Home Front

Silence.

“Good.”

Michael stood, and the team did the same. As they walked out of the conference room, he repacked his briefcase and headed back to his office. For the next few hours, he worked at his computer, pulling up every case with a PTSD defense that he could find.

On the ferry ride home, he was still at it. He read Cornflower’s report again, specifically focusing on Keith’s telling of his own story.

In Ramadi, we used to bet on whose tent would be hit by mortar next … I was walking back from taking a piss when a mortar landed in our Howitzer … we couldn’t do shit … they burned up alive in there, screaming … And there was bagging—picking up body parts … legs, arms … we put ’em in bags and carried ’em back. It’s weird to grab your buddy’s arm …

Michael put down the report. What was happening to Jolene over there? What was she seeing? Once the question arose, he couldn’t ignore it. He thought about his wife, and for the first time he imagined the worst …

It was still light outside—lavender and beautiful—when he parked in front of the Green Thumb.

His mother met him at the door, looking worried.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said.

She brushed his apology aside with an impatient wave. “Betsy is upset. That girlfriend of hers—Sierra—called her an hour ago and told her that a female helicopter pilot was shot down today. I tried to calm her, but…”

Michael glanced past his mother; he saw Lulu in the corner, seated at a garden display table, pretending to serve her doll tea in a paper cup. “Where is she?”

“Outside, by the big rock.”

Michael nodded. “We’re going to the Pot for dinner. You want to join us?”

“I’d love to, but I can’t. Helen and I are changing the window display tonight. Labor Day’s coming up—the big sale starts.”

He leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Ma.” With a sigh, he headed through the store, past the shelves full of knickknacks and planters and gardening tools. At the back door, he paused for just a moment, gathering his strength, and then he went out to the parking lot that ran between the Front Street stores and the marina. A huge gray boulder sat on a patch of grass overlooking the docks. For as long as he’d lived here, kids had scrambled up, down, and around the rock. Now, he saw his daughter sitting on top of it, her blond hair tousled by the warm summer breeze, her gaze turned out to sea. Hundreds of boats bobbed on the flat calm waters below.

He came up beside the rock. “Hey, you,” he said, looking up.

She looked down at him, her pale, pimply face ravaged by tears. There was an alarming flatness in her eyes. “Hi, Dad. You’re late.”

“Sorry.”

As he stood there, trying to dredge up some words of wisdom, her watch alarm bleeped. Betsy yanked the watch off and threw it to the ground.

He bent over and picked it up, heard the beep-beep-beep that his wife was listening to at this very moment, a world away. For a moment, he imagined it, imagined her, looking down at her watch, probably feeling so far from home.

“Your mom’s fine,” he said at last. Honestly, all of this had been easier before the Keller case, when he could believe in Jolene’s optimistic letters and assurances of safety. Now, he knew better. How was he supposed to comfort a child when her fears were reasonable and he shared them? “It wasn’t her, Betsy.”

Betsy slid down from the rock. “It could have been.”

“But it wasn’t,” he said quietly.

Her eyes watered at that, her mouth wavered. He could see her composure crumbling. “This time,” she said.

“This time.”

“I’m forgetting her,” Betsy said, reaching into her pocket for the latest picture Jolene had sent, lifting it. “This … this isn’t her. She isn’t only a soldier.”

What could he say that wasn’t a lie? “Let’s go to the Crab Pot and look at the picture of her. That will make you remember.”

She nodded.

It wasn’t enough.

He reached for her hand. Sometimes holding on was all you could do.

After dinner, Michael led the girls into the house and watched them run upstairs. He felt drained. He should have known how affecting dinner at the Crab Pot would be. Jolene’s spirit had been so strong there. Lulu and Betsy had spent a good ten minutes staring up at the Polaroid picture of their mom tacked to the wall. Lulu wouldn’t even eat—she just held on to that little wings pin and cried.

He poured himself a drink and stared out the window at the night just beginning to fall across the bay. He heard Lulu come up behind him. She climbed monkeylike up his body, attaching to his hip. “Betsy is crying, Daddy,” she said in that squeaky voice of hers.

He kissed her forehead, sighing.

“It’s about Mommy,” she said, then burst into tears. “She got losted or hurted, right?”

He tightened his hold on Lulu. “No, baby. Mommy’s fine.”

“I miss my mommy.”

He rocked her back and forth, soothing her until her tears dried. When she was calm again, he put her down on the sofa and started The Little Mermaid DVD. That would keep Lulu busy for a while. She should be in bed, of course. It was late. But all he could think about was Jo, and what could have happened.

He didn’t really make a decision; rather, he found himself moving toward his office. He went inside and shut the door. His hands were shaking; ice rattled in his glass.

It could have been.

