Page 1 of French Escapade

Ken

The plane stops. I stand and grab my bag. The flight attendant raises an eyebrow. The seat belt sign is still on.

Yet she doesn’t say anything when, accompanied by my two buddies, I make my way to the exit. We’ve been away for weeks, apart from our families and friends. Our impatience and weariness are plain to see. So, when the door finally opens on the gateway, she invites us to go and says to each one of us in turn:

“Thank you for your service.”

We nod as we walk by. I never know what to say. I have an easier time with those who mock our uniform than with those who are grateful.

* * *

Mouss, Jimmy, and I breeze through customs. Two minutes, and we’re out. From his unusual height, Jimmy scans the crowd, looking for a familiar face. Mouss and I do the same from our lesser height — yeah, we’re only six feet tall.

A happy squeal, and the three of us turn around. It’s Mouss’s mom, in tears, sharing her happiness with the world. Her son is back!

Mouss shakes his head and sighs. No matter how many times we swear to her that our job is mainly carried out in offices, and not on the front line, his mother refuses to believe it. Her life stops every time her son deploys.

While Mouss does his best to calm his mom, I search for Madison. She’s nowhere to be seen. As if reading my mind, Jimmy comforts me.

“Look, Marie’s not here either. Some messages must have got lost on the way.”

“Sure, that’s gotta be the reason.”

I don’t believe it. If Mouss’s mom is here, then our families were informed. She’s the only one here because Marie and Madison didn’t deem our return important enough to change their schedules.

I want to give my sister the benefit of the doubt. After all, there could have been a test. Her community college wouldn’t give her a pass just because her brother was coming home.

However, I have no excuse for Marie. Probably because I watched her flirt with one of our buddies the day before we left. One of these days, Jimmy will come home to another guy in his bed. On that day, he’ll come lick his wounds at my place. That’s what sofa beds are for.

We pile up in Fatima’s old car to go home. While driving, Mouss’s mom gives us the latest news of her extended family. Some Arabic words are scattered in the middle of her English sentences, but that’s not what makes her hard to follow. Nah, if we don’t catch it all, it’s because Mouss has way too many cousins for us to keep count.

Dutifully, we extend our congratulations every time she tells us of a new birth. We know where this is going. It’s always the same song and dance. Fatima wants to become a grandmother, and Mouss is her only child. He’s the only one who can help her participate in the race her sisters-in-law have entered.

Closing my eyes, I try to imagine what my mother would say. I can’t. My parents were both single kids. The very concept of sibling rivalry was foreign to them. Their definition of what constitutes a family was so narrow that I often wonder if Madison didn’t come into this world by accident.

I smile as I listen to Mouss’s defense. His is a lost cause. “Why don’t you lecture Ken on the subject? He’s older than me and—”

“It’s different for Kenneth,” she answers, with a fond smile for me. “He inherited a ready-made family.”

“So he’s even more ready!” Mouss protests.

Jimmy rolls his eyes. He saw me turn into my kid sister’s stand-in-dad at a very young age. He offered moral support through all the blindfolded legal backflips I had to do to not lose Madison while still being allowed to join the military—an organization unbendable in its objections to sole legal guardians of minor children serving within its ranks.

He knows the last thing I want is to start a family. Whatever urge I might have felt to become a father was smothered to death by Madison’s teenage years. Though he also knows that if I had a chance to do it over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I have no regrets. A complete inventory of all sorts of exasperation, but not a single regret.

Silence. Only for a few seconds. Fatima doesn’t give up easily. She rambles on and on about another branch of the family, and that keeps her busy until we reach home.

As soon as we arrive, Jimmy and I thank her and rush into our duplex.

“Later, bro,” he says, pulling his keys out of his pocket.

I don’t have any keys. There’s a security pad above the handle and I punch in the eight-digit code. I have accepted Madison will never stop losing her keys. At least the security pad gives me the opportunity to teach her important historical dates.

“Madison, I’m home!”

Silence.

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