Into the Woods Page 7

  The engines on the helicopters were activated.

  "How he stands that noise is beyond me," Mommy said. My eyes drifted to catch a sea gull. I watched it turn back to the sea, and then we saw the helicopters lifting in a massive roar, like an entire hive of hornets rising at once,

  "C'mon," Mommy screamed Over the noise. She tugged me. I looked back as the helicopters made their turns in perfect formation

  "Grace," Mommy urged, and we went to our car.

  "I will admit it is impressive," Mommy said as we drove off. "And a big responsibility for him. He loves us seeing that sort of thing, especially you. He's just a big boy," she kidded lovingly.

  I smiled to myself I'm lucky, I thought. Civilian kids don't think so because we move around so much, but I'm the luckiest girl in the -world

  Mommy and I flew through the supermarket, scooping up what she wanted, and then we hurried home. An hour and a half later the security guard at the main gate informed us that Trent was there. A few minutes later I was waiting at the front door.

  I saw immediately that Trent was more nervous than I was, and the military presence at the gate only heightened it. Still on his crutch, of course, he limped through the entryway to meet Mommy.

  "Welcome, Trent." she said. "I'm glad you like chicken burgers."

  He glanced at me. He had confessed he had never had them, but he assured me he was eager to try them.

  "Thank you. Mrs, Houston."

  "Call me Jackie Lee." she said. "Mrs. Houston makes me sound like someone's grandmother."

  Trent nodded, amazed. Clearly my calling his mother by her first name was something she would never ask me to do and never permit. I led him into our living room. and Mommy sat with us for a while. I was always impressed with how easily she met people. All my life, because of our traveling and moving, she confronted new people, different personalities, and seemed able to do it with little difficulty.

  I once asked her about it, and she had paused, thought, and then said. "It's like trying on different styles of clothing for me. I can see or feel quickly whether or not were going to fit. We have to meet too many different people to luxuriate in shyness. Our lives are far more obvious to the people we know and share experiences with. We can't put on any false pretenses. We're all sort of in the same boat, sometimes literally."

  She had tweaked her nose and looked at me. "Ifs going to be different for you. Grace, unless you end up marrying a Navy boy or someone from another military branch."

  Whom would I marry? I couldn't help wondering. Would I follow in my mother's footsteps, be part of some tradition? Or run off with a rock star?

  I saw how Trent felt very comfortable because of Mommy's casual manner. He was more talkative with her, in fact, than he had been with me. In minutes she had him telling his life story, all about his family, and even his dream to become a professional baseball player.

  "I've been going to a professionally run baseball camp every summer since I was nine," he revealed. He hadn't told me that.

  "You're going to it again this summer?" she asked.

  "Oh, sure," he said. "As long as my ankle heals well."

  "Well, just follow your doctor's orders explicitly, and it will," she assured him. Then she excused herself to set out our dinner. I offered to help, but she insisted I stay with Trent.

  "Start studying or something," she kidded.

  "Boy. I like your mother." Trent said the moment she was gone, "My mother would have taken your blood and urine and had it off to the lab by now."

  I laughed and accused him of exaggeration. I hadn't met his mother yet, but I couldn't imagine her to be as severe as he was portraying her. However, he didn't relent, "She treats our family name, reputation, and status no less than she would if we were royalty. It gets embarrassing and difficult at times. My father is easier and not as taken with himself,

  "But," he added, seeing the look of concern on my face. "I'm sure when she meets you she won't be able to do anything but melt."

  "'Not unless she's made of ice cream," I said.

  "No, she would rather be thought of as rich butter," he replied, and we laughed.

  "I didn't know you were going off to baseball camp this summer."

  "Yeah, but it's not that far away. I'll be around to eat chicken burgers as many times as I can."

  I laughed, but it felt good to hear how much he wanted to see me.

  Before Mommy called us to dinner I showed him one of our family albums with Daddy on different ships, one an aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise.

