TOM'S STUDY WAS at the rear of the house, his desk shunted up against the window that overlooked the creek. Sometimes when he glanced up from his computer he would see deer foraging in the dappled shade of the cottonwoods. In spring a few years ago he had sat for half an hour watching a black bear and her two cubs splashing and chasing one another through the shallows. There was an old joke about why writers never stared out the window in the morning (answer: because then they'd have nothing to do all afternoon) and Tom knew he would be more productive if he denied himself the view and put the desk against one of the walls. But they were all lined with bookshelves, so overloaded that they seemed in constant danger of collapse and though the idea of a writer dying in an avalanche of books had a certain appeal, he preferred to leave things as they were.
He had long ago run out of shelf space and so the bare cedar floor, scattered with Indian rugs, had been colonized in every possible place with precarious towers of books and box files, papers and magazines. There was a hide-covered couch draped with an old buffalo wool blanket where Makwi sprawled asleep for most of the day, her paws twitching as she chased squirrels in her dreams. Behind the couch stood a large chest of drawers, painted the same duck egg blue as the walls and shelves, its top cluttered with framed photographs. Only two were of Tom: one of him posing formally with some important Blackfeet elders and the other of him receiving an award for his TV series at a film festival in Canada. The others were all of Danny and Gina, pictures taken on various vacations—hiking in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, skiing at Big Sky, a summer canoe trip along the Missouri, where they'd camped in constant fear of rattlesnakes.
All the photographs that, for several different reasons, didn't qualify for framing, Tom kept in large manila envelopes, each carefully marked and dated, in the chest's bottom drawer. He hadn't dared look at them in a long time. It was something he used to do on those blurred, maudlin evenings after Gina left, when his drinking was at its most epic.
He would sit on the floor with a quart of Jack Daniel's and sift through them, trying to make sense of what had happened and in the process managing only to make himself more unhappy and confused and thirsty for oblivion. In a moment of clarity one night it had occurred to him how rarely he figured in any of the pictures that lay scattered around him on the floor. He was always the invisible one behind the camera. It was as though, in documenting their marriage and the first eight years of Danny's life, he had rendered himself invisible, edited himself out. Occasionally Gina used to admonish him, telling him to put the damned camera down and just be with them. At an AA meeting a few years later someone had pointed out that it was much the same way with liquor. It helped you edit yourself out of your own life.
The process of editing was, of course, second nature to Tom. He'd learned how to do it from the age of thirteen after Diane died. That shaming year he'd spent in junior high in LA when she was on death row had taught him the cost of other people knowing the truth: that his mother had gone to the gas chamber, a convicted murderer. The edited version of his life, in which the illusion was restored of Diane being his sister and Joan and Arthur his parents, made things a lot easier. In this edited version—the version believed by those closest to him, even by Gina and Danny—Diane had died in a car accident in England.
It was strange how a lie much told could acquire a kind of solidity. In the telling it became, in one's own mind, as strong and comforting as the truth. Tom had sometimes wondered, after Gina left, whether things might have been different had he told her the truth about Diane. Perhaps it would have helped her understand his failings as husband and father. Or perhaps it would only have made her pity him. And pity, for Tom, was something worse than shame.
It was after Gina's phone call last night, telling him that Danny was back from Iraq, that he had decided to brace himself and have another look at some of his old photographs. He'd risen, as he always did these days, at around six and gone for a run with Makwi up along the creek. His knees weren't so good anymore, so in truth it was more of an ambling jog and no more than a brisk walk for Makwi. But it always cleared his head and got his blood moving, helped him plan the day ahead.
It was a clear May morning and the meadow and the banks of the creek were greening up fast. He lost Makwi for about ten minutes when she took off into the forest after some creature he didn't even get a glimpse of and all he could do was call and whistle and hope that it was only a squirrel or at worst a deer and not a bear or a mountain lion. The dog was notoriously accident prone and at least once every couple of months came back bleeding from some new wound that would have to be stitched up. He'd gotten her for free from the pound but paid for her a thousand times over in vets' bills. As he waited for her to reappear, he thought about Danny and whether there would be any response to the message he'd asked Gina to give him when she saw him today.
