the madison review
no letter, he helped Michael rebuild his Chevy’s engine. Michael listened to her instead of his father and grandfather and applied to college. Her husband argued, “at least enlist in ROTC, go for free,” but Margaret knows ROTC means never free and insisted on paying with the tiny nest egg of her inheritance. Michael’s a junior now, killing himself studying Engineering and Computer Science, all A’s to prove his worth absent the Semper Fi bona fide. He tries so hard to please his father and grandfather, both ex-Marines who won’t understand how college could come before country. She sees the mantle of their disappointment in the set of Michael’s shoulders. Last night a news report: a bombing, another three Americans killed. Her fingers on the remote raced through the TV stations, searching to not find him, but the casualties of war are forgotten now in America’s daily news. While she flipped through channels her husband worked on the kitchen sink’s drain. He won’t look at the TV or papers. And when she rushed to use her cousin’s computer to search the Corp’s website, to see which company was hit, he stayed behind and painted the front door. He tells her she’s torturing herself with useless worrying. At first it infuriated her and she called him callous. Now she’s relieved not to share her angst. Her father-in-law tried to comfort her at first. Don’t worry, Bill said, he’s having the adventure of a lifetime, and it’ll make a man of him. She fought to keep her hands from slapping his face; all she said was “Don’t.” Her now deceased mother-in-law told her of Bill’s Vietnam hangover—the nightmares, the sweats and shaking, how for years he jumped at every noise. Yet he glorifies his service. Did he train his mind to offer only carefully cropped memories? There was no dancing in the streets of Iraq for Sean’s company, no arms open wide with gratitude as Bush promised. She imagines Sean there, innocent and earnest in the dust and sandstorms, burkha-clad mothers and displaced men eyeing him with mistrust, even hatred. She shakes her head. Perhaps some are kind she thinks and reminds herself they are powerless too. Michael resented her insistence that he spend the Thanksgiving break at home instead of joining a college friend’s annual hunting trip and dinner at a mountain cabin, but she wants him close. “Mom. You should use my laptop,” he said after she returned from checking email at the library. He gives her the look his Grandpa Bill bestows on idiots. But she’s doesn’t want a home computer. Her father-in-law has never used computers and she doesn’t want him starting now, doesn’t want him taking charge of her search. She reminds Michael that she’s taking classes on-line, that it’s all set up for her at the library. She’s working on her 35