Nuclear Option. Dorothy Van Soest

A brief flickering of flame in my head, a brief flash of thought, but then it went out. I sat up, pulled my legs to my chest. My head started to clear, just a little at first, then a bit more and a bit more. Had anyone at the camp noticed that I was gone? Surely Mary Lou did. But how would they know where I was? I hadn’t designated anyone to be my support person, so there was no one to make sure I was okay, no one to come and bail me out. A slow awareness came to me at last, and I began to understand what had happened. I had lost touch with reality. I got so caught up in the death ritual that for a time I believed, really believed, we had all died. That it was over. I had lived the darkness of human nonexistence. That was how I’d ended up here. So now here I was, all alone and in trouble, and I had no clue how to get out of it.

      I straightened my legs, pulled myself up to a standing position. I lifted one foot, then the other. Leaned backward, then forward. Jumped up and down. Someone must have heard me, because all of a sudden the door flew open. The overhead light came on. I squinted at an MP I hadn’t seen before.

      “My name is Sylvia Jensen,” I said.

      FIVE

      2019

      Corey’s stony green eyes seem to demand a response, while my brain scrambles to decipher his words. It’s not over. Mark my words, Sylvia, it’s not anywhere near over.

      “What?” His one sharp word slices into me like a teenager’s whine.

      “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      He grins and seethes at the same time. “You’ll find out.” He pushes his shoulders back. “In due time.”

      His voice, eerily like Norton’s, turns the lights in the diner suddenly too bright, its smells too greasy and sugary. “You remind me of your father,” I say. Right away I regret it. Young people don’t like it when someone says they’re like their parents, and Norton didn’t always sound like Corey sounds right now either.

      Music blares from the jukebox. Two hours of pushing broom buys an eight-by-twelve four-bit room. Tension crawls across the Formica table. Corey’s attitude, so much like Norton’s during the summer and fall of 1984, leaves me nervous, uncertain about what and how to say something that won’t alienate him.

      After several seconds, he shakes his head. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

      “I was remembering what your father said to me once, when I asked him what he was thinking.”

      I can’t tell from his sideways look if he’s irritated or curious. I decide to go with curious. “He said he couldn’t tell me,” I say, “so I asked him why not.”

      He raises his eyebrows.

      “And he said . . .” I can hear Norton’s exact words in my head. “He said, ‘I can’t tell you because I’m not as strong as you.’ Then he said, ‘I wish I were, Sylvia, but I’m not.’”

      Corey’s eyebrows are now scrunched together in a V. “Did you ever find out what it was he couldn’t tell you?”

      I study his face. Is he ready to hear the answer? Am I ready to tell him? “It’s a long story,” I say.

      “What made him think you were strong?”

      “I resisted arrest at a military base in New York where nuclear weapons were stored. I refused to give them my name.”

      His eyes widen. “Brave.”

      “No, it wasn’t. It was stupid. I lost control. Your father thought I’d done what I had to do. He saw my action as something pure and unadulterated. But the truth is, I got overwhelmed and lost touch with reality. I didn’t decide to do what I did. I was in no state of mind to decide anything.”

      “So what’d they do to you?”

      “Held me in custody for twenty-four hours and then let me go. They made me sign an agreement that I’d appear in New York federal court to be arraigned on two charges—trespassing and resisting arrest. If I didn’t show up, it would mean prison for six months and a thousand-dollar fine. I flew home filled with regret and shame.”

      Corey leans across the table, his eyes gleaming with interest, even excitement. “Why? You got people’s attention, didn’t you? I mean, you exposed our country’s nuclear policy, right?”

      I shake my head. “No. There never was an arraignment.”

      “Why not?”

      “Who knows? There was no news coverage either, but that was a good thing. The media would have made me look deranged, and the Seneca Peace Camp, too. All I did was put the camp at risk and create dissension among the women there.”

      “But you tried. Isn’t that what’s important? To try?”

      “Not if it means doing things without thinking them through.”

      “Still—”

      “Not if it means losing control of your feelings and actions.”

      “What’s wrong with that?”

      “Nothing good came of it. That’s what’s wrong with it,” I say, my final word on the subject. I don’t want to argue with him like I did with Norton that summer. Those arguments always ended the same way, with him declaring me a heroine and with me angry and consuming more drinks, up until I blacked out. I finally grew tired of his stubbornness, and he became quiet and withholding, which led to me drinking more at home, alone, and many nights passing out on the couch cradling a bottle emptied of wine and filled with regrets about going to New York in the first place. As if redemption lay in doing good, I put in harder and longer hours at work placing children in foster homes and making sure they were safe. Too often, then, hangovers got in the way, until I feared collapsing from exhaustion, losing control again, and having another meltdown. Even losing my job.

      “But . . . you don’t . . .” Corey’s argument is cut short when the waitress shows up with our order and plops it on the table. She tops off our coffees, again without asking, and trudges off without a word. Corey slathers his hash browns with ketchup, just like Norton did, then digs into his bacon and eggs. Just like Norton did.

      “I remember when you were in preschool,” I say. “And now here you are, a grown man. How old . . . ?”

      His fork clanks on his plate. His body stiffens. “Thirty-nine. Old enough to know what I’m talking about.”

      I shake off his rebuke, try to smile, change the subject. “So, are you married? Any children?”

      His eyes stare out the window like he’s searching for something far away. I flip through the pages of songs on the jukebox.

      “I’m married,” he says at last. Then he turns away from the window and looks at me like he’s made a decision. “Well, separated, but neither of us has filed for divorce, so I guess, yes, I’m still married. I have a son. Little Norton. He’s four years old.”

      My throat swells. Norton lives on in a grandson he was robbed of ever knowing. “He’s in preschool, then,” I say.

      Corey’s eyes, suddenly consumed by a terrible sadness, stare down at his plate on the table. “When he can go,” he whispers.

      I lean forward. “When he can go?”

      He sits back on the bench and averts his eyes. “Some days I have to pick him up early. We play video games and stuff until Rhonda gets home from work, and then I leave.” He looks at me, a quick glance, turns away. “I got laid off from my job, so . . .”

      “I’m sorry.”

      His shoulders go up and stay there when he says, “My fault,” and then drop back down when he adds, “but it gives me time to be with Pickles.”

      “Pickles?”

      For the first time, his lips make a smile and his eyes brighten. “Little Norton’s nickname. It started when