The boy still hadn't called him or replied to the e-mails Tom had sent him. Gina said he shouldn't make too much of this. Danny was getting about a hundred e-mails a day, she said, from strangers who wished him well and others who had already condemned him and wished him dead. She and Dutch had flown down to San Diego yesterday and were seeing Danny at Camp Pendleton later this morning.
"Maybe I should fly down too," Tom had suggested, though he knew what she'd say.
"I don't think that's such a good idea. Leave it awhile."
"He is my son too, you know."
"Tom, please. Don't start."
"I just feel so, I don't know, so helpless."
"I know."
"Will you send him my love? Ask him to call?"
"Of course I will."
"Or tell me when I can call him. Does he have a new cell phone number?"
"Yes."
There was a pause.
"Did he tell you not to give me the number?"
"Tom, you've got to remember, there's a lot of history here. I mean, between you and Danny."
"Did he?"
"Yes."
The history was right there in front of him now, on his desk, inside the manila envelope he'd laid there last night after Gina's call. It was marked Danny '93 thru... He hadn't felt strong enough to look at the pictures last night but now, with the resolve of the new day, he was ready. He'd showered after his run, fed Makwi (still panting and wired but otherwise unscathed) and had some breakfast himself, while he skimmed the Missoulian. Then he'd carried his coffee into the study and sat down at his desk. He stared at the envelope for a while then gently shook the photos from it. The ones that charted the rest of the boy's childhood, his teens and transition into manhood.
Some of these Tom had taken himself on those increasingly awkward weekends when Danny used to come to stay. The smiles more and more forced, the eyes less and less readable. His own son slowly becoming a stranger. There were others, from later, after Danny had said he didn't want to come to stay anymore, photos Gina had sent in an effort to retain at least some strand of a link between the two of them. Danny in the football squad, with girlfriends Tom had never met, his high school graduation picture, the head freshly shaven. It had been taken only a few months after their argument.
Even now, five years later, Tom could remember almost every word, every moment of it. Danny had called to say he was coming over to Missoula and asked if he could drop by around lunchtime. It was the first time they had been in touch since Christmas and from the tone of his son's voice Tom sensed that this was going to be more than just a casual visit. There was something important the boy wanted—or, more likely, had been cajoled by his mother—to discuss.
Danny arrived at midday, driving a big black pickup with a lot of chrome and lamps up front and flames painted along the sides. He said it belonged to Dutch, which didn't surprise Tom in the least. Makwi made a big fuss of the boy, which helped break the ice a little. While Tom cooked them a cheese-and-tomato omelet and put together a salad, Danny slouched against the divider, looking awkward and asking polite questions about Tom's work in which he'd never before expressed the slightest interest. His head was still shaved, except for a little buzz-cut patch on the top. It made Tom, with his thinning, grizzled mane curling over his collar, feel like an old hippie. He nearly made a joke about it but decided not to.
"So, what's up?" he said at last when they'd sat down to eat.
"I'm going to enlist."
Danny said it without looking up from his food.
"I just wanted, you know, to let you know."
"In the Marines."
"Yeah."
"Of course. You mean, after college."
"No. I'm not going to college. Not now, anyhow."
"I thought that was the plan. Montana State, then decide after you graduate."
"I already decided."
"But, without a degree, that means you go in as a... what is it?"
Danny gave a derisive little laugh, as if only a moron would have to ask what enlisting meant.
"A private."
"I thought you wanted to be an officer."
"I still can be. Later though."
"But—"
"Dad, the country's at war! I've waited long enough already."
"Well, it's a war that some of us—"
"I know what you feel about the war. And I don't care, I just—"
"How? How do you know what I feel about the war? I don't recall our ever having discussed it."
