Ask, Tell, page 16
After an hour, everything is out and spread around the
kitchen, on the table, the benches and even the floor. At
least the pantry is empty, so all I need to do is remove the
thin layer of dust. It seems sort of pointless given I won’t put
anything in there for a few months, but I do it anyway. I sort
and rearrange things into piles ready to be put away again
but get no further than that. I’m sitting cross-legged on the
floor, surrounded by stacks of crockery and cooking utensils
when motivation exits my body as suddenly as it came. I
stay there for five minutes, waiting to see if it returns. It
doesn’t. Oh well.
I leave the contents of my kitchen strewn everywhere and
move around the house aimlessly. I’m still dressed in the
clothes from last night and don’t care. Some things need
repairing, like one of the window latches in the spare room
and the back door handle. From the window facing the
backyard, it looks like the gutters around the shed are
coming apart at the seams. Thanks for keeping the house in
good order, Vic. Her words echo in my head. Your house,
your problem. It makes me want to throw a chair through
the window. I need to go out and buy supplies to fix up my
house. Later.
I drag my clothes off and dump them in the laundry then
clump up the stairs and flop into the bed, climbing naked
under the covers. I set an alarm for three thirty.
* * *
I’m momentarily confused by my alarm cutting over the
sound of cars on the street below me. Light streaks through
my window and hits me in the eyes. My body is
uncooperative and stiff from sleeping, or maybe it’s from
last night. After all, it has been a while. Something crunches
in my neck when I roll over. Shit. Thought I’d wake up way
before my alarm. Jana will be here in forty minutes to collect
me and I haven’t packed, showered or eaten. I panic, kick
off the duvet, roll from the bed and rush to the shower.
There’s commotion from downstairs, and the sound of
someone running up the stairs. My sister is early for what
may be the first time in her life. I finish drying myself and
hurriedly put underwear on. “Sabine!” Jana bursts into my
room as I’m reaching for my jeans.
“Yeah, I know. You’re early. Can you check the doors and
lock up, please? I’ll be done in a sec.” I toss toiletries,
underwear and a random assortment of clothing into a bag.
Maybe it’s enough, maybe not, but I can always buy things
in Ohio. I rush into the kitchen and shift a stack of cutlery
aside to get my card and license.
My sister gestures to my jacket, on the table, half covered
by pots and pans. “Did you go out last night?”
“I did, yes.” I stuff my cards back into my wallet.
She gives me a shrewd smile. “Have a good time,
Sabbie?”
“It was rather enlightening.” I can’t stop my smirk.
Jana scrunches an eyebrow. “Interesting way to describe
it. Still, I suppose it could be worse,” she chirps. “You could
be paralytically drunk in a pile of your own vomit, listening
to ballads and burning all your photos of her. Instead, you’re
fucking and rearranging!” She ends the sentence with an
upward inflection.
I laugh and grab my jacket. A pot falls to the floor. “Come
on, we don’t want to miss our flight.”
* * *
I stare out the window as the plane lifts off, trying to
ignore my anxiety. I’m torn, because I’m desperate to see
my parents and grandparents but on the other hand, I need
some downtime. I need some time to do nothing, to not
have to make small talk with cousins I haven’t seen in over
a year. The short flight to Dayton is spent trying to steel
myself for the eight days.
This visit was so hastily put together that there are no real
plans, except some quiet family meals. No constant orgy of
food and alcohol and I’m grateful for this small mercy.
Usually there would be a little more advance notice for
leave and we would plan a combined celebration for
Thanksgiving, Christmas and my birthday. Something to
satisfy all the occasions I miss while deployed, or stuck on
base back home.
On my last trip home I felt like a museum display or
royalty sitting around while people came to see me. I don’t
have the energy to cope this time. I just want to spend a
week cocooned with my parents, sister and grandparents.
Opa doesn’t drive much anymore, so I promised him we’ll
be there after dinner tonight. Jana and I hire a car and drive
out to our parents’ place, singing along with crappy eighties
music blasting out of the speakers.
My father crushes me in a tight hug the moment I am in
reach and Mom pretends she’s not crying as she grabs Jana
and me together. I hug my parents tightly, feeling like a
small child again, and we end up in a weird four-way
embrace on the sidewalk. Seeing my parents after so long is
indescribable. Happiness, joy and comfort, but with a tinge
of sadness because I know I’ll have to leave them again.
I smell evidence Mom has been cooking for most of the
afternoon, and she ushers us straight to the kitchen to taste
test something for her. A proud matriarch, she is always
delighted whenever one of us comes home, but to have
both of us together seems to have pushed her over an
excitement precipice.
