Small Black Boxes
by Susan C. Turner
Smashwords Edition
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, businesses, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is available in print at most online retailers.
First paperback edition, May 2010
Copyright 2009, Susan C. Turner
All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010900274
ISBN-13: 978-0-9822842-9-2
Summary: A story of grief, remembrance, and tribute; fifteen-year-old Leah Pritchard’s father is killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan. The title refers to the military practice of returning a dead soldier’s personal effects to his/her family in a number of small black containers. As Leah searches through each box, particular items remind her of an event or encounter with her father and the lessons she learned from them and from him. Through Leah’s recollections, Major Walter Pritchard, USAF, emerges as a man of many talents and convictions.
And where the earth was soft for flowers we made
A grave for him that he might better rest.
From A Soldier’s Grave by Francis Edward Ledwidge (1887-1917)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – The Notice
Chapter 2 – The Summary
Chapter 3 – The Burial
Chapter 4 – The Arrival
Chapter 5 – The Cap
Chapter 6 – The Musical Score
Chapter 7 – The Photograph
Chapter 8 – The Collar
Chapter 9 – The Portrait
Chapter 10 – The Report Card
Chapter 11 – The Valentine
Chapter 12 – The Books
Chapter 13 – The Baseball
Chapter 14 – The Journal
Chapter 15 – The Letter
Chapter 16 – The Last Box
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 - The Notice
Leah knew what was coming as soon as she opened the door.
Two minutes before, she sat at the kitchen table noisily scooping the last mouthful of oatmeal from the bottom of the bowl—ready to rush off to swim practice at the Y. Like most week day mornings, her schedule was tight—the five o’clock alarm, a quick breakfast, an hour of practice, then the bus ride to school.
Her mother finished washing the dishes, wiped her hands and whirled halfway round to face Leah. “Go round up your brother, will you? We’re going to be late again,” her mother urged, emphasizing the last syllable.
As Leah headed up the stairs to fetch Noah—their perpetual lazybones—she thought she heard a knock at the front door. The unusual hour caused her to listen again. People did not call on their neighbors at 5:30 in the morning. Maybe Karla’s van was acting up again. Luckily, Leah was dressed in light jeans and running shoes in case Karla needed a push out of her driveway, as she had done twice in the last week. A second knock, louder this time, signaled her jog back down the stairs, hollering at Noah’s head to get a move on. Leah flung open the door with a smile, expecting Karla’s sheepish face.
The officer’s hand was extended, preparing to knock once more, his hat tucked tightly under one arm. Two men in blue Air Force uniform, one a chaplain, the other wearing the same gold-leaf insignia as her father’s, stood at attention. Solemnly, the young major asked if Mrs. Elise Pritchard was at home. Leah felt her throat tighten.
“Y-y-yes sir,” stammered Leah. “My mother is. . . is. . . in the kitchen.”
Turning from the doorway, Leah saw Noah and her mother enter the living room. Clyde, their aging Lab, lagged close behind. Leah registered the sudden alarm on their faces, the angle of Noah’s chin as he looked up at his mother, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder, Clyde’s ears askew—all frozen in time and place.
An instant’s hesitation marked her mother’s advance. Imperceptibly, Elise Pritchard lowered her head and took a small breath, seizing some measure of strength. She searched the taller officer’s face, her own drained of color, and stepped forward. “I’m Elise Pritchard, Major Pritchard’s wife,” she said. “Please, come inside.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’m Major Ronald Boyd, and this is Chaplain Emery Cole,” he said soberly. He glanced at Leah and Noah and back at Leah’s mother. “Would you like me to continue, ma’am?” he asked, a note of concern in his voice.
“Yes,” the fresh widow whispered. “We are here together.”
Major Boyd began again, his eyes holding hers in gentle support. “The Secretary of the Air Force has asked me to express his deep regret that your husband, Major Walter Pritchard, was killed in action in Afghanistan on October 7. He and several of his men were involved in a firefight in a small village near Kandahar. Major Pritchard was killed by enemy fire. The Secretary extends his deepest sympathy to you and your family in your tragic loss.”
Leah stared at the officer’s black shoes, polished to a high gloss.
Chapter 2 - The Summary
The glass slipped from her mother’s hand, shattering when it struck the red tile. Leah jumped from her chair to grab the broom and pan, careful to avoid the scattered slivers. They sat in the kitchen surrounded by newspaper reports, working on the wording for the obituary notice. Stacks of family photos spilled over the table, Walt Pritchard’s handsome face among them. As if no one else were in the room, her mother whispered quietly, “I love your face.” Leah noticed she used the present tense—as if his face still existed in some part of the world. It was easier to believe it did.
