Chapter Thirty-Six Ren
Chapter Thirty-Six
Ren
I didn’t think I’d leave with much when I headed off to the training camp in Shelby, Mississippi, but in the end, my pack is full.
Nurse Rose gives me a pocket first aid kit.
Mama gives me several socks she crocheted.
Jace offers me the sword he stole from the Children’s Village, but I tell him to keep it.
Ever since our service eligibility has been restored, he’s been pretending it’s a rifle and runs around camp shooting at Nazis.
Nurse Rose, Mama, Cosette, and the Wozumi family come to see me get on the bus, even though it’s late at night.
A lot of people are still pissed off about the draft, so enlistees leave under the cover of darkness to avoid riling anyone up. Violet isn’t there and I’m glad.
I can go to war for her, but I sure as hell don’t know how to hold her close only to release her and get on a bus.
It’s better she’s not here. I don’t tell myself as many lies anymore, but I need this one.
That’s the thing about changing, though.
Growing up. I don’t believe it, even as I cling to it.
I kiss Cosette. I try to memorize her face.
I’ve learned babies change quickly and she’ll be completely different after I get back.
Mama holds her and shifts impatiently, eager to get me going so she can be free of this moment.
I’m not sure what it’s like to send a son to war, but I imagine it’s not easy.
“I love you,” I tell her, and she dips her head in a nod.
“Do well. Come back,” she says, and it’s an order.
“We’ll help look after your mother,” Mrs. Wozumi assures me, and the Wozumi kids swarm me with a hug that nearly knocks me over. Then it’s time for me to get on the bus.
“Ren.”
It’s Violet.
She’s here.
It’s like seeing her step out of a dream.
Suddenly, I’m everything at once. I’m hot and I’m cold.
I’m sad and I’m happy. I’m surprised, but I also knew she would come.
I close the distance between us, only I don’t remember doing so.
All I know is that I’m embracing her. I’m burying my face in the crook of her neck and holding on to her like I’m sinking, even though she’s been the one to save me, over and over.
A thought drifts through my mind. I need to let her go. It’s time for me to leave.
But damn it, I don’t know how.
She does it for me. Pulls back. Holds my face in her hands.
Lets go. Watches with everyone else as I climb onto the bus and find a seat against the window.
Violet, Mama, Cosette, the Wozumi family, and Nurse Rose.
I think I see Emi there, too, holding her books, waving.
They make me stand tall and proud, and I realize, for the first time in my life, I’m not ashamed.
I’m fighting for the people I love. They will pray for me until I come home.
I can be brave and strong because of them.
A lot has been taken from us, but I’ve learned some things can’t be taken away, and they are more powerful than loyalty questionnaires, barbed wire, broken hot plates, tin can lids nailed over knotholes.
The engine coughs to life. Makes the whole bus shake like it’s on the San Andreas Fault. My heart lurches.
I stare out the window. My hand is a fist, shut tight over the scar on my palm.
Violet is there, just beyond the glass, illuminated by the headlights.
The wind pulls at her skirts and tousles her hair.
She’s wearing her green ribbon. My fingers open.
My hand loosens. I put it against the windowpane.
I’ve held tightly too much. I’ve balled the shame in my heart into the center of my hand.
I’ve tried to scrape hope from the world with my bare nails.
I’ve turned my hand into a fist to strike my shadows.
But then her hand slipped into mine and she stood next to me as we watched old magic made new and desert dust turned to rich soil.
And maybe that’s the thing. I can’t hold on to everything.
Life’s not like that. Maybe, just maybe, I never needed to grasp and clutch and scavenge and drag myself along the ground till my fingers bled.
Maybe I only needed to open my hands.