“It’s easier to win the battle.” He smiles. “Come downstairs. I’ll make you some hot chocolate.”
Without arguing, I slip off the bed and follow him down the steps. The television is on low, the baseball players silent as they try to hit the ball. The bright light hurts my half sleeping eyes, and it’s a relief when we get into the kitchen, where only the light above the stove is on. I sit down in my regular chair, and Uncle Jasper puts the kettle on the stove and turns on the burner.
He sits down and folds his hands on the table. “So what’s on your mind?”
“Mom.” My throat feels tight. I throw up my arms and say, “Of course, Mom. Even here, I can’t get away from her.”
He asks, “Do you regret coming here? Is that what it is?”
“I don’t know … no. I don’t think so.” I pause and then start over. “I just … I always hoped we would get through this, because we always got through everything together,” I say. “We were fine until a few years ago. Things kept getting worse and we got more distant from each other. It was like we were roommates, and not mother and daughter.”
I stare at the lines in the wooden table, continuing, “She would go to work and I would go to school. A couple days would pass and we wouldn’t say a word to each other. Then those days turned into weeks. She started going on business trips without even telling me. I think that’s when I realized something was really wrong between us. It’s just … I never thought it would come to this. And why?” Then I look at Uncle Jasper and say, “It feels like I did something wrong. Like I missed my chance to make things right between us.”
“None of this was your fault, kid,” he says. “You have to understand that. Your mom has been going through something for a long time, ever since your dad died. Some people fight through it, and some people choose not to by ignoring it. It’s up to them to get through it, and we can only support and love them. But sometimes that isn’t enough. No matter what we do.”
“I wish there was something I could’ve done,” I say. “Leaving her … it felt like giving up.”
“It’s not giving up, Harp. Sometimes two people drift apart, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. And you accepted that by coming here, even if you didn’t know it.” He reaches forward and puts his hand over mine. “You made a choice, and I couldn’t be prouder of you for that.”
Even if I did make the choice in coming here, I’m still not sure if it was the right thing. I have so much doubt brewing within me, making me second guess myself. I want to know if I did anything wrong, and if there was anything I could have done differently. I miss her, but I don’t miss anything more than what I won’t have with her.
Uncle Jasper speaks up again, “And believe it or not, this might be the start of something good between you.”
“How do you mean?”
“Maybe this is the fresh start that you and your mom need.”
“By her moving to a different country and leaving me to live at my uncle’s house?”
Uncle Jasper half smiles at my tone. “Sometimes being apart can start healing before it begins.”
The kettle hisses behind him. He pushes his chair back and I watch him turn the burner off, get two mugs out of the cupboard, tear open two packets of hot chocolate, open the refrigerator to find the milk—filling a quarter of each mug before putting it back—and then finally pouring hot water until each is filled.
He makes it the same way Aunt Holly did.
With a spoon in each one, he puts them on the table and pushes mine over to me. It’s the mug that has the DeLorean from Back to the Future on it, with black text under it saying, “I know the world doesn’t end in 2012 because Marty McFly traveled to 2015.”
He’s had this mug for years.
I absently stir until the chocolate is dissolved. But I don’t drink yet, still thinking about what he said. When I left to come live here, I was sure I would never talk to Mom again. I never thought it was a possibility until now. It gives me a little hope I didn’t have before.
“You know,” I say, still stirring the hot liquid in my mug, “sometimes you’re pretty good at this. And maybe you’re right. Maybe this is the start of something good between us.”
“I know it will be,” he says. Even though I know he doesn’t, I like hearing him say it.
“I miss her.”
The instant I say it, emotions flood me before I can push them away, too strong for me to ignore. I can’t help it—I start crying, small tears leaking from my eyes before I can stop them, unable to hold it back. There’s a deep ache within me, wanting to be let out. Waiting to be let out.
Uncle Jasper leans over and wraps his arms around me, pulling me into his chest. More tears spill over my cheeks, dampening his shirt. I cry more because I can’t remember the last time someone held me. Not like this. Even though I can’t bring myself to hug him back, it’s the closest thing I’ve come to it. It’s like after all these years, I’ve forgotten how.
“I love you, Harper,” Uncle Jasper murmurs into my hair. “Nothing will change that…. Nothing,” he says again.
For some reason, I feel relief when he says it. Like somewhere deep down I’ve been waiting to hear it.
Uncle Jasper holds me the same way he did when I was younger, comforting me when nobody else was there. He always has been … but then so was Mom before all this began.
11.
Kale
I stare at the sky and know I’m back.
It was so fast.
I barely remember it happening.
It was only about twenty minutes after I pulled the trigger and we started our attack. I’d been taking out as many snipers as I could find until they needed me deeper in town, targeting sharpshooters from around corners under covering fire.
We needed to take the town—that’s all I knew. I can’t even remember its name.
I just follow orders.
When we were nearing a corner of a building, getting ready to clear the next half of the town, an explosion came from nowhere. It could have been a mortar, or tank.
I’ll probably never know for sure.
The guys in the front weren’t as lucky as us near the back. I was thrown to the ground, the air leaving my lungs the moment I hit the frozen earth. Dirt and rock showered from above.
I could only lay there in the snow, trying to breathe and hoping I was still alive.
Then I was gone—
—and now I’m here.
Back to wearing my jeans and T-shirt like I never left at all. The only evidence of the past are the dog tags around my neck and the scratches and dirt left from the explosion.
Any wound I get there stays with me.