caisson down to the gravesite.
I hadn’t cried at all during the wake and the funeral in Oyster Point, but Arlington was an entirely different story. My mother had designated me as the person to accept the flag during the service. So I had been assigned a certain folding chair to sit on, on a small patch of Astroturf laid on the ground by the hole for the casket, and after six soldiers folded up the coffin flag into a tight triangle, one soldier—barely older than I was—kneeled in front of me and looked right at me with eyes deeper than seemed right and handed me the flag, reciting some speech about “a grateful nation.”
I’d lost it.
Completely.
I didn’t even know why.
Except that the whole thing had made me feel small and selfish and alone.
I’d gone and toured Georgetown’s campus the next day—my parents hadn’t wanted to travel down to D.C. twice, so we’d scrambled to make arrangements for college visits—and I’d fallen in love with D.C. and the Georgetown campus and everything and anything I heard about the bachelor’s of science degree in Foreign Service—an undergrad program that prepared people for lives of diplomacy and humanitarian work across the globe. I hadn’t even known that such a degree existed, but it suddenly seemed possible that I could do something that would change the world, maybe be an ambassador or work for the UN. I wasn’t cut out for war, no.But maybe I was cut out for diplomacy? I could make my life, my self, bigger—the way Eleanor had. When my parents told me, some months later, that Eleanor had left me enough money to pay for my entire college education that had sealed the deal.
“She lived quite a life, your aunt,” Patrick had said one day that winter, after I’d told him he could have the old cameras of Eleanor’s that he’d found when we’d first started trying to clean out the house. Long after I thought he’d gone home that day, I’d found him out front with an old Polaroid, photographing Mary on the Half Shell in the snow. The photos were instantly old looking and cool—a little bit white-washed and blurry, like the Mary statue wasn’t really a figure carved out of stone but was some sort of unearthly apparition.
“She was ahead of her time,” he said, and his breath was fog. “Getting her own mortgage. Getting her degree through the GI bill. Going for a master’s on top of nursing. Most women back then were barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.”
I laughed and pulled my hood up and said, “You have a funny way of looking at things. And you know
way more
about my great-aunt Eleanor than you are required to know as my friend.”
He shrugged inside his red parka. “I just listened to the eulogy is all.”
“Well, she was certainly driven,” I admitted, blowing on my frigid hands. “And she didn’t really seem to like men much, so barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen wasn’t likely.” Eleanor had never had a kind word for her father—a great-grandfather I’d never met—who apparently drank too much.
“You’re a lot like her, you know.” Patrick was taking another photo.
“I like men!” I protested.
He was amused and shaking his head. “Calm yourself, Mare. I just mean that you’re really driven. And independent. And focused.”
“All right, Harvard,” I had said, because really, who was the driven one?
“I just don’t think there’s anything you can’t do if you put your mind to it,” he said.
And for a while, anyway, at least until I’d been rejected by Georgetown, it had felt true.
“I found a silver bangle,” Winter called out from one bedroom.
“I’ve got a flag,” Dez said.
“Is it folded into a triangle?” I called back. “In a wooden box?”
“No,” Dez said. “It’s on a six-inch plastic pole.”
“Perfect!” I said. Because I would not mess with the Arlington flag, not for a measly 25 points.
“Hey, check these out,” said Dez, coming into the room and holding up two folksy black
I hadn’t cried at all during the wake and the funeral in Oyster Point, but Arlington was an entirely different story. My mother had designated me as the person to accept the flag during the service. So I had been assigned a certain folding chair to sit on, on a small patch of Astroturf laid on the ground by the hole for the casket, and after six soldiers folded up the coffin flag into a tight triangle, one soldier—barely older than I was—kneeled in front of me and looked right at me with eyes deeper than seemed right and handed me the flag, reciting some speech about “a grateful nation.”
I’d lost it.
Completely.
I didn’t even know why.
Except that the whole thing had made me feel small and selfish and alone.
I’d gone and toured Georgetown’s campus the next day—my parents hadn’t wanted to travel down to D.C. twice, so we’d scrambled to make arrangements for college visits—and I’d fallen in love with D.C. and the Georgetown campus and everything and anything I heard about the bachelor’s of science degree in Foreign Service—an undergrad program that prepared people for lives of diplomacy and humanitarian work across the globe. I hadn’t even known that such a degree existed, but it suddenly seemed possible that I could do something that would change the world, maybe be an ambassador or work for the UN. I wasn’t cut out for war, no.But maybe I was cut out for diplomacy? I could make my life, my self, bigger—the way Eleanor had. When my parents told me, some months later, that Eleanor had left me enough money to pay for my entire college education that had sealed the deal.
“She lived quite a life, your aunt,” Patrick had said one day that winter, after I’d told him he could have the old cameras of Eleanor’s that he’d found when we’d first started trying to clean out the house. Long after I thought he’d gone home that day, I’d found him out front with an old Polaroid, photographing Mary on the Half Shell in the snow. The photos were instantly old looking and cool—a little bit white-washed and blurry, like the Mary statue wasn’t really a figure carved out of stone but was some sort of unearthly apparition.
“She was ahead of her time,” he said, and his breath was fog. “Getting her own mortgage. Getting her degree through the GI bill. Going for a master’s on top of nursing. Most women back then were barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.”
I laughed and pulled my hood up and said, “You have a funny way of looking at things. And you know
way more
about my great-aunt Eleanor than you are required to know as my friend.”
He shrugged inside his red parka. “I just listened to the eulogy is all.”
“Well, she was certainly driven,” I admitted, blowing on my frigid hands. “And she didn’t really seem to like men much, so barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen wasn’t likely.” Eleanor had never had a kind word for her father—a great-grandfather I’d never met—who apparently drank too much.
“You’re a lot like her, you know.” Patrick was taking another photo.
“I like men!” I protested.
He was amused and shaking his head. “Calm yourself, Mare. I just mean that you’re really driven. And independent. And focused.”
“All right, Harvard,” I had said, because really, who was the driven one?
“I just don’t think there’s anything you can’t do if you put your mind to it,” he said.
And for a while, anyway, at least until I’d been rejected by Georgetown, it had felt true.
“I found a silver bangle,” Winter called out from one bedroom.
“I’ve got a flag,” Dez said.
“Is it folded into a triangle?” I called back. “In a wooden box?”
“No,” Dez said. “It’s on a six-inch plastic pole.”
“Perfect!” I said. Because I would not mess with the Arlington flag, not for a measly 25 points.
“Hey, check these out,” said Dez, coming into the room and holding up two folksy black
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