32
jo
Once Meredith stepped out of the house and Aunt Hannah stepped in, my sisters began to lose their minds. Amy wouldn’t stop sobbing in my dad’s chair. Beth was just staring at the wall as if it were alive and fascinating. It wasn’t. It had been over two hours since we learned that my dad had been blown up.
Blown up.
How morbid did that sound? In reality, that’s exactly what happened. Two hours since things started shuffling and shifting inside our government-owned home. It started to click instantly that our house wasn’t ours. Just like the Fort Hood house, even though I’d spent most of my life in that house. I had a scrapbook of memories in my brain. From Meg’s first kiss to when my mom lost a baby and Meg read Oh, the Places You’ll Go! to me every single night for the few weeks that Meredith spent crying at night. Amy learned to walk in that house, and I learned to read. I wrote my first essay in that house. Meredith still had it; I planned to hang it on the fridge in my first apartment in Manhattan.
When Frank got orders to Fort Cyprus, we packed up our memories in a big government-issued moving truck and followed it from the heart of Texas to the bottom leg of Louisiana. It only took us a day, including our stop in the middle of nowhere outside of Houston, where we stayed in an Americas Best Value Inn that Meg swore was haunted. We slept maybe two hours that night because of Meg’s tossing and turning and Amy’s complaining that she was afraid of whatever ghost Meg thought was fucking with us. Frank ended up doing a “ghost check,” which included his special light—aka a little flashlight key chain he carried hooked to his keys around a belt loop. He searched under the beds and in the closets. All of the rest of us would have stayed fast asleep on one of the queen beds in the double room. Two hours felt so short then, and as I stood against the wall in our Fort Cyprus living room now trying to process what was happening, two hours felt so long.
Two hours later and Meg still wasn’t here, Meredith was at the airport getting ready to board a flight to Germany, and Aunt Hannah had already found Frank’s bottle of Captain Morgan under the sink in the kitchen, right behind the trash bags and next to the Windex.
Beth was sitting on the couch, closest to the wall covered in square frames with pictures of our family. I was on my dad’s shoulders in one. I was wearing a ball cap and overalls, and we were standing in front of a bronze Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse statue. My dad’s eyes were tightly squinting, making his face crinkle up like it does when he laughs hard. Beth was wearing acid-wash jean shorts, like she still does at fifteen. Her dark hair was almost always pulled back then in a loose ponytail just above her neckline. Meg was wearing cutoff shorts and a Tweety Bird T-shirt tied just above her belly button. We all looked so young in that picture.
The Frank that took us to Disney World and kept me up-to-date on news and jokes and music, and even corny dance moves, most likely wasn’t going to be the Frank that came home to us. I didn’t know how to process that. I knew what PTSD was, and I feared it for my dad’s sake. But I didn’t know what it would feel like to be around. I just wanted Dad to be okay.
“When will Meg be here?” Amy asked, sniffling with red-ringed eyes and pouty, chapped lips.
Beth responded in a low voice. “Soon, Amy. She’s on her way.”
Amy let out a sob and curled her knees to her chest. I wondered if it was that my dad was injured that made her cry, or the shock of it all: Meredith’s leaving; Beth’s silence; Meg’s not being here at all.
I was starting to get angrier and angrier at Meg in her absence. I didn’t think far enough to consider it unfair for me to be pissed at her. We needed her. Well, I didn’t, but Amy wouldn’t stop asking for her. My phone kept vibrating in my pocket, and Laurie’s name kept flashing. I tossed my phone onto the couch and sulked into the kitchen. I didn’t like that Amy’s little mind was probably in shock. I’d read an article online that said the brain of a young adult can literally lose a small percentage of function during the shock of losing a loved one. I knew this wasn’t as bad as losing a loved one, but I also wasn’t naïve enough to think that part of our dad wouldn’t be gone.
I stood at the counter and stared out the kitchen window. I could see light in the big room, the one with the grand piano. I’d spent so many mornings watching Laurie’s fingers assault the ivory keys. All of those mornings, even the one the week before, felt like ages ago. Was I still sixteen? Or had I been standing in the kitchen for days, weeks? My toes were numb. They felt so cold and I couldn’t have told you why. Or if they even did. It’s possible that my body made it up so I could transfer the pain from my heart to another part of my body.
Someone knocked on the door, and I didn’t even jump. I thought it would be Meg, but it was Laurie. He was standing tall enough that I could see his shoulders and the tips of his blond hair through the window in the door.
What was he doing here? I didn’t answer the door, but I figured he would just come back. I didn’t understand why I didn’t want to see him. I just knew it made everything feel much more real than it would if he wasn’t around. I had been spending more and more time with him, and I knew him better than any other boy, ever, but I didn’t want him around for this. This was about to get messy. Everything that held the Spring house up was about to crumble. I could feel the floor humming beneath me; it was only a matter of time before it started to rumble. Then the cracking, then the crumbling—and somewhere down the line of Laurie’s lineage there was already too much crumbling and collapsing.
Laurie didn’t need to get involved. We were already too many, and with Aunt Hannah slurping away on Frank’s liquor, and Meg not even here . . .
“Who’s there?” my aunt said behind me, heading toward the door.
“Don’t!” I shouted, but it was too late.
Her hand swung open the door so fast that I realized she must have been expecting more bad news to be delivered. Laurie came walking in, a big smile on his face. He was holding a bag of Bugles in one hand and in the other a bottle of that fizzy apple drink he tried three summers ago in Munich and has been obsessed with ever since.
“Hey!” He walked around Aunt Hannah to me. His chin turned upward and he scanned my face with laser eyes. “What’s up? What’s wrong?” he asked, like he could easily read me in a second’s time.
I shook my head and untucked my stringy hair from behind my ears. He cleared his hands, dropping his stuff onto the counter. He didn’t stop walking toward me, even when the glass bottle rolled off the counter and dropped to the floor. Luckily it didn’t shatter, but I don’t believe he would have turned back around if it had.
“Jo, what’s going on?” Laurie turned to my aunt. “Hannah?”
She was immediately frazzled by Laurie. “Uh . . .” She looked at me for a second, then to Laurie. “It’s Frank.” She cleared her throat. “He—”
“Shut up!” I snapped at her just as Amy came into the room.
Her frail shoulders were shaking and she was wearing pajama pants that were too short for her blossoming legs. Her bottom lip looked like it had split open.
“Amy.” I moved to her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. She pushed at me, ducking under my arms. She never liked hugs from anyone except Dad and Meg. Meg used to give pretty good hugs, though.
“Where’s Meg?” Amy hiccuped, and the oven starting screaming beeps into the room.
“Beth!” I snapped.
“Can you call her again?” Amy asked, tugging on the bottom of my T-shirt. She felt so small in that room, like she was eight again and had sliced her toe open on her pink Razor scooter. She’d cried and cried for Meg, until Meg came home from River’s house, albeit smelling like Smirnoff. Meg was lucky I never snitched on her, but I was starting to wish that I had every time Amy asked for her.
“I’ll call her again.” I patted Amy’s back, which was wet from sweat. “Laurie, can you call Meg please.”
The oven beeped again.
“Beth!” I shouted, and Amy cried harder. “I’m sorry,” I told her, rubbing. “You’re burning up.” I shook out the back of her shirt.
Laurie had my phone to his ear in no time and disappeared down the hallway.
“How long until we’ll hear from your mom?” Aunt Hannah asked us.
Wasn’t she supposed to know that? Or at least not be selfish enough to ask us that? We were kids, even me. Meg was the only one of us who was an adult. She had a car and paid her own cell phone bill and car insurance.
And she wasn’t here.