Chapter 14: Reservations (pages 159-169)

Thursday, December 7, 2006: 2:42 p.m. CST

Gary, my brother, has just called to tell me that he and Karen will be here in about an hour and a half. I felt pretty sure they’d return this afternoon, so I have my stuff loaded in the car, ready to go home and see my own four-legged children and the man I love who’s been feeding and appeasing them for a couple of days while I’ve sat with Gary and Karen’s four-legged babies, Sadie and Bonray.

I cried a little bit when it got time to leave just now. Not because I don't want to go home, but because I’ve put it off since I got here on Tuesday. The cry, I mean. The past two days have been my first time alone in this house in a long while, and I used to stay here alone (with the babies, of course) often.

Before I leave this home, one first opened up to me in 2001, I had to sit down and write. This very moment, I’m perched in the same chair I used to sit in, hunched over a-just-my-size-kitchen-bar where I once wore out erasers on fifteen various No. 2 pencils perpetually lined up, sharpened on the pencil sharpener my brother had screwed into a wall of his garage for me. Before hitting the hour-long two-lane highway waiting on me, I’m sitting once again, sans pointy pencils, three page equations, and ten Spanish verbs (finally conjugated, memorized, and shortly forgotten).

When I enrolled in Texas Tech University in the fall of 2001, Gary and Karen offered me a place to stay during the week while I attended classes. Their home in Brownfield is less than forty miles from Lubbock, while mine is about one-ten.

There's a lot of history here in this house I once visited more than my own. It became our house. I was part of Sadie and Bonray's family. I'm Auntie to them like I am to Kayla.

When the Twin Towers burst into a death sentence for countless lives and untold future decisions, I was in an early morning Beginning/Intermediate Algebra class. After the class was over, I overheard a young guy who was sprawled out on the buffed tile hallway, waiting his turn for math punishment, I heard him speak to the girl next to him, "They," he said, lifting his brow and cocking his head toward the file of behind mathematicians, "don’t know yet.”

I didn’t give his statement much thought (though now, I'll never forget his words). I walked marathon miles to the parking lot, got into my truck, a truck that once belonged to my son, and behind the steering wheel, books to my right side, I kept my head down, hunched over some book for the next hour while much of America riveted. It wasn’t until 12:30 (British Lit) that I learned of the morning's surreal events. The attacks of terror.

When I got home to Brownfield that evening, Karen was in the den. She’d been home ill from work and had remained parked before the jet and mortar images on a Sanyo screen all day. We looked at each other for a full minute, then quietly sat together in disbelief, in horror really, watched and listened, numbed. Later, we forecasted and conjured. We grew into Generals with clear plans, then went to bed and woke up with the same disbelief in the reality of it all.

From the vantage point of Gary and Karen’s house, I watched as our nation united. I listened to a determined Commander in Chief. I studied God’s Word in a novel way. I fought with tests from school, tests from home. I waited for Recruit Austin’s letters from San Diego, and then from here, I flew to witness my son graduate from USMC Boot Camp on 18 Jan 2002. I bid my son farewell as he left for war, and here I fell apart on the Day from Hell. Day five of the war, the day our first soldiers were captured and paraded. They didn't march, but their parents watched them on TV.

Since that time, I have been with Aaron here in my brother’s backyard, swimming, dancing, laughing. Gary and Karen loved it when Aaron was home on leave. Together, Aaron and I would always spend a day or two here with them. Christmases too, with Aaron and the rest of the family, here at our home away from home.

It was here Aaron told me, “Mom, I’ve got about five things I want to confess in my life. I’m going to tell you three tonight.”

No. Don’t ask.

I’ve worried and prayed a lot from this spot I’m about to depart.

The wind chimes here sing in a deeper tone than mine do. Still, beautiful in a lonely sort of way.

It saddens me to see the gray in Sadie and Bonray’s muzzle. But it’s been good being here. Alone for the first time in this house since I lost Aaron.

Different concerns now, prayers rearranged somewhat.

Perhaps it’s the day. Pearl Harbor. Their nine-eleven.

I don’t know why Aaron had to leave. I’m just glad he was here.

Does it get easier?

Parts, wholes and holes.

      Leaps.

      In my mind.

      These three years.

      Time lapses, lost thoughts, stored dates without words and retrieved stories without apology. Painful, brilliant and put aside priorities, perhaps later their urgency forgotten, forgiven, or filed for later use in an untouched pending file.

      But then there are those images and conversations that will die for me only with dementia or death.

      Since Aaron’s funeral was in Amarillo, four hours from my home in New Mexico, most of my family arrived the Saturday night before. Our accommodations in Amarillo made me smile then and I guess they always will.

