Someone's Brother

If not her brother, somebody’s brother was in one of the fifty-five boxes delivered from North Korea to the United States Government, and it was for this reason that a woman, who re-introduced herself as June Powell, wrapped her arms around Harold Stockwell, and wept tears of gratitude for, as she said, ‘the wonderful work that he was doing’.

Harold led a team of forensic anthropologists hired to sort through and identify the remains stored in the boxes—soldiers mostly, from the conflict in Korea, nearly seventy years ago. 

He’d seen June before. 

In ’98, North Korea had transferred two hundred and forty-four similar boxes. Under a man named Parker Hill, Harold and a dozen other FA’s had identified the enclosed remains. June Powell had been there then, hoping to find her brother. She had hugged Parker as well. 

Ten years it took them to put names on the bones in the boxes. June Powell had called weekly for updates. Harold had spoken to her at times, telling her, no, they had yet to find her brother, and that someone would notify her immediately, if and when they did. She would always ask about the others—the families who had received lost loved ones. She would say, ‘We’, as if she spoke for all of them, ‘are so very grateful for the work that you are doing.’

To Harold, then, the ‘work’ that he was doing was just a steady paycheck. But seeing June Powell again, twenty years later, with this new round of boxes. The devotion this woman must have. ‘Yes, I remember you,’ he had told her. And when she wept in his arms he knew that he would call her every week and give her the news, be it good or bad. 

       

A Rough Estimate

On his own, Larry wouldn’t be able to care for the plants. He could argue all he wanted, but she knew better. It was just too much work. 

     ‘But I need them,’ he had told her, in tears, ‘to remember you by.’ 

     She left him two: the potted fern he had given her on their thirtieth anniversary, and the little lemon tree that every year bore more than its limbs could sustain, and that, only because she couldn’t get it out of the ground. 

     Her neighbors took a great deal of them. What remained, annuals mostly, she carried in a black trash bag to the dumpsters at the far end of the complex. 

     She tried as she walked to put a figure on the plant’s value, determine what she might have spent over the years on their care. There was no telling. Thousands. They probably could have retired on the money. 

     She lifted the dumpster’s lid and hoisted the bag over the lip. The plants and loose soil made little noise as it fell in with the other trash. 

      A year and a half they had given her. Two Tops. 

     She closed the lid back, the sun bright and hot on her face, and it struck her as funny, to wonder when it would ever rain.