He nods seriously and I realize, too late, that my insensitive joke was lost on him.
“Wait, I want a redo.” I close my eyes for a quiet second, then say, “There. Your turn.”
“You already wished? In secret?”
“That’s how wishes are made. Unless you’re Janie, because then you wish for cookies all the time, loud and proud.”
“Then I will wish for cookies, too, an endless supply to eat every day, with you.”
“After we walk Bambi?”
“Deal.” He holds out his hand; I grip it and we shake, though making plans like this, plans that include the wordsendlessandwith youas part of the same thought, twists my stomach into knots. If duty says he can’t consider school in the States—lifein the States—then we have this summer, a few more weeks. Decidedlynotendless.
We resettle ourselves against the turret wall, my hand still entwined with is. My phone buzzes; it sounds like a helicopter cutting through the silent night. I glance at the display, expecting to readMOMbecause it’s getting late, but I see Audrey’s name instead. I turn my phone off completely. She doesn’t get another chance to ruin this night.
“Your mother?” Mati says as I slide my phone back into my pocket.
“Audrey.”
“I bet she’s calling to apologize.”
“I bet she’s calling to bitch about what a horrible person I am. I just—I don’t want to talk about her, okay?”
“Then tell me more about your brother. Your voice does something amazing when you talk about him—it floats into the sky, like you can’t contain all the love you feel for him.”
“Is that weird?”
“No. It’s extraordinary.”
So I tell him about Nick: silly stories from our childhood (he’s particularly impressed with one about how we used to surf down the staircase on my twin-sized mattress), gifts he bought me, pranks we played, trips we took with Mom (again with the surfing—Mati’s fascinated by the revelation that we took lessons in Maui). I tell him about how Nick and Audrey met, their freshman year, thanks to me and a stumble on the sidewalk in front of her house. She was home alone (eternal latchkey kid) and rushed outside with handfuls of Band-Aids. She ended up sticking them all over my leg—everywherebutthe scrape—because she was so enamored with my big brother.
“And they were together from that day on,” I say.
“Until…”
“Well, Aud would say they’restilltogether. Some days I think her devotion’s impressive. Some days I think it’s unhealthy.”
“Her soul knows its mate,” Mati says softly.
My throat swells with sadness. “I’ve never thought about it like that, but yeah. Maybe.”
“What happened to him, Elise?”
I can talk about Nicky until I run out of oxygen, but talking about his death… I still get emotional. Sometimes, I still feel like weeping. “He was a civil affairs soldier,” I say, giving my composure a chance to find its footing. “So he was like a middleman between the US Army and the local Afghans. The emails he sent… He went on and on about the people he was meeting—kids especially. He was always asking us to send packages with things he could give them: candy, school supplies, and little toys. He loved it. I missed him, but when he called he always sounded so happy, so satisfied. It was hard to be upset about his deployment when it brought him so much gratification, you know?”
Mati nods. He shifts to put an arm around me, and I nestle into his side, inhaling the fresh scent of his skin. I can see the moon through the turret window, watching us like a pale face. It’s so late; I wonder whether my mom’s panicking yet. I wonder whether Audrey’s still sad. I wonder what Mati really thinks about what happened earlier, about being here with me now, about leaving me soon.
I toy with the zipper of his hoodie. “Do you want to hear more?”
“Only if you want to tell me.”
Strangely, I do.
“My mom didn’t see Nick’s deployment like I did. Neither did Audrey. She was pregnant when he left, and then Janie was born six weeks early, before Nick was due to come home on leave. My mom had to fly to North Carolina to help her. The whole thing was a mess. Aud sent Nick pictures of Janie and they talked online as often as they could, but she was stressed—like,distraught, all the time.
“We don’t know what happened the day he died—not really. We were told one of the Afghan soldiers Nick’s unit was working with was playing both sides. He gave up mission intel, there was an ambush, and an RPG hit the vehicle my brother was traveling in. Three other Americans were killed in the attack. Supposedly Nick died immediately. Supposedly he didn’t suffer. But we’ll never be sure.”
Mati presses his lips to my hair. “Photojournalism… What happened to your brother is why you’re set on traveling the world with your camera.”