Daddy grills outside and I set the table then go chat with
him, a beer in my hand. Jana is helping Mom in the kitchen
and their inane chattering filters through, something about
couch patterns.
“Did you turn the grill off, Gerhardt?” Mom calls when she
hears him placing a platter on the table.
“Yes, yes,” he grouses. My father turns to me. “Leave it on
one time and you never live it down.” He winks. I grin and
close the sliding door, peeking to make sure the grill is off.
“Well you did leave it on that one time,” my mother
admonishes him.
In a family with three women, my father knows which
battles to pursue. He sits down with his mouth closed. Jana
grabs my arm and pulls me out of earshot of our parents. “I
hope you’re hungry, Sabbie. It’s time to get fattened up for
slaughter.” She widens her eyes at me but before I can
respond, Mom orders us to sit.
We settle in our customary places and begin passing
things around. I butter a piece of bread. “How’s work, Jana?”
If I get in first I can deflect the conversation away from
myself.
“It’s good, busy. I’ve been spending a lot of time in court.
Plenty of people getting divorced,” she says sweetly, dishing
up salad for herself. She just had to mention the D word.
The bitch does it on purpose, though I did set myself up
asking my divorce lawyer sister about her work.
My mother sets her fork down. Here we go. “Sabs. How
are you after Victoria’s bombshell? Have you found
someone to watch the house?” She looks around the table.
“Awful, just awful after so many years! I never would have
thought she had that in her.”
I bite off a mouthful of bread, narrowing my eyes at my
traitorous sister. I take my time chewing, stalling. “I’m fine,
Mom. It wasn’t really unexpected. Things hadn’t been good
for a while.” I kick Jana’s shin under the table. My sister
grunts.
“Well, I do wish you had said something to us
beforehand,” my mother frets.
My response is firm. “I wasn’t aware it was going to
happen like this, Mom, otherwise I would have. Can we
maybe just eat now and talk about this later?” Or talk about
it never.
Daddy finally speaks up. “I always thought she was
strange. How do you trust a person who voted for—”
“Dad!” Jana cuts him off, but she is smiling.
My father grins and reaches for his beer. “Well, it’s true.
And she cheated on my girl.”
I can’t handle a deep discussion about what a horrible
person my ex is. I try to be diplomatic. “I know, Daddy. I just
want to move on with my life now.” It’s such a cliché but it
seems to appease him.
My father nods emphatically. “You’re right, Sabine.” He
never shortens my name. “You have work and the army to
focus on, you can think about partners later.”
Or, I can think about the potential of one right now and
how she is at work and completely out of reach. I eat so I
don’t have to speak and my thoughts drift back to last night
with Nikki. I was hoping the encounter had taken the edge
off my desire for Keane, but it’s done the opposite. The
comparisons come easily and Nikki cannot compare. It’s not
her fault that her eyes are hazel, not a deep ocean blue. Nor
that she has no dimples. No blond hair. No high-pitched
laugh.
“Sabs?”
I look up at my mother. “Yes?”
“You’re not eating. Aren’t you hungry?”
“Oh. Yeah. I was just thinking about something.” I pick up
my fork again. “Sorry.”
“Are you okay, honey?”
The lie falls off my tongue. “Just a little jet-lagged, Mom.”
Jana nudges my foot under the table and when I look up,
she mouths, “Liar” at me, followed by what I can only
imagine is her impersonation of an orgasm face. I kick her
again under the table and she retaliates with one of her
own, catching me on the knee.
When Mom is done forcing dessert on us, I excuse myself
to go upstairs to sleep. My room is like a time capsule,
except there’s no dust and the bed is freshly made. Mom
finds it hard to accept that her daughters are grown up and
gone from her house. Faded posters from when I was a
teenager are still stuck to the walls—prints of bands I once
cared about and women I thought hot. Trophies and ribbons
are stacked and hung neatly everywhere. There’s a soft
knock on my door. I glance up. “Yeah?”
The door opens slowly, the light flicks on and a pillow is
lobbed through the open space, landing on the floor next to
the bed. Oh, piss off. “Pillow fight, Jana? Really? Aren’t we
twenty-five years too old for that?”
She bursts into the room and jumps on my bed. “Never
too old!”
“Did you take drugs with dinner?” I grunt as her elbow
digs into my hip. “Fuck! Ow!”
“No!” She drapes herself over me to grab the pillow from
the floor.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Ha!” Jana stops fidgeting and settles, leaning against the
wall with her legs over mine. “Tell me about your one-night
stand. Gory, juicy, toe-curling details.”
I raise an eyebrow. “There’s not much to tell, Jannie.
Friend of a friend. We fucked, I came home.”
