Nameless

Staring into the fire, I snuggled deeper into the couch. Watching the flames aimlessly and endlessly always became a habit for me this time a year. I shifted the mug of coffee in my hands, bringing it to my lips, only to discover I had already finished it. Again.
“Mommy?” said a small voice. “What are you doing?”
My son appeared from the shadows, clad in his footed pajamas and carrying his blanket.
I smiled weakly. “Hey darling.” I put down my mug on the side table. “I was just thinking.” I reached out to him and he toddled over, a happy grin on his face. I wrapped my arms around his waist, and pulled him up into my lap.
He sighed, and rested his head on my shoulder. I unconsciously ran my fingers through his hair, lulling him to sleep.

The fire was reduced to embers when I finally moved my little son back to his room. I gently laid him on his bed, tucked him in, kissed him goodnight and crept out of the room. I quietly shut the door, and went down the hall to my room. Closing the door, I went across the floor to my closet, and opened the heavy door. I knelt down in front of my open closet, and then reached in, past the shoes, the pants and the lost socks. I felt around the shelf hidden in the back, and then my hand felt something. I grabbed it, and pulled it out, sending up a cloud of dust.
The heavy photo album was melting in my lap. The memories I had shoved into the back of my mind surfaced, sending my heart racing. I wiped the seemingly gray cover with my fingers, tracing the silver writing. As my fingers made roads on the dusty black cover, my fingers touched a damp spot.
I reached for a tissue and blew my nose. I grabbed another and dabbed at my tear-full eyes. Tossing them into the trash, I opened the album.

The first picture I saw ripped my heart to pieces. It was of my husband and I on our wedding day. I wore a beautiful dress and he looked so handsome in his uniform.
I turned the page and my heart shattered into even smaller shreds. The picture had been taken the day my son was born. I lay on the hospital bed, surrounded by loved ones. Except my husband. He was absent from the picture because at that moment he was halfway around the world, fighting a war for a country he felt he had a duty to protect.
I turned the page again, and gave up against the emotions fighting to escape. Numbly, I turned the page again. And again. And again.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but my son woke me up the next morning. I plastered on a happy face, and said excitedly, “Happy Birthday!”
I grabbed him and threw him gently on the bed. He shrieked happily and tried to get away as my fingers found the ticklish spots on his sides. He squirmed away from me, and dashed downstairs to the presents.
I followed my son down the stairs, went into the kitchen and made a cup of coffee. I carried the steaming mug into the family room and sat down on the couch, tucking my kegs up underneath me. I looked to my son, who was fidgeting next to his pile of presents.
“Happy Birthday,” I said. “Now go on, open them up.”
Pure happiness etched over his face as he dug into the pile.

After I cleaned up the wrapping paper and bows, I thought back to the night before. While I was looking through the photo album, I was very upset to see a picture missing. I had torn my room apart in an attempt to find it, but my search ended in vain.
It was my favorite picture. My husband and I were walking along with our friend, who was trying out her new camera. She showed me the pictures after she developed them, and the one that stood out to me was of my husband and my back’s as we walked down the deserted snow-covered path, mitten-in-mitten. That black and white picture had gotten me through the hardest times, after my husband had died just months after the photo was taken. And now it was missing.

As the years passed, I still couldn’t find the picture. I found things I had lost before my son was born but I couldn’t find the one thing I needed. I was tearing apart my closet for the umpteenth time, looking for the photo I knew I wouldn’t find.
I was going to rip up the edges of the carpet in the very back, just in case the picture had slipped down underneath it. I had situated myself so I was on hands and knees, and my torso was jammed into the closet. My feet were buried under the clothes and shoes I had roughly ripped out of their rightful places.
I grabbed the corner of the carpet, and pulled with all my might. A few inches came up with my effort. Repositioning my hands, I pulled again. This time, nothing moved. I was about to try again when the phone rang.
Sighing frustrated, I shuffled backwards to get out, only to catch the back of my head on a low-hanging bar. The phone rang again, the sound bouncing around in my throbbing head. I got up off my feet and went over to my bed, picking up the cordless phone from the folds of my blankets.
“Hello?” I snapped, rubbing my head ruefully.
It was my son’s principal.
Confused, I asked, “What’s he done? What’s wrong?”
She pondered before answering. “He’s not hurt, but it would be easier if you came over here.”

