When She Came Home (18 page)

“I don’t care if he’s talking about the Second Coming.”

“You said you’d bring my dinner.”

“That can wait.”

She hadn’t planned this and she might regret it; but Harlan, for all that she loved and respected him, had taxed her almost to the limits of her capacity. Until that afternoon she hadn’t believed it was possible.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I won’t keep on stuffing my feelings so you can have the world the way you want it. I’m finished. I’m done. For the last forty plus years I have kept my mouth shut but tonight… tonight, I’ve had it. Your daughter is suffering, that whole family is in pain, and all you can think about
is getting your dinner and watching
60 Minutes
.” She gestured toward the house across the street. “You’re either blind or you don’t give a damn.”

He looked as surprised by her outburst as if he’d been lassoed from behind.

“It’s time for you to man-up, Harlan. You want to be the big shot in this family, start behaving like one.”

“What the hell have I done to set you off
this
time?”

“You could help her if you wanted to.”

“Is this about Frankie?”

“Damn you, Harlan, have I been talking to myself?”

“She’s a grown girl. She can take care of herself. Or she should. Maybe Glory’s right. Maybe she
is
crazy.”

“PTSD isn’t crazy. It’s
normal.
War is a trauma, Harlan, and you know that better than most.”

He talked right through her words. “Going off to Iraq like she had no responsibilities, if it wasn’t crazy it was unnatural.”

“Don’t use that word.” She clenched her teeth to keep from screaming at him. “I swear, if I hear you use that word to describe Frankie again, I will stop cooking for you. I mean it. You will have to exist on Cheerios and toast.”

Now he looked like Glory. Pouting.

“Can’t you see how much she loves you? Can’t you
feel
it?”

“She wanted to be a Marine so I treat her like one.”

“That’s bullshit and we both know it. You’ve been hard on her since she was a toddler. You’ve never missed an opportunity to criticize her.”

“Be fair, Maryanne. You make me sound like a monster.”

He wasn’t that, nothing like it. And he was right, it wasn’t fair to take off on him after letting him get away with egregious behavior for so many years. They should have had this conversation years ago.

“She’s brave, Harlan. And strong. She listened to everything you ever said about honor and duty, she sucked it all in.”

He leaned against the headboard and picked at a tiny hole in his T-shirt. Once he had a dozen identical to this one, but over the years they had grown holey and been consigned to the rag bag. This was the last one, washed so many times it felt like silk under Maryanne’s hand when she folded it. She would be sad to see it go.

She sat beside him and tried to hold his hands but like a bad-tempered child he pulled them out of reach.

“You are a fool, Harlan Byrne.”

He gave her his little boy look, equal parts endearing and maddening. “But I’m your fool, right?”

“You don’t deserve Frankie or me either. We’re both way too good for you.”

“That may be.”

She grabbed his hands, he pulled, there was a tug-of-war, and he gave in.

“I’m just the way I am, Maryanne.” He looked away. “I can’t change.”

In profile he was as handsome as he had been when they met. His jaw was still strong, his nose still straight. Against the light from the window she could see his eyelashes. Still long.

“Do you remember the worst night we ever had?”

“You don’t have to remind me.”

“Frankie’s where you were then, Harlan. Different, but the same.”

He picked at his T-shirt.

“What was that dog’s name?”

“Pax.” The ironically named Doberman. “You went after him with the Beretta. And then you left in the middle of the night and were gone for three days and I never knew where you went and I never asked. Afterward you just said you were sorry and you couldn’t ever make it up to me, for leaving like that.”

“Ah, Maryanne, it was a long time ago.”

“Do you remember saying that?”

“I suppose I do.”

“Well, this is your chance. To make it up to me.”

“I love her. She’s my daughter, for christsake. She knows the way I am.”

“She doesn’t know you love her.”

“Well, I can’t just come out and say it.” As if love were the language of another species.

“You must, Harlan.”

