Fire and Forget (5 page)

“There was a whole country around us.” I said. “I don't know what goes on here. I have no idea what these people are thinking. They sure as hell don't know anything about me.”

The city was fully awake now, the sun up and every light on. Figures moved in the windows, some of them looking out at us.

“Hold up,” Jimmy said. “Let's just stay here for a while. I can catch a later bus. It'll be alright.”

Cole spun around. “Like the road?” His voice clear and contemptuous, he lunged at Jimmy. “How the hell is this like the road? There aren't any fucking IEDs here. Nobody telling you what to do. You can leave any time you want.” Then he turned on me. “And you. You should know better.” He moved closer and my hands coiled in my pockets. “Nobody knows you?
They're not trying to kill you, that's all. But you're afraid of ending up like them.”

Jimmy looked down and Cole rounded on him again. “Look at me,” he barked. Jimmy's eyes went sideways. “Look at me!” Cole said again, but his voice carried the evenness and authority of an old note, and I heard it as “look at me, Specialist.”

Jimmy looked up.

“You can't stay here. There's nothing for you here.”

Cole took a deep breath and cupped his hand over his mouth as if about to throw up. Then he shook himself and said, “For starters, I'm hungry, my head hurts, I'm sweating booze, and there's no eggs up here. Let's go get chow.”

My eyes, squinting, adjusted to the light. I was about to say something to Cole when he cut me off. “You, both of you, whatever's out there, I'm taking it. You don't want it, that's your business, but don't lie to yourselves and pretend it's not there for the taking.”

On my face I felt the crispness of the morning air as it rolled chill across the water. I smacked Cole on the ass and pointed an elbow at him, smiling at Jimmy. “The conquering hero returns. What village next, good sir? The world is yours to plunder.”

“Wherever there are eggs. Let's go get fed.”

And with that we started again to the scaffold. On our way down the stairs we passed some of the workers heading up. They carried cups of coffee and tools and had too much day ahead to worry about three guys who weren't carrying anything out. When we passed the last of them, Jimmy turned back and shouted, “Gentlemen, hell of a view.”

And then we were out on the street, the three of us. We stretched and started toward the Port Authority, my head getting heavier with every step. I remembered Annie, remembered I wanted to talk to them about Annie, and felt a sudden urgency now. The early light was shining on everything at once with a
ghostly pallor. I saw the blank open spaces between everything that stood or moved. Ordering those spaces is most of a soldier's job, but now, back here, that's all there is, and I don't know if I can do it anymore without the other part.

“What do I say to her?” I asked, but they were already gone.

When your soldier returns, take it easy, take it slow. Your own backyard might be paradise enough for a soldier who hasn't seen grass in a year. Let him just sit in a hammock and relax.

B
UT THE HAMMOCK EVIE INSTALLED
in the backyard isn't enough for Colin. A week after his return from Afghanistan, they are already on a plane to Hawaii. This trip is a surprise anniversary gift, and Evie is a girl who hates surprises.

Colin and Evie have spent the week awkwardly trying to get used to each other after a year apart. Awkward because Colin has been working long hours at the base dealing with the accountability of the men, weapons, and vehicles that returned with him.

Evie tried to adapt to his uneven schedule, mostly by taking time off from Florence's Home Cooking Catering, sitting around the house waiting for Colin to get back while thinking about the money she should be making, and then smiling too much when he finally came through the door.

Awkward yet again because each time Colin returns from a deployment, and this is his third, there are more classes for Evie to
attend: Redeployment Briefs, Family Readiness Group Meetings led by the chaplain, lectures by the “military life consultants.” There are glossy pamphlets, charts on the wall, checklists printed out from the Internet. When Colin got back from his first tour four years ago, he came home to a wife in a thong and high heels, frying up pork chops, and that was all the “healing” he needed. Now the worry doesn't end when the deployment does. Now there is talk of soldiers who seem whole at first but are actually damaged: brain injuries, nightmares, prescription drug abuse, attempted suicides.

