“Everyone’s fine here too,” she said. “We’re all a little worried about you, but otherwise we’re just fine. We’re praying for you.”
“I know,” I said.
“Can we send you anything?” she asked.
“I can’t really think of anything right now.”
Back home fall was upon them. Pennant races and football.
My mother mentioned a few things she could send. Cookies, pumpkin bread, any music I wanted. She said she’d definitely send me a book, perhaps Don Quixote this time.
I began to worry that we might be cut off. Some of the operators would cut you off automatically after fifteen minutes on the line. The farther you got from the war the less they enforced this limit, but the division operators were often quick to pull the plug.
“How’re the others?” she asked. She knew everyone in my platoon. She’d sent us all cookies once a month when we were at Fort Drum.
“They’re fine,” I said. This wasn’t the time to tell her. I might let her know when I got home, but there were some things mothers shouldn’t know. Part of me wanted to tell her right then that I hadn’t shot anyone, but again I thought better of it.
“Tell them to make sure they call home,” she said.
“I will,” I said. Then I warned her that we might be cut off soon. I told her I loved her and she said she loved me too, and it was all she could do to let me talk to my father.
I could tell by the tone of his voice that my mother was crying. “She hasn’t been sleeping,” he said. “When do you think you’ll be home?”
“Soon.” The thought of my mother lying awake and worrying at night was crushing.
“Don’t be a hero,” my father said. “Just do what you can to get back here.”
“I will.”
“They never told us you were missing in action,” he said.
I thought about Zeller and the others, and how their parents had a few more days of peace because of the delay. There were some things you could never give back.
“They showed them dragging that guy through the streets,” my father said. “Did you know him?”
“I met him once,” I said. “I knew his name.”
“I don’t know how,” my father said, “but I think your mother saw it too.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that.
“I try to turn off the news if I can,” he said. “Just get yourself back here in one piece.”
“I will.”
“It’ll be okay,” he said. “We’ve always come through all right.”
He was right. As a family, our luck had always held.
“I love you,” my father said. “Now here’s your mom again.”
An operator came on the line and said it was time to wrap it up.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too,” she said. Then there was a click, followed by the silence of thousands of miles.
As I walked back to the hospital I thought about college ahead of me. I wouldn’t tell anyone I’d been in the Army. And if they asked why I was a little older, I’d tell them I’d lived abroad, maybe in Prague. I’d tell them the world was a beautiful place. And I’d tell Santiago the same if I ever saw him again.
On the way I decided to walk down to the beach and look out over the ocean. It was around midnight, but the heat was stifling. It was a long way back across the water, but I’d soon be going home, where there were places to hide and places to die. And places to go it alone.
Acknowledgments
I’D LIKE TO THANK ALL THOSE WHO HELPED ME IN ONE way or another through early drafts of this novel, especially Kevin Canty, David James Duncan, Robert Baker, Roger Hedden, Deirdre McNamer, James Crumley, Philip Schneider, Derek Cavens, Robin Troy, and the Million Dollar Workshop. Thank you to everyone at Wichita State and the University of Montana. Thanks to the original composition teacher, Bryan Flores, for teaching me about note cards and plot and sympathy and pilsner at Harry’s. And a huge nod goes to Jon Hill, a great friend and voice of reason.
I owe a debt of gratitude to Whitney Terrell, Michelle Boisseau, Wayne Miller, Kevin Prufer, and my colleagues at UCM for making me feel at home.
Those who are and those who were in the military, I hope the best for all of you. Shane Veloni, Vincent Wright, David Banegas, Robert Pettis, Donald Sage, and others from the 10th Mountain, thanks for sharing your stories and memories and hearts in long distance phone calls.
I can’t thank everyone at Milkweed enough for making this such a wonderful experience, Patrick, Hilary, and especially Emily. But most of all Daniel Slager for helping me find the heart of the novel and editing it true.
Walter, thank you for giving me the confidence and the courage to live the writing life. And far and above, Cynthia Cannell, thank you for always making me feel like the only one.
Thank you to my family for all their love and support, then and now. Thanks to my mother who had a hard time sleeping while I was there. Thanks to my father who reminds me always that we can defeat the worst part of ourselves and make it out alive and well. And my brother, Josh, I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your name. It turns out I love you that much.
And Katie Cramer Eck, I owe you the deepest praises for seeing something there when you sat next to me for the first time in French class. Thank you for teaching me a new language every step of the way. And of course my Cormac Ulysses. Sing me a song.
Matthew Eck enlisted in the Army in 1992 and served in Somalia and Haiti. He has a BA in English Literature from Wichita State University and received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana. He currently teaches Creative Writing and Literature at the