She had never loved him more than she did at that moment when he was trying to understand what was expected of him, when he wanted so earnestly to do the right thing. “Stop being a stubborn leatherneck. Stop being a general. Just be Frankie’s father.”

F
rankie spent most of her Monday morning appointment with her therapist talking about the day before. Afterward she was sure the Marines in the financial office took note of her red and puffy eyes. Complaining of an allergy only made matters worse so she said nothing and went right to work.

Colonel Olvedo’s office door was open and she felt him watching her. She dropped pencils and hit her knee on an open desk drawer, she dribbled coffee down the front of her cammies.

All she could think of was Glory and Rick.

He had said almost nothing to her when they came home from across the street. He took his computer to bed and played solitaire, which she interpreted as passive aggression. She was too unhappy and ashamed of herself to try to break through his frigid reserve. The truth was she was just as happy not to talk—about the scene in the kitchen or the game day party. By Monday morning he still wasn’t talking,
but by then her self-defense system had gone to work; she was still ashamed and full of regret, but now she was also angry and told herself she didn’t care if he never spoke to her again. As always Glory did not want to go to school and screamed at Frankie when she told her to get in the car. Sadly the moments in the maid’s room had been less a reconciliation than a time-out between hostilities.

Rick’s last words to her on Monday as she hurried out of the house struck her with equal parts fear and rage.

“I can’t go on like this,” he said. “I won’t live this way.”

She had ignored the elevator to White’s office and took the stairs, two at a time, arriving on the fourth floor with aching quads and still angry. She told her therapist the story of the weekend, front to end, without pausing. White’s response was much like her mother’s.

“I’m sorry you slapped her, Frankie. But she’ll survive. I’m more concerned about your father.”

“Why? No one slapped him. Who’d dare?”

“You say Glory told him you have PTSD. And he just walked away? Without saying anything?”

Not a word.

“How did that make you feel?”

“I’m used to the way he is.”

“You weren’t angry?”

“What’s the point? He’s a mean s.o.b.” She had spoken without thinking. “Not really.”

“Would your mother agree? Would Rick?”

“The General loves Glory. He treats her like his little princess.”

“Well, that must be hard to take.”

“The other night she told me she might be a Marine when she grew up. He’d probably go with her to sign up and then have a parade in her honor.”

She spent most of her lunch hour running on the treadmill in the gym but even six fast miles couldn’t pacify her. She was angry with everyone including herself. At the same time she sensed another emotion beneath her anger and knew that she would rather rage at the whole world than feel whatever that was, simmering below.

She was going through a second batch of mail when a call came from Trelawny Scott at Arcadia.

“There’s been an incident, Frankie. I think you should come.”

It took Frankie five minutes to explain to Olvedo, thirteen more to drive up Washington Street running every yellow light. She was standing in the school’s front office twenty-one minutes after the call.

“Go right in, Captain Tennyson.” Dory Maddox followed her into the headmistress’s office, shutting the door behind her.

Bad sign.

“What did she do? Is she hurt?”

Scott gestured Dory to the couch and Frankie to the chair across the desk. “Your daughter is fine.”

Your daughter.

“Where is she?”

“Please, can we talk first?” Behind her glasses the headmistress’s eyes were kind but tired. “Glory left school without permission today.”

“Right after early recess,” Dory said. “She passed me in the hall and when I said hello, it was like she didn’t hear me. I came into the office and then I thought about the way she looked, upset and all, and I thought I better go after her. She was off the grounds by the time I caught up.” Dory looked genuinely unhappy as she told her story. “She said she was leaving school and never coming back.”

It was possible to walk from East Mission Hills to Ocean Beach, but it was a distance of several miles, hilly and indirect.

“I told her she didn’t have to walk. I said we’d call you, you’d come and get her. But she was so upset, I doubt she even heard me.” Dory pulled a wadded tissue from her sleeve and patted her lips with it.

Scott said, “There was quite a struggle.”

“She bit me.” Dory held out her arm.

Without thinking, Frankie’s fingers touched her own wrist. One bite could be excused, put down to impulse. Two was a pattern.

