These ears I had inherited apparently had little functionality. Who did I inherit that selective hearing loss from? I had asked for amplification and clarification at my mother’s place. All the while, I wandered around this community, harboring only a vague suspicion of what others no doubt openly mocked me for. I was waiting for someone to creep the volume up on me, rather than turning the dial myself. Waiting for a clearer signal.
CHAPTER THREE:
Bit Part
October 31, 1967
Dear Tommy Jack,
I am writing to you between the kids coming for tricks-or-treats. Their costumes are always the cutest little things you ever did see. Some of the little boys, though, they are dressed up like soldiers, and if I see them coming down the drive, I ask Momma to give them their candy. It makes me too sad to see them. One of them had a little burnt cork mustache, and after you said you’d grown one now because your face is breaking out there, well, that little boy especially made me think of you, over there, fighting for us. I’m glad to hear your memory skills are being put to work and that being the radioman makes you a little bit safer than the others. You didn’t mention what a “Romeo Sierra” or a “Whisky India Alpha” is, but I suspicion you’re not supposed to tell me anyway. Your description of Lubbock from the sky, like a giant patchwork quilt, well, I don’t know if I’ll ever see that. I don’t think I was made to be the flying sort. I’ll have to take your word for it.
I know I should have told you this in person, when you were home, but I didn’t want you spending your last free time at home upset. It wouldn’t have changed anything between us anyway, so I thought this was better. This maybe is just me, trying to make things up for not having been able to tell you in person, but I’m telling you now. I am sorry, Tommy Jack, for any bad feelings I have caused for you, or disappointments. Part of it is my daddy’s doing. When you got that draft notice, I know he went down to the draft board with you and your daddy to try to get you a hardship deferment, but at the same time he went looking for other suitors for me. I guess he didn’t want to see his little girl a spinster or a widow. Those are his words, Tommy Jack, not mine. You know I would never say anything like that.
But I have to tell you, because I always want to be honest with you, that after he said those words to me, they got me to thinking, and I sure didn’t think I could bear that heartache at the age of twenty-four. I know it’s nothing compared to what you are going through and I am not trying to make that heartache any smaller by saying that, just speaking my mind, the way you and I always have, over a vanilla shake or a Coke float. You know, it was funny, no matter what I ordered, I always wanted what you ordered as soon as we got it, and you were so sweet, always letting me have some, or even switching with me, whatever I wanted. I always thought that was darling of you, Tommy Jack.
Daddy says the war might be over soon, and you’ll be back safe and sound, and will be able to get on with your life. He even thought he could possibly swing a job for you when you come home, teaching history at the junior college, what with your high school teaching experience, if you make some agreement that you’ll finish your master’s in a year. But he said that’s future thinking and we need to concentrate on the present and those things that are best for us. Which brings me to why I am writing you, now.
I am sorry I couldn’t take that ring, Tommy Jack. I did think it was pretty, if that’s any help. Well, that shouldn’t be a surprise. Even though you didn’t present it, you would have had to be an idiot to not know which one I liked, since I pointed it out any time we walked by the jewelry store display. I know it was the one you would have offered if I’d given you the chance. I could tell by the look on your face that you had not even thought I’d leave my finger unadorned that night, and I could understand your disappointment, but Daddy says I have to look to my future, as well.
I’m glad you have found a friend there. An Indian from New York. Who would have imagined such? And what is this business about you saving his life?