  "There are more than twenty-eight hundred sailors on it, more than one hundred seventy chiefs, and more than two hundred officers. With the air wing there could be more than five thousand people on it. It's like a little city. Daddy says. I was very little when he was on it. so I don't remember ever seeing it. but I have seen it in harbor."

  "I guess you're a real Navy girl,- Trent said. smiling. "You know so much detail about the ships and all."

  "Sailor Girl."

  "What?"

  "That's what my father calls me."

  "Oh, right."

  He laughed. We looked at some more pictures, and then we went in to dinner. Trent really loved Mommy's chicken burgers. I could see he wasn't simply being polite. When I started to help her clean up, she insisted I get right to studying. She gave me a look that told me she approved of Trent very much.

  He thanked her, and we went to my room. The first thing he noticed was all the dolls and souvenirs Daddy had brought me over the years, each unique to the place he had been. I had set up my notebook and our textbook with bookmarks for our studying.

  'We'd better get to it, huh?" he said. "First the sacrosanct."

  "Time for a new word," I countered. "Stop being facetious."

  He laughed. "Okay, okay," he said, holding up his hands while still leaning on his crutch. "Let's go at it"

  As before, his problem was the disorganized manner in which he kept his notes. Organizing it all helped us to study. Mommy stopped by once to ask if we needed anything more before she settled into watching television and waiting for my father. She made watching television sound like a warm bath.

  After she left us Trent leaned over to kiss me.

  "I figured since she invaded the sacrosanct. I could. Just for a moment, of course."

  "It's not the sacrosanct. It's an adjective, not a noun. We are studying English. and Madea will have vocabulary on the test, Trent."

  "Ave, aye, sir." he said, and saluted.

  For a moment the salute gave me a strange chill. My father's face flashed before me. It threw me back to the moment of discomfort I had experienced at the helicopter liftoff. That nervousness surged through my body, rattling my bones. I glanced at the clock. Daddy was going to have a very late dinner tonight the way this was going.

  "You all right?" Trent asked.

  "What? Oh. yes. C'mon, let's review the quotes from Julius Caesar," I said, and turned to those pages in my notebook. Involving myself in my work was the only way to keep the annoying finger of anxiety away from my heart., I had no idea why it was there, and that made me more jittery. Every once in a while I glanced at the clock and took note of the time. Trent caught me doing it and asked if I thought he should leave soon.

  "No, we have more to do," I insisted, and we continued.

  When the doorbell sounded about forty minutes later, it seemed to ring inside me as if my heart had become a gong to strike. Anyone at our door had to be someone living within the gated compound, since the security guard hadn't called to announce him or her, but Mommy had not mentioned any of her friends coming over to visit. Most anyone would call first to see if we were home or if it was a good time to come.

  The logic of all this ran at supersonic speed through my mind in a computer-like process that brought me to my feet. Trent looked up from the notebook with surprise. I stood there, frozen, and then I heard what had begun deep inside me back at the heliport: a tiny yet persistent cry that ballooned int
o a scream. Mommy's scream, a scream I would hear for the rest of my life.

  .

  I turned and hurried out of my room toward the front door, my cry for my mother on my lips. What I saw put stone in my legs and stopped my heart. Mommy was unconscious and in a naval officer's arms. He and the officer with him were struggling to get her to the sofa in the living room.

  "Mommy!" I cried.

  Trent came hopping up behind me. We both watched in awe and then slowly followed them into the living room.

  The older officer tamed to the younger one. "Get me a cold damp cloth and a glass of cold water." he ordered.

  "Yes, sir," the younger officer said, and snapped to it, rushing by me as if I wasn't there.

  "What's happening?" I demanded, My tears were streaming down my face in anticipation.

  "There's been a helicopter accident involving your father," he replied. "I'm sorry."

  Within those two words were all the tragedy and pain I could ever feel in my life. He didn't have to explain any more or add any descriptive words.

  I'm sorry? I'm sorry your father is gone forever? I'm sorry something mechanicalwentwrong and changed your life and your Mother's life forever? I'm sorry someone as strong and wonderful as your father could be gone in seconds, just removed as if he had been swept off in a hurricane?

