Notes from Cottonwood

Everything is in boxes again. The kitchen table is a pile of cartons and Sam sits on top with a book. Linda gave us her good frying pan, "so you remember Texas". Marat the guard gave Lily a tiny felt horse his wife made. Rahim ata wouldn't take any money for the last kilo of apples; he pressed them into my arms and said something I understood only the last word of: "Ohio".

I tried to write down all the people to say goodbye to and the list is too long. I'll send a long letter from the airport.

Everybody is whispering. The rumor on the base is that there is going to be some big announcement after the November election and that "the contractors will be asked to start winding down". Mark says this is above his level. Linda's husband says the same. The guard Marat looks at me a little differently, or I imagine it.

We still have the garage full of Lily's birthday paper lanterns. I don't know what to do with them.

At the homeschool group the wives are talking about the news. There was some court case about the entry rules, and Mark says the contract talk in the office is different this spring: "maybe a year, maybe two, maybe more, nobody knows". Of course nobody knows. I'm trying not to ask. Lily's school-room art is still on the wall and I'm not taking it down.

Pray for us all, and for the people here. They are our neighbors now.

In no particular order: peanut butter that isn't from the commissary. Sunday paper. My sister. Fall leaves. A bathtub that fills fast. The sound of the dishwasher. A local library with a children's section.

Things I don't miss: the commute. Everything else is close.

You asked what Cottonwood Estates is. It's about two hundred wood-frame houses built in 1997 for the contractors, with lawns, a little pool, a playground and a gate with a guard (a very polite man called Marat who waves at the kids). All the houses look alike, so Lily came home to the wrong one twice.

The funny part is that the wood-frame houses are the only ones like that in the whole country. Everything else around here is brick or concrete. There's a lumber yard at the edge of the neighborhood that sells boards in feet and inches, and the sign has both. Mark says the owner is a proud man.

Our street at 7 a.m. The mountains are behind the clouds.