Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel (31 page)

The doorbell rings. Kim opens it to Susanna
and her children.

"We had to come this way to run an errand.
Thought we'd say hello."

Kim hasn't seen the Norrises since the church
picnic. The red welt on Patty's cheek that day still haunts Kim.
For the little girl's sake she'll be civil to Susanna now.

Kim offers Cokes all around and Susanna
accepts a Coke for herself and one for Patty – "Billy Jr.'s too
young."

"Are you settlin' into army life?" Susanna
asks.

Patty jumps up from the couch to take her
Coke bottle from her mother. The movement knocks her mother's
bottle out of her mother’s hand, spilling part of the Coke.

"Patty, look what you've done!" Susanna
smacks the child across her back.

Pain stabs Kim's eye. Patty's expression
doesn't change.

"It was an accident,” Kim says. “I'll just
get a rag to wipe up."

"I swear," Susanna says, "this child only
responds when I yell at her or hit her. I end up having to hit her
all the time."

Does Kim's face betray her horror? She can
remember all the smacks she got from foster parents when she wasn't
quick enough or when she spilled something or when they were just
feeling downright ornery. She once tried to protect her sister from
a punishment that by rights should have been Kim’s. All Kim got for
her attempt at heroism was both of them sent to bed without dinner.
Her sister cried that night that "it would be better to be smacked.
The pain goes away pretty quick. Hunger doesn't."

Kim motions Patty to follow her. Susanna
doesn't say anything as she's busy getting Billy Jr.'s bottle out
of the diaper bag. The little girl has tears in her eyes as she
follows Kim into the kitchen.

"I'll get you a cookie," Kim says. She picks
up the metal cookie canister and tries to pry the lid off. The
canister slips from her hands and crashes to the linoleum floor,
the noise so unexpected she jumps. Patty doesn't move.

Kim looks at Patty. She considers the times
Patty responds and the times she doesn't.

"Patty," she says in her normal voice, "do
you want a cookie?"

The little girl doesn't answer.

"Patty," she says in a very loud voice, "do
you want a cookie?"

"ooie," Patty says.

"Susanna," Kim says, pulling Patty out of the
kitchen. "This child is deaf."

"That can't be."

Kim describes the canister and her
experiment. Susanna only shakes her head.

Kim walks to the front door. "Patty, come
here."

The child doesn't move.

"See, she's just willful," Susanna says.

Kim leads Patty to the door, facing her away
from it. She points at the far wall so that Patty will keep her
eyes there.

Then, behind Patty, Kim opens the door and
slams it shut.

Patty does not react.

"She should have jumped," Kim says. "She
didn't even turn around to see what happened."

For a moment Susanna doesn’t respond. Then
she sets Billy Jr. on the floor and kneels down in front of Patty
and hugs her. "You're deaf. My child is deaf."

Tears wet Susanna's cheeks. "All those times
I hit her to get her to listen. She couldn't hear me. Oh, God,
forgive me."

Now tears well up in Kim's eyes. She runs
into the kitchen for tissues, then bends down over Susanna and
Patty. "The important thing is to get her help now."

"ooie?" Patty asks.

Kim nods at Patty to show she understands.
Then turns back to Susanna. "And the way her speech sounds, her
hearing problem has affected her speech ability. She needs help for
both."

Susanna wipes her eyes with her hands and
picks up Billy Jr. "I'm goin' to drive over to the clinic right now
and see what can be done." She grabs the diaper bag and her purse
and motions Patty to follow her.

At the door she turns back to Kim. “Thank
you. Thank you very much.” And they are out the door.

What a wonderful feeling! Kim may not have
been able to help her sister and herself when they were young, but
she has helped this little child.

The promised cookie! She runs out the door
with the canister, handing Patty a cookie through the open car
window.

Patty waves good-bye, the cookie crumbling
down her dress.

Poor Patty. She may always be different.

Being different. That's what Kim hates most.
Every year in elementary school when they made presents for
Mother's Day and Father's Day – painted rocks for paperweights and
decorated orange juice cans for pencil holders – Kim pretended to
be making these gifts for her parents. She couldn't bear telling
the other kids that she was an orphan, different, even if they
knew. Each year she wrapped her handiwork in color tissue paper –
and dumped the gifts in a trash bin.

