can’t, baby.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too far. But I will.”
“Promise? Promise you’ll come home?”
He pictures her first beach trip—soggy diaper, pink suit, floppy hat, her standing against the backdrop of the waves, clear as a Kodak—and feels a mounting pressure behind his face. He thinks of his mother at the end. Her mouth, rimmed with cold sores, sipping ice water through a straw. The weight of her absence in the house. How his father crawled into a bottle and evaporated. And he saw himself at Cielle’s age, alone at the kitchen counter, eating Cap’n Crunch for dinner.
“Yes,” he tells Cielle. “I promise.”
* * *
The next morning he is awakened by Charles at oh-dark-hundred. They’ve been tasked with finding a guy possessing critical information, who, judging by the photograph, is not exactly distinctive in appearance. Charles is not worried about the mission, however; his biggest concern is his mother’s cookies, which arrived yesterday in a care package. Charles does not want to eat the cookies but is too respectful to throw them away. He owes much to his mother, not least his irrepressible good nature. A single parent, she lavished her only child with endless love and support. But while Grace Brightbill is a world-class mother, she is a terrible baker. Conflicted, Charles carries her package down the hall as if he has been burdened with the custody of a holy relic.
Rubbing his eyes, Nate trudges outside to where their convoy patrol waits in the dark, the men stuffed into Hummers. The interpreter, a bone-skinny teenager with sleepy eyes, wears a too-big helmet, a threadbare rucksack left by someone from a previous rotation, and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The shirt features the Adidas trefoil logo across the chest and, written beneath in the appropriate font, ABIBAS . The ’terp smiles at Nate and Charles, showing a sideways front tooth, and says, “What up, niggahs?”
Nate says, “Mah brothah,” and they bump fists.
On the jostling ride, Nate is distracted by Janie’s words from last night, upset that he can’t be on the other end of his daughter’s pretend phone calls. Charles is still going on about his mom’s shitty cookies, so finally one of the guys says, “Give ’em to Abibas.” The ’terp receives them with a smile, they vanish into the threadbare rucksack, and Nate enjoys a few hours of relative silence.
By the time they arrive at the town center, the sun has asserted its presence. They get out and scan the surroundings, their M16s aimed at the ground but tightly held. All around are cinder-block walls, street dogs, TV dishes nailed to corrugated roofs. And eyes everywhere. Windows. Rooftops. Doorways. People talking on cell phones, whispering, ducking from sight. A quartet of old women in burkas, all expanses of black cloth and jutting chins, stare from a front porch, as still and craggy as a rock garden, the skin under their eyes so dark it seems grafted on. Looking through the open door behind them, Nate sees a child-size coffin.
Nate’s squad heads to a house with the front door busted off the hinges from the last raid. At least twenty people are jammed into the front room, which has a vague barnyard smell. A rug covers the cement floor, the walls are bare aside from piña-colada-size Iraqi and U.S. flags stuck in the cracks. Everyone inside is focused on a TV the size of a toaster. The men command the couch, holding hands. The women sit on the floor chewing flatbread. A little girl stands in the middle of the room, hitting a paddleball. Whack whack whack.
The men rise and offer tea, but the mood changes when the sergeant pulls the women into the next room, as is SOP. Nate takes off his Wiley X sunglasses so he can make eye contact as he helps settle everyone down. He figures that ordering people around in their own house is disrespectful enough when you’re not sporting shades on top of it. The girl continues— whack whack whack —but
“Why not?”
“It’s too far. But I will.”
“Promise? Promise you’ll come home?”
He pictures her first beach trip—soggy diaper, pink suit, floppy hat, her standing against the backdrop of the waves, clear as a Kodak—and feels a mounting pressure behind his face. He thinks of his mother at the end. Her mouth, rimmed with cold sores, sipping ice water through a straw. The weight of her absence in the house. How his father crawled into a bottle and evaporated. And he saw himself at Cielle’s age, alone at the kitchen counter, eating Cap’n Crunch for dinner.
“Yes,” he tells Cielle. “I promise.”
* * *
The next morning he is awakened by Charles at oh-dark-hundred. They’ve been tasked with finding a guy possessing critical information, who, judging by the photograph, is not exactly distinctive in appearance. Charles is not worried about the mission, however; his biggest concern is his mother’s cookies, which arrived yesterday in a care package. Charles does not want to eat the cookies but is too respectful to throw them away. He owes much to his mother, not least his irrepressible good nature. A single parent, she lavished her only child with endless love and support. But while Grace Brightbill is a world-class mother, she is a terrible baker. Conflicted, Charles carries her package down the hall as if he has been burdened with the custody of a holy relic.
Rubbing his eyes, Nate trudges outside to where their convoy patrol waits in the dark, the men stuffed into Hummers. The interpreter, a bone-skinny teenager with sleepy eyes, wears a too-big helmet, a threadbare rucksack left by someone from a previous rotation, and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The shirt features the Adidas trefoil logo across the chest and, written beneath in the appropriate font, ABIBAS . The ’terp smiles at Nate and Charles, showing a sideways front tooth, and says, “What up, niggahs?”
Nate says, “Mah brothah,” and they bump fists.
On the jostling ride, Nate is distracted by Janie’s words from last night, upset that he can’t be on the other end of his daughter’s pretend phone calls. Charles is still going on about his mom’s shitty cookies, so finally one of the guys says, “Give ’em to Abibas.” The ’terp receives them with a smile, they vanish into the threadbare rucksack, and Nate enjoys a few hours of relative silence.
By the time they arrive at the town center, the sun has asserted its presence. They get out and scan the surroundings, their M16s aimed at the ground but tightly held. All around are cinder-block walls, street dogs, TV dishes nailed to corrugated roofs. And eyes everywhere. Windows. Rooftops. Doorways. People talking on cell phones, whispering, ducking from sight. A quartet of old women in burkas, all expanses of black cloth and jutting chins, stare from a front porch, as still and craggy as a rock garden, the skin under their eyes so dark it seems grafted on. Looking through the open door behind them, Nate sees a child-size coffin.
Nate’s squad heads to a house with the front door busted off the hinges from the last raid. At least twenty people are jammed into the front room, which has a vague barnyard smell. A rug covers the cement floor, the walls are bare aside from piña-colada-size Iraqi and U.S. flags stuck in the cracks. Everyone inside is focused on a TV the size of a toaster. The men command the couch, holding hands. The women sit on the floor chewing flatbread. A little girl stands in the middle of the room, hitting a paddleball. Whack whack whack.
The men rise and offer tea, but the mood changes when the sergeant pulls the women into the next room, as is SOP. Nate takes off his Wiley X sunglasses so he can make eye contact as he helps settle everyone down. He figures that ordering people around in their own house is disrespectful enough when you’re not sporting shades on top of it. The girl continues— whack whack whack —but
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