withered arm, or even General Douglas MacArthur. âI have returned,â heâd say. Then his eyes would light up and heâd reach down into his pocket and pull out a single white pearl. âI found this by the side of the road,â heâd say. âAny idea whose it might be?â
It could happen like that.
OR MAYBE the boy would be lying in bed one night and heâd hear a knock, a soft tap. âWho is it?â heâd say. âItâs me.â Heâd open the door and see his father standing there in his white flannel bathrobe all covered with dust. âItâs a long walk from Lordsburg,â his father would say. Then they would shake hands, or maybe theyâd even hug.
âDid you get my letters?â heâd ask his father.
âYou bet I did. I read every single one of them. I got that leaf, too. I thought of you all the time.â
âI thought of you too,â the boy would say.
Heâd bring his father a glass of water and they would sit down side by side on the cot. Outside the window the moon would be bright and round. The wind would be blowing. Heâd rest his head on his fatherâs shoulder and smell the dust and the sweat and the faint smell of Burma Shave and everything would be very nice. Then, out of the corner of his eye, heâd notice his fatherâs big toe sticking out through a hole in his slipper. âPapa,â heâd say.
âWhat is it?â
âYou forgot to put on your shoes.â
His father would look down at his feet and heâd shake his head with surprise. âSon of a gun,â heâd say. âWould you look at that.â Then heâd just shrug. Heâd lean back on the cot and make himself comfortable. Heâd pull out his pipe. A box of matches. Heâd smile. âNow tell me what I missed,â heâd say. âTell me everything.â
IN A STRANGERâS BACKYARD
When we came back after the war it was fall and the house was still ours. The trees on the streets were taller than we remembered, and the cars more run down, and the rosebush our mother had once planted alongside the narrow gravel path that led up to the front steps of our house was no longer there. We had left in the spring, when the magnolia trees were still in bloom, but now it was fall and the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn and where our motherâs rosebush had once stood there was only a clump of dead weeds. Broken bottles were scattered across the yard, and the juniper hedge by the side of the porch looked as though it had not been watered, even once, during the years we had been away.
We carried our dusty suitcases up the narrow gravel path. It was late in the day and a cool breeze was blowing in off the bay and in the yard of the house next door a man in his shirt sleeves was slowly raking leaves. We did not know him. He was not the same man who had lived in that house before the war. He leaned on his rake and nodded once in our direction but our mother did not wave to him or nod her head, even slightly, in return. There were many people, she had warned us, who would not be happy to learn we had come back into town. Perhaps this man was one of these peopleâa member of the American Legion, or the Homefront Commandos, or one of the Native Sons of the Golden Westâor perhaps he was simply a man with a rake our mother had chosen not to see, we did not know.
At the top of the porch steps she reached into her blouse and pulled out the key to the front door, which she had worn, on a long silver chain, the entire time we had been away. Every morning, in the place where we had lived during the war, she had reached for the key as soon as she woke, just to make sure it was still there. And every evening, before she closed her eyes, she had touched the key one last time. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, she had stroked its jagged ridges with her thumb as she stared out the barrack window.
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