Jonathan Sharp
Mother to Pick Up
Prologue, Ft. Hood, TX 1990
We knew how we’d find out if Dad died. A few weeks after the Gulf War began, Mom called a family meeting and said it wouldn’t be a teacher. It wouldn’t be a phone call. It wouldn’t be one of our friends. Sitting with my brother and sister in our living room, she said if Dad died in Iraq, two soldiers, with uniforms like his, would knock on our door to tell us. One of them would be holding a Bible.
“You won’t be alone,” she said. “If Dad dies, I’ll get each of you from school, and we’ll be together as a family when I give you the news.”
Months later, Coach handed me a note during gym class. Without saying anything, I took it and went to the boy’s locker room. Still wearing my gym clothes, I entered one of the showers and pulled the curtain behind me. After I turned the knob, I made myself small in one of the corners so my clothes wouldn’t get wet, and sat against the wall. In my makeshift chapel of steam and tile, safe behind the curtain and the sound of the falling water, I prayed and readied myself for the news.
When I finished, I turned off the shower and returned to the locker room. It smelled of stick deodorant left over from lightsaber duels before class. Two wooden benches ran the length of the room, with space to walk between. Lying on one of the benches was the chalky pink note I’d received from the office. On it, the box “send to office” was checked, and in the notes section at the bottom, written in a woman’s cursive, it read: “mother to pick up.” It felt heavy, like the words were written in lead that could burn me if I touched them.
Trying to postpone the news as much as I could, I changed out of my gym clothes slowly and back into my school outfit. I sat on one of the benches and counted the lockers along the wall. The round clock above the lockers kept ticking. Eventually, knowing I couldn’t put it off anymore, I stood and started to make my way to the office. In the doorway, I paused and took a deep breath. I closed my eyes and tried to distance myself from the eleven-year-old boy crying in the shower.
It was a feeling that had become familiar. Any time someone knocked on the door of our house. Any time the phone rang. Any time I was called to the office. Any time a student or teacher entered a classroom. My first thought was always the same—Dad had been killed at war.
As I was about to leave the locker room, I found myself not wanting to pass through the doorway, like there was an invisible barrier. Eventually, aware that I couldn’t stay in the locker room forever, I took one last breath and crossed the doorway from the locker room back to the gym.
I imagined putting on combat boots, like the ones he wore the morning he left—hard, shining, black, coming up almost to my knees, invisible. I imagined a bulletproof vest forming around my back and over my shoulders, covering my chest. A Kevlar helmet, just like the one he wore, painted brown, beige and tan, forged around my head and neck. Black leather gloves grew at my fingertips before wrapping around my wrist. Glasses, to keep others from seeing in, started just above my nose, and then fastened around my ears.
When I wore it, I became only sensory organs and muscle, skeleton and skin—only the things necessary to survive. My heart became small, still and tight, curling away from my chest cavity. My senses expanded, and I became aware of everything around me. I focused only on the external. I imagined that I could see through walls where tests were being taken, the sounds of pencils and pink erasers filling my ears. In the cafeteria, I could smell the meatloaf baking, cooks unwrapping the lids on massive trays of vegetables as salt and vapor flooded my nostrils. In the library I could hear fingertips turning pages, like waves shushing against rocks. I became a sensory radar, able to sense all harm before it reached me.
Back in the gymnasium I ignored the clock on the wall and lingered near the main door. The rest of my class was still playing dodgeball. Tennis and basketball shoes screeched up and down the gym floor. It smelled of bleachers and dodge balls, sweat and dust. I wanted to get back in the game. To run. To play. Wanted to stay and be one of them, but instead, I watched.
“Dude, I got you!” one boy yelled from across the gym.
“Dude,” another boy replied, “the laces don’t count!”
More squeaking of shoes. Someone yelled. “Stop. Throwing. It. At. My. Face. You. Jerk!”
Another bout of squeaking shoes, laughter. “Dude, I caught it, I caught it, I caught it! You’re out!”
It had been fifteen minutes since Coach passed me the note. I didn’t move, with the hope he would not see me if I stayed still, and I would not have to go to the office. I would not see my mother. I would not receive the news. If I did not go to the office, I could stop the whole chain from happening, and my father would still be alive. Eventually, Coach noticed me leaning against the door. He raised one hand as a fist with his thumb extended and used it to gesture towards the office.
“Sharp. Office. Go!”
With my armor on, I turned and left the gym.
