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Authors: Jane Berentson

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BOOK: Long Division
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In wondering about historical patterns of female wartime alone-ness, my mind conjures up this image of the loyal woman at home as a diligent provider or worker bee or tireless organizer. Ration-coupon stashers. Child-rearing nurturers. Enthusiastic sign toters. And there's this vague memory of a Greek (or Roman?) lady whose husband was gone for something like fifty years and she just kept knitting and knitting
3
some ginormous blanket until he got back. It was one of those epic battles that lasts for decades, to the point where no one really remembers why it started in the first place. It's always something about border disputes or crowns or rights or beautiful women. Or oil. All this to say, if there is a woman at home, she is doing
something.
whattheflipamIgoingtodo???
raindrops . . .
whattheflipamIgoingtosay???
fucking sliding scooting raindrops!
Two weeks before David left, we took a road trip. Packed a tent and an inflatable mattress into his car. Drove down the Oregon coast, stopping at small towns to buy saltwater taffy at shops with wind socks out front and picnic tables out back. Gas prices were ridiculous, but we didn't care. The whole trip held this weird pressure to be absolutely marvelous, but at the same time to be just normal old David/Annie fun. Like each meal had to be irrefutably tasty, but no different from a meal under any other circumstances. Our final cheeseburgers together had to be juicy-thick with bacon. Steaming curly fries on the side. But we could not say anything about it out loud. We could not name them
The Special Before-You-Leave-For-War Cheeseburgers;
we just had to enjoy their drippy meatiness and know that they were. And that's kind of how I feel about attempting to write a memoir. Am I allowed to label the cheeseburgers here? How much sentimental smarminess will the U.S. military ration out to a gal like me? How much, Georgie?
No, not you, my dear lonesome tortoise comrade. The other Georgie.
So as I conclude this first (but on the second attempt) writing session, let me slap down a thesis statement that I aim to keep flashing in the front of my brain throughout the duration of this year and this project.
Dear Annie,
You must write to provoke, elicit, and understand your deepest emotions. To coax them out and paint them plain and ugly. Sweet and/or bitter. In documenting how you pass this year, you will hopefully come to understand something more profound about yourself, David Peterson, Lonesome George, George W. Bush, and maybe (if you're lucky), the ENTIRE UNIVERSE.
Fondest regards,
Annie Harper
Nine days after David leaves, school starts. I'm not as prepared this year. Last year I spent hours coloring in the SpongeBob name tags for my kids' desks. Making sure all the colors matched the actual hues of the show. I had six weeks of lessons planned. There was a field trip arranged and this very elaborate calendar to count down the days until the end of the year. This year we're not counting.
“So that's a little bit of information about me, boys and girls. I'm very excited to have you all here this year. You will see soon enough that third grade is a blast. Does anyone have any questions?” A girl in the second row uncrosses her ankles and lifts her little tush off the seat as if her flailing arm has caused her to levitate. I did a real half-ass job making name tags for the desks this year. They're rocket ships. The proportions are all wrong and they are really,
really
ugly. Squinting for the child's name, I notice for the first time (even though I should have noticed shortly after making twenty-eight of them) that the rocket ship name tags are blatantly phallic.
“Yes, Caitlin?”
“Miss Harper, do you have a boyfriend?”
“Why, yes. I do.”
“Does he live in your bed with you?” The kids giggle at their peer's gumption. Except they don't know that it's gumption because they don't use words like that since they are eight.
I
almost giggle at her clumsy, childish rhetoric. But then it's exactly her clumsy, childish rhetoric that evokes an image of a horizontal David with a comatose stare and swollen ankles: an invalid
living in my bed with me
.
“No dear, he lives really far away.”
“How far?”
“Like, really, really far,” I say.
“That's not a very exact answer,” says Caitlin.
“Well, I'm fucking sorry, but that's all you're going to get.”