She could have given the gifts to her sister
– Diane would have been thrilled at any gift, no matter how ugly
and misshapen – but Kim couldn't stand seeing the gifts around.
They would be constant reminders of the horrible truth about Kim
and Diane – orphans, orphans, forever orphans.

Kim checks her watch. Jim will be home soon.
Tomorrow morning she'll bake a pie. She's good at pies – always
made at least one for every church social. All the ladies at church
complimented her.

At church they always pray for the widows and
orphans. Kim has already been one of these at an early age; she
doesn't want to be the other.

**

An hour later their car stops outside the
apartment.

The door bangs open as she reaches for the
doorknob. One look at Jim's face tells her that he knows about the
trip to the troop area. How? They were at the MP's office for less
than two minutes. Just enough time for Sharon to take the helmet
and say thank you.

"You were with Sharon today, weren't you?" he
says, his hands clenched at his sides.

She nods.

"Robert said Sharon was going to pick up an
MP's helmet in the troop area. You went with, didn't you?"

Should she lie? Robert may not have known she
was going. Jim's probably guessing.

"Didn't you?" he repeats.

Her shoulders sag. She's tired of being
afraid. Afraid of not being loved. Afraid of being abandoned. Like
Patty.

Unlike Patty, she's old enough to stand up
for herself.

She raises her head. "I went with Sharon. She
ran into the MP office for less than one minute while I stayed in
the car. No one came near the car, no one spoke to me, and I did
not call or wave out the window at a passing soldier."

He strides towards their bedroom. The gun!
He's getting the gun!

The toilet flushes, the water gurgling.

Jim comes back, his hands empty.

"Let's have dinner now. We're going to the
club to meet some of the others."

They eat in silence again.

**

The music blares as they enter the Country
Club. Jim walks towards the bar where Robert stands. Kim accepts
the chair Sharon offers. Wendy and Donna sit at the next table.

"Isn't this nice the men wanted to get
together tonight?" Sharon says.

"Is there a reason?"

"They're celebrating a reprieve."

Kim looks around the room. "A reprieve? From
what?"

"Somebody – they don't know who – cheated on
a test they took today. Robert says it was probably one of the
helicopter pilots; they're always pulling stunts like that. The
instructor threatened to give them all weekend duty, then
relented."

There's shouting at the bar. It's Jim's
voice.

"I know who cheated, even if he won't admit
it." Jim swings around from the bar and faces the tables, pointing
at Nelson. "It's the nigger."

Kim sees Jerry spring up from his seat and
stand alongside Robert next to Jim.

Robert says, "We all know who probably did it
– one of the guys who always goofs off. Nelson takes everything
seriously; he's one of the best guys in our class."

"And your language is inappropriate, Jim,"
Jerry says.

Jim strides up to Nelson with Robert and
Jerry right behind him. Nelson stands with his hands clenched at
his side.

"I'm telling you the nigger did it. Wanted to
show he knows more than anyone."

Kim wants to go to Jim, tell him to stop this
right now! Her feet don't move.

"Come on, nigger. Don't you want to fight
me?"

"Let's go outside and cool down," Jerry says,
twisting Jim’s arm behind his back.

Robert grabs Jim’s other arm, then says "Wait
a minute" to Jerry. Robert reaches into Jim's pocket and takes out
the car keys, tossing them to Sharon. He says, "Go home with Kim
now. I'll bring Jim home after he's cooled off."

Sharon stands, snatching her purse off the
table.

Kim is about to follow Sharon when instead
Kim says, "I have to do something first."

Now Kim's feet move. She walks up to Wendy
standing with Donna's arm around her. "I wish I could take it all
back," Kim says.

Tears stream down Wendy's face. Kim feels
tears on her own face.

"I'm sorry," Kim says, then follows Sharon
out of the room.

**

In bed Kim hugs the blanket pulled up to her
neck. She and Sharon did not speak on the drive home. Now she waits
for Jim.

