Marine Returns From Okinawa to Find Her Bungalow Already Sold
“Two men were carrying boxes out,” Sarah said, squinting against the glare of the gravel. “I thought you were finally selling some of your mother’s old furniture.”
“None of that was supposed to leave the house,” I said.
“Maybe your dad was just clearing space,” she said, but she did not look at me when she said it. She climbed into her truck cab and rolled down the window. “Call me when you get settled. I want to hear about Okinawa.”
She pulled out of the parking lot, leaving a small cloud of white dust behind her.
The taxi driver dropped me off at the curb of my bungalow twenty minutes later. I paid him thirty-eight dollars and stood on the cracked concrete sidewalk while he lifted my green military seabag from the trunk.
The yellow paint on the porch columns was peeling in long, dry strips. The flower beds of red geraniums I had planted before my deployment were completely choked with tall, brown dandelions and crabgrass. It looked like nobody had touched the yard in six months.