  There are no words in our language adequate to explain or comfort anyone when something like this occurs. I thought. Despite the fact that my father was part of a military machine that could be and often was placed in harm's way, those fears were so hammered down and hidden from our consciousness that we refused to confront them. Every time we had seen Daddy go off or had watched him fly in a plane or a helicopter, there was a moment when our breath was seized and our hearts were on pause. It passed quickly, and we relaxed in the knowledge that he was one of our country's finest and our country had the best and the safest equipment in the world.

  Military people, the families, have a second level of faith beyond religion. They believe in the structure, the procedures, the efficiency, and the power of the branch, whether it be the Navy or the Air Force. Daddy used to say flying military was ten times safer than commercial. Just consider all that security, all those men working around equipment, being supervised and observed by officers, taking pride in efficiency and success, standing straighter, beaming with their medals. These men wouldn't permit such things to happen.

  But something had gone wrong with Daddy's helicopter. They couldn't recover. Mommy was told the details. There was that we don't hide the facts from our Navy family attitude in the face of the officer who sat with her and with me. It was as if knowing how it had happened brought some relief, when, in fact, it only added to the misery and horror as far as I was concerned.

  What was Daddy thinking when that helicopter began to have trouble and all his training, all his knowledge, wasn't helping? Were his last thoughts about me about Mommy? Was he terrified? Did he scream, or did he maintain his composure in front of his men as his superiors would have us believe?

  Does any of it matter the next day when you open your eyes and realize, no, it wasn't a nightmare? He isn't here. He will never be here again.

  I was at Mommy's side when she regained consciousness. She held me, and we rocked back and forth as if we were on our little rowboat already, cast out to sea with no safe harbors in sight, no Daddy to bring us back.

  I forgot all about Trent, of course. He made a quick, quiet exit, probably shocked and terrified. I didn't even remember he had been there until hours and hours later. The senior officer who had come was a doctor and had brought sedatives. Mommy refused them, but he insisted she consider taking at least one pill. It would deaden the pain, disguise it, hide it a little or just enough to get her through the first terrible hours, he said.

  I wanted to take the whole bottle. Later he pulled me aside and told me to remain as alert as I could so I could watch over her for the next twelve to twenty-four hours. He made it sound as if she might take her own life, and that put even more terror into my heart as I remembered what Autumn had done to herself for something I now considered trivial in comparison.

  I couldn't speak. but I nodded. I helped Mommy to bed. Other wives of naval officers began to arrive soon afterward. As if they had all had training in what to do when this happened, they took over our home, helped organize and manage our immediate needs. Of course. I appreciated it, but their stoic efficiency made me suspicious. It was as if they all always knew this was gooing to happen. That was ridiculous. of course, but it was part of my dark thinking, thinking I couldn't stop.

  .

  Daddy's naval funeral was elaborate and impressive, full of tradition. It was a terribly beautiful day, a day that should have been reserved for wonderful, happy events, with the sky so clear blue and the few tiny clouds like small puddles of milk, pure white. The sea breeze was warm and as gentle as a mother's kiss.

  Not only was Vice. Admiral Martin in attendance, but the secretary of the Navy was flown down. Three other men had been killed in the accident. It was in the national news for a few days. Officer after officer came to us to tell us how much they had respected and admired Daddy: "He would want you to go on." "Hold yourself up." "Achieve in his name." The laying of responsibility and obligation on my shoulders was their way of helping me cope. Nothing seemed to terrify them more than the sight of my tears. Perhaps it reminded them all how vulnerable they and their families were, and that was something they couldn't tolerate and continue to do what they had to do. Salutes, handshakes, some hugs, everyone in proper uniform and attention, was the order of the day.

  I'll never be able to tell anyone how I felt standing at that gravesite and staring at that flagdraped coffin. My daddy can't be in there, I thought. This is all just another exercise, a rehearsal, a ceremony. Soon it will end, and Daddy will be back to tell us how well we performed and how proud of us he was.

