Henry

The war is over, and the good guy’s lost. Sara Greer’s husband is a prisoner, and she has been assigned his replacement: Henry.

The doorbell chimes.

Sara stands silently in the foyer.

He’ll make it, she tells herself.

The doorbell chimes again.

She knows she hates whoever is on the other side of that plank of wood.

The doorbell chimes a final time and before it finishes she yanks open the door.

Henry is a windowless tower. Sara squints but sees only a silhouette attached to a grey soldier’s uniform carrying a cheap bouquet of flowers. He stands next to a suitcase.

“Thank you for inviting me,” he says in mutilated English.

Her skin feels like fish scales.

A small, square woman is at his feet holding a gift basket, and a smile. She looks vaguely familiar. The badge on her blazer says she’s a member of the local Unification Committee. Henry hands Sara the flowers, and she sees his face for the first time.

He’s just a child.

She nods to hide the disgust on her face but the woman notices.

“Let’s go inside and cool off, everyone”, she chirps.

They walk through Sara’s family home, and the woman flitters about, stopping to take notes on her tablet. It’s an old house that’s been in Sara’s family for generations. A line of framed pictures decorates the stairs. A case of Porcelain dolls that once belonged to her grandmother sits in the living room. A broken Bavarian cuckoo clock hangs in the dining room next to dusty blown glassware, and an olive wood crucifix. Her husband’s Yamaha guitar sits in the living room. Her paintings from art school are everywhere.

“Lovely home. We’ll have some recommendations for you on the decor”, the woman says.

Sara can guess what those will be.

They sit down together in the living room. Sara stares at the twisted, alien reflections in the black TV screen and remembers watching the War play out on cable news next to her husband. The bodies covered in chemical burns. The assassinations. The betrayal.

Then she recognizes the woman. Carter Middle School. Eighth Grade. Michelle. She wore the same clothes to school every day and was on the School Lunch Program. She smelled like body odor. They bullied her until she changed schools.

“Michelle, is that you? I thought I recognized you. You’ve… changed. Nice uniform”.

“Sara? Sara Greer? I didn’t recognize you from your last name”.

She was lying.

“Well, I got married”.

“Apparently”.

There was pleasure in Michelle’s eyes.

“Anyways, life is change, and change is healthy. But you know that! Or else we wouldn’t be here, would we?”.

She’s still breathes when she talks.

“I suppose not”.

They spend the afternoon discussing terms and filling out papers. Henry sits quietly like a tin soldier next to his suitcase. The words begin to sound like noise, and Sara is long gone. She’s far away with her husband. His sweater is cold from her tears. He’s putting a metal locket in her hand and holding it there. He’s talking to her but she hears nothing over the sound of his heartbeat. He smells like ashes.

The Unification Committee hosts a dance that night at the local high school and Sara arrives with Henry. She sees posters outside promoting “Unity” through marriage with the Enemy. A woman in a wedding dress is smiling in the arms of a soldier.

Inside, several dozen women sit off to the side with their escorts. The wrong color streamers decorate the bleachers. There’s a picture of the Great Leader above the gym clock. A mix of pop songs and foreign music plays loudly. Henry notices the locket.

“What’s this?” he says, flipping it over, playfully.

“What?” she yells over the music.

She pretends she can’t hear him and puts his hand around her waist. Through the strobe lights, she notices one of her neighbors, a married woman named Alice. She’s dancing with a burly soldier. Sara used to babysit her son, Curtis. She says she feels ill and asks to be taken home.

They arrive at home, and Henry walks her to the door.

“Thanks,” she says.

She turns around and begins to close the door. She stops. Her hand feels clammy on the doorknob, and she can’t feel her feet. Her fingers clutch the knob. He lives here now. Finally, she jerks them away. His shadow follows her inside. Sara floats toward the bedroom with her back toward Henry the entire way. She leaves the lights off.

He’ll make it, she tells herself.

Sara is now sitting on the bed in her underwear, and her dress is on the floor. He stands in front of her, unfastening the bronze belt on his uniform.

He says something to her that sounds like “Beautiful”.

He kisses her stomach awkwardly.

He’s a virgin.

She’s so repulsed that even this hurts. Henry tries to take off her underwear but she refuses. A minor victory. He doesn’t care. He pulls them aside. The horrible part happens. She squeezes her eyes shut. She doesn’t think of her husband. She doesn’t think of anything. She’s gone.

When it’s over she goes into the bathroom and vomits in the shower. She opens the locket and sees two lovers from a different life.

It’s her wedding day eight years ago and everyone in the dressing room is crying. Her grandmother wraps a family shawl around her while her mother takes pictures on her Nikon. Her friends are taking polaroids. Her grandmother tells her she looks beautiful, and this she understands. It’s the last memory she has with her, and it's her favorite. They get married in her backyard beneath a starry sky to piano music from an upstairs bedroom. Her childhood pastor gives her away. Her husband smiles nervously. It’s corny and perfect.

“Ten minute” a female voice says to her through a curtain.

