Home Front

“Do not get out of the car,” Betsy said sharply from the shadows of the backseat. “You’re wearing your uniform.”

“I guess I don’t get a pass on my birthday.” Jolene glanced at her daughter in the rearview mirror. In the past few months, her lovable, sweet-tempered tomboy had morphed into this hormonal preteen for whom everything was a potential embarrassment—especially a mom who was not sufficiently like the other moms. “Wednesday is career day,” she reminded her.

Betsy groaned. “Do you have to come?”

“Your teacher invited me. I promise not to drool or spit.”

“That is so not funny. No one cool has a mom in the military. You won’t wear your flight suit, will you?”

“It’s what I do, Betsy. I think you’d—”

“Whatever.” Betsy grabbed up her heavy backpack—not the right one, apparently; yesterday she’d demanded a new one—and climbed out of the car and rushed headlong toward the two girls standing beneath the flagpole. They were what mattered to Betsy these days, those girls, Sierra and Zoe. Betsy cared desperately about fitting in with them. Apparently, a mother who flew helicopters for the Army National Guard was très embarrassing.

As Betsy approached her old friends, they pointedly ignored her, turning their backs on her in unison, like a school of fish darting away from danger.

Jolene tightened her grip on the steering wheel, cursing under her breath.

Betsy looked crestfallen, embarrassed. Her shoulders fell, her chin dropped. She backed away quickly, as if to pretend she’d never really run up to her once-best friends in the first place. Alone, she walked into the school building.

Jolene sat there so long someone honked at her. She felt her daughter’s pain keenly. If there was one thing Jolene understood, it was rejection. Hadn’t she waited forever for her own parents to love her? She had to teach Betsy to be strong, to choose happiness. No one could hurt you if you didn’t let them. A good offense was the best defense.

Finally, she drove away. Bypassing the town’s morning traffic, she took the back roads down to Liberty Bay. At the driveway next to her own, she turned in, drove up to the neighboring house—a small white manufactured home tucked next to a car-repair shop—and honked the horn.

Her best friend, Tami Flynn, came out of house, already dressed in her flight suit, with her long black hair coiled into a severe twist. Jolene would swear that not a single wrinkle creased the coffee-colored planes of Tami’s broad face. Tami swore it was because of her Native American heritage.

Tami was the sister Jolene had never had. They’d been teenagers when they met—a pair of eighteen-year-old girls who had joined the army because they didn’t know what else to do with their lives. Both had qualified for the high school to flight school helicopter-pilot training program.

A passion for flying had brought them together; a shared outlook on life had created a friendship so strong it never wavered. They’d spent ten years in the army together and then moved over to the Guard when marriage—and motherhood—made active duty difficult. Four years after Jolene and Michael moved into the house on Liberty Bay, Tami and Carl had bought the land next door.

Tami and Jolene had even gotten pregnant at the same time, sharing that magical nine months, holding each other’s fears in tender hands. Their husbands had nothing in common, so they hadn’t become one of those best friends who traveled together with their families, but that was okay with Jolene. What mattered most was that she and Tami were always there for each other. And they were.

I’ve got your six literally meant that a helicopter was behind you, flying in the six o’clock position. What it really meant was I’m here for you. I’ve got your back. That was what Jolene had found in the army, and in the Guard, and in Tami. I’ve got your six.

The Guard had given them the best of both worlds—they got to be full-time moms who still served their country and stayed in the military and flew helicopters. They flew together at least two mornings a week, as well as during their drill weekends. It was the best part-time job on the planet.

Tami climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. “Happy birthday, flygirl.”

“Thanks.” Jolene grinned. “My day, my music.” She cranked up the volume on the CD player and Prince’s “Purple Rain” blared through the speakers.

They talked all the way to Tacoma, about everything and nothing; when they weren’t talking, they were singing the songs of their youth—Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson. They passed Camp Murray, home to the Guard, and drove onto Fort Lewis, where the Guard’s aircraft were housed.

In the locker room, Jolene retrieved the heavy flight bag full of survival equipment. Slinging it over her shoulder, she followed Tami to the desk, confirmed her additional flight-training period, or AFTP; signed up to be paid; and then headed out to the tarmac, putting on her helmet as she walked.

The crew was already there, readying the Black Hawk for flight. The helicopter looked like a huge bird of prey against the clear blue sky. She nodded to the crew chief, did a quick preflight check of her aircraft, conducted a crew briefing, and then climbed into the left side of the cockpit and took her seat. Tami climbed into the right seat and put on her helmet.

“Overhead switches and circuit breakers, check,” Jolene said, powering up the helicopter. The engines roared to life; the huge rotor blades began to move, slowly at first and then rotating fast, with a high-pitched whine.