Colin did not use the hammock once.

But he seems fine. Especially now, curled up in his North Face jacket, his head jammed into the oval eye of the window, sleeping peacefully as the plane hurries them through time zones.

So Evie puts away her
Battle Spouses' Tips for a Smooth Transition
and pages through the
Lonely Planet Guide to Oahu
. The more she reads, the more she underlines, the better she feels. The guide offers a highlighted route to the restaurants with stars, the hotels with the plushest pillows, the shops with the best-priced souvenirs. She is lulled into believing the illusion of the word “vacation”: that the ordinary unpleasantness of life—traffic jams, bed bugs, salmonella—will somehow be avoided if only they follow the author's map. Evie rests her cheek against Colin's sleeping shoulder, trying to peer out as the merged blue of sea and sky are severed by a sudden cresting green.

A stewardess bangs down the aisle, collecting the last bits of pre-landing trash, telling everyone to put their seats forward and stow their tray tables. Colin lurches upright, his shoulder hitting Evie's chin, and she bites her tongue hard. It takes him a moment to realize where he is. He turns and looks at her. Fiercely. It's a face Evie has never seen before: his blue eyes narrow, his teeth so clenched a pulse beats in his cheek. In that moment, Evie thinks that he must know about the man in Austin, and she leans away from her husband, her hand over her mouth.

Colin blinks. He uses his palm to push back whatever thoughts are there. Evie's fingers are still on her lips, her tongue feeling around her teeth to see if she is bleeding (she is not), and he turns back to his window, not even noticing she is hurt.

Some things may have changed while you were gone, including your spouse. You both may have refigured your outlook and priorities. Try to share expectations, especially for the first weeks of being together again. Discuss topics such as social activities and household routines. Go slowly—don't try to make up for lost time. Be flexible.

As they land and wait to disembark, Evie wonders if some acquaintance, a witness at the party four months ago, had seen the man press his mouth against hers, if anyone had told Colin all about it. Which is a conundrum, of course. If Colin has been waiting for an explanation, each day she hasn't mentioned it must be weighing on him, the moment looming and illicit. But if Colin doesn't know and she blurts out the story, it will seem like a confession, and he will wonder if she is hiding more.

“Well, what are we going to do?” Colin asks and Evie glances up. He is holding her
Lonely Planet
, flipping it open to a picture of the blasted volcano, Diamond Head.

Evie grins, flushed with relief, ready with an answer.

This is what she wants to do: traipse around the island, snorkeling in the warm water of Hanauma Bay while striped fish nibble at their fingers. Walk the reef-sheltered lagoon of Kaneohe, dine at the Moroccan restaurant, Casablanca, with its silk pillows and hookahs gem-like in the center of each table, eating with their hands, wrapping spicy chickpeas and spinach in flatbread and laughing as it drips down their arms. Visit the red-lacquered Japanese temple of Byodo-In, tossing crumbs to the peacocks ambling across the lawn. Drive through the tree-canopied
Nuuanu Pali Drive, stopping at the lookout to see the Pacific below, so serene as it laps the site where King Kamehameha's warriors threw his enemies down the twelve-hundred-foot cliff. Watch the surfers at Pipeline Beach and swallow sweet mounds of “shave” ice, kissing with syrup-dyed lips.

Colin nods, an eyebrow lifted in amusement, seemingly amazed at the detail behind his wife's desires.

“What about you?” Evie asks.

This is what Colin wants to do: paddle a kayak out to Chinaman's Hat and kayak-surf the big waves back. Take a scuba recertification course at Kaneohe Bay. Eat fat burgers at Jameson's in Haleiwa while drinking Jameson whiskey—she admits this has an irresistible symmetry. Then go to a luau and devour as much of a pit-roasted pig as possible (yes,
devour
) while slugging back the fruity rainbow drinks a soldier can only drink in a place like Hawaii. Cliff jump into Waimea Bay. Rock climb at Dillingham Airfield, followed up with a six-mile hike out to the tip of Kaena Point. Do a shark encounter he found online.