"I just know, okay?"
Tom took a deep breath and for a few moments the only sound was the clack of their cutlery. The omelet suddenly tasted like glue. He silently cursed himself for not having seen this coming. Thanks to Dutch, joining the military had always been in the cards. But as an officer, with a college degree under his belt. And four years of college, Tom had naively hoped, might well change the boy's mind, make him want to do something else with his life.
"So, did you come here today to tell me or to ask my opinion?"
Danny still didn't look up.
"Mom said I should come tell you."
"Well, thank you. So she's all for this, then, I take it."
"Of course she is."
"Why of course? It's not every mother who'd be happy to see her only son go off to war. Especially a war that a lot of people think we shouldn't be fighting in the first place."
Tom regretted saying this before it was even out of his mouth. Danny looked away, gave a small, disdainful shake of his head.
"That may be what people like you think, but—"
"Sorry, hold on a moment. What does that mean? People like me."
"People who are prepared to stand by and watch our country be attacked and do nothing to fight back."
The boy's eyes were on him now and the contempt in them was so shocking that Tom had to swallow before he could speak again.
"Attacked? You mean nine-eleven?"
"Of course I mean nine-eleven, for godsake."
"They weren't from Iraq, Danny. They had no connection with Iraq. Everybody knows that now."
Danny pushed his plate away and stood up, his chair grating on the floor.
"Danny, please..."
"Forget it."
"Listen, I'm sorry. Please, sit down."
"Why the hell do you liberals always want to make excuses for those who want to kill us?"
"Danny—"
"Don't you get it? You don't, do you? You just don't get it."
He was at the door now. Tom stood up and opened his arms.
"Please, Danny. Don't just walk out."
But he was out of the house, Makwi running after him, barking, clearly thinking this was some new kind of game. Danny got into the truck and slammed the door with its painted flames. And by the time Tom got there, the boy had fired the engine and rammed it into reverse, the wheels ripping furrows in the gravel, while Makwi went on barking. Tom reached for the door handle.
"Danny, please!"
But it was too late. The truck lurched out of the driveway and roared off down the road.
Tom had revisited these moments a thousand times, plotting the points at which he might have reacted differently instead of letting his ego do yet more damage to their fragile relationship. Rather than listening, he had immediately challenged. Rather than offering respect and support, he had chosen to undermine the boy's beliefs. Even a moment's reflection would have told him that the only possible outcome would be anger and resentment. In that brief exchange they had both lived up to the caricatures each had fashioned of the other.
What made it so idiotic was that Tom, truly, had no aversion to the military or to those who served in it. On the contrary, he had only respect and sympathy for the young men and women who had been sent to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was little different from how he had felt about those who had risked and lost their lives in Vietnam three decades before. The aversion was only to the men in suits, safely ensconced in Washington and London, who for suspect reasons had sent them there.
He realized too that the argument with Danny had nothing to do with the military or with politics. It was personal. About Tom's self-pity and jealousy at having been ousted by another man, replaced as a father. And now that he could view the world more clearly, instead of through the wobbling haze of liquor, he knew he should be grateful that the boy had found a father figure with values he could admire.
At his desk, he had been staring at Danny's high school yearbook picture for a long time. And now he turned it over to see the last photograph in the file. It had been taken at the recruit-training depot north of San Diego, on the day Danny was awarded his eagle, globe and anchor, the emblem that showed he had finally become a US Marine. Tom hadn't, of course, been invited to the ceremony. Gina had sent him the photo that fall, as if daring him not to be proud. But it had only served to confirm that the process of separation was complete. It had been like looking at a stranger. And, much as he wanted it to be otherwise, it still felt the same.
