Joyce Oates - Carthage

Lots of disabled vets have fathered children. This is well known.

The MRI did not detect any growth. The MRI did not detect any blood-clots. The MRI did not detect any “irregularities.”

Whatever you see in your head like in dreams is not real. You know this!

CORPORAL BRETT GRAHAM Kincaid.

On the maps, we tried to follow you.

Baghdad—that was the first.

Diyala Province. Sadah.

Where you were hurt—Kirkuk.

Where the maps gave out—faded.

So far from Carthage.

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.

Very few people in Carthage know the difference—if there is a difference—between “Iraq” and “Afghanistan.”

I know: for I am your fiancée and it is necessary for me to know.

But still I am confused, and there is no one to ask.

For I dare not ask you.

The look in your eyes, at such times!—I feel such cold, a shudder comes over me.

He does not love me. He does not even know me.

Reverend Doig was explaining last Sunday there is no end, there can be no end, never an end to war for there is a “seed of harm” in the human soul that can never be wholly eradicated until Jesus returns to save mankind.

But when will this be?—Jesus returning to us?

Like Corporal Kincaid returning.

Yes I believe this! I want to believe this.

Must believe that there is a way of believing it—for both of us. When Reverend Doig marries us.

WHAT DID I tell them, I told them the truth—it was an accident.

I slipped and fell and struck the door—so silly.

At the ER they took an X-ray. My jaw is not dislocated.

It’s sore, it’s hard to swallow but the bruises will fade.

I know, you did not mean it.

I am sorry to upset you.

I am not crying, truly!

We will look back on this time of trial and we will say—It was a test of our love. We did not weaken.

THIS MORNING in my bed which is so lonely. Oh Brett I miss our special times together before you went away when I could come to you in your apartment and we could be alone together . . .

When that happens again, we will be happy as we were. This is not a normal way for us to be, living as we are. It’s no wonder there is strain between us. But this time will pass, this time of trial.

I wish your mother did not dislike me. When I am trying so hard to love her.

She said to me You don’t have to pretend. You can stop pretending. Any day now, you can stop pretending. And I didn’t know how to answer her—there was such dislike in her eyes . . . And finally I said But I am not pretending anything, Mrs. Kincaid! I love Brett and want only to marry him and be his wife and take care of him as he might need me, this is all I dream of.

This morning when I could not sleep after I’d wakened early—(there is a rooster somewhere behind where we live, up the hill behind the cemetery on the Post Road, I like to hear the rooster crowing but it means that the night is over and I will probably not get back to sleep)—I was remembering when we said good-bye, that last time.

In the Albany airport. And there were other soldiers arriving at the security check and some of them younger than you even. And that older officer—a lieutenant. And everyone—civilians—looking at you with respect.

So sad to kiss you good-bye! And everybody wanting to hug you and kiss you at the last minute and you were laughing saying But Julie is my fiancée not you guys.

There are so many of us who love you, Brett. I wish you would know this.

You gave me your “special letter” then. I knew what it meant—I think I knew—I felt that I might faint—but hid it away quickly of course and never spoke of it to anyone.

I will never open it now. Now you are safely returned to us.

Yes, I still have it of course. Hidden in my room.

My sister knows of the letter—I mean, she saw it in my hand. She has no idea what is inside it. She will not ever know.

She has told me I am not worthy of you—I am “too happy”—“too shallow”—to comprehend you.

In fact Cressida knows nothing of what there is between us. No one knows, except us.

Those special times between us, Brett. We will have those special times again . . .

Cressida is a good person in her heart!—but this is not always evident.

It’s hurtful to her to observe happiness in others. Even people she loves. I think it has made a difference to her, to see you as you are now—she has been deeply affected though she would not say so.

But if you speak to her of anything personal she will stare at you coldly. Excuse me. You are utterly mistaken.

She has refused to be my maid of honor, she was scornful saying she hasn’t worn anything like a dress or a skirt since she’d been a baby and wasn’t going to start now. She laughed saying weddings are rituals in an extinct religion in which I don’t believe.

I said to Cressida What is the religion in which you do believe?

This question I put to her seriously and not sarcastically as Cressida herself speaks. For truly I wanted to know.

But Cressida had no reply. Turned away from me as if she was ashamed and did not speak.

I wish—I am praying for this!—that Cressida will come to church with us sometime. Or just with me, if you don’t want to come. I know that she has been wounded in some way, she has been hurt by someone or something, she would never confide in me. I feel that her heart is empty and yearning to be filled—to cross over.

NO, BRETT! Not ever.

You must not say such things.

We could not feel more pride for you, truly. It is a feeling beyond pride—such as you would feel for any true hero, who has acted in a way few others could act, in a time of great danger.

What you said at the going-away party, such simple words you said made everyone cry—I just want to serve my country, I want to be the very best soldier I know how to be.

This is what you have done. Please, Brett! Have faith.

The war in Iraq was the most exciting time in your life, I know. Those months you were gone from us—“deployed.” It was a dangerous time and an exciting time and (I understand) a secret time for you, we could know nothing of in Carthage.

Operation Iraqi Freedom. Those words!

We tried to follow in the news. On the Internet. We prayed for you.

Daddy would remove from the newspaper things he didn’t want me to see. Particularly the New York Times, he gets on Sundays mostly.

Photos of soldiers who have died in the war—the wars. Since 2001.

I have seen some of them of course. Couldn’t help but look for women among the rows of men looking young as boys.

There are not many female soldiers. But it is shocking to see them, their pictures with all the men.

And always smiling. Like high school girls.

In Carthage, there are some people who do not “support” the war—the wars. But they support our troops, they make that clear.

Daddy has always made that clear.

Daddy respects you. Daddy is just awkward now, he doesn’t know how to talk to you but that’s how some men are. He was never a soldier himself and has strong feelings about the Vietnam War which was the war when he was growing up. But Daddy does not mean anything personal.

You have said It’s a toss of the dice. You have said Who gives a shit who lives, who dies. A toss of the dice.

I know you don’t mean this. This is not Brett speaking but the other.

You must not despair. Life is a gift. Our lives are gifts. Our love for each other.

It was surprising, my mother is not very religious but while you were gone—she came to church with me, almost every Sunday. She prayed.

All of the congregation prayed for you. For you and the others in the war—the wars.

So many have died in the wars, it is hard for me to remember the numbers—more than one thousand?