There is nothing called “shark encounter” in Evie's guidebook.

She looks out the window at the runway as her husband talks. He thinks he will convince her to do a shark encounter? She hates sharks. Evie hates everything on Colin's list. She does not kayak or hike or rock climb or scuba. She knows her husband is a man full of energy, his body an animal that must be tended, fed, groomed, and put out to run. And yet she assumed this trip, like other vacations they've taken, would be a compromise between her love of museums and good food and his love of sweat and activity. But all of Colin's options seem like adventures he ought to do alone or with a soldier buddy. With a bitterness that surprises her, she suddenly wishes she never agreed to this trip.

She turns to the people in the aisle, everyone hunched and stalled, trying to get off the plane, and she moves from foot to foot, wanting out.

Typically, a “honeymoon” period follows in which couples reunite, but not necessarily emotionally. Sexual intimacy may take time. Be patient and communicate—you and your spouse may have expectations that are not met right away. Talk about each other's emotional and physical needs without assuming what the other wants. Needs and wants may change over the course of a year.

Colin had booked the hotel. Evie was hoping for something in Waikiki or Honolulu, close to the high-end shopping and placid beaches where Japanese tourists stayed. Instead, they drive their rental car out to the sun-bleached world of the North Shore, passing beach after beach, surfers tiny spots of color delicately clinging to the tremendous winter waves.

Colin valet-parks at a hotel that seems to be constructed out of sun and marble. As Colin checks in, Evie inspects the garden in the lobby, trying to figure out how the orchids grow from the black lava rock. Evie thinks the flowers look like impaled heads with lolling purple tongues, and she makes sure they do not brush her arm as she and Colin head to the elevators.

Their room is the most extravagant Evie has ever seen: a buffed, gleaming floor; a king-size bed that looks like a confection of meringue and marshmallow; a balcony facing the ocean. She turns to ask Colin how much the room will cost. What was he thinking while they drove past plenty of perfectly decent budget hotels?

Before she can get the words out, before she can even put her purse on that monstrosity of a bed, Colin's hand is on her back, pulling her into his grip, and his lips shut hers to speech. Her body stiffens. She's weary from the flight. She wants a long shower or a longer bath. She wants room service and a nap. This is how it's been since he's been back, a sudden mauling as if Colin is a teenager with no control over his urges. Their bags are
piled by the door, her purse strap weighing on her shoulder, her hair heavy on her neck, sweat sticky along the trail of her spine. She is intensely aware of not having brushed her teeth for hours. But there is no doubt on his part, just the certainty they will have sex
now
, this moment, without any communication other than his body pressing into hers. In response, her shoulders relent. Her purse slides down and crashes on the marble and her lipstick rolls out and hits her foot. Colin releases her long enough to tug his T-shirt over his head. One glimpse of his chest and something shifts inside of her; she stops thinking about her unbrushed teeth, just kicks off her shoes and reaches for his belt buckle.

This is one thing army wives do not complain about: the return of the deployed husband to his marriage bed. After all those months apart, eager hands on timid flesh, exciting and yet familiar, the true return boiled down to two bodies snapping together like puzzle pieces, still fitting, new and familiar at once.

* * *

Colin collapses beside her, careful not to crush her with his muscled weight, both of them breathing hard. The air conditioning cools the edges of Evie's exposed skin. There's a ceiling fan, too. She watches it twirl above and waits for an ache in her chest to go away. Then she gets up on an elbow. Now that they are naked, whether she wants to or not, she can tell him everything, get it over with. Maybe her revelation will nudge him into telling her how he is
really
doing, maybe the post-coital intimacy will allow him to reveal the things he couldn't tell her when he was so far away, communicating by satellite phone or e-mail.

But he is already asleep.