That lunchtime, however, he took the picture into town and in a little gift store on North Higgins found an appropriately elegant frame for it. When he came home he didn't put it with the other framed pictures on top of the chest but placed it instead on the windowsill in front of his desk. And while he got on with his work and waited for Gina or—hope beyond hope—for Danny to call, whenever he looked up from his computer screen, he would see his stranger son staring back at him.
Tom was writing a piece for the Missoulian about a Jesuit boarding school for Blackfeet children that had been set up in the late 1890s along the Two Medicine River near Browning. It was called the Holy Family Mission and it lasted for more than forty years. Tom had devoted a chapter to it in his book and in the course of his research recorded interviews with some of the old-timers who had attended it. To refresh his memory, he had listened to the tapes again and was as moved by their testimony as he had been the first time.
The purpose of the place, naturally, had been to civilize the savages and save their souls from eternal damnation. Many of the early pupils were taken by force and in tears from their homes on the reservation. Their braids were cut off and their buckskin clothes and moccasins taken away to be replaced with the kind of clothes the white folk wore. If they ran away, as many tried to, their families' rations, supplied by the Government Agency, in many cases the only source of food, were cut off. Once captured or returned, the absconders were soundly whipped, as indeed they were for many other sins, such as speaking in their native tongue.
The discovery that had moved Tom most was how few of those he interviewed seemed to bear any sort of grudge. In fact some, while embracing Christianity, had later been among the most diligent defenders and sustainers of what survived of the Blackfeet culture and language. The capacity to forgive was one of life's most mysterious miracles. Tom only wished he could find more of it in his own heart, for grievances infinitely more trivial.
He turned off his computer around six when the shadows of the cottonwoods were reaching out across the meadow and the light had gone golden and hazy. Danny, in his smart uniform, was still staring at him from the windowsill. And Gina still hadn't called.
He took Makwi along the trail that curled up through the forest on the other side of the road and watched her weaving through the glades of Douglas fir and ponderosa. The air was warm and smelled strongly of resin and the undergrowth was coming so fast you could almost hear it unfurl. They walked up to the foot of the rocky cliff where the ravens were already building their nests and while he watched them Makwi stood a little way off, panting from her patrol. When they got back to the house she went down through the meadow and took a stately bath in the creek, then lay on the grass and rubbed her back and sides.
He switched on the TV in the kitchen and watched CNN while he made Makwi's supper, then cooked some pasta and beans for himself. Two American soldiers had been killed by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad; fifteen Iraqi civilians dead or injured in a suicide bomb attack in a marketplace in Basra. Tom had just sat down to eat, was barely concentrating anymore, was just about to take a mouthful of pasta, when the next item froze his hand in midair.
"And back home, at Camp Pendleton in California, two US Marines have been charged with premeditated murder following an incident, January twenty-four, in which seven Iraqi civilians were killed...."
And there was Danny, "Lance Corporal Daniel Bedford," his photo alongside that of the other boy accused. There were no police mug shot numbers hanging from their necks nor matching profiles but there might as well have been. On TV and in the eyes of the millions who watched, you were guilty until proven innocent. The report was agonizingly short. There was no account of what had happened. All it said was that the accused were not in custody but had been flown back to Camp Pendleton where they were on restricted duties, "pending Article Thirty-two hearings." If found guilty as charged, the piece concluded, both men could face the death penalty.
Tom dumped his supper in the sink and went directly to his office to phone Gina on her cell. His heart was beating hard and his hand shaking so badly that he had to dial the number twice. He didn't know if his anger had more to do with what he'd just learned or with how he'd come to learn it. He stood tapping his desk, staring at Danny's picture, while he waited for her to answer.
"Gina?"
"Tom, I can't really talk right now."
"Did you see the news?"
"Yes. Listen, I'll—"
"Have you seen Danny?"
"Yes, we're with him now."
"Don't you think you could have called me?"
"I'm sorry. It's been quite a day—"
"Christ, Gina. I mean—"
"Tom, I'm going to have to call you back, okay? I have to go now. Bye."
And the connection went dead.