As I walked to the office, I moved slowly and pretended to look at class projects on the school walls—reports on presidents, collages showing how rainforests were vanishing, pictures of what students wanted to be when they grew up, and diagrams of the solar system. I examined them without reading them, trying instead to distract myself with the scrawled handwriting, the glue holding them together, the uneven cuts on the construction paper. I tried to think about presidents, rainforests, and planets, but found myself again and again drowning in thoughts of explosions and rifles, tanks and caskets, bugles and folded flags.
When I got to the office, I saw my mother through the door. She sat in a chair with her purse in her lap and spoke to a teacher behind the counter. They were polite. Each smiled. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but I checked my mother’s eyes to see if she’d been crying—her eyes weren’t red. She wore normal jeans and a shirt with an American flag on it. Her brown hair was curly, and her hazel eyes looked clear and focused. I then looked to her hands for a wadded-up tissue—I didn’t see one. I turned away from the office, leaned against the wall, and looked at the ground. I took a deep, but quiet breath, and went through the door.
My mother stood when she saw me. The teacher looked at each of us and then smiled.
“See ya, Mrs. Sharp,” she said in a slow Texan accent. “Y’all have a good day now.”
“Yes ma’am,” I said.
“Got everything?” my mother asked.
I nodded. Mom opened the door for me, and I wondered if she was doing what I was—wearing armor so no one knew what she was feeling. As we started walking towards the parking lot, I had the sense I was taking the last steps of childhood, feeling the final moments of my father being alive, before she would say the words that would kill him.
It was bright outside. The Texas sun, having already chased the clouds from its sky, had started to lean directly on cars and concrete. Looking at her with the corner of my eyes, I kept checking to see if she was crying. I kept waiting for her to take a tissue out of her purse. When will she break down? I bit my lip and focused on not crying, on holding back the tears until she cried. I wondered if she’d tell me in the van.
That’s where she’d break down—the van. Where no one can hear, with the windows rolled up and the engine humming, the air conditioning struggling to keep the sun out. It’ll happen in the van. I’ll get the news in the van. Once the doors close. When she gets in the driver’s seat and I sit in the passenger’s seat, that’s where she will tell me. That’s where I’ll hear the news that Dad is dead. And then we’ll get my brother and sister from school, head home, and together, she’ll tell them the news.
She cleared her throat as we walked. “We gotta hurry or you’ll be late.”
I jerked my head towards her, as if I had heard a gunshot in the distance.
“What? Late for what?”
“For your dentist appointment.”
I stopped walking. I tried to keep the armor up but couldn’t. My eyes stung. My helmet fell to the ground and the chest plate covering my soul cracked. The Kevlar wrapped around my heart melted like microwaved ice. Tears came up from my stomach, into my chest, and grabbed me by the throat, nearly choking me as I began to sob.
Instantly, Mom pieced it together—the note, leaving school early, my tears. She dropped her purse on the ground and hugged me hard.
“Baby no. No. No. No. I’m sure Dad’s fine. Baby. No.” Her voice was stern, as if to ward against a vast darkness hovering behind me. Her arms felt like shields, deflecting arrows.
“It’s just a dentist appointment. It’s okay. C’mere, it’s okay. You’re okay. We’re all okay. Everyone is okay. Shhhhh. Shhhhhh.” She held me, whispering through her own tears. There in the parking lot, I felt a small reprieve from the war. In that small moment, I felt my Dad was safe. Each time she spoke, I was in her words instead of my worry.
“Everyone’s okay. Sweetie. Breathe. Breathe. Just breathe.”
After I stopped crying, she picked her purse off the ground and stood. She wrapped one arm around me and we continued to walk to the van.
“It’s just the dentist baby,” she said, wiping her eyes. “You forget it was today?”
I put one arm around her waist, and with the other, I dragged my book bag on the ground. Leaning against her for support, I felt my tears fade into the softness of her shirt. With my head nestled against her, I nodded yes. I forgot.
“This story comes from my memoir, Kevlar: Memoirs of a Military Brat, which I finished writing last year. In this scene, I show what happened while my father was deployed for Desert Storm. During that time, every knock at the door, every phone call, and every time I was called to the school office, my first thought was of him and his safety. I hope my writing can help military kids feel seen, and for others to understand the difficulties they face, especially during times of war.” —Jonathan Sharp
Jonathan Sharp is a story designer in the game industry who has refined his writing through the Pacific NW Writers Association, the Hugo House in Seattle, and the Port Townsend writer’s conference. After many decades of moving as a military brat, he has made a home in Seattle with his elderly cat. A portion of his recently finished memoir won the 2023 Porch Prize. To learn more about him, visit jonathansharp.com.