Three weeks later, I shipped and didn’t come back. Until now.
I can admit now it might not have been one of my smarter decisions, but I didn’t want to go to college and I didn’t think I was going to end up in Afghanistan right out of infantry school. I figured I’d be assigned to a base or sent off to Okinawa. Thing is, I’m a good Marine. Better than pretty much anything else I’ve ever done. So even though the Marine Corps has moments of extreme suck, I don’t really regret my choice.
“Trav.” Mom taps at my bathroom door as I’m doing up the last button on a blue-and-white-striped shirt I found hanging in the closet. It’s either Ryan’s or something my mom bought before I left, hoping I’d wear it. The sleeves pinch at the elbows when I bend my arms, but I wore the same desert cammies for seven months. My fashion sense has atrophied. “Dinner in five minutes.”
I wipe the steam from the mirror. I went for so long without seeing myself that my face still kind of surprises me. It feels like I’m looking at a stranger. Someone who is smaller than I imagined, although not small at all. And the guy in the mirror is not wearing a combat uniform or body armor. Without them, I don’t feel much like myself, either.
The scent of roast beef greets me in the hallway, and I swear if Paige were standing naked in front of me, begging to get back together, I’d pass her by to get to the table. The closest we came to a home-cooked meal in-country was the time some of the Afghan National Army soldiers roasted a whole goat, which we ate with a local rice dish and Afghan bread. We had chicken from the village bazaar a couple of times, too, but mostly we ate MREs. Which is short for Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Or, as we usually called it, Meal, Rarely Edible.
“Travis.” My dad gets up from the head of the table as I enter the dining room and shakes my hand, as if I’m a business associate. Or a stranger he hopes will buy a car. He’s still wearing a suit, his yellow tie slack at the neck. “Welcome home, son.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Mom prods Ryan, who is sitting across from me, texting someone on his cell phone. We’re barely a year apart, but he looks so young.
“Hey, Trav.” He smiles at the screen, then gives me a weak-ass chin lift. “Welcome back.”
Jesus, this is awkward.
My family has never been especially good at warm and fuzzy. My mom’s thing was always ferrying us to practices, supplying juice boxes at halftime, and sitting in the stands at every game. Even rainy days she’d be there, huddled under her green-and-white umbrella. Dad’s displays of affection came after a win, accompanied by a manly pat on the shoulder and an I’m proud of you, son. It’s been a long time since I got one of those. And Ryan… when I was seven and he was six, our grandpa gave me a Korean war G.I. Joe for my birthday. It was meant to be a collector’s item, but Pops said I should play with it, enjoy it. Sometimes I did, but mostly I kept it on top of my dresser because I thought it was cool. One day, Ryan took it without asking. When I complained to my dad, he told me to quit whining and let my brother play with the G.I. Joe. Ryan pulled the arm off. That pretty much sums up our relationship: I have it. He wants it. He gets it. He ruins it.
Even so, shouldn’t it feel good to be with them again? Why do I feel closer to a group of guys I’ve known less than a year than I do my own family?
“Did you get all the packages I sent?” Mom asks, passing me the serving dish of mashed potatoes.
After she accepted that I was going to enlist with or without her blessing, she pursued being a Marine Mom with the same enthusiasm as being a Football Mom. She registered on a bunch of Internet USMC parent websites, slapped a yellow magnetic Support Our Troops ribbon on her SUV, and went insane with care packages. Between church groups, the different “any service member” organizations, and parents, it wasn’t unusual for a guy to get fifteen care packages at once. Getting mail was like Christmas, sitting there cross-legged on the ground opening presents. And my mom usually sent me quality stuff—instant heat packs, a coffee press and gourmet beans, and a solar shower that was stolen by one of the Afghan National Army soldiers before I even had a chance to use it.
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” I was pretty terrible at keeping in touch, but in my defense, we were cut off from the outside world for the first couple of months we were there. Then we got a satellite phone and were allowed to call home every couple of weeks, but only for about five minutes at a time. During one call I suggested she could probably cut back on the dental floss and paperback mysteries and send some school supplies for the kids who would mob us, begging for everything. “The kids went nuts for the pens and crayons.” Water. Candy. Food. Pens. I don’t know why, but they loved pens. “I’m, um—sorry I didn’t call much.”
Her eyes widen. Probably because I’ve never been in the habit of apologizing.
“Well, we figured you were probably busy,” she says.
In Afghanistan, that was true, but I have no excuse for boot camp or infantry school. She sent me tons of letters and I never answered any of them. I called her on the first day of boot camp and recited the words fastened to the wall beside the phone: This is recruit Stephenson. I have arrived safely at Parris Island. Please do not send any food or bulky items to me in the mail. I will contact you in three to five days by postcard with my new address. Thank you for your support. And that was about it. Aside from that handful of five-minute phone calls, I haven’t talked to her for more than a year.
“Ellen always called me after she got a letter from Charlie,” Mom says. “So I knew you were okay.”
At boot camp we did everything in alphabetical order, so the two other recruits whose names I learned first were Lee Staples and Charlie Sweeney. One of them was always in front of me or behind me, depending on the whim of our drill instructors. Staples bugged me because he cried after we got our heads shaved. I mean, okay, I can see how it could be considered degrading because it strips away one of the things that sets you apart from everyone else, but what-the-fuck-ever. It grows back. Anyway, when they finally let us get to sleep that first day, after being awake more than twenty-four hours straight, Charlie and I were assigned to the same rack—Stephenson on the top bunk, Sweeney on the bottom. We were stripping down to shorts and T-shirts when Charlie said, “Hey, Stephenson, I heard if you go to the Buddhist church services on Sundays, they let you sleep.”
“I heard,” I said. “If you claim to be Jewish, you can go to Sabbath services and still have time off on Sunday.”
Charlie laughed. “I like the way you think.”
I’m not going to tell you I knew right then we were going to be friends, but he wasn’t a whiner like Staples. I don’t know why it was Charlie who became my best friend. It’s not one particular reason I can identify. I had his back. He had mine. Period. Somehow I guess Charlie’s mom and mine became friends, too.
“We’re so proud of you.” Mom’s eyes get watery and my dad nods in agreement, which makes me wonder if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse can be far behind.
“So what was it like over there?” Dad’s eyes glow with something I haven’t seen in years. At least not while he was looking at me. “Did you kill anybody?”
He’s curious. Who wouldn’t be? But how do I answer that question? Yes, I’ve killed, but it’s not like picking off bad guys in a video game. The first time I shot someone, I thought I was going to puke, but I couldn’t because we were in the middle of a firefight and I couldn’t stop shooting. I won’t tell my dad that. Not at dinner. Not ever.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I say.
His pride fades as his eyes narrow. “Why? Do you think you’re too good—”