Okay, so I probably shouldn't write fake moments of dialogue where I cuss out my students. Thankfully (and perhaps luckily), I have never cursed at a child. Now that I'm nine pages into this whole narrative experiment, I'm finding myself tempted to fictionalize. Not because I want to change the way I'm represented on the page—Annie Harper will do what Annie Harper will do—but more because mixing it up, imagining what could have happened instead of what already did, is simply more interesting. I never considered the boring repetition of documenting one's own life. Something happens. Then you watch it happen again in your imagination as you write it down. If things don't fire up, this project is in danger of becoming exceptionally tedious. I guess the second time—the writing time—is when I'm supposed to add the pretty words and the laugh tracks and the complex analytical questions. Don't just make shit up, Miss Harper! You will fail the assignment with no chance at extra credit.
If I had dropped the
f
-bomb like that, I'd have been out of a teaching job in minutes. Thank goodness my fuse is not so short. When Caitlin spat that sass at me, I simply sighed and said something like, “Well, let's talk about VIP days!” or “Let me tell you about the hall pass!” My teacher persona isn't easily rattled to the point that awful things escape. They brew, they fester, they tickle the insides of my lips, but they always stay inside. I rarely lose my cool.
4
I rarely get hysterical.
 
What's weird about these first David-free weeks is that I seem to have a free pass for hysteria. People are genuinely expecting me to be all weepy and frazzled. The teachers in my school with whom I am relatively close have all commented on how “put together” I seem to them. Like it's some incredible feat that I've managed to button my blouse the proper way and keep my bottom lip from dropping sadly to the floor. And then there is my dear, sweet mother. The morning David left, I drove to my parents' house. My father was at work, of course, but my mother really insisted that I come by. She had it all oddly planned out. There was the special quiche she knows I love. Fresh melons all cut up. Kleenex strategically placed throughout the house in places I'd never seen it while growing up. On the bookcase. Near the kitchen sink. Had Kleenex always been there, and I merely too snot-free and happy to notice? My mom was just inside the door when I entered. Surely she had started brewing the coffee just as she heard my tires on the driveway gravel. She's always been great at having coffee ready.
“Oh, Annie,” she said. And she lifted her eyebrows with her arms as if they were both waiting to cradle my sobs or something.
“Hey, mom.” It was supposed to be one of those big emotional moments. One of those times when you know exactly why you have a mother. I was supposed to collapse into the soft of her postmenopausal abdomen and transfer to her half of my grief and half of my worry and half of my depression. And we would share it.
5
Instead, I complimented the new paint in the entryway, “Blue is so clean-looking,” and we went inside.
That morning there had been this big flag-waving, yellow-ribbon, send-off hoopla. I hated it. I hated the other women waving yellow ribbons and white handkerchiefs. Actual cloth handkerchiefs! Who even uses those anymore? I know it's supposed to be helpful. Remind us all that we're not alone. It's supposed to remind me that the mission is for something that someone somewhere thinks is a good idea. It's supposed to make soldiers feel that we'll be here smiling and waving and waiting—wearing the same low-cut tops—the whole damn time they're gone.
This was our last conversation in the flesh:
“Annie, I love you. I'm going to miss you so much.”
“I know. This totally sucks.”
“I'll call as soon as I can.”
“Okay.”
“I love you, babe.”
“I love you too. Keep track of your limbs!”
Keep track of your limbs!!! Who says that? They should have handed me a goddamn handkerchief, and then maybe the blinding white cotton would have induced some tears. Some reasonable reaction. He smiled anyway, but in a sad way. Not sad “my-girlfriend-is-a-heartless-spaz sad,” but more “I-can't-believe-this-moment-is-really-here sad.” And of course I really was sad. And of course I'm not really a heartless spaz all of the time. I'm still sad. And we're keeping track of our limbs.
 
I crossed my legs and folded my arms once my mother and I sat down to quiche.
“You're not hungry?” she asked.
“Meh. Not really.” I picked up the copy of
Us Weekly
on the table. An Olsen twin was dangerously thin. “An Olsen twin is dangerously thin, Mom.”