His voice reaches her in the dark as he
enters the bedroom.

"I'm not going vol indef so they'll be
sending me to Vietnam after a couple of months of troop duty. I'm
not waiting. I’m going to volunteer for combat duty."

"You're ... you're going to Vietnam? Why?
Why?" The pain in her head jabs, the colors zig zag across her
vision.

"We Southerners have a military tradition to
uphold,” he says. “Can't let these kikes and niggers and Yankees do
our jobs for us. Have to show them that the South should have won
the war. We're not pussies."

Kim uses the pillow to stifle her sobs.

**

The next morning Kim begs off going to the
pool when Sharon comes by, using menstrual cramps as an excuse. Kim
says nothing about the night before at the Officers Club nor does
Sharon.

Although Kim feels terrible about Wendy and
Nelson, about what Jim said, the tears today are for herself. Her
husband going to Vietnam. How will she survive?

Even with the tears she tries to be
productive today. Starts one letter after another to her sister,
then rips up each attempt. Some too honest, some too dishonest.

She takes out the afghan she's crocheting for
Diane. If she can't write to her, at least she can do something for
her. The hook becomes tangled in the yellow yarn every other
stitch.

Now she has dinner ready. Jim's favorite.
Fried chicken and homemade biscuits. But a favorite dinner can’t
change Jim's mind – he believes he’s always right. Jim grew up in a
home that revolved around him. Jim got straight A's! Jim scored the
winning touchdown! Kim pictures the conversations around the family
dinner table. His younger sister's accomplishments relegated to the
expected, Jim's elevated to the extraordinary.

Kim twists the crochet yarn in her hands. She
knows that, even if she doesn’t believe everything he does is
right, he would still expect her to go along with his Vietnam
decision. She's been brought up to believe that husbands know best
no matter how wrong those husbands might actually be. Certainly
she, uneducated and without any family of her own, can't hope to go
against his decision.

She imagines her papa appearing at the
apartment door, gun in hand, demanding that Jim not go to Vietnam.
"I didn't let my little girl marry you so she could become a
widow." And if only her mama could send Jim home-cooked Southern
treats, enticing him to come on home.

Being an orphan doesn't just mean being an
"orphan" – a name to cry yourself to sleep with every night in a
foster home, but being a person without family for all time.

The sound of the car engine being turned off
announces Jim's arrival. She stands up, brushes her tears with the
backs of her hands, then walks to the door.

Jim bangs it open. "Where the hell were you
today?"

Her mouth opens. Nothing comes out. Where has
she been? Home crying. "I was ... I was home all day. I have bad
cramps."

"Is that your story? Can't you come up with a
better one?"

What is he talking about?

"Don't you have anything to say for
yourself?" His angry face is inches away from her.

"What should I say?"

"Why weren't you with Sharon today at the
club? Who were you off with?"

"Who was I with?"

"That's what I asked."

"I wasn't with anyone. I was home all day. I
... I worked on the afghan for my sister."

"Don't lie to me. I know you were with a
man."

Jim's face flushes with the ugliest shade of
purple she's ever seen. His eyes will pop out of his face any
minute, landing at her feet and rolling away, becoming marbles for
Squeaky to chase.

She sinks to the floor as her knees fold
under her. "I swear, Jim, I swear on my sister's life, that I was
home all day alone. That I was not with another man today, or ever
before, or ever in the future." The tears plop onto her hands.

He strides down the hall. In a moment he's
back.

He has the gun!

"I'll kill you if you're ever with another
man. I promise you, Kim, I'll kill you."

“
If you accompany your husband to a unit party
where soldiers are present, you should arrive a little late and
stay only a short while.”
Mrs.
Lieutenant
booklet

Sharon locks the apartment door behind her.
The cars parked below sizzle on an asphalt frying pan.

Kim isn't due to pick her up for another half
hour. At least Sharon expects Kim to pick her up at the usual time.
Even though yesterday Kim begged off going to the pool when Sharon
came by to pick Kim up, she didn’t say anything about canceling
today.