Blue Stars (42 page)

What had she thought then, in her only suit and new heels and wedge haircut? With Don still alive and the kids so young—Jane not even walking yet—holding her own book, her first book, in this temple to written art?
This is just the beginning
, probably.
So much more to say.

In the box Lacey had mailed Ellen recognized the stack of books as the small pile she kept in her room at Mologne, the few she hadn’t given away from the many Serena had mailed. A Post-it:
Jane let me in and I just thought you’d want these.

Ellen poked at them with distaste. “She might have sent my phone charger.” Maisie put her chin on Ellen’s thigh.

Still, Ellen took Wharton’s
A Son at the Front
from the stack. The copy she’d so improbably found that first week in SICU, on a candy-striper giveaway cart. She flipped it open and read the introduction. Not bad. Quite excellent, in fact, this short text by an Iowa-based scholar Ellen recognized from a feminist lit conference several years ago. Maisie looked up at her with surprise.

“Well, all right, it’s late. Let’s go read in bed.” Ellen put the Library of Congress brochure in as a bookmark, and petted her old dog.

29

“G-what? I don’t think you pronounce it like that, Mom.”

“Global War on Terrorism,” Lolo said proudly, enunciating. “G-WoT. It means the whole operation—including political and legal things. Also the UK. Not just USA.”

Lacey bit her tongue. It was tiring to constantly acknowledge Lolo’s admittedly impressive gains in veteran and military knowledge. All those Sundays that we could have been actually discussing something, Lacey thought, remembering those endless afternoons in her dry City Island parlor. But they’d passed each other with no overlap, for Lacey herself now had very little interest in, or maybe it was energy for, the military world. Occasionally she would realize how strange that was, to lose the connection
here
of all places, surrounded 24-7 by the full complement of patriotism and bureaucracy that made up a working military base. Back in her mil-wife FRG days, this would have seemed like it was made for her, a place to finally fit in.
Mil-world,
is what she and Martine used to call it.

“He’s going to be hungry,” she said, standing up. “What did he have? Cereal or something?”

Lolo remained placid in her waiting room chair. “I got him a Burger King before the bus. Plus they gonna have lunch, the lady told me.”

“You know, he’s gotta stop eating all that fast-food crap. Kid’s pudgy enough as it is.”

“I cook when there’s a kitchen.” Lolo turned a page in her magazine. “A
private
kitchen.”

Lacey had to concede the point, as much as she was in the itchy mood for a fight. She wouldn’t eat anything that came from Building 18’s dirty common area either; the place was crawling with bugs.

Anyway, Otis’s eating habits weren’t the issue. Not the main issue, that is. Kid could lose a few, for sure. Why had she agreed to Otis going off to a full-day tour of D.C. on the day Eddie had his big surgery? Right, right, it would obviously not have been ideal to have
him
sitting around for six hours, the way she and Lolo were doing, wired with hopes and fears. Which is why the social services lady pushed so hard to include him on this kids’ “fun day” activity. And maybe there was part of her that just didn’t want to deal with Otis today, the day she’d been waiting for so long. The day Eddie was going to get his sight back.

She didn’t love thinking about yesterday’s meeting with the psychotherapist. Otis, she was told, was demonstrating “significant behavioral shifts” related to stress about his father’s injuries. “He’s not his father,” Lacey had snapped, and that got them off on the wrong foot. But really, was she supposed to listen to some twenty-one-year-old tell her about her son’s behavior? After meeting with him, like, three times total since they’d arrived at Walter Reed? No one had to tell her Otis was giving off more attitude. This very morning when she told him to go put on a collar shirt for the field trip he actually said, “Better check yourself first.” Fine, she wasn’t winning any fashion prizes around here but that kind of sassing was not the norm. Although, what was the norm? Which baseline should she use to measure his behavior? Before Eddie got injured? Before she started cheating on Eddie, or before she married him? Before Lolo took over as the main
caregiver
? That’s what they called it in social services. What could you expect, when the kid was dragged from home to hospital and back again, missing school, missing his mom (she hoped)? Did they really have to give her yet another damn pamphlet to read?

Of course they did. This place ran on pamphlets.

