Free Things Unsaid: A Novel by Diana Y. Paul Page A

push-ups and then try again the next morning, or request permission to leave George Washington Military Academy permanently. And how would your fathers feel about that one? Huh? Not your mothers. Your fathers. So there really is no choice.”
    Andrew watched the other plebes perform. He could hear faint throw-up sounds in the bathroom. He assumed they were the two cadets who hadn’t passed. Now it was his turn.
    “Next. Whitman. Come on, we don’t have all day. You’re the last one and I want to go to the rifle range after this.” Andrew’s hands shook, trembling as if he had Parkinson’s like his grandfather, and he saw Grissim notice. How could he stop his vibrating, agitated movements so the older cadet would not suspect he had absolutely no confidence in passing? Grissim smiled stiffly. His parents must have spent a small fortune on his teeth. They were so perfect they looked fake.
    “I’m not sure I did it right.” Andrew said in that same falsetto, high-pitched voice he used with his father before a beating.
    “If you didn’t, you get to do one hundred push-ups in the shower. That is, after you wash down all the throw-up from those other two losers who are leaving the latrine as I speak.”
    Later—after washing down the vomit in the shower and performing one hundred push-ups while Grissim watched—Andrew learned how to pass bed inspection. The following morning, when the quarter bounced off the bed, Andrew saw an indentation in the bed covers, but Grissim insisted he had passed, flashing those beautiful pearly whites. Andrew could never stop staring at them. Or at Grissim.
    That afternoon, Grissim taught him how to shoot, both indoors and out on the immense range. The paper targets were rough outlines of a male body—the kind you see on the floor at a crime scene—but with red circles for aiming at the brain and heart.

    Family celebrations at SafeHarbour? Really? Who were his parents kidding? The last celebrations he had no choice but to attend were Thanksgiving and Christmas, when GWMA was closed. That first Thanksgiving was the beginning of breaking away.
    The Akron-Cleveland airport was suffocatingly crowded. His parents and sisters spotted him right away by his signature GWMA helmet. It always was an attention getter, an odd, archaic sort of thing—a
pickelhaube
Prussian spiked helmet, more a weapon than a type of headgear. He spotted them. That was his family, all right. They didn’t know how to act—even pretend to act—like normal people. He lowered his head and walked towards them. As if he were a bull facing opponents in a bullfight, horns pointed at the vulnerable center of the toreador. He was a bit self-conscious of the slight double chin this posture created, incongruous on the face of any average-weight teenager. He was slimmer than he had ever been, but military posture required emotional control of one’s face.
    “Hi,” he mumbled as his mother reached up to graze his face with that topaz-and-diamond encrusted ring she had promised to Joannesomeday. Lipstick exactly defined in two fire-engine red lips was stamped several times on his face. He didn’t have to look in the mirror to verify that. He just knew it. He glanced at Jules and Joanne; they saw him cringe, and they looked at each other, smirking in collusion. Maybe that was why he had been sent away: to get away from the female influence in his household. Or was it just to get him away from his mother?
    Andrew reached down and expertly threw his giant duffel, GWMA emblazoned in navy-blue and gold lettering, over his shoulder without disturbing his helmet. In the car on the drive home, he carefully placed his
pickelhaube
next to him while he told tales of his first two months at George Washington Military Academy—the great guys there, the sneaking into town to drink, missing curfew. He loved being the center of attention, watching his sisters sponge up the stories, thirsty for adventure and something new in their boring