      Aaron was engaged. Jerrod had introduced him to his future bride, Tiffany. She’d just purchased her wedding dress on the day he was killed.

      Tiff’s parents had reserved rooms at the Four Seasons or Fifth Season, something season, which is not important except to say that in its day, it had lived up to one of those images, but May 2004 was well past the hotel’s prime of any combined four or imaginary fifth fluctuation of the seasons.

      When Tiffany’s parents reserved the rooms by phone from Phoenix, they couldn’t have known this bizarre Garden of Eden hadn’t aged well. The sympathetic phone clerk at the hotel told them we could hold these special rooms for $39.95. She’d instructed, “Just tell them you’re here for Lance Corporal Austin’s funeral.”

      How nice, we thought, and alerted the entourage. Special was over pretty quick though when nearly a mile from our destiny, we read in huge neon: $39.95 Every Night! The sign’s pomp and flash shamed New York City on New Year’s Eve.

            We checked in anyway. All our rooms faced an enclosed patio that featured an indoor swimming pool with its damp smell, damp air, damp smoke. Sweat. Still, the irony fit. It clashed the silver hearse and limousine service, complemented the Vegas-like sign in bright white. It competed with the indentation of an electrical iron tattooed against the hideous carpet in the surviving mother's room. This room was the worst. It was a smoker’s room. Smokers are not to be trusted. We might do something like test a hot iron against the carpet.

When I first walked into Aaron’s viewing room, I didn’t recognize my son. Maybe it’s not him, I thought. I had to stand at the head of the casket and tilt my head down and straight ahead, had to look across his face from this angle to recognize his profile. But yes, that was his, and those were his full eyebrows; he used to call them his unibrow. His neck, swollen.

            His face, polished.

      Waxed.

      He’d lost weight.

      At five-foot ten inches, Aaron had developed well once he’d entered the Marines. He liked to keep his weight up, around one eighty. In life, he’d preferred his dark hair short or shaved. The full crop of hair, the weight loss and his unibrow proved he’d been through a great deal in those last weeks; he’d been too busy to shave his head. Too busy for physical workouts.

      Too busy.

      Aaron loved working-out. Always energetic. In track, he ran the 200-meter dash like he ran long relays—at full speed. And, he smoked. His cousin used to shake his head after they’d race. Zach never smoked, watched his diet, fell in bed early the night before a track meet, obeyed the rules. Not Aaron. But he stayed toe-to-toe with Zach in the race.

      The hazel eyes of my son, eyes that once danced, now closed.

            Aaron had always fought sleep.

Richard, my sister-in-law’s brother, attended the funeral on May 3. He’s a civil engineer (and a fighting Seabee). The Reserve Naval Officer flew from Dallas to Amarillo and back again, all within a half-day’s time. Busy. Acting President of an engineering firm, but still, he came for his sister and for me, to pay respect to Aaron. He hadn’t seen or talked to Aaron in years and there was more than a decade of age difference between them, so I was pleased when I first heard he’d be there. I don’t remember Rich’s arrival. I must’ve been in the viewing room or whatever dressed-up thing funeral homes call such bizarre rooms of great cush and comfort. Where overstuffed chairs and great divans of linen and wood rested on quiet carpet.

      Meditative prints, elaborately framed. Conjured images and shades of some thoughtful life, one outside the home’s heavy doors.

      Large easels stood at-ease near Aaron’s casket. They cradled reflections of better times, images of how our Marine had really looked just a few months earlier. Hinting, whispering of the magnificent persona now missing. For those who may not have known him, but all of us did. Or someone like him.

      Roses, red, Tiff’s favorite, flowers fit for a wedding, embellished the air with their perfume. Sprays of red, white and blue graced tables of polished wood.

      Surreal visitation.

      I stood at the side of Aaron’s casket, placed my hand upon his chest, pushed and searched against the fabric of Dover’s dress blues for the locus of spilled blood. Pressed his arms, gloved hands, stuck my hand toward the lower end of his steel bed and massaged his long legs. I used to kid him about his bird legs before he matured into Marine manhood.

      After friends and family viewed Aaron’s body, most wished they hadn’t.

      Doug never entered. Others never returned.

      The family was stunned, wanted to remember him how he’d looked the last time they’d seen him, just weeks before. Not true for me. I wanted to sit in that room all day and all night. I told someone, “If you could just hook me up to an I.V. of Bloody Marys, I’d live in here.”

      I didn’t really talk to his body, as people do, though I did mention at him, “You’d be horrified about your hair and eyebrows.” It didn’t matter to me that he looked so different. He was my son. The physical all. Something left of him. I could’ve easily crawled up into that casket with him, stayed next to him until they came.

      Until they came and took him away from me.

