Ephemeral Battle

Joe had sat and waited to go to war his whole life. His canvas army bag always stayed packed and he would drag it out to the entryway, park it  just behind the front door every morning while waiting for the call to come in. Like a hound on the hunt, he kept his ears peeled for a loud engine, anticipating the camouflage laden heavy duty truck to roll up to the front door, beckoning him to take his turn at going off and fulfilling his duty to his country. His dress fatigues stayed pressed and hugged a hanger in meticulous fashion and he would latch them onto a hook on the wall behind the door, just above his packed bag. He would always unzip the garment bag halfway down the front then reach in and gently stroke the collar and lapels of the jacket, emit a resounding sigh that expressed a longing bundled up into decades of wanting, and then zip it back up before heading outside for his self-imposed regimen of a half-block morning walk.

He always argued that he needed to stay in shape because when his country needed him to serve, he had to be ready beyond a shadow of a doubt. He had taken on the habit of setting a baby monitor next to the phone and he always carried the receiver in his pocket so he would hear any call that came through on his line. The answering machine was set to quickly pick up after one ring with the volume set at mid-range and it would very easily tell him if the call was important or not. If he wanted to he could always call back if he thought the call was important enough. Usually the calls were from his only daughter who would call three or four times a week to check in on him. He usually never returned more than one of those calls, and would gruffly and briefly express his good health, but would not stay on the phone for more than a minute before he would abruptly excuse himself feigning the argument that a kettle for tea on the stove was boiling over or that he thought he had heard the doorbell.

His daughter regretted her father’s attitude but knew him through and through and understood his method of affection and therefore never changed the routine. She never wanted him to be in complete isolation even though it may have seemed from his mannerism that he would prefer it. Joe of course looked forward to those calls from his daughter  almost as much as the one from the army and had let this fact slip uncannily several years back. On that particular occasion, he had quickly tried to rephrase his thoughts but Gladys had understood the gist; she used all the strength in her body to hold herself back from draping herself around her father’s neck with that fierce embrace that would have expressed the release of a flood of emotion held back by the psychological dam wall that had been built in her heart and her mind from childhood as she had awaited such a feeling and expression of love which she had longed for since she was a little girl.