“Travis, is that you?” Charlie’s mom’s voice drifts down from upstairs, along with the scent of breakfast sausage. “Come on up.”
The upper floor is a converted apartment with a small kitchen area, where Jenny is crumbling the sausage over a row of flour tortillas, and a living room loaded with religious paraphernalia. Mexican Guadalupe candles, Buddhas, the Hindu goddess chick with all the arms. There’s a velvet Jesus painting hung above the couch. I wonder how she has the time for all those deities—and which one of them claimed Charlie. I imagine him hanging with a big-bellied, laughing Buddha—like the little version he carried in his pocket for luck. It had a worn spot on the side from being rubbed.
Today his mom is channeling her inner pirate with a red-and-white-striped shirt and her dreads tied up in a skeleton-print bandanna. She smothers Harper and me with patchouli-scented hugs that make me sneeze. She’s smiling, but I recognize the sadness around the corners of her eyes. “How are you today, Travis?”
“I’m good,” I say. “I, um—wanted to apologize for walking out of the service last night. It was rude and I’m sorry.”
She takes my face in her hands. “You have nothing to apologize for, my darling. Your path is your own and you had to follow it.”
I reach into the pocket of my shorts and pull out Charlie’s death letter. When we found out we were assigned to a unit being deployed to a war zone, it was suggested we write last letters home—just in case. We made a deal that if one of us was killed, the other would deliver the letter in person. I don’t know what Charlie’s letter says. I’ve been tempted to read it, but I never did. “I also need to give you this.” I hand Ellen the letter. “I didn’t read it.”
She tucks it in her pocket without reading. “Are you hungry?”
I haven’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday, so yes, I’m seriously hungry. Concave hungry. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Then sit,” she says. “I’ll make coffee.”
Harper and I sit at the scarred wooden table while Ellen brews coffee. She babbles about how she only buys a certain brand of fair trade beans from Ecuador and armchair quarterbacks the way Jenny assembles the breakfast burritos, all the while some crazy Sufi pan flute music—which Ellen claims is supposed to be soothing—warbles in the background. They’re laughing and joking, and although Charlie is gone, they’re happy in a way my family can never seem to manage. We’ve never had a meal like this, unless you count the time Mom and I ate Harper’s shrimp recipe at the kitchen island with Aretha Franklin singing about a chain of fools. I can see why Charlie was so close to his mom.
“Hey, um—I’ll be right back,” I tell Harper, my chair scraping on the wood floor as I push away from the table.
I go back down the stairs to the empty tattoo shop and dial my mom’s number on my cell phone.
“Travis.” My name comes out like she’s been holding her breath. “How are you?”
For so long I’ve lied to her, either to keep from having to talk to her or to keep from having to tell her the truth. “I guess I’m doing okay,” I say. “This thing with Charlie has been pretty tough and, I don’t know—I think I need to talk to someone. I need help.”
“Would you like me to set up an appointment for you?”
“Yes. Please.”
“I can set you up with my therapist,” she says.
I don’t know what to say to this. My mom is seeing a therapist? I run my hand over my head. “Hey, um, Mom, I’ve gotta go because we’re having breakfast with Charlie’s mom, but I wanted to tell you—” I don’t remember the last time I said the words. “I, um—”
The line is silent for a moment as my mom waits for the words, but then she finishes it for me. “I love you, too, Travis.”
When I get back upstairs, breakfast is on the table and Harper is telling Jenny and Ellen about her plans for college. “I’m starting second semester, so I can save up a little more money,” Harper says. “I qualify for financial aid, but I want to have some extra cash and maybe buy a car.”
I always thought that her dad probably did okay as the host of a morning radio show—they’re local celebrities—so I’m surprised that she needs financial aid.
“My dad and his on-air partner, Joe, offered to take a syndication deal so I’d have the money for tuition,” Harper says, reading my mind. “And, God, you have no idea how badly I wanted to say yes, but I’d hate myself if they did it just so I don’t have to pay back college loans, you know? My dad put himself through college, so I guess I can do it, too.”
Charlie’s mom claps. “I applaud your industry, Harper, and for taking responsibility for your future.”
Harper blushes. “I, um—thanks.”
After breakfast, Jenny asks Harper to help her with the dishes, while Ellen asks me to go to the shop with her. “I want to show you something,” she says as I follow her down the stairs and through the bamboo Buddha curtain. She strips off her shirt, revealing a plain gray sports bra, and turns around so her back is to me. On her upper back, near her shoulder, is a Celtic cross with Charlie’s name woven into the knot design. Inked beneath are his birth and death dates.
Not knowing what else to say, I tell her it’s cool. I mean, it is cool—for a tattoo.
“I designed it myself.” She tugs her shirt back on. “I still have the stencil if you’d like one.”
Most of the Marines I know have tattoos. Ski has a massive back piece of a Marine field cross and the names of his friends who died in Iraq. Kevlar went out right after boot camp to get the Death Before Dishonor tattoo. Even Moss has a meat tag. It’s the inked equivalent of a dog tag so in case a Marine gets his legs blown off by a roadside bomb—because we keep one dog tag in our boot—his body can still be identified. I’ve never wanted a tattoo, but Ellen’s face wears a hopefulness that makes it impossible to refuse. “Yeah, sure.”
“Take off your shirt and sit.”
I do as she says and watch while she prepares, filling tiny plastic cups with ink and putting new needles in her tattoo machine. “Music?” she asks.
“Anything but that Sufi crap.”
She smiles and presses a remote control. The Clash spills through the speakers. Nice.
“Charlie used to say that, too. He’d say, ‘Mom, why can’t you listen to normal embarrassing music like Celine Dion or Journey or something?’” She drops her voice and she almost sounds like him. It makes me laugh. She rolls her stool up behind me. “I don’t know if this will hurt, but I suspect your pain threshold is high enough that it won’t.”
“Okay.”
The tattoo machine begins to buzz and when she touches it against my skin, the sensation is like someone pulling my arm hairs over and over. It’s not pleasant, but there are many things more painful than this.
“While we’re on the subject of my son,” Ellen says. “You apologized at the memorial service for not being able to save Charlie, but please, don’t do that ever again. Not to me, or anyone. My son died out of his time, but that doesn’t mean you have to carry a lifetime of guilt.” She pats my shoulder with a latex-gloved hand. “Release it. Let it go.”
I can’t say the guilt just goes away, but I do feel as if I’ve been given permission to stop playing the endless what if… game in my head.
“And while I have you trapped here under the needle—” Charlie’s mom doesn’t wait for me to say thank you. “The other thing you need to know is how much your mother loves you. Almost every time we spoke on the phone, she was on her way to the one store in town that sells the most comfortable socks or the warmest undershirts or your favorite candy.”
The tattoo machine goes silent as she loads the needles with more ink.
“I can’t tell you that losing my son didn’t unravel me,” she says. “But the last thing he told me before he was killed was that he loved me. It brings me comfort to remember that. Travis, there is no one in this world your mother loves more than you. Not your dad. Not your brother. You. If anything were to happen, she would be—”
“I know.”