“So you got back on the horse and all that shit.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I lean back against the headboard. “But,
what if the horse I wanted to get back on isn’t the one I
rode?”
My younger sister is watching me keenly. “So you got a
cow pony, not a racehorse. Who cares? Isn’t a ride a ride?”
“No, of course not.”
Jana’s eyes widen. “Was she untrained?”
I laugh softly. “Definitely not.”
She holds my gaze, her lips twisted in a grin.
“Something’s going on, Sabs. I can feel it. You’re never this
thoughtful.”
“Thanks.”
“Do I have to tickle it out of you?”
My body tenses. “You wouldn’t fucking dare.”
Jana dives on top of me and I flinch, batting at her. My
sister sits up on her knees, leaning forward. “You’re safe. For
now. But don’t think I’m going to leave this alone.”
Mercifully my ticklish spots are left alone as she gives me a
full body hug before she rolls off the bed and skips across
the room. Jana stops at the door. “Sleep tight!” Her
expression tells me she’s going to launch another attack,
and soon.
I tuck my hands under my armpits. “You too.” After she
leaves me in the dark again and closes the door, I get up to
lock it. Just in case.
There’s a little moonlight sneaking through the blinds,
keeping me awake. You’re a transparent idiot, Sabine. Nice
job hiding your feelings. I want to tell Jana about everything
and dissect it from every angle, but of course I can’t. What
would I even say? Oh yeah, I’m sort of in love with my boss
and miss her like crazy but it’s so against the rules it could
get me discharged, and give Daddy a heart attack? Of
course not.
Keane. Now that I’m away, I miss her and all the little
things that I hadn’t even realized I was paying attention to.
Our conversations about cases and the way she watches me
with her head tilted while I give my opinion. She celebrates
a football touchdown with a little skip-heel-click. I miss her
compassion, watching her talk through a loss with my
workmates. Her smile. I miss catching her looking at me and
how she bites her lower lip as she looks away again.
I lie alone in the darkness with my thoughts set loose.
There are no constraints, no facial expressions needing to
be hidden. I slide a hand down over my breasts as I think of
Keane exploring my body. My nipples are hard points
between my fingertips, sending a sharp current sliding
through my stomach to my groin. When my fingers find my
slick clit, there is nothing soft or sensual about the pleasure
I bring myself. I am desperate and needy, almost frantic as I
buck underneath my fingers, which are coated with my
arousal. Imagining Keane’s tongue flicking against my clit
pushes me over the edge and I have to bite my wrist to stop
myself from crying out when my release comes.
* * *
The rest of the time in Ohio passes in a blur of family
events. My days are filled with sympathetic faces and voices
as we eat, drink and talk about nothing. Inevitably, the
conversation turns to Victoria. I make appropriate noises
then pass the conversation on to my sister so I don’t have to
talk about either my ex or what I’ve been doing in the war.
I bring Oma and Opa over when the family has barbeques
or potluck dinners. Oma mutters unhappily in German that I
am too thin, too thin and keeps ordering my sister to bring
me food. Everyone bustles around and I move through
them, making appropriate sounds and trying to blend in.
Jana makes intermittent runs at me, like an aircraft failing
landing after landing.
“Who is it?”
“Do I know her?”
“It’s not Mitch is it? Ew, please no. You guys haven’t been
turned?”
“Is she pretty?”
No. No. NO! Yes…
Eventually, Jana gives up after every prod is met with my
silence.
I catch a break when she flies home after four days for a
court appearance that couldn’t be rescheduled. On the plus
side, it means no more constant questions and sideways
looks. But her leaving means there’s nobody to run
interference when my family wants to talk about Vic and
work and wars.
I engage dutifully and the moment I stop talking,
daydreams about Keane sneak into my head. I dissect our
conversation on the bench over and over. My brain replays
our moment in sick bay and I run over every look and touch,
trying to see if it’s all in my imagination. I don’t believe it is.
There is something between us. I’m certain of it.
Chapter Eighteen
The day I’m due to fly back to D.C., I drive into Dayton in
the morning to pick up a cake Mom ordered for our final
family lunch. I enjoy the feeling of concrete sidewalks
underfoot and the way people bustle around knowing
nothing about me. Not my past or my secrets. They don’t
know I’m thinking about Rebecca Keane.
I walk past a hair salon, take another few steps then turn
around and push the door open. The girl at the desk is
young, with bottle-blond hair and murky green eyes that
gleam hazel as they catch the light. I smile broadly. “Hi,
sorry, I don’t have an appointment. I’m heading out of town
today and just thought I could sneak a haircut, if you have
any spaces?”
She takes her time perusing the appointment book. “Can