I slammed the phone off and dropped it onto my bed. I ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, grabbed my keys from the table and sprinted out to the car. Somehow, I made it to the school without being stopped by any cops.
I hurried into the high school, right past the receptionist and reached for the doorknob. The principal opened the door for me, right before my sweaty hand touched the cold metal. She backed away ad held the door open, gesturing to the two chairs opposite her desk. My son was sitting in one of the straight-backed wooden chairs, his hands gently gripping the armrests. He looked up from the carpet as I entered, his eyes shining brightly in the harsh light. A man I recognized as my son’s English teacher stood behind the desk.
I strode into the room and sat next to him. Behind me, the principal closed the door and walked around to her soft, padded chair.
I hadn’t broken eye contact with my son; I asked what the problem was. My son stared back at me as the teacher answered. “There was a project that the students had to complete. It was a creative writing piece on a fictional family anywhere in the world, at any time, past present or future. Your son approached me today, asking to be failed for it after he had turned in. I said I would look into it, and when I was grading the papers, I came across his. I read it, and was amazed at how much work he had put into it. I would have given him a hundred, but I have the suspicion he committed plagiarism.”
I looked away from my son and at the principal. “Do you have the paper?” I asked.
She nodded, and pulled it out of a folder on her desk. Wordlessly, she handed it to me.
With a final glance to my son, I settled back and began to read.

****

A young boy stood next to his mother, the wind blowing her black dress into him. He fidgeted with a tie around his neck and the black suit he had to wear while clinging to her hand, a scared look on his face as he watched a casket as it was lowered into the ground. He stuck his thumb in his mouth and looked up to his mother. She had a sad, distant smile on her face, her eyes staring out into an unseen world.
Men in dark blue uniforms stood opposite them, their backs straight and chins raised. Two men were on crutches, one was in a wheelchair, and the rest stood. The boy tried to count them all, but he couldn’t remember the next number after sixteen.
An older man walked up to his mother, holding a tri-folded flag in his hands. His mother returned from her daze and looked at him as he held out the flag, which she graciously accepted with a sad smile. The young boy watched on, then shrieked loudly and buried his face in his mother’s dress as gunshots rang through the air.
He felt her lean down and pick him up, pointing to the guns that shot again into the still air. The boy wasn’t paying attention to her. Instead his eyes were latched onto the flag tucked under her right arm. He gently reached out for it, his fingers softly touching the fabric. He looked up to his mother, and said one simple word. “Da-daa?”
She nodded, tears streaming down her face. “Da-daa’s gone now, sweetheart.”
He looked back down to the red and white stripes. “Oh.”
Over the next fifteen years, the boy slowly pieced together what had happened to his father. He overheard one-sided phone conversations, trying to coax it from his mother when she wasn’t paying attention to what she was saying, even listening when she talked in her sleep.
His father had joined the army, leaving his pregnant wife behind. Four months later, he was killed. Two and a half months after that, he was born.

His father had been hiding with his troop in bushes that surrounded the remains of a derelict building. It had been bombed by enemy forces, and was now holding an enemy soldier that knew where many of the foreign soldiers were hidden. Those foreign soldiers included the boy’s father. Slowly, he crept from his position and towards the building before finally reaching it and entering.
He walked around, his gun up and ready to shoot anything that moved. Behind him, something snapped. Whirling around, he came face to face with the enemy soldier and his gun, aimed right between his eyes.
Outside, the remaining soldiers radioed for help. An earlier ambush had proven nearly fatal, with three men severely injured. All thirty-two of them jumped when a single gunshot rang through the air, followed by many more in a quick outburst.
The able soldiers grabbed their guns and trained them on the open door. Sounds could be heard from inside, steadily growing louder. The enemy soldier stumbled out, holding his hand over his heart while muttering incoherently. Suddenly, he fell to his knees, swayed precariously for a moment, then his eyes rolled into the back of his head. His body fell flat onto the ground and didn’t move.
A poll of blood had collected underneath the body before the soldiers dared to lower their guns. Two uninjured men went up to him, and roughly kicked him over onto his back. They stepped back to take use of the fading light, and saw a single bullet hole in the dead soldier’s chest, right over his heart.
The soldiers then swiftly went inside the building, and searched around for their comrade. They found him dead, his body lying prone over debris. The soldiers carried him outside, and then gently laid him down to the sounds of a helicopter. The setting sun was brightly reflected on his sharpshooter’s badge.

****

I let my hand drop down onto my lap, trying to hold back the tears. “There is a reason he asked for a zero, and it isn’t because of plagiarism,” I managed to croak out.
“Every word is true,” my son finished. Then he took something out of his inside coat pocket. He held it in both hands, flipping it over and over. It was a worn piece of cardboard, folded in half. My heart jumped into my throat as he slowly opened it.
It was the photograph.
“My father joined the army when my mother was two months pregnant. He died before I was born, and I found this picture when I was young. It was lying on my pillow, a stark reminder if what war does to families. “
He turned in his seat and faced me. “Thank you for putting this on my pillow,” he said.
From behind my hands, I shook my head. “I- I didn’t put that picture there,” I said, trying to talk without releasing my emotions. “I have been looking for it for fifteen years.”
My son’s eyes dropped, his face downcast. “Oh. I’m sorry, I figured you just didn’t want to tell me directly or something-“
“I think I know who put it there,” I interrupted.
His head snapped up, and I felt his eyes bore into mine.

I think he did too.