Сара Пинскер - Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea - Stories

They’re getting closer. They’re so beautiful.

I realize I never taught her to swim. They swim like Olympians, like fish, like creatures of the ocean, like they have always been swimming and have never stopped swimming. I’m scared now. She’s so beautiful, and she’s reached the shore, and she’s inescapably mine.

I woke at dawn on the holiday, so my grandmother put me to work polishing Mama’s army boots.

“Try not to let her see them,” Nana warned me. I already knew.

I took the boots to the bathroom with an old sock and the polish kit. I had seen Nana clean them before, but this marked the first time I was allowed to do it myself. Saddle soap first, then moisturizer, then polish. I pictured Nana at the ironing board in our bedroom, pressing the proper creases into Mama’s old uniform.

The door swung open, and I realized too late that I had forgotten to lock it. Mama didn’t often wake up this early on days she didn’t have to work.

“Whose are those?” my mother asked, yawning.

“Uh—” I didn’t know what to say, which lie I was supposed to tell.

Nana rescued me from the situation, coming up behind Mama. “Those were your father’s, Kima. I asked Clara to clean them for me.”

Mama’s gaze lingered on the boots. Did she think they were the wrong size for Grandpa? Did she recognize them?

“I need the bathroom,” she said after a moment. “Do you mind doing that somewhere else, Clara?”

I pinched the boots together and lifted them away from my body so I wouldn’t stain my clothes, gathering up the polish kit with my other hand. Mama waited until I slipped past before she wheeled in. Her indoor chair was narrow, but not narrow enough for both of us to fit in the small bathroom.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to Nana once the door closed.

“No harm done,” Nana whispered back.

I finished on the kitchen floor, now that there was no reason to hide. It was almost time, anyway. The parade would start at ten by us. In some places, people had to get up in the middle of the night.

Mama came in to breakfast, and I put the boots in a corner to dry. Nana had made coffee and scrambled eggs with green chiles, but all I could smell was the saddle soap on my hands. We all ate in silence: Mama because she wasn’t a morning person, and Nana and I because we were waiting. Listening. At eight the sirens went off, just the expected short burst to warn us the Veil would be lifting.

Mama whipped her head around. “What was that? Oh.”

The lifting of the Veil always hit her the same. My teacher said each vet reacted in a different way, but my friends never discussed what it was like for their parents. Mama always went “Oh” first, lifting her hand to her mouth. Her eyes flew open as if they were opening for the first time, and for one moment she would look at me as if I were a stranger. It upset me when I was little. I think I understand now, or anyway I’m used to it.

“Oh,” she said again.

She studied her hands in her lap for a moment, and I saw they were shaking. She didn’t say anything, just wheeled herself into the bathroom. I heard the water start up, then the creak as she transferred herself to the seat in the shower. Nana came around the table to hug me. When she got up to lay Mama’s uniform on her bed, I followed with the boots I had shined. We waited in the kitchen.

Showering and dressing took her a while, as it did on any day, but when she appeared in the kitchen doorway again, she had her uniform on. It fit perfectly. Mama didn’t need to know that Nana had let it out a little. I had never seen a picture of her as a young soldier, but it wasn’t hard to imagine. I only had to strip away the chair and the burn on her face. This was the one day I looked at her that way; on all other days, those were just part of her.

“Did you shine these for me?” She pointed to her boots.

I nodded.

“They’re perfect. Everyone will be so impressed.” She pulled me onto her lap. I was getting too old for laps, but today she was allowed. I stayed for a minute then stood again. When she laughed it was a different laugh from the rest of the year, a little lower and softer. I’ve never been sure which is her real laugh.

At nine, we all got in the van, and Mama drove us downtown.

“Mama, can I ask you a question?”

“Yes?”

“What did you do in the War?”

I saw her purse her lips in the mirror. “There’s a long answer to that question, mija, and I don’t think I can answer it right this moment while I’m driving. Can we talk more in a while?”

I knew how this worked. “In a while” didn’t always come. Still, this was her day. “I guess.”

A few minutes later Mama took an unexpected right turn and pulled the van over. “How about if we skip it this year? Go get some ice cream or sit on the pier or something?”

“Mama, no! This is for you!” I didn’t understand why she would suggest such a thing. My horror welled up before I thought to see what Nana said first.

She turned to Nana next, but my grandmother just shrugged.

“You’re right, Clara. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Mama sighed and put the van back into gear.

Veterans got all the good parking in the city on the holiday. Mama’s uniform got us close. The wheelchair sticker got us even closer. I didn’t understand how they all knew where to go, how to find their regiments, but they did. Nana and I stood near the staging area and watched as the veterans hugged each other and cried. Mama pointed to me and waved. I smiled and waved back.

We found seats in the grandstand, surrounded by other families like ours. I recognized a couple of the kids. We had played together beneath the stands when we were little, when we called it Remembery Day because we didn’t know better. Now that I was old enough to understand a little more, I wanted to sit with Nana. The metal bench burned my legs even through my pants. A breeze blew through the canyon created by the buildings. It rustled the flags on the opposite side of the street, and I tried to identify the different states and countries.

A marching band started to play, and we all sang “The Ones Who Made it Home” and then “Flowers Bloom Where You Fell.” At school I learned that parades used to include national anthems, but since the War our allies everywhere choose to sing these two songs. I can sing them both in four different languages. The band stopped in front of each stand to play the two songs again. It was always a long parade.

Behind them came six horses the color of Mama’s boots and every bit as shiny. Froth flew from their mouths as they tossed their heads and danced sideways against their harnesses. Their bits and bridles gleamed with polish, but they pulled a plain cart. It rolled on wooden wheels and carried a wooden casket. The young man driving wore the new uniform designed after the War, light gray with black bands around the arms. Nobody who hadn’t fought was allowed to wear the old one anymore.

Then came the veterans. Fewer every year. Nana has promised me Mama was never exposed to the worst stuff; I worry anyway. I imagine there will be a time when there aren’t enough of them to form ranks, but for now there were still a good number. Some, like my mother, rode in motorized wheelchairs. Some had faces more scarred than hers. Others waved prosthetic hands. Those too weak were pushed by others or rode on floats down the boulevard. I saw my teacher march past. I had never noticed him in the ranks before, but I guess he wasn’t my teacher until this year, so I wouldn’t have known to look for him. The way he talked in class I would never have guessed he was a veteran. Of course, that was the case with all of them since the Veil was invented. I don’t know why I was surprised.