The Impossible Knife of Memory(55)

I am a good soldier, a good officer. I believe in my country and my mission. I still believe in honor, but sand plugs my heart. It sifts through the holes in my brain. Some days I see the world in the green of night vision. Some days I see the heat.

I blink and I forget why I walked in the room. I forget why I am driving on this road. The remembering takes up every breath until there is no room for today. I pour a drink, ten drinks, so I can forget that I have forgotten today. I smoke. Choke down pills. Pray. Eat. Sleep. Shit. Curse.

Nothing chases away the sand or the memories engraved on the back side of my eyelids. They play on a continuous loop, with smells and sound and sorrow.





_*_ 59 _*_

Finn’s house was a narrow condo in the middle of a row of other condos lined up like slices of white bread in a plastic bag.

“You won’t believe how much they charge for this place,” he explained, unlocking the front door. “Mom’s moving as soon as I graduate.” He flipped on the lights as we walked in.

“You’re positive she’s won’t turn up?” I asked. “She hates driving at night, don’t worry.”

In the bathroom, I tried to repair the damage the tears had done to my makeup. The past rushed in through the mirror . . . Trish taking me on a city bus to get my library card, riding bikes under tall dark trees, baking lopsided birthday cupcakes, . . . me wiping the tears off her face with a little-girl hand, her wrapping me in a blanket and carrying me to the car,

. . . running from the beast daddy who roared and threw bolts of lightning, her holding me tight . . .

I turned the light off.

Finn opened the refrigerator. “Milk, chocolate milk, orange juice, or the red diet stuff my mom likes? Or I could make hot chocolate.”

“Vodka.”

“Milk, chocolate milk, orange juice, red stuff, hot chocolate,” he repeated. “Or tea.”

“I’ll buy vodka off a homeless guy outside the bus station.”

He sighed, took the orange juice out of the fridge and a vodka bottle out of the cupboard above it. He set them both in front of me, with a scratched plastic cup. I unscrewed the vodka cap and poured a couple inches.

“Aren’t you having any?” I asked.

“Chocolate milk is my drug of choice.”

I looked him in the eye, squinted, and looked closer, under the bright light. “Are you wearing eyeliner?”

“Took you long enough to notice,” he said. “Like it?”

“Yeah.” I chuckled. “Kinda hot. But no mascara, okay? I can’t be seen with a dude whose lashes are longer than mine.”

He stared at the plastic cup, then kissed the end of my nose. “Are we really talking about this?”

“No.” My gut made a decision for me and before I realized it, I had poured the vodka back in the bottle and filled my glass with juice. “Definitely not.”

As Finn cooked the bacon and pancakes, he tried to keep me distracted by chattering about his years as an apprentice chef at an emir’s palace in the middle of the Sahara Desert. It didn’t work. Worries boiled up, wrapped in a twisting gray ribbon of panic.

What was Trish’s plan?

She always had one, always stayed four or five steps ahead of everyone around her, especially my father. Was she after his disability check? She probably thought it was huge. Was she going to make him to fall in love with her again, let her move in? Get on his life insurance and then help him kill himself?

“Hey!” Finn snapped his finger in front of my face. “You need to eat.” He set down a steaming plate of pancakes in front of me, a smiley face of butter melting on top.

“Cute.”

“And bacon,” he set down a separate plate of crispy bacon strips, “and real maple syrup.” He poured dark syrup from a leaf-shaped glass bottle.

“Is that all you have?” I asked.

“My people come from New Hampshire; we only eat the real thing.”

“Your last name is Ramos.”

“There are Hispanics in New England, you know.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean . . .”

He grinned and raised a hand. “No worries. It gives me permission to say stereotypical things about white girls.”

“Great,” I said. “What about your mom’s family? Do I dare ask?”

“WASPs from Conway.”

“Where people like funny-looking maple syrup.”

“Which you are now going to try.” He speared a forkful of pancake and swished it in syrup. “Open up.”

“Forget it. I only like the cheap stuff they make out of corn syrup.”

“You’ll stand on the edge of a cliff, but you’re too chicken to try the best maple syrup in the world?”

He was being a pain to cheer me up and it was starting to work, even without the vodka. “Maybe you’re trying to poison me.”

“Wuss.”

“Now you’re picking a fight.” I dipped my pinky finger in his syrup and lightly touched it to the tip of my tongue. “People pay money for this?” (After putting up such a fuss I could hardly admit that it tasted amazing.)

“It’s boiled-down sap, totally natural,” he said. “No chemicals or preservatives.”