The Impossible Knife of Memory(70)

The dudes didn’t say anything.

“Killing people is easier than it should be.” Dad put on his beret. “Staying alive is harder.”

We made it to the flagpole just as the bell rang.

“I can find the truck on my own.” Dad wiped away the sweat on his forehead. “You should go to class.”

“I have second period free, remember? She wrote me a pass.”

“Very funny.”

I walked him to the end of the sidewalk. “See you tonight?”

“Yep.” He stepped off the curb without looking back.

“Thank you, Daddy,” I called.

He raised his arm so that I’d know he’d heard me, then jogged to the far edge of the student parking lot, where his truck stood isolated from all other vehicles. He opened the passenger door, took off his blue wool jacket, and laid it on the seat. He removed his beret and his tie, unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. He closed the door, went around, and got into the driver’s seat where he sat like a marble statue, his hands gripping the steering wheel, eyes focused on things that weren’t there.





_*_ 68 _*_

The good soldier swears to kill. Fire the cannon, mount the barricade, lock and load. Smell your brother’s blood on your shirt. Wipe your sister’s brains off your face. Die, if you have to, so they’ll live. Kill to keep your people alive, live to kill some more.

Odysseus had twenty years to shed his battle skin. My grandfather left the battlefield in France and rode home in a ship that crawled across the ocean slowly so he could catch his breath. I get on a plane in hell and get off, hours later, at home. I try to ignore Death, but she’s got her arm around my waist, waiting to poison everything I touch.

I wash and wash trying to get rid of the sand. Every grain is a memory. I scrub my skin until it bleeds, but it’s not enough. The named winds of the desert blow under my skin. I close my eyes and I hear them.

Those winds blow sand across the ocean, turning into hurricanes, tornados, blizzards. The storms crash into me when I’m asleep. I wake, screaming, again. And again. And again.

The worst of it is seeing the sand sweep across the deep seablue of my daughter’s eyes.





_*_ 72 _*_

Showing remarkable maturity, I went to Mr. Cleveland after school to find out what I had missed by chilling in the library with my free pass after Dad left. He helped me figure out how to solve a problem about a kid on a spinning Ferris wheel with a bizarre formula that required the calculation of revolutions per minute to degrees per second, and cosines. I suggested that the carnie in charge of the ride could just hit the kill switch and take all the measurements with a tape measure. Cleveland was not amused.

I sat in the lobby and opened my math book, waiting for Finn to finish guarding the lives of the swim team. I couldn’t make sense of anything on the page. My dad in uniform, that’s what I kept seeing, his eyes wavering between confidence and panic. He’d tried something hard and he did it. It was start.

“Your dad got in a bar fight?” Finn checked his mirror, then turned around before backing up.

“It was a restaurant,” I said, “at six o’clock at night. I wouldn’t call it a bar fight.”

“You don’t just get a black eye in a restaurant at six in the evening.” He shifted gears. “What really happened?”

“Trish gave me her version of the story.”

“What was your dad’s version?” Finn asked.

“We haven’t had a chance to talk about it yet.”

Finn grunted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“No, really,” I said. “You have the judging face on. Why?”

“I’m not judging. I’m observing uncritically. There’s a big difference.”

I took my hand off his knee. “So what are you observing?”

“It’s just that you’re blaming Trish again.”

“Only because she deserves it. He was fine till she showed up.”

He didn’t say anything until the next stop sign. “Not judging, Miss Blue,” he took my hand, “but you’re wrong.”

I didn’t touch him after that.

I forgot to kiss him good-bye when he dropped me off.

I opened the front door and walked onto a battlefield.

Trish stormed across the living room, stood in front of the television, and pointed at Dad. “Are you kidding me?” she yelled.

“Nope.” Dad, dressed in old jeans and a flannel shirt, angled the remote so its signal would get past Trish and changed the channel.

“Talk to him, Hayley,” she said.

“Don’t listen to her,” Dad said, his face blank. “Why am I here if you don’t want her to listen to me?”

Trish asked. “You haven’t done a single thing you promised. Hell, you won’t even talk!”

“You’re not talking, you’re hollering.” Dad motioned with the remote. “Out of the way.”

Bam! A punch in the gut, that’s what it felt like. It was my own damn fault for letting my guard down and believing that anything was different just because he decided to play dress-up for a couple of hours. Make no mistake, the signs were all there: a half-empty bottle of Jack on the coffee table, a second one at his feet, sweat soaking through the collar of his T-shirt though the house was cool, the fact that the dog was hiding. The hard, flat look in his eyes.