“Guard ops. Raptor eight-nine, log us off,” Jolene said into her mic. Then she switched frequencies. “Tower. Raptor eight-nine, ready for departure.”

She began the exquisite balancing act it took to get a helicopter airborne. The aircraft climbed slowly into the air. She worked the controls expertly—her hands and feet in constant motion. They rose into the blue and cloudless sky, where heaven was all around her. Far below, the flowering trees were a spectacular palette of color. A rush of pure adrenaline coursed through her. God, she loved it up here.

“I hear it’s your birthday, Chief,” said the crew chief, through the comm.

“Damn right it is,” Tami said, grinning. “Why do you think she has the controls?”

Jolene grinned at her best friend, loving this feeling, needing it like she needed air to breathe. She didn’t care about getting older or getting wrinkles or slowing down. “Forty-one. I can’t think of a better way to spend it.”

The small town of Poulsbo, Washington, sat like a pretty little girl along the shores of Liberty Bay. The original settlers had chosen this area because it reminded them of their Nordic homeland, with its cool blue waters, soaring mountains, and lush green hillsides. Years later, those same founding fathers had begun to build their shops along Front Street, embellishing them with Scandinavian touches. There were cutwork rooflines and scrolled decorations everywhere.

According to Zarkades family legend, the decorations had spoken to Michael’s mother instantly, who swore that once she walked down Front Street, she knew where she wanted to live. Dozens of quaint stores—including the one his mother owned—sold beautiful, handcrafted knickknacks to tourists.

It was less than ten miles from downtown Seattle, as a crow flew, although those few miles created a pain-in-the-ass commute. Sometime in the past few years, Michael had stopped seeing the Norwegian cuteness of the town and began to notice instead the long and winding drive from his house to the ferry terminal on Bainbridge Island and the stop-and-go midweek traffic.

There were two routes from Poulsbo to Seattle—over land and over water. The drive took two hours. The ferry ride was a thirty-five-minute crossing from the shores of Bainbridge Island to the terminal on Seattle’s wharf.

The problem with the ferry was the wait time. To drive your car onboard, you had to be in line early. In the summer, he often rode his bike to work; on rainy days like today—which were so plentiful in the Northwest—he drove. And this had been an especially long winter and a wet spring. Day after gray day, he sat in his Lexus in the parking lot, watching daylight crawl along the wavy surface of the Sound. Then he drove aboard, parked in the bowels of the boat, and went upstairs.

Today, Michael sat on the port side of the boat at a small formica table, with his work spread out in front of him; the Woerner deposition. Post-it notes ran like yellow piano keys along the edges, each one highlighting a statement of questionable veracity made by his client.

Lies. Michael sighed at the thought of undoing the damage. His idealism, once so shiny and bright, had been dulled by years of defending the guilty.

In the past, he would have talked to his dad about it, and his father would have put it all in perspective, reminding Michael that their job made a difference.

We are the last bastion, Michael, you know that—the champions of freedom. Don’t let the bad guys break you. We protect the innocent by protecting the guilty. That’s how it works.

I could use a few more innocents, Dad.

Couldn’t we all? We’re all waiting for it … that case, the one that matters. We know, more than most, how it feels to save someone’s life. To make a difference. That’s what we do, Michael. Don’t lose the faith.

He looked at the empty seat across from him.

It had been eleven months now that he’d ridden to work alone. One day his father had been beside him, hale and hearty and talking about the law he loved, and then he’d been sick. Dying.

He and his father had been partners for almost twenty years, working side by side, and losing him had shaken Michael deeply. He grieved for the time they’d lost; most of all, he felt alone in a way that was new. The loss made him look at his own life, too, and he didn’t like what he saw.

Until his father’s death, Michael had always felt lucky, happy; now, he didn’t.

He wanted to talk to someone about all this, share his loss. But with whom? He couldn’t talk to his wife about it. Not Jolene, who believed that happiness was a choice to be made and a smile was a frown turned upside down. Her turbulent, ugly childhood had left her impatient with people who couldn’t choose to be happy. Lately, it got on his nerves, all her buoyant it-will-get-better platitudes. Because she’d lost her parents, she thought she understood grief, but she had no idea how it felt to be drowning. How could she? She was Teflon strong.

He tapped his pen on the table and glanced out the window. The Sound was gunmetal gray today, desolate looking, mysterious. A seagull floated past on a current of invisible air, seemingly in suspended animation.

He shouldn’t have given in to Jolene, all those years ago, when she’d begged for the house on Liberty Bay. He’d told her he didn’t want to live so far from the city—or that close to his parents, but in the end he’d given in, swayed by her pretty pleas and the solid argument that they’d need his mother’s help in babysitting. But if he hadn’t given in, if he hadn’t lost the where-we-live argument, he wouldn’t be sitting here on the ferry every day, missing the man who used to meet him here …