Dory said, “I guess I screamed when she did it. A gardener came running and nabbed her before she got to the end of the block. She fought all the way back to school.”

“I don’t know what to say, Ms. Maddox. I’m so sorry. She’ll apologize, of course.” Frankie remembered Colette. “She’s been tormenting Glory for weeks. Ever since school started. She must have done something to set her off. Did you ask her what happened? She’s turned all the girls in the class against Glory. Colette’s the teacher’s pet.”

The headmistress sat back. “That’s what she told you.”

“I know when Glory’s telling the truth, ma’am. If she says her teacher plays favorites, then she does.” Frankie told the story of the overflowing toilet, and as she did she wondered why she had not come to Scott as soon as she learned of the bullying. She had been too focused on her own problems to take the proper course of action. Thinking back she saw that she had been not only distracted but negligent as well.

Scott looked at Dory. “Do you know anything about this?”

The secretary shrugged. “I hear things, Trelawny, but you know—” She crossed her legs. “There’s always chatter.”

“Chatter about what?”

“Well, Ms. Peters does seem to like a particular kind of girl especially. The pretty, uncomplicated ones. Not that Glory isn’t pretty, you understand.”

“But she’s complicated.”

“There’s lots going on inside her.” Dory squirmed a little. “She’s a deep child, Captain.”

Frankie couldn’t argue with that.

“She threw her history book at Colette.” Dory folded her arms across her chest, unfolded them, and added, “Missed, thank God.”

“Why wasn’t I told?”

“I was getting to it, Trelawny. It’s been quite a morning.”

“She bit me too.” Frankie held out her wrist.

Scott frowned and thought a moment. “This puts a new light on the situation. The biting. We know that when a child as old as Glory resorts to biting, it is almost always an act of pure frustration. She wouldn’t be biting and throwing things if she knew another way to deal with her issues. This has been building for a while, I think.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think Glory’s unhappiness probably started back when you deployed.”

My fault. Again my fault.

“We talked a lot before I left. She understood that it was something I had to do and she knew how long I’d be away and we talked on the phone several times a week. She and her father are very close and my parents live right across the street…. She had a strong support system. I wouldn’t have gone if she hadn’t.”

“I’m not being critical, my dear. She could have all the love and care in the world and still it wouldn’t be easy. You’re her mother, after all. Probably the most important person in her world.”

Frankie wondered if this would make more sense if she and her own mother had been close.

“It’s not like I abandoned her.”

“Nevertheless, it might have felt that way. To her.”

“Rick says she was fine until I came home.”

“And that’s no surprise. While you were in harm’s way she didn’t dare let herself feel angry. But now you’re home, it’s safe to let all the bad feelings out. She loves you but at the same time she’s angry. Think about it, Frankie. Adults don’t deal well with contradictory feelings. Imagine how hard it is for a child. That’s where the frustration comes in. The throwing and biting.”

“After she bit me, I slapped her face.”

As recently as a week ago Frankie could not have confessed something so shameful. No doubt her therapist would consider her candor as some kind of progress. From being shut down, sealed off, battened, and bolted, she was on the verge of becoming a compulsive blurter and weeper.

Anger. Road rage. Slapping. Hitting. Biting. Throwing. PTSD and secondary PTSD: Frankie saw how inextricably her troubles and Glory’s braided together and how far beyond her the challenge to untwist them was. In her therapist’s office the moment was never right to make a direct plea for help. There she thought she was supposed to learn to help herself; but learning took time, and it seemed to Frankie as she sat across from Dr. Scott that for her family, the sand in the hourglass was almost gone.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Frankie, you’re not alone in this. We all want what’s best for Glory.”

Dory stood up to leave. As she passed Frankie’s chair she laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “She’s a good girl.”

Frankie sniffed and Dr. Scott handed her a tissue box.

“Is there another class she could go to? Away from Colette?”

“There’s Mrs. Barber but a transfer would just be a Band-Aid. And Ms. Peters is a good teacher. She cares for her girls.”