Inquiries

A dark car with shaded windows has been prowling the neighborhood lately - driven by a spy of sorts. A federal agent has been asking the neighbors questions about my husband. The kids were thrilled to find the agent’s business card tucked in our door when we came home from school one day. They are convinced he’s a secret agent seeking clues to some conspiracy. But there is no conspiracy: the agent is just trying to establish my husband’s security clearance.

The problem is that my husband was rarely home in the six months he lived here before he deployed. All his local friends were co-workers and are gone with him. My next door neighbor, whom I trusted enough to give a key to the house to feed the guinea pigs while we were gone over Christmas, couldn’t recall a conversation with my man. So when the secret agent questioned her about my husband’s interests and activities, she had a tough time answering. He also asked her if she’s heard any arguments. I had to chuckle about her answer: she said she hadn’t heard anything but assumed that if we’ve been married long enough to have six kids, we’ve probably had an argument or two.


The agent has had an easier time finding references in Virginia, where we had a pretty active social life. I realized cleaning up  for company today – some of the wives and kids from the regiment are coming over, and then my mom and sister are coming Monday – that I hadn’t done nearly as much hospitality cleaning here as I did in VA. Having brown tiled floors helps minimize the effort. And with the kids in school, our schedule is fuller. But the truth is, we don’t have much company. It has been harder to break into the culture down here, where there are fewer military families, and a good percentage of people grew up here and have their families around. In fact the neighbor next door grew up here, literally, in this house, with her 5 other siblings. The youngest one is our landlord, who moved a few miles away. When I tell the kids’ friends’ parents how to get to the house, they say, “Oh I know where you live! You live in the Judge’s house!” Not only do most of his six kids live in the area, but so do a passel of their cousins, one of whom has babysat for us.



Some of the other military spouses complain about this inward looking community. But having grown up in a small town, and being a Wendell Berry fan, I can’t complain. No one has been unfriendly; people just have their blood relations to keep up with. Plus when I was taking the trash out the other night, the neighbor invited me over to join her little party around the chiminea. So I got to hear stories about Hurricane Katrina and have a drink.  And if anything, after revisiting Sense and Sensibility on audio tape, I’m motivated to write more letters to keep up with my kin, which I’ve lost the habit of doing. The Dashwood sisters write lovely letters – and criticize smartly less lovely epistles, such as those of Miss Lucy Steele.



The letter campaign between my husband and me has settled into a pattern after the initial delay in delivery – I drop a note in the mail on Mondays and get one back by the end of the week. A little stack of matching envelopes is growing in the drawer of my bedside table. They’ll be a record of these six months when our lives are running in different directions. Lives can go in different directions even when sharing a household, I realize; examples of alienation between people tied by vows or genes abound in literature and life, and a part of me wonders how well I myself would be able to answer the prying questions of our federal investigative agent (although because of my bias I won't be asked).  A part of every person's soul remains unknowable. But I hope that this separation will just be another bookmark in our lives, and not a major, identity-defining event, although I do wonder how long it will take to re-establish a two –parent family routine, once this is all over. I’m just thankful we’re not looking at a 10 month or more separation.