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Seventeen: Hold Me Tight
- The University of Alabama Press
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seventeen Hold Me Tight They sit by the clock that turns but goes nowhere and the shoe boxes filled with offerings—sympathy cards with pictures of angels and crosses and hands folded in prayer, envelopes with memorial contributions in Frank’s name to Victory Brotherhood, Sunrise Baptist of Marks, First Baptist of Biloxi, Little Sisters of the Poor, September 11 Fund, Tsunami Relief Fund, Disabled Veterans Fund, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, VFW, VA hospital, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and a tree planted in his name in the Holy Land. In a big cardboard box are articles from the Sun-Herald, Hattiesburg American, Clarion-Ledger, Air Force Times, and Keesler News telling of his injury, recovery, downturn, death, funeral arrangements, along with a printout from Associated Press online showing one photo of Angela standing sorrowfully at the grave and another of the honor guard handing her the folded flag. The news is filled with a fresh Gulf Coast–Iraq story, an Army engineer from Bay St. Louis wounded by mortar fire, and the locals turn their attention to his ordeal. Frank is the public’s yesterday. But not Angela’s. No matter her daily comings and goings—to the Cotton Gin, to class, returning home, helping out like a daughter to Nana and a mother to Cam, back to work—she is still there, the azaleas rampant over the fence, the rifle volley echoing out over the Mississippi Sound, the earth split open. It had not been windy but the azaleas had been come l andfall 225 stirring, and she had wished it to be more, a miraculous blow, an uplift in the current, a depression, a tropical storm, a hurricane. That’s what Frank had needed in his final hour aboveground—the lashing of rain, the explosion of wind. All that moves through her world now that changes, it seems, is Cam, her breasts getting fuller, her belly bowing out. As spring moves to summer and June is a big damp sponge dragged over the coast, Angela watches how the teen moves more slowly, taking her time going from room to room. She closes her eyes and imagines it is her; that it is her body, and she is home to a life that she and Frank have made. At Cam’s high school graduation, when her father is still not back, it is Angela and Nana who go as her family, and under Cam’s shiny white graduation robe her baby is evident to everyone. Angela can sense it in how quiet the families of the graduates are when she receives her diploma, how, at the punch reception afterward, the parents of Cam’s friends nod and whisper when she passes. At the same time as Angela wishes to defend her—“You hypocrites ,” she wants to shout, “she didn’t do anything your daughters didn’t do”—she feels another emotion stirring. She has felt it before, in the year just after her mother died when she looked at other girls at school functions with their moms, and hated them for it; and, already, in watching a young woman with her airman meandering around Biloxi Beach. Envy—she knows it is wrong. The preachers had told her, her mother had told her. But it’s a feeling sometimes like Frank’s jealousy had been—irrepressible. One morning, when helping Cam fix up a corner of the apartment for a bassinet, she has an urge to say, “Get out of here, I should be the one expecting, not you!” But then Cam turns to her and she recognizes the look on her face—of waiting. Like she waited, like Nana still waits. Another week passes, and another. Phi Nguyen has been gone more [3.92.96.247] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:39 GMT) 226 Roy Hoffman than four weeks, more than five, no one has heard from him. Cousin Thanh has insisted that Phi will come back; that he is probably making a fortune in Texas. “Don’t cry, Cam, don’t cry,” Angela says, watching Cam put her head on Nana’s shoulder and sob. Nana pats her. “They will all come back,” Nana says. “Nana!” Angela says angrily. “They will not all come back.” Nana looks at her, shrugs. “If you live long enough, they will.” “I want him to come back now,” Cam says. “Not a hundred years from now.” “Shh, my child.” Nana strokes her head. “Stay calm for your baby.” “You...