      Had there been nothing but charred remains, I would’ve stuck my hand inside and touched my physical son one more time.

      But I did none of those things. I didn’t remove the white gloves and hold his hands. I didn’t push open the lower end of his casket, didn’t unlace those shined shoes and peel off socks—oh, I remembered the last time I saw him in dress blues and black socks. It was the 2003 Marine Ball, he’d forgotten his socks, borrowed mine and never returned them, but still, I never removed his new socks and shoes as I’d done so many times in his life, to see for one last time, those feet and toes I so loved.

      I regret that.

      Yes, I could’ve lived there in that room with him, but too soon, it was time.

      That morning, my husband had buttoned and zipped me, dressed me for Aaron’s funeral. I trembled. And then it was back to the viewing room for the last time.

      Could’ve, should’ve, didn’t. No, it wouldn’t have been right. No public scenes.

      In limos and Ford trucks, we made the long drive to the church. We arrived early, so we stood outside in the heat, smoked cigarettes and drank coffee, visited with the many. What a miserable day for suits that was. And a Monday no less. Monday to Monday.

      Seven days.

      It was some tiny comfort for me that from the time Aaron left this earth, from the time I knew, from the horrible minute of his death that made it real for me (what, fifteen hours after the fact?), seven days had passed. The symbolic and complete number seven.

      Something made sense.

      Now try and fix this, De’on. It’s done.

      Aaron loved Jesus and he loved to party. Charismatic. A woman from a church he’d attended told me in the aisle of the grocery store once, “He’s our best dancer!”

      Conservative in many ways though. He didn’t believe in abortion at all. He once told his brother, Eric, “It’s a belief, man. You either believe in abortion or you don’t. It’s like believing in God.”

      Aaron was a lot like Eric. Proud to be an Austin. Aaron had the same tattoo on his arm as Dana and Eric. Austin Bros.

      Austin pride. Domineering.

      Aaron gave the eulogy at his Grandpa Chuck’s funeral, just seven months before Chuck’s daughter lent thought to Aaron.

      Never a reservation about anything he said. One volume. Loud.

      So many finals. Final this, final that. Names engraved here and there. And it was all so beautiful and touching. And that’s it. It’s fast, and snap, snap. And, and, and.

      Final nothing. Final does not exist in the heart of man.

      Rich approached me while I was at the side of Aaron’s casket. The Naval Officer was unrushed and handsome. Eager. He told me what each of Aaron’s ribbons represented. But then, too quick, my goodness in heaven, way too quick, everyone was ordered in line, filed out before us, except the ushers or flower gatherers, or whatever their directors called them—each gathered flowers, a few dispensed directions and quick, quick, snap, snap. The Director snapped duties and biddings (after all, the next funeral is at two o’clock for heaven’s sake), take this, not that, okay, these go first, oh, for the love of new ushers or flower gatherers, I’m the Director, no one can do it without me, I must do everything.

      My mind’s film argued with the rush. Leave?

      But yes, everyone’s leaving and talking and directing. And finally, a dead quiet. The Director and his few laborers had departed. The room was nearly empty.

      Greg, behind me, yes. My husband lived behind me those seven days.

      And Karen, in front of me some I think. Her eyes. Yes, Karen was there, her brother guarded one side of her, my brother stood sentinel on the other. Richard walked with us, to leave, but halfway there he stopped, motioned a tradition founded by men with a Richard heart.

      Snap! Right met left. Heels of high gloss slapped solid as steel, echoed in the hushed room.

      Watching this in strange slow motion, almost hearing the Sergeant of Arms barking orders from somewhere, sometime, another time, something different. Much different.

      About face.

      Snap.

      Order arms.

      Then slow, in eternity time slow, the officer, dressed in blues, advanced his right arm into a sharp but fluid “V”—his hand traveled steady, met its mark, then eased to its descent.

      At last.

      Rested.

      Just before Aaron’s casket was lowered into the ground, Doug requested that the casket be re-opened. Aaron had wanted a ring of Chuck's, a sheriff’s ring, shortly after his grandpa had died, but Doug told our son then, “Someday.”

      The Director told the few of us there what he was doing and placed Chuck’s ring on Aaron’s finger. Only the Director’s back was visible as he worked, but I paid close attention. That’s how I knew which end those feet I loved lay at last—and too, which end our son’s head and heart rested. Without reservation.

      For three years now, the few times I’ve been alone at Aaron’s graveside, I’ve positioned my body across the place his chest rests. I lay my own chest over his heart. To cover him as I’ve covered him before. I don’t cry, but moan, and will myself under the ground with him, not for hello or goodbye. Not to die, but to get as close as I can get, and I’ve despised the hard ground that separates us.