You Know When the Men Are Gone Read Online Free PDF Page B

to the First Cavalry parade grounds, the greenest stretch of grass on all of Fort Hood. Carla spotted her and rose from her seat high up in the bleachers, almost dropping Mimi in shock. Meg nodded at her friend and squeezed onto a bench in the front, sitting next to a man who wore a baseball cap stitched with Veteran of Foreign Wars . He leaned over and gave Lara and Peter small American flags to wave, and Peter immediately shook his flag as if he were trying to separate the stick from the cloth. The Horse Calvary Detachment was beginning its show, soldiers dressed in Custer-era uniforms riding in perfect figure eights across the parade field, their sabers and spurs glinting in the harsh Texas sun. Behind them, a long line of blue buses pulled up on Battalion Avenue.
    “Here they come,” the vet said, pointing at the buses. “Bet you are excited to see their daddy.”
    Meg nodded. She had no idea what their father would say, or what she would answer. The sleek horses on the field lined up at one end. A howitzer cannon erupted and the horses charged across, their riders shooting their rifles into the air. The crowd surged to its feet, stamping, clapping, and shouting, and Peter screamed at the uproar, dropping his flag. “Mama,” he sobbed, putting his hands to his ears.
    “Shhh,” Meg whispered, trying to bounce the children. Behind the smoke of the cannon and guns, the soldiers were beginning to exit their buses and line up in formation, their feet slightly apart, their backs so straight, their eyes scanning the crowd for a face that loved them. Meg searched the miraculously appearing men for her husband. “Shhh.” Then Lara started to cry, too.
    “London Bridge is falling down,” Meg began to sing, “falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady!”
    Lara glanced up at Meg’s face, recognizing the song. Meg knew there were other stanzas about gold and silver, about locking people up, the destruction and rebuilding of the bridge over and over again, but wasn’t it still standing today? It had been toppled by fires and wars, and each time it was resurrected with sturdier stuff. Then Lara began to join in, letting loose a jumble of mysterious syllables, and Peter, his eyelashes clotted with tears, started to softly mumble along.
    Meg, repeating the little she knew of the song over and over again, turned toward the men. She had no idea what their father looked like; would he spot his children, who had grown and changed during the year he’d been deployed? Would he recognize them sitting on a stranger’s lap? He would be looking for his wife, for her clear blond hair, her patchwork coat, her thin hands. Meg thought of Natalya raising these children alone, Boris bolting and barking and scratching on the door all day, how the twelve months must have been so long in a place where she couldn’t even read the directions for instant rice. And so Natalya had gone searching for a man to get her out of the uncertainty of it all, perhaps the way she had searched for a man to get her out of Kosovo. Searched for someone who would always be there, who could take care of her and hold her when she cried at night for the lives she left behind. Natalya had escaped one war and found herself caught in the wake of another; perhaps she realized she could survive without her children but she couldn’t take the waiting anymore.
    And then Meg saw Jeremy cross through the smoke.
    She put the children on the grass, holding their tiny palms, their fingers tight on her knuckles.
    Jeremy lined up with all the other soldiers and he immediately found his wife, his eyes locking onto hers. He didn’t even glance at the children, just stared at Meg as if she were the anchor that held his life. And Meg did not hesitate. She stood and took a step toward him, knowing suddenly and without a doubt that he was, and always would be, worth the wait.

CAMP LIBERTY
    D avid Mogeson didn’t like to tell people about his life