“Listen to this,” she said to Lolo. “‘How Can I Explain Moderate or Severe TBI to a Child?’” She thwacked the shiny brochure against her hand. “‘Teens and preteens may be self-conscious about visible changes in their returning parent. Rehearse what to say if others remark on tics, outbursts, or other unusual behaviors.’”

“Fine. I’ll tell him what to say if you embarrass him.”

“Oh, that’s really funny, Mom. How about this: ‘You are going through a difficult period. Take time for yourself to recharge your batteries. Massages can feel good and relieve stress. Check the phone book in your area for licensed massage therapists and make an appointment.’ I mean…” Lacey shook her head and left her mouth open, as if there was anyone else in the operating waiting area for her to perform disbelief to. “Well, of course! Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll get a ninety-dollar massage! I better find a phone book.”

“Why you so mad at the massage? One day they give us free back massages after chair yoga and I looooved it.”

Lacey gave up and sat down again in a
whoosh.
Lolo was wearing an off-white pantsuit with a cheetah-print scarf. Her reading glasses were tinted rose and she had on a full face of makeup, matching gold earrings and bracelet, though her shoes were the sturdy slip-on kind with a wide, flat heel. This is what she’d packed to come to Walter Reed? Ten to one she thought the surgeon wouldn’t put in a good effort if she didn’t get all decked out. Lacey, on the other hand, was in the hooded sweatshirt she’d slept in, and a pair of saggy-ass jeans. “How much longer till we get an update?”

“They say not until halfway.”

“Well, when the fuck is that?”

“
Tst
.”

“Sorry.”

*   *   *

This last week of preparing to leave had the feeling of school before summer break—from what Lacey could remember of that. The simultaneous sense that she had tons to do, and nothing at all. She’d be alternately excited (
let’s get the hell out of Building 18)
and paralyzed by dread (
what were they going to do at home?)
. But the time here was coming to a close, no two ways about it. The Evaluation Board was set to make their ruling on Eddie’s benefits in the next few months, so they wouldn’t hear about it until after they were gone. (
How convenient for them
, Lacey thought—
less chance to be bombarded by angry wives in person.
) She closed out accounts at the PX, the cafeteria, and TriCare. She gave away all the good stuff she’d hoarded: extra space heater, pillows, ice trays, Drano, mice traps, roach spray. They had appointments and exit interviews with everyone from Psych to Building Services to Housing and the Travel Service.

And as Shelby had instructed, Lacey made no mention of details about the falling-down dump that was Building 18, that had been her and Eddie’s home for the past five months and two weeks. They were building a case, and if the cat got out of the bag the army would have a chance to cover their ass before the story went to print.

In the past week, Lacey had hosted three evening get-togethers for Shelby to do her thing from her nasty couch. She was all in now. But it wasn’t like she had to close the deal; her job was to provide drinks (
just soda … well, okay, with the occasional bonus vodka shot, but only if things got really heated
) and coax the other women to come hear the reporter out. It worked. Of course it did. Lacey was mostly a mess but she knew this about herself, knew it from her years in FRG: people tended to follow her lead. So when she vouched for the reporter, and then the camera crew, when people heard she’d let them interview her—on camera! Having actually done her bangs with the flat-iron, not just clip them back like she did every other day—with Eddie, and let them film every inch of her crappy place, they felt okay about talking. Most did, that is. A few mil-wives gave Lacey the
are-you-kidding-me
routine with a hot vehemence that would have been familiar to her even a few weeks ago.

The real question was how had she come to the place where she felt okay about this … not only about breaking the
we-take-care-of-our-own
code, some silent agreement about upholding the army at all costs that she never remembered signing anyway—but about letting herself be seen. As she was now. With Eddie at her side, quietly mumbling and only letting out one high-pitched giggle. Fine, maybe she was going to come off as white trash on national TV but so what? That didn’t mean it was right, the way they’d been treated here.

There was only a twinge when she pictured what someone like Anne Mackay would think, if and when she saw what Lacey had done. Too bad if delicate-flower Anne had to look at photos of Lacey’s backed-up toilet or found her weak enough to complain about it in public.