Leah swept clean every corner of the room, watching in slow motion the glass drop and bounce repeatedly, the splintering sound replay itself, the liquid darken the tiles. She closed her eyes to lock out the deep red color beneath her feet, but she could not shut out the sound. She had to stop the sound before it became the frantic buzzing noise she heard at night as she lay in her bed—the noise that turned to gunfire, and the explosions that came after, all of it inside her head.
She needed to be calm. Yesterday, on her walk with Clyde around Providence Park, she could not rid herself of the sounds. Inside the park’s perimeter, she released Clyde from his leash so he could chase two squirrels among the trees. Stubbornly, he refused her calls to return and headed full speed toward a soccer game at the far end of the field. She could not blame old Clyde. She wanted to do the same—run away, far away, run to her father’s arms. Running would break up the blurred haze, the muffled sounds, the distance between her and the rest of the world. Leah felt bewildered by it all, her head filled with strange thoughts. She followed the sidewalk that traced the outer edges of the park. She wandered, closing her eyes against the late afternoon sun, hearing the repetitive barrage of bullets.
Leah recognized the screech of brakes, a shout, a car door slam. She looked up to see a young man rushing toward her, fear on his face. “Are you OK?” the driver called. “My God! I almost hit you. You were in the road.”
“No, yes, I’m all right. It’s not your fault,” she assured him, her knees beginning to tremble. She managed to stay on her feet until she reached Clyde. She collapsed beside him and buried her face in his neck, one hand clinging tightly to his collar, the other covering her eyes as she wept. On the way home, Leah kept repeating, “I’m not crazy. Damn, damn. I’m OK. I wasn’t paying attention. It’s not true, not my Dad. It can’t be true.”
And now today, the sounds were back, vaguer than before, but there all the same, like a constant breeze against her cheek. Putting away the broom, she stood with her arms crossed in front of her, holding herself tightly together. She did not have enough space. She had too much space. Which was it?
Leah imagined being there to rescue him, to hold back the bleeding, to urge him to hang on, to drag him to safety. One day, she would go to the place where he died. She would put her hands in the dirt and kneel beside it for a long time. She would lie down in that place. She imagined the texture of the sand against her shoulder blades and the warmth of the sun on her face. She imagined thinking of her mother and of herself and of Noah. She saw herself lying with her father in that spot, blood soaking the dark soil. She did not want him to be separated from those who loved him. She wanted to be in the last place on earth he had lived.
She asked questions about how he died. The casualty assistance officer had given her the information he knew. Walter Pritchard and six of his men, all assigned to Special Operations, joined a mission to capture a Taliban commander hiding in a small village to the south. As the men entered into a blind alley, they were ambushed. Major Pritchard and his men took machine gun fire as they sought to overtake the Taliban command center. Two men were wounded. Walter Pritchard died when a bullet pierced his lung and his heart.
She realized her mother was talking to her, and Leah looked at her quizzically.
“Can you read it once more, Leah, to make sure we’ve included everything? We don’t want to leave anything out. Your father liked this picture best. What do you think?”
Elise Pritchard placed a printed sheet of text and a black and white photo in Leah’s outstretched hands. Leah rearranged them, holding them gently between her thumbs so they would not slip away, then laid them both on the table and began to read.
PRITCHARD, Major Walter Michael, 41, died October 7, 2007. He was born March 15, 1966, in College Park, Maryland to Cole and Louise Pritchard (both deceased). He graduated with honors from DeMatha Catholic High School where he played clarinet in the nationally acclaimed school band and won numerous awards for artistic excellence. In 1988, he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Duke University where he was named Distinguished Graduate of Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps Detachment 585. He was commissioned as second lieutenant in the United States Air Force and completed flight training schools at Randolph and Laughlin Air Force Bases in Texas. His duty assignments included air bases in Honolulu, HI, Phoenix, AZ, Trier, Germany, Valparaiso, FL, and Tampa, FL, one tour of duty in Iraq, and one in Afghanistan. Over the past three years, he completed a Master in Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland with an emphasis in painting. The degree was to be awarded in December 2007. Walt loved his family and his country, big band music, and baseball. He was an accomplished artist, painting several award-winning portraits. He is survived and will be greatly missed by his wife of 18 years, Elise (Patterson), daughter Leah, age 15, son Noah, age 9, and Labrador Retriever Clyde, age 10. A memorial mass and celebration of his life will take place at 10 a.m. Tuesday, October 16, 2007, in the chapel at Nativity Catholic Church, Brandon, Florida. Interment with military honors will follow at New Hope Cemetery. The family expresses its deep appreciation to all who had an impact on his rich and beautiful life. “You could tell where the lamplighter was by the trail he left behind him.” --Harry Lauder
They stared at each other across the table. Leah looked away, inhaling a string of ragged breaths. She blinked quickly, desperate to hold back the tears. When she was certain her voice would not betray the madness she felt, Leah nodded silently and said, “He’d love that last line, Mom. Good work. The picture makes him look extra handsome.”
