Death Coming Up the Hill by Chris Crowe Read Free Book Online Page A

his eyes,
    and his body sagged like he’d
    just finished a long
    Â 
    march through the jungle.
    He couldn’t sleep anymore,
    he said. He missed me,
    Â 
    but after what Mom
    had done to him, he couldn’t
    bear the sight of her.
    Â 
    Dad cleared his throat and
    leveled his eyes on mine. I
    felt sorry for him
    Â 
    when he said, “I’m just
    trying to do the right thing
    for you, son. Honest.”
    â˜…  ★  ★
    When I got home, the
    peacenik—with a mean Afro,
    denim shirt, and bell-
    Â 
    bottoms—sat with Mom
    and had Rosa tucked into
    the crook of his arm.
    Â 
    He shook my hand, said,
    â€œMy name’s Marcus,” and smiled, but
    behind his wire-rim
    Â 
    glasses, his eyes looked
    nervous. Rosa’s father was
    tall, broad-shouldered, and
    Â 
    handsome. Mom said, “You
    two should have met sooner. I
    should have . . .” She dropped her
    Â 
    eyes. “This wasn’t fair
    to you—or to Dad—and we
    never . . . well, Rosa
    Â 
    was a big surprise.
    I’m sorry, Ashe, for what I’ve
    done to our family.”
    Â 
    Marcus planted a
    gentle kiss on Rosa’s head
    and handed her to
    Â 
    Mom. “I’ll do right by
    you and Rosa, but I’m tapped
    out and on the run
    Â 
    from the Feds. When I
    get settled in Canada,
    I’ll take care of you.”
    Â 
    We believed him, but
    in wartime, promises are
    as solid as smoke.
    â˜…  ★  ★
    The only good news
    that week came on Halloween.
    President Johnson
    Â 
    announced a total
    halt to the U.S. bombing
    in North Vietnam.
    Â 
    â€œIt’s a start,” Mom said.
    â€œMaybe it’ll turn out to
    be the beginning
    Â 
    of the end of the
    war. Maybe by the time you
    graduate, we’ll be
    Â 
    out of Vietnam,
    and you won’t have to worry
    about the draft.” Mom
    Â 
    would turn out to be
    right, but not in the way that
    she and I had hoped.

November 1968
    Week Forty-Five: 166
    Â 
    The optimism
    we all felt when LBJ
    announced a halt to
    Â 
    the bombing blew up
    the next week when Nixon beat
    Hubert Humphrey in
    Â 
    the presidential
    election. Nixon had made
    promises about
    Â 
    what he would do to
    end the war, but Mom didn’t
    believe him. To her,
    Â 
    he didn’t seem like
    someone the American
    people ought to trust.
    â˜…  ★  ★
    The morning after
    the election, Angela
    drifted into school
    Â 
    looking fried. When I
    asked her if she was okay,
    she just ignored me.
    Â 
    I wasn’t surprised.
    Mom had stayed up late watching
    the election news,
    Â 
    and she was so mad
    that morning she could hardly
    talk. Angela felt
    Â 
    just as strongly as
    Mom did, so I thought Nixon
    was the reason for
    Â 
    her grave mood. We walked
    to Mr. Ruby’s class in
    silence, and before
    Â 
    we reached the door, she
    pulled me into a fierce hug
    and started bawling.
    Â 
    The Army, she said,
    had just sent news about her
    brother: MIA.
    Â 
    I didn’t know what
    to do or say, so I just
    stood there and held her
    Â 
    while she quietly
    sobbed into my shoulder, and
    for some reason I
    Â 
    thought about my mom
    and dad and Rosa and the
    brewing battle that
    Â 
    would tear us apart,
    and I started crying, too,
    because we had both
    Â 
    lost someone we loved
    to a senseless war that could
    have been prevented.

November 1968
    Week Forty-Six: 127
    Â 
    Part of the divorce
    wrangling included a court
    order to appear
    Â 
    before a judge for
    a custody hearing. Mom
    showed me the papers
    Â 
    during dinner while
    she was nursing Rosa. “I
    don’t want to lose you,”
    Â 
    she said tenderly,
    and I wasn’t sure if she
    meant me or Rosa,
    Â 
    but as I watched my
    baby sister snuggled with
    Mom, I knew what she
    Â 
    had meant. I couldn’t
    blame her. I was seventeen,
    and I could handle
    Â 
    whatever crap Dad
    threw at me, but Rosa