Fleet Hospital. Anne Duquette Marie

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      Michael froze in place. “Mommy?”

      The chaplain left Michael and tried to take Anna from his mother. Mrs. McLowery screamed, whirled away from everyone and ran up onto the altar, the only place where there were no people. Michael broke free and ran for his mother. Anna was so tiny. Surely there was room for him, too, in his mother’s arms.

      Up the steps he ran, one, two, three, in between the Stars and Stripes, Navy and Hawaiian flags on the left and the two flags with the Cross of Christ and the Star of David on the right. His mother hunched protectively over Anna, accidentally catching Michael with her hip. Michael fell backward down the steps, three, two, one. Some woman he didn’t recognize caught him.

      She took him outside, away from the pandemonium. He’d stopped yelling by then, but Mom and some of the Scouts hadn’t. The lady who’d caught him smelled pleasantly of mint, instead of stinky perfume. She sat down on the curb and pulled his trembling body onto her lap.

      “Want a Certs?” she asked. Michael didn’t answer, but she peeled off a “Two! Two! Two Mints in One!” and held it in front of his mouth. “Open up, little bird.”

      He opened.

      “Close,” she said.

      He already had. The candy tasted good. The woman popped a Certs into her own mouth and hummed and rocked him while they both sucked on their bits of sweetness. After a while she asked, “Want another?”

      Michael realized he’d broken his communion fast. He shouldn’t have eaten anything. Now he couldn’t offer his communion grace for his sister’s soul. Not that it mattered, since he and Klemko had killed her. According to catechism classes, he was damned, anyway. One more Bad Thing wouldn’t make any difference. He wiped at the tears on his face, then held out his still-trembling hand.

      “Here, sweetheart. Take the whole roll.”

      When his father came to get him, Michael cried some more, and after the first surreptitious mint, ate the rest of the Certs in the front pew in full view of God and country. He sat between his parents, and they didn’t seem to notice.

      Michael saw that Anna’s little coffin was now closed and latched. “Is Anna back in there?” he whispered to his father.

      Dad nodded.

      “Are you sure Mom didn’t hide her somewhere?”

      Dad nodded again.

      “Positive? Can I see?”

      His wet-cheeked father murmured, “Trust me,” and took his hand. Michael’s dry-eyed mother, watchful nurses on the other side of her, didn’t touch him, didn’t even look at him. Michael swiveled around to check out the pews and saw Klemko was gone. So was the Scoutmaster. Good riddance. They didn’t deserve to be in the same room with Mom and his poor baby sister. He wished he could see Anna one more time. He should’ve looked at her earlier when the coffin was open. Now it was too late. He’d never see her again. It wasn’t fair. Nothing was fair. He started crying again and ate another Certs.

      The service didn’t last long. The Navy chaplain rattled off that funeral faster than Michael’s father drove on a Friday-night payday.

      THE HEAT CONTINUED the next day and the next and the next. The sun beat down with a fierceness Michael hated. Only one thing made it bearable—he was allowed to sweat at home, instead of in school. His parents were on compassionate leave and home from work. It felt strange. He felt strange.

      His mom insisted on going back to the hospital three days after Anna’s funeral. Michael clung to his father when she announced her decision. He didn’t want her to leave. The house was too quiet with Anna gone. His parents were too quiet with Anna gone. It frightened him, especially at night.

      He was glad his father said, “Honey, don’t go.”

      “You two can finish watching the baseball playoffs on television.”

      “But, Mom—”

      “Michael, don’t talk back. If I don’t do something, I’ll go crazy,” she said. She wore her white nurse’s uniform with her Navy officer’s cap.

      “The last place you need to be is in surgery,” Patrick argued. “You’re in no better shape to be working the OR than I am to be flying.”

      Mrs. McLowery shook her head and the Red Sox game continued to play on the television. “I already talked to my CO. She’ll let me have morgue duty. I can’t do any damage there. It’s all paperwork.”

      “You hate morgue duty!” Patrick McLowery said. “Every time you work it, you have nightmares about getting trapped in the freezer.”

      Michael shivered. He hated nightmares, and he’d been having a lot of them lately.

      “You won’t even go near the morgue without a corpsman on the outside and one on the inside.”

      “I don’t care!” she shrieked.

      Michael winced at the nails-on-chalkboard sound of her voice.

      “This heat is killing me! I have to get out of the house!”

      “Fine. We’ll take a drive to the Ala Moana Mall for ice cream. We can walk around there and cool off.”

      “No. I’m going to work.”

      “The hell you are!” Michael’s father rose to his feet, almost tipping over the box fan whirring on the floor. “The last thing you need to be around is a bunch of you-know-whats!”

      Bodies. Dead bodies. Like Anna’s.

      “I need some quiet, Patrick,” she said. “I made dinner for you and Michael. There’s a chicken potpie in the oven. Listen for the timer. I mixed up some cherry Jell-O and bananas for dessert. It’s on the second shelf in the refrigerator.”

      “For God’s sake, sweetheart—”

      “I already ate. It’s time for me to leave or I’ll be late.”

      “At least let me drive you in!”

      “No, Patrick, I’m fine. Really I am. Keep the car. I’ll take the bus.” She bent to grab her purse. She didn’t even kiss Michael or Patrick goodbye. “I may work an extra half shift, so don’t wait up.”

      Michael didn’t see his mother again that night.

      He didn’t see her in the morning, either. Dad said he could stay home from school once more. Michael was on his hands and knees out front, driving his red Tonka truck full of green plastic Army men through the grass, patiently waiting for the base bus Mom took home. It always stopped at the corner, three houses down.

      An official military car, gray with blue lettering on the side and government plates, drove up and stopped at his house. Two men in uniform climbed out. Automatically Michael checked the men’s collar insignias. One of them wore a cross.

      Right then he knew. Every military kid knew what it meant when two uniforms came to your house and one of them was a chaplain. Dad was home from Vietnam—safe inside СКАЧАТЬ