Jen Frederick: Unraveled

“You allow these atrocities to occur without retribution?” I asked Bo, who was leaning against the wall grimacing as the video game players missed kill shot after kill shot.

"I don't know them but we can dunk them out in the pool later."

"This is just a normal everyday occurrence here?" I waved at the mass of people moving in and out of the house toward the back patio and into the pool. Bo's gaze traveled around the room, stopping at AnnMarie talking animatedly to some girl I hadn’t met. I had to nudge Bo out of whatever fantasy he was concocting. He jerked a little and then punched me in the arm. "The fuck?" I said, punching him back.

"I was having a moment." He scowled. Like he hadn't had a moment earlier when he'd dragged AnnMarie away from the pool for some private time.

"Let her be for a minute and maybe she'll miss you," I retorted. This riled Bo up and soon we were grappling on the hard wooden floor. He struck me twice in the ear. Bo had big fists but his larger body also made it easier to maneuver around him.

I’d gotten a choke hold around his neck and was pulling his head away from his shoulders when a huge stream of cold water hit my face. "Motherfucking what?" I yelled, dropping Bo. AnnMarie stood there with an empty pot, looking both exasperated and amused.

"You guys are acting like you're five." She tapped her foot by my head.

"Nah, I was still fighting like this when I was fifteen." I smiled, getting up and pulling her in for a hug. I pressed my wet body against hers for all of one second before Bo pulled me off. He and Noah picked me up and proceeded to throw me into the pool.

I kicked off my shoes and stripped off my T-shirt and shorts, throwing the whole lot up on the pool deck.

"Keep your panties on," Bo shouted as my clothing hit the concrete.

"No worries, man, I won't embarrass you by showing my package to all the girls here."

"No one wants to see your pasty white ass."

"I think you're more afraid that AnnMarie will see my giant dick and leave you." Predictably, Bo jumped into the pool. We started trying to drown each other, but I'd had too much training for that.

Bo's entry into the pool prompted the rest of the crowd to jump in and soon I was too interested in all the honeys around me to want to wrestle with Bo anymore. Noah tossed me a pair of swim trunks, and I changed under the water. We played pool games until I was too hungry to be distracted by all the bikini-clad coeds in the water with me.

"You really know how to press Bo's buttons," AnnMarie commented as I threw together a sandwich and wolfed it down in three bites.

"When you spend a few years stuck next to a guy 24/7, you get to know him pretty well,” I explained. She handed me a soda and I drained that too.

"Did you hate it? Is that why you want to get out?" she asked, sipping at her drink.

I made up another sandwich before answering her. Part of me resented the question, but that's why I was here, and I guess everyone knew it. Answering their questions might help sort out the confusion in my own mind. "Everyone says you don't miss the service, you miss the men you served with. So no, I don't want to get out because I saw your man far too much in the desert.

“When you're deployed, you are always busy doing something, and you feel like you’re doing something worthwhile. Whether it's going to look for insurgents or handing out aid. At home, some guys get to do embassy duty or presidential assignments, but a lot of us stay on base. When you're on base, you train, but it doesn't feel as..."

I paused, unsure of the word I was looking for. "Important?" I still wasn't sure what was making me feel out of sorts. "My pops—grandfather—says that the reasons for getting out will always outweigh the reasons for staying in." I laid my sandwich down, my appetite kind of gone.

"Sounds tough." AnnMarie made a clucking sound of sympathy, and I gave her a wry smile in return.

"Kind of a downer of a discussion for such a nice day."

She patted me on the arm. "Nope, not a downer at all."

She was lying, but we both left it at that. If I’d known the answers to AnnMarie’s questions, then I wouldn't be here; I'd be in sunny Southern California with my boys at the beach. I picked up my sandwich again because I couldn't let it go to waste. I ate the whole damn thing methodically, without enjoying it. I was afraid that no matter what decision I made—getting out or staying in—it’d be the wrong one.

"How come you refer to Bo and Noah as Marines even though they've been out of the military for a couple of years now?" AnnMarie asked.

"Once a Marine, always a Marine," I explained. "It's the oldest, best fraternity in existence. I could be anywhere and if I yelled Marine in trouble, I'd have every Marine in the room lending me a hand. It's a brotherhood like no other."

"Sounds like you love it." Her eyebrows were raised in challenge.

“Yeah, I guess I do." I sighed. I did love my brothers. They would be the thing I missed the most about the Corps, but I also would miss the sense of purpose and the idea that I was involved in something bigger than myself.

Thankfully, I wasn’t allowed more time for my dilemma to mess with my head because Bo sidled up to me with the fat grin that he wore when he was about to get us all in trouble.

“Want to go to a bar?”

“What about all this?” I nodded toward the crowd.

“Mal’s going to stay here.” Mal was another roommate.

I shrugged. Party here, bar there. Made no difference. “I’m going to trust that you have good things planned for me.”

“Don’t doubt it,” he said, giving me a hard slap on my back.

Samantha

I FELT LIKE I WORE a scarlet letter. Not “A” for adulterer but “W” for widow. I thought the defining moment of my life was going to be when I married or maybe when I had kids. Instead, it came two months after the wedding, when the “casualty team” showed up at my door, expressing the sorrowful regrets of the Secretary of the Army. I doubted the Secretary of the Army knew who my nineteen-year-old husband was, and I seriously doubted the sorrowful regrets.

My reaction wasn’t very graceful. A real Army wife would’ve stood stoically by while the two Army men in their service class “A” uniforms somberly delivered the news at the door of my condo. My response was first screaming at them followed by an ungraceful collapse on the floor and finally spewing snot all over their wool jackets.

Bitsy, my sister, tried to cheer me up months later by reading Internet articles of all the other ways I could’ve embarrassed myself. “At least you didn’t stab anyone or try to burn yourself,” she pointed out. I didn’t question the veracity of those reports because it actually did make me feel better that there were a handful of people that took the news worse than I did.

At the funeral, the chaplain had held my hand, repeatedly murmuring, “You’re so young.” That was the refrain of my life now. Samantha Anderson, widowed so young. I heard it everywhere. At the grocery store, the library, and even at the stupid bar where I worked.

It seemed like people in my life placed themselves into two general camps. There was the camp, which included my family, that was ready for me to move on from the death of my best friend, only lover, and husband of two months. The other camp wanted to enshrine me as Will Anderson’s widow forevermore. I wasn’t at all sure what camp I fell into, but I knew I was lonely. I was tired of being a widow, and I was tired of bartending for a living, and I was tired of having to serve as Will’s avatar for the family he left behind. I guess I was in the tired and lonely camp.

But I set that sentiment aside today to endure my monthly luncheon with Will’s parents—David and Carolyn. Sometimes my brother-in-law Tucker showed up, but more often than not, it was just me. Last night, Tucker had called and explained earnestly that he just wasn't up for it this month—again. His inability to have any kind of emotional investment in his family was irritating on most days, but it was enraging on days like today. As if I looked forward to the monthly lunch.