He slumped onto the sofa and bowed his head. Betsy was worried that she was forgetting her mother. But Michael had forgotten Jolene long before, hadn’t he? He’d lived with her, slept with her, and still somehow had forgotten the woman he’d married. He glanced to his left and saw a framed picture of him and Jolene; it had been taken years ago, at the arboretum in Seattle. They had been young then, and so in love. Look at the family of ducks, Michael, that will be us one day, waddling along with our babies in tow … In that one image, in Jolene’s bright smile, he remembered her.

He was a little unsteady as he got to his feet. At the bookcase, he withdrew a leather-bound photo album and an old VHS tape. Tucking them under his arm, he went into the family room, asked Lulu to follow him, and went upstairs.

He knocked on Betsy’s door. “Can we come in?”

“Okay.”

He picked up Lulu, carried her into the room, and sat down on the bed beside Betsy. Settling a girl on each side of him, he opened the album.

Centered in the first page, covered by a shiny piece of see-through plastic, was one of the few pictures he’d ever seen of his wife as a young girl. She stood on a rocky outcropping, wearing faded jeans and a cheap V-neck sweater. She was turned slightly away from the camera, looking into some invisible distance, with messy strands of long blond hair pulled across her face by the wind. Off to the left was a man walking away; all you could see was a ragged jeans hemline and a scuffed black boot.

Jolene had often said she’d chosen this photo to begin her life’s trail because it was so representative: her mother was missing and her dad was leaving. He’d seen this picture lots of times, but now he really looked at it, saw how sharp she looked, how thin. Her hair looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb in weeks, and the loss in her eyes was wrenching. She was watching the man walk away. Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

“She’s about fifteen here. Not much older than you, Bets.”

“She looks sad,” Betsy said.

“That’s cuz we aren’t borned yet,” Lulu said, repeating what Jolene always said about this photograph.

Michael turned the pages slowly, taking his girls on a journey down the road of Jolene’s life. There were pictures of Jolene in her army uniform, seated in a chopper, out playing Frisbee. In each successive photograph, she looked taller, stronger, but it wasn’t until their wedding picture that he saw her, the woman with whom he’d fallen in love. She’d smiled and cried through the ceremony, and told him it was the happiest day of her life.

Our lives, he’d said, kissing her. We will always be in love like this, Jo.

Of course we will, she’d said, laughing, and they’d believed it for years and years, until … they hadn’t. No, until he hadn’t.

“She looks pretty,” Lulu said.

He knew all that Jolene had lost in her life, and the things she’d never had and the things she’d overcome, and yet in all of these pictures, she looked incredibly happy. He’d made her happy; that was something he’d always known. What he’d forgotten was how happy she’d made him.

“When is she coming home?” Lulu asked. “Tomorrow?”

“November,” Betsy said with a sigh. “For just two weeks.”

“Oh.” Lulu made a small, squeaking sound. “Will I be five by then?”

“Yep,” Betsy said. “But she won’t be here for your birthday.”

Before Lulu could start crying, Michael got up and put a tape in the TV. Since Jolene’s deployment, the girls had obsessively watched the “good-bye reels,” as he liked to call them—the tapes she’d made for each of the girls. But they hadn’t seen this one in years.

He hit Play and the movie started. The first scene was Jolene, bleary-eyed, holding a baby girl who was no bigger than a half gallon of milk. “Say hi to your fans, little Elizabeth. Or will you be Betsy? Michael? Does she look like a Betsy to you…”

Now Betsy was walking for the first time, wobbling forward, laughing as she plopped over … Jolene was clapping and crying, saying, “Look, Michael, don’t miss this…”

Twelve years of his life, passing in forty-two minutes of tape.

He hit Stop.

There she was, his Jo. Her beautiful face was distorted, pixellated by the stop-motion, but even through the grainy, muted colors, he saw the power of her smile.

He saw the whole of his life in her eyes, all his dreams and hopes and fears.

I don’t love you anymore.

How could he have said that to her? How could he have been so cavalier with their life, with the commitment they’d made?

He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but time and distance separated them now. Whatever he had to say, it would have to wait until November. Would she even want to listen?

“Let’s go shopping tomorrow and send her a care package,” Betsy said.

“Yay!” Lulu said, clapping her hands.

Michael nodded, saying nothing, hoping they didn’t see the tears in his eyes.

Strapped in place and weighed down by the thirty pounds of Kevlar plating in her vest, Jolene piloted the Black Hawk toward Baghdad. Sweat collected under her helmet, dampened her hair, ran down the back of her neck. Her skin was flushed; she had a little trouble breathing. Inside the gloves, her hands were slick and damp. Even with the helicopter’s doors open, it was a damn oven in here. The water in her bottle was at least 122 degrees—hardly refreshing. Tami was in the right seat.

They flew a combat spread formation, three helicopters strong, hurtling through the darkening sky. Below, the confusing sprawl of Baghdad fanned out on all sides.