Sara is alone now in a dressing room at the mall. She wears an eggshell dress with long sleeves, embroidered with a foreign design. Outside in the food court where she used to eat hamburgers as a teenager, there are fifty women preparing to marry fifty soldiers. She joins them and sees Henry. A military band plays an ode to the Enemy.

She’s seen movies and knows this is where the gallant knight rides in and rescues the damsel, and for a moment she allows herself to hope.

He’ll make it.

Her husband doesn’t come. She says her vows through tears. She tells Henry they’re tears of happiness.

The words “I Do” echo from the mouths of fifty women, and Sara touches the locket under her dress.

They get home from an overnight honeymoon, and Michelle is waiting in her driveway. There’s another gift basket. This one says “Congratulations”.

“Welcome home you two lovebirds!”.

“Michelle. You didn’t have to wait. Look at you, you’re sweating…”.

Her lip curls.

“I have a surprise for you”.

They walk into what once was her house. The hardwood floors are covered with a beige carpet. Her dinette has been replaced with some modern plastic monstrosity. No antiques. No paintings. Her husband’s things are long gone, and her family pictures are missing. There’s one of the Great Leader.

“Where are my pictures, Michelle?!”

“They’re counterproductive, honey. Besides, you’ve got a lifetime to make memories”.

“Who do you think you—-Fuck off!”.

Michelle writes opens her tablet, and loud enough for her to hear, says “Antisocial behavior”.

She feels rage and wants to smack this little toady in her face. The dark part of her mind tries to convince her she can get away with it. Henry notices and blocks her until Michelle can leave.

She sleeps on the couch that night and spends it imagining a montage of murder-escape plots. In the first, she shoots Henry with his own pistol and flees for the coast. This doesn’t satisfy her. She pictures herself inviting Michelle over for dinner, poisoning them both, and using Michelle’s ID to get out of the country. She even toys with the idea of inviting the neighboring grooms to dinner along with Michelle, poisoning them all, and making off with the wives like a group of women in an action film. She knows it's fantasy but it helps her sleep.

The morning comes and Henry says he’s taking her to the doctor for prescription medicine.

“I’m not going,” she says.

“You are going”.

“Or what?”.

She imagines being arrested and hauled off to a labor camp, and pictures herself being reunited with her husband. She welcomes the thought but she knows she’s dreaming.

“Punishment”.

I have to be here when he returns. He’ll make it.

She says nothing and accompanies Henry to the doctor.

The doctor does a blood test and tells her she’s three months pregnant. They’re both shocked. It’s the first time she sees anything close to emotion from Henry. She vomits. The doctor puts her on a nutrition plan, and they agree to leave her off meds until the child is born.

“I love you,” Henry says.

They’re in the hospital parking lot. It’s the first time he’s said it, and she believes him. She also pities him. She remembers her husband and their talk of starting a family.

She feels truly lost.

It's five months later. Sara is moving a dresser and finds a birthday card her husband bought for her during their first year together.

It’s now four o’clock in the morning, and she’s standing in front of the bathroom mirror staring at her protruding belly. She feels nothing but shame. She swallows a mouthful of Drain-O, lays in the bathtub, and waits for the world to turn black.

“Here-she-is,” a familiar female voice says to her.

She slowly opens her eyes hoping to be in another world but finds Michelle standing next to Henry in a hospital room. Her mouth is too dry to speak. There are tubes coming out of her stomach.

“You’ve had a bit of an adventure, haven’t you! Get her something to drink for Pete’s sake”.

It hurts too much to move, and she feels medicated.

“Good news. The child is going to survive. As will you, but you’re going to need monitoring, aren’t you?”

Henry was visibly angry.

She doesn’t care.

Sara is transferred to a therapy ward where she overhears nurses talking about corpses coming in from the camps. They rudely dismiss her when she asks them to check for her husband.

The day before she’s expected to return home she dresses and waits until night to slip out of her room.

“Can’t” a tired, homegrown male nurse says to her when she asks to see a list of admitted bodies.

She tells him about Henry, and the nurse sighs. He doesn’t believe her but he doesn’t care.

“Quickly”.

He hands her a tablet and touches a drop-down menu. She types in her husband's name, and reads:

John Greer. Dead. November 26, 2046.

Her world spins. She drops the tablet, and falls to her knees. She doesn’t remember how she gets home.

Her little girl is six years old, and Sara is brushing her hair. The child smiles at her with a half-empty mouth. Her baby teeth are falling out. She sings an old song to her while she attaches the barrettes. They’re getting ready to visit the neighbors.

The medication helps, and Henry is away most of the time.

Her daughter’s baby room is decorated with pictures of her new family. Henry adds one of the Great Leader. Sara looks at herself in the mirror as her husband calls from below.

“We’re already late!”

Her daughter runs out of the room. She stays,and touchers the locket around her neck. She opens it, and looks at the pictures: Henry in his military dress, and her baby daughter.

She feels something like happiness as she turns off the lights.