“And you'll be too, if you don't eat,” she said, pointing to my quiche with her fork as if I'd forgotten where it was. I stabbed a chunk of melon, gave it a spin, and ate it. I knew my mother was thinking that my lack of appetite was directly related to someheinous Boyfriend-at-War anxiety, but really, I had eaten two very ripe bananas on the drive over. And a muffin. The mature twenty-four-year-old would have simply owned up to the untimely binge and assuaged her poor mother's worries. But I didn't do it. I pushed my food (so lovingly prepared!) around my plate and acted like a pouty, despondent, can't-be-comforted brat. “Don't you want to talk about it, Annie? Tell me how you're feeling or something?” She did the eyebrow thing again when she said this.
“I don't know, Mom. I feel like shit. I'm sad.”
“You don't really seem sad.”
“Well, I am. Sad people can still care about the Olsen twins.”
“Oh, Annie.” She said it again, this time with wisps of exasperation. She asked me more questions about the send-off. And I answered them, trying to make it sound nice.
“It will go so much faster than you think.”
“Ugh, Mom. That's what everyone keeps saying. But a year is a year is a year.” Then I told her that time only seems to slow down or speed up when you're not paying attention. Like when you've been drinking too much in college or when you haven't read the newspaper in weeks. I'm going to be paying attention. It's going to be a year. She said she didn't quite understand what I meant. She poured us both more coffee, and I could tell that she was pleased that I had begun to open up—albeit with goofball speculations about the perception of time.
“I mean that's it. It's long. It's going to be exactly as long as it's going to be.”
“Well, I guess that's sort of a realistic viewpoint.” My mom looked confused and I think a little surprised. Did she expect me to be announcing how proud I was of David? (Of course, amid the frustrating situation, there is still much room for pride.) Did she want me to make political forecasts? Or maybe just weep weep weep? I knew I was failing to meet some behavioral expectation she had for me, and although I knew her intentions were the kindest, I didn't have the energy to play a role I couldn't even define. So I steered the conversation to a place where I could safely exit. I think we ended up talking about gardening. I mentioned the need to clip my sweet peas.
“I need to go, Mom. Thanks for the food and everything,” I said. I meant it too. I did appreciate the foods. I would appreciate them more when I ate the leftovers (quickly ushered into foil packets and Tupperware) the next day for breakfast. And I appreciated that my mom was so set on being there in case the weep weep weep actually happened. Maybe we were both equally perplexed that it had not.
“Of course, sweetie. Now don't ever hesitate to come over. I know you'll be busy with school soon, but call me.” She hugged me again, and though I do love being hugged by my mother, I was annoyed by the way it lasted longer than usual. It had to be a special your-boyfriend-left-for-war hug. Wrapped in my mother's arms, I could almost see myself reaching into my pocket for a white handkerchief, pulling it out, and flailing it around. Let me go! I surrender! Let me out! Instead, I stayed there and returned the hug as best I could until she let go and kissed my cheek.
And then I left. I stopped at the gourmet supermarket on the way home. I purchased a Swiss Gruyère, a Spanish manchego, a small log of herbed goat cheese, and a smoked Dutch Gouda. Three types of crackers. And a baguette!
 
Lactase is this stuff your small intestine produces to break down the two sugars that form lactose, the main sugar in milk. At eight P.M., I ate the Swiss Gruyère. If for some reason you don't have enough lactase in your small intestine, the lactose gets down to your large intestine still intact. Around quarter to nine I ate the Spanish manchego.
6
There it ferments with some bacteria that are just hanging out being otherwise quite healthy. I ate the herbed goat cheese and licked my fingers clean. And this fermentation, this rumbling in the colon, produces some nasty, treacherous effects. Your guts basically freak out. I ate the smoked Dutch Gouda, savoring its hearty, woody finish. Excess gas, cramping, and loose, painful stools. Most humans on earth are lactose intolerant. But not most humans in North America.
The crackers disappeared. The baguette was blasted into a storm of crumbs. The coffee table in my living room became the front line of an epic battle: dairy versus carbohydrate. Both sides suffered severe losses. I basically destroyed everything. You might even call it
hysterical
. I asked David once if the lactose intolerant were allowed to join the army.
BOOK: Long Division
11.73Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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