  "I knew you could pull it off well. Sailor Girl." he would tell me.

  There he would be, standing as proudly and looking as handsome and exciting as ever, my moviestar Daddy who sailed the sea and flew in the clouds and gave men confidence and hope, who made me cry when I sang the national anthem and said the pledge because I knew how important it was to him and to all the men around him that we feel what they were doing 'vas so very important. It wasn't just my imagination when I saw how children of naval families looked more somber and serious when we had to do this at school. Disrespecting the flag or the anthem was the same as disrespecting your parents. Disrespect eventually put them in danger, which put us all in danger.

  These were the thoughts that I had developed as a young girl, but somewhere out there in the dark, over the ocean, in a matter of seconds. Daddy had died tragically and made them all fall back. A great door would come crashing down on this world, the only world I had ever known. The mournful sound of Taps would lift us away, and we would say goodbye to "the life."

  In the days that followed Mommy gathered her strength. She told me that at the moment she felt as if Daddy was just away on another sea duty.

  "I keep telling myself he'll be back or we'll hear the phone ring or get a letter," she said. "I know it's silly, and I have to stop it."

  I wasn't crying anymore. I had drained the well of tears dry. I tried to occupy myself with some of the schoolwork that had been sent home for me, but it was as if I had lost part of my mind or that place was now empty and hollow. Words and thoughts drifted aimlessly through it without any purpose.

  Trent called, but even the sound of his voice didn't lift me enough to come out of the dark. He tried.

  "I wish I had met him." he said.

  Yes, I thought. I wish you had. I wish Daddy would have been able to come to my room afterward and tease me about you and then take joy in my declaration of loyalty to him, that I could never love anyone more, He -would smile and shake his head and say, "You'd better, Sailor Girl. I want grandchildren."

  Grandchildren.

  If I h
ad any, all they would be able to do would be to look at an old photograph. They'd have same curiosity for a moment, and then it would pass, and he would be like any other historical face.

  One day about a week after the funeral Mommy came to my room to tell me we would be moving. Of course, I had expected it.

  "I want you to take your exams as best you can. Grace. Finish the school year at least. It will be important for you when you start somewhere new."

  "Where will we go, Mommy?"

  She sat on my bed, "I have a good friend who lives in West Palm Beach. Florida," she began. "She was my best friend in high school. We've been talking. She was one of the first people I called. Her name is Dallas Tremont. She and her husband own a famous upscale restaurant called the Tremont Inn. I thought we would move to West Palm Beach and I would work in her restaurant."

  "Work in a restaurant? Doing what?" I asked. surprised. "Cooking?"

  "No," she said. smiling. "I'm not a gourmet cook by any means. No. I'll hostess and waitress."

  "Waitress?" I couldn't imagine my mother doing that.

  "What else can I do. Grace? I never went to college, honey. I was a Navy bride almost

  immediately out of high school. so I'm not qualified to do much more," she said. "Take a lesson from me, and be sure you go to college and develop some sort of career before you get married."

  She saw the look of shock and fear on my face. We were leaving the sanctity and comfort of the naval community. We were going out there, beyond the gates. It was almost like going to another country, where my mother would work and not be a Navy wife,

  "Don't look so worried, honey. After your exams, we'll pack the car and head south. It will be fun for us this time. We'll take our time, see some sights along the way. Dallas is finding us a nice apartment nearby, and she assures me there are excellent schools for you to attend, maybe even a magnet school. For once you will be somewhere with some real permanence."

  I didn't say it. but I would be willing to move every week if I could have Daddy back, I didn't have to say it. She knew it.

  "One other thing I want you to know," she said, looking away. My heart began to race in anticipation. "We told you our intentions, so I don't want you thinking about it and worrying. I am not pregnant. Maybe my body is smarter than I am." she added. "I don't think I could stand having your father's child without him being right there, and taking care of a little baby now seems like a monumental task."