You Are Here(24)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

“Blue’s on the left; gray’s on the right,” she said, and then tripped along after him as Peter headed left toward the Union side.

“So, do people actually do this for a living?” she asked, squinting to catch a glimpse of the angled muskets and improvised movements of the actors, who were dressed in what looked like the uniforms of the day, careworn and muddy.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”

“Don’t you think it’s kind of a weird job? For grown men to be playing war for a living?”

Peter didn’t bother answering. Around him there were kids cheering at the sharp crack of the guns, adults grimacing at the reminders of an ugly past, and Emma, shifting from one foot to the other, her interest clearly waning. The day was sticky and humid, and those who’d come here with the best of intentions now looked as if they’d much prefer a swimming pool to the unshaded remains of a former battlefield.

But as he stood and watched the lines shifting on the distant hills, the troops folding in and then back out of formations he knew by heart, it felt to Peter like remembering something he’d never really known in the first place. It was a part of each of them, this battle that had taken place for the soul of the country. The world was built upon fallen soldiers and ill-conceived wars, and this was one that had defined them all.

Unlike most people Peter didn’t look to the future for reassurance; he understood that the only thing certain in life is the past. History repeats itself again and again, and every story has been told before. It seemed to him that life could be terribly unoriginal in that way, and the only manner of certainty—the only way to know what might be ahead—was to look back on what had already happened. You could always count on someone else having lived through worse than you, and this particular story—the Civil War, the best and worst of a whole country—gave him a firm sense of hope that anything and everything could be repaired. Even the worst struggles could end in reunion.

Now he couldn’t help smiling as he watched the space between the two regiments on the battlefield, the tall blades of wheat leaning sideways, tickled by the wind.

“When they fought here,” he said, “the whirlpools from the breezes made it hard for the soldiers to see, because of all the tides and eddies in the fields.”

Emma was standing just beside him, and she lifted her chin in the first half of a nod. On the field the soldiers were now charging, barreling toward one another, brandishing guns and blades and flags, the horses of the higher ranking officers leaving clouds of dust in their wake.

“This was a huge turning point,” Peter said. “All these battles.”

“Hmm,” Emma murmured absently, glancing up here and there when a mock explosion rippled through the crowd in gasps of surprise and delight.

“It rained on the last day,” Peter said, pressing on with a sort of pathetic determination, a faltering resolve to try one more time. “There was a huge storm that evening, after three full days of the bloodiest battle the country has ever seen.” He paused and looked reverently out over the land. “That’s something, don’t you think? How it kind of washed everything away?”

Emma peered up at the sky, which was turning a deepening shade of gray. “If we don’t get going soon, we might have a storm of our own.”

Peter sighed, and he took a few steps in the direction of the parking lot before Emma jogged over to catch up with him, appearing at his elbow with a look of confusion.

“I didn’t mean right now,” she said, falling into step beside him, and he shrugged, hoping his face didn’t look as injured as he felt by her lack of interest. She bit her lip. “I didn’t mean to make you—”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “You did.”

She didn’t seem to have much to say to this, tucking her hands in the back pockets of her jean skirt, her elbows jutting out like wings from her sides.

Peter shook his head. “How come you’re always in such a rush?”

“I don’t know,” she said, then changed her mind. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

She opened her mouth to dispute this, then closed it again. They walked the rest of the way to the car in silence, and it wasn’t until he’d started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot that Peter finally spoke again.

“Well, thanks, I guess.”

“For what?”

“For putting up with that. I’ve always wanted to see it.”

Emma looked up in surprise. “You’d never been?”

He shook his head.

“But I thought—”

“Nope.”

“You knew where everything was,” she said. “I mean, I just assumed …”

“I’ve read a lot of books,” he said shortly. “I find it interesting.”

At the entrance to the highway, he turned toward the signs for Philadelphia. The dog stuck his head between the seats, looking from one to the other like a kid whose parents have been arguing. Ahead of them the sky had begun to lighten again.

“It’s pretty cool, the way you know so much about all that stuff,” Emma said eventually, and Peter looked over, aware that this was her way of apologizing. “I’d never have the patience for it.”

“For what?”

“Learning all the facts and dates and details,” she said. “Caring enough about the past to bring it to life like that.”

Peter smiled in spite of himself. “I thought that’s what you were doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“With your own family.”

“Not really. It’s not exactly like I’m—”

“But you are,” he told her. “Like it or not, you’re kind of a historian too.”

Chapter thirteen

The day she turned seven, an entire conference room of world-renowned anthropologists sang “Happy Birthday” to her in a hotel in San Diego. The foremost expert on Native American culture gave her an arrowhead, and the keynote speaker—a man so old the whole podium shook beneath his hands—asked whether she wanted to come up and help him with his speech.

She didn’t.

For her tenth birthday Emma’s parents threw her a small dinner party at home, where she—the guest of honor—was the youngest one by at least thirty years. The dean of the college spilled wine on her party dress, and the conversation quickly turned to the role of birthday wishes in traditional fairy tales. After she blew the candles out from atop an organic carrot cake, a biology professor leaned over and asked Emma what she’d wished for.