Although last week Lacey got an update from Bailey—not directly to her, but a part of a mass-e-mail she’d sent out. It was a wedding announcement:
We did it!
in hot-pink cursive font, with several photos of Bailey and Greg from their ceremony and reception at what looked like the Palisade Plaza in Yonkers. And in the background of one of them, dwarfed by massive up-dos of Bailey’s twelve bridesmaids in blinding violet taffeta, was Anne Mackay. Smiling, clapping, on the sidelines of the dance floor where a shiny-faced Bailey was deep into a tongue kiss with young Greg. Lacey wanted to lay bets on their first dance song: “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”? Or “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?” In any case, she was glad to know that Anne had stepped up to be there for Bailey, for real. Maybe there was more to her than Lacey knew.

It wasn’t just that she was cut loose from Mil-World, or that her car was back and there was a steady source of incoming boot camp cash—though that all helped; it was a sense Lacey had that she needed to make an offering.

For Ellen. All she wanted was for Ellen to be proud of her … and look how that had turned out. It was stupid, but Lacey felt like if she kept on with helping the reporters, it could somehow make things right. Look, Ellen was the one who got her into this whole project! So even if she was now hiding out in Wisconsin not taking anyone’s calls, including Shelby’s—
whatever,
Jane said about this,
it’s her M.O.—
it had to mean something that Lacey stepped up to take her place. Didn’t it? And what should Lacey do about the situation over in Mike’s room?

She should stay out of it. And she was, mostly—even though Jane was apparently over it, those things she’d shouted about Lacey feeling entitled to get in her business were never far from mind. But damn if things weren’t going downhill, and she didn’t only mean the unholy mess in the room—empty cups and takeout boxes, clothes everywhere, a sweaty unwashed smell in the unaired room. Plus, the kids were fighting. Nothing major, but both times she’d stopped by to pick up Mike for boot camp she got the sense that she’d interrupted an argument. Lacey was uneasy; Jane looked like she was going to pop that baby out any day, though apparently she had six weeks to go. And though Mike never showed that side to her, Lacey kept remembering all the times he’d exploded at Ellen.

Two days ago she ran into a Ward 57 nurse in the Heaton cafeteria line and the woman made a point of asking, “So when’s she coming back? Your friend, the AK’s mom? Something going on there?” Lacey played dumb, but she was worried too. And she missed Ellen, she really did.

*   *   *

Now, in the windowed corner area off Ward 65, where Ophthalmology was located—it felt weird and wrong to be up this high in Heaton—Lacey resigned herself to another chapter of
Mrs. Dalloway,
an Ellen loaner from last month that she’d pretended to have finished (and enjoyed!). She was now forcing herself to make good on the lie. Even if she’d be the only one who knew.
Oh for God’s sake,
she thought while reading,
can you get on with this party already?

“Lacey,” Lolo said. “Edgardo gonna come home with me.”

“What are you talking about, Ma?” Lacey reread the same paragraph for the third time. Was this part another flashback or actually happening? No wonder you had to study these kinds of books with a professor.

“The stairs won’t be a problem for him. Some people from the Fort Hamilton came to look at the house, and they say it’s okay.”

Lacey looked up from the book. Her mother-in-law was staring straight ahead, hands folded on top of the closed magazine. “What do you mean, it’s okay?”

“He can come live with me.” Lolo punctuated each word with a nod of her head.

“I don’t—”

“The Transition office, they set up all the in-home care, they in charge of arrangements for what he needs in his rooms, and how often he gets to the doctor on base, and—”

“I know,” Lacey said. “I’ve got an appointment there next, I don’t know, Monday or something. After he’s out of recovery from this.”

“
I
had the appointment,” Lolo said, with a sliver-flash of vehemence. “Two days ago. When you do the exercises.”

“What?” Lacey tried to make her mind work. Lolo went to Transition? Without her? Who was watching Otis? “How did you know which building to go to?” To this, Lolo tilted down her head and glared over her sparkly dime-store reading glasses. “Mom, I’m glad you’re involved and all that, but—you don’t have to deal with this stuff. I’m taking care of it. You don’t have to worry about it.”