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Authors: Sara Rosett
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feet on the floorboard. Then I nosed Cass’s van out of the Security Police’s holding area. Joe had called early this morning to ask me if I could pick up the van.
“The funeral’s tomorrow,” Joe had said. There wasn’t any inflection in his voice. I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could hold Livvy in one arm and pick up her plastic book from the floor with theother hand. We had been up three times with Livvy during the night. She didn’t seem to know what she wanted.
“I’m going to stay out here for a few more days. The Security Police at Greenly are releasing the van. Could you please pick it up for me?”
I did a quick mental scan of the day’s events. Mitch had training in the flight simulator, or the sim, as the guys called it. I’d planned on going to the Comm, the grocery store on-base called the commissary. “Sure. I’ll have Mitch drop me off on the way to his sim. I’ll drive your van back and leave it in your driveway.”
Hopefully, Livvy would sleep during the drive to the base.
That morning, I’d gone through the whole routine—feeding, burping, diaper changing. I’d hoped a car ride would soothe her. It didn’t. She cried during the twenty-five-minute drive. As I stopped for a light, I reconsidered my grocery shopping plan. I didn’t think I could handle it with Livvy’s fussiness. I drove past the chapel, the gym, and the Comm, each painted pastel yellow with mud brown trim. The government must have gotten a huge discount on that paint. It’s the standard exterior paint at every base I’ve ever seen. The color is probably called Pale Blah.
A military base is almost like a college campus, a self-contained world with everything a person could need: a gas station, credit union, banks, grocery stores, a base exchange, which is similar to a Wal-Mart only smaller, a recycling center, and a movie theater. Theoretically, a person never had to leave. Of course, if a person never left the base, theoretically, that person would go insane.
I rolled to a stop at the next intersection, tapping the steering wheel with my thumb, unsure what to do. I could tough it out and do our grocery shopping, butLivvy’s cries, although not as insistent as they were at the beginning of our drive, were still shrill and loud. Just the thought of navigating the Comm’s aisles with Livvy crying made my head hurt.
I flipped on my blinker and turned right for the car wash. Sometimes loud noises soothed Livvy. She loved the roar of the vacuum cleaner and the gush of water into the tub. The van was dusty on the outside and gum wrappers, dead pine needles, and paper napkins and cups littered the floor mats. I doubted Joe would want to even see the van, much less clean it up, so I could do that for him. Livvy went silent in midcry.
I could feel my eyebrows wrinkle together as I tried to figure out why she stopped crying suddenly. Then she grunted. I knew exactly what that noise meant: urgent diaper change. I sighed and pulled over to the side of the car wash parking lot.
I hated changing diapers in the car, but this was the worst I’d ever seen. Without a second thought, I tossed her overalls and shirt embroidered with a gardening theme of flowers, pails, and shovels in the trash. There was no salvaging that outfit. I fished a worn onesie from the depths of the diaper bag. It fit like a surgical glove. She was growing every day. I put her back in the car seat. As soon as the buckle clicked, she squished her eyes shut and cried.
I found several quarters in the bottom of my brown leather backpack purse and slipped them into the machine. I sat back in the dim light as the water pounded the car. Livvy gave a few more gulping sobs, then a shaky sigh tapered off into silence. Thank goodness. My nerves were stretched to the limit. Mitch could ignore her crying or tell himself that she was fussy and would be all right in a little while, but my natural mother responsesystem couldn’t take much more of
“The funeral’s tomorrow,” Joe had said. There wasn’t any inflection in his voice. I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could hold Livvy in one arm and pick up her plastic book from the floor with theother hand. We had been up three times with Livvy during the night. She didn’t seem to know what she wanted.
“I’m going to stay out here for a few more days. The Security Police at Greenly are releasing the van. Could you please pick it up for me?”
I did a quick mental scan of the day’s events. Mitch had training in the flight simulator, or the sim, as the guys called it. I’d planned on going to the Comm, the grocery store on-base called the commissary. “Sure. I’ll have Mitch drop me off on the way to his sim. I’ll drive your van back and leave it in your driveway.”
Hopefully, Livvy would sleep during the drive to the base.
That morning, I’d gone through the whole routine—feeding, burping, diaper changing. I’d hoped a car ride would soothe her. It didn’t. She cried during the twenty-five-minute drive. As I stopped for a light, I reconsidered my grocery shopping plan. I didn’t think I could handle it with Livvy’s fussiness. I drove past the chapel, the gym, and the Comm, each painted pastel yellow with mud brown trim. The government must have gotten a huge discount on that paint. It’s the standard exterior paint at every base I’ve ever seen. The color is probably called Pale Blah.
A military base is almost like a college campus, a self-contained world with everything a person could need: a gas station, credit union, banks, grocery stores, a base exchange, which is similar to a Wal-Mart only smaller, a recycling center, and a movie theater. Theoretically, a person never had to leave. Of course, if a person never left the base, theoretically, that person would go insane.
I rolled to a stop at the next intersection, tapping the steering wheel with my thumb, unsure what to do. I could tough it out and do our grocery shopping, butLivvy’s cries, although not as insistent as they were at the beginning of our drive, were still shrill and loud. Just the thought of navigating the Comm’s aisles with Livvy crying made my head hurt.
I flipped on my blinker and turned right for the car wash. Sometimes loud noises soothed Livvy. She loved the roar of the vacuum cleaner and the gush of water into the tub. The van was dusty on the outside and gum wrappers, dead pine needles, and paper napkins and cups littered the floor mats. I doubted Joe would want to even see the van, much less clean it up, so I could do that for him. Livvy went silent in midcry.
I could feel my eyebrows wrinkle together as I tried to figure out why she stopped crying suddenly. Then she grunted. I knew exactly what that noise meant: urgent diaper change. I sighed and pulled over to the side of the car wash parking lot.
I hated changing diapers in the car, but this was the worst I’d ever seen. Without a second thought, I tossed her overalls and shirt embroidered with a gardening theme of flowers, pails, and shovels in the trash. There was no salvaging that outfit. I fished a worn onesie from the depths of the diaper bag. It fit like a surgical glove. She was growing every day. I put her back in the car seat. As soon as the buckle clicked, she squished her eyes shut and cried.
I found several quarters in the bottom of my brown leather backpack purse and slipped them into the machine. I sat back in the dim light as the water pounded the car. Livvy gave a few more gulping sobs, then a shaky sigh tapered off into silence. Thank goodness. My nerves were stretched to the limit. Mitch could ignore her crying or tell himself that she was fussy and would be all right in a little while, but my natural mother responsesystem couldn’t take much more of
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