Turning toward the sink, Leah cupped a handful of water and pressed hard against the bones above her cheeks, willing the coldness to take away her pain. She wanted to feel something else—something hard or cold—an ice cube or a stone—anything but the panic she struggled to contain. A vague reflection in the kitchen window confirmed her almost empty presence.
Her mother moved closer so that Leah could feel her bare arm against her mother’s sleeve. Elise reached out, wrapped Leah’s cold hands in her own warmth, and brought them to her lips. She kissed Leah’s hair and forehead, her voice barely a whisper. “It’s done,” she said.
Wordlessly, Elise led Leah up the stairs, an aching weariness in their step. They lay down upon the bed. Leah drew close and placed her head against her mother’s shoulder, feeling safer, saner, smelling the soft scent of her mother’s perfume. Arms wrapped around one another, they closed their eyes and slept.
Hours later, Leah woke to the rhythm of Clyde’s gentle snoring, the weight of his body warming her feet. Upon the floor, next to the bed, Noah curled, clasping one of Walt Pritchard’s tee shirts to his cheek, sucking his right thumb—a long abandoned habit.
The light from the street lamp reflected dimly off the far wall, washing them in its protective purple glow.
Chapter 3 - The Burial
“And may God have mercy on us all.” Father Conlan paused noticeably after each word. His ever-flattening tone reminded Leah of a chain pulling down, squeezing tighter until she felt nothing but a nameless weight upon her.
Why? Why not someone—anyone—else?
Leah listened to the empty space between the priest’s words and the crowd’s familiar response, “Amen.”
Moments passed. Leah heard a distant siren, a faint whine, the rustle of leaves overhead, but no one spoke. The shrillness of the siren as it approached added to her restlessness, but the sound quickly faded, and Leah settled back against the hardness of the chair. She rearranged herself several times, but could not get comfortable—not that she wanted to feel, in any sense, comfortable.
Comfort, indeed.
She saw it as a form of betrayal.
Elise rose to take someone’s outstretched hand. She smoothed her dress and steadied herself on the back of the folding chair as her heels sunk into the soft grass. “It was very kind of you to come,” she murmured, her voice drifting away among the trees.
Noah slipped his hand inside Leah’s palm and squeezed. In return, she nudged the top of his head with her chin. Leah watched intently, but did not see, an ant navigate the gardenia bouquet she had placed on her father’s coffin—in the spot where she knew his heart to be.
Where do the dead go? Do we never see them again? Is it true he is gone forever?
As she had done countless times in the last few days, she swallowed the heaviness that rose in her chest. She bit her lower lip until she felt a painful sting. Soundlessly she prayed.
Don’t drop him into that hole. Not now. I couldn’t bear the sound.
Leah imagined a hard sound, like a sudden clap of thunder or an angry mark across a written page.
He can’t sink into the dark with a hard sound. If they drop him quietly, I can stand it. If they do it gently, I’ll make myself bear it. I can see him safely down—if they do it without making a sound.
She tucked a stray hair behind her ear as she looked around to see who might be responsible for lowering her father’s casket. Perhaps she could talk to them, request a noiseless descent.
Surely, they have heard such requests before. Surely, they have perfected this dropping of caskets . Surely, they know people need silence, not harshness, at such moments.
On Tuesday, October 16, 2007, under a clear sunlit sky, at 11:27 in the morning, the casket of Major Walter Pritchard, United States Air Force, was lowered softly into the ground. His wife Elise, his daughter Leah, and his son Noah saw him safely home.
A light breeze lifted a lone leaf and dropped it some distance away. A cluster of birds trilled quietly in the trees. The faint scent of gardenia hung in the air.
Chapter 4 - The Arrival
Leah stayed close to the front door waiting, pacing. Repeatedly, she glanced out the window onto the porch. The houses on their street looked much the same, and Leah feared the driver would not know which house belonged to them. The sky was dull and cloudy—a dismal gray—but now and then, a patch of sunlight lightened the purple flowers on the ledge and turned the black ribbons on the door to gray.