On the way out of town, the yellow ribbons continued—on mailboxes and front doors and autumn-leaved apple trees.
As he approached the house, he could see that the fence line was decorated with more yellow ribbons. The flag on their porch hung slack on this windless night. Bouquets lay on the ground beneath one of the posts, like a grave site, their petals dying and turning brown.
He pulled into the garage and sat there, alone, in the dark. Sighing, he finally went into the house.
His mother was seated on the hearth, in front of a bright fire. At his entrance, she peered up at him from above the jewel-encrusted reading glasses she bought in a six-pack from Costco. Putting down her book, she stood, opening her arms.
He walked into her embrace, not realizing how much he needed a hug until her arms were around him.
“Tell me everything,” she said, leading him to the sofa.
He started with: “I should have waited for the doctor, but you know how impatient I am,” and he told her everything, ending with, “She asked me to come back here and get the house—and the girls—ready for her homecoming.”
“You shouldn’t have left her,” his mother said.
“You told me to listen to her, that she’d tell me what she needed.”
“Michael,” his mother said, shaking her head.
“I know.” He raked a hand through his hair, sighing. “She threw me out.”
His mother made the tsking sound he knew so well. “Men are stupid. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Please leave doesn’t mean she wanted you to actually do it.”
“I’m not a mind reader.”
“Clearly.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation. I feel shitty enough. I don’t need you making it worse.”
She looked at him. “Your wife is in Germany, wounded and afraid, and you left her there alone, grieving for her lost crewman and worried about her best friend. Do you really think it can get worse, Michael?”
“I don’t know what to do, Ma. I’ve never been good at this shit.”
“Here’s what you do, Michael. You go upstairs and tell your children about their mother. Then you hold them when they cry and you get your family—and this house—ready for your wife’s return. You don’t make the same mistake again. Next time, you look at Jolene—all of her, Michael, even what’s missing—and you tell her you love her. You do love her, don’t you?”
“I do. But she won’t believe me. Not now.”
“Who would? You have been foolish. You will have to swallow your pride and convince her … and yourself, perhaps. It will not be easy, nor should it.” She patted his thigh. “And now, you will go up and tell your daughters that their mother is coming home from war.”
“Are they in bed?”
“They’re waiting for you.”
He sighed at that, feeling instantly tired, weighed down by this new burden that seemed to be his alone to carry. He leaned sideways, kissed his mom’s cheek, and headed for the stairs.
Outside Betsy’s room, he paused, gathering up his courage. He knocked on the door and went into the room. The girls were on the floor, playing some board game.
Michael knelt between them. Lulu immediately climbed onto his bent knees and looped her arms around his neck, leaning back like a pair’s ice-skater in a twirl. “Hi, Daddy!”
“How is she?” Betsy asked warily.
Lulu bounced on his lap. “You wanna play Candyland, Daddy?”
“Dad?” Betsy said. “How is Mom?”
He drew in a deep breath. “She lost her leg.”
Lulu stilled. “Where is it?”
“They cut it off, stupid,” Betsy said, scrambling backward, getting to her feet.
“What?” Lulu shrieked.
“Betsy,” Michael snapped, “don’t scare your sister. Lulu, Mommy’s going to be fine, she just lost part of her leg. But she’ll still be able to walk and everything. She’ll need our help for a while, though. She’s coming home in three days.”
“Mom lost her leg and Tami is in a coma, but everyone is going to be fine. We’re all going to be fine, just like we were.” Betsy’s voice broke, and she ran to the door, yanking it open. “You and Mom are both liars,” she said, wiping her eyes. Then she walked out of the room and slammed the door shut behind her.
“But where’s her leg, Daddy?” Lulu said, starting to cry.
“Jo?”
She heard Jamie’s voice and opened her eyes.
Jamie stood in the doorway, dressed in his ACUs.
“Hey.” She smiled at him, tried to look strong. She had no courage these days, it seemed, no inner strength. It was just so damned good to see him up and walking, even if it was with a limp. He’d visited her yesterday, too.
Closing the door behind him, he walked into the room. The look in his eyes was so compassionate she almost started to cry again. He knew what she was feeling.
“It’s not your fault, Jo,” he said.
“Smitty’s gone. Tami’s in a coma. I was flying the aircraft,” Jolene said.
“You carried her out of the helicopter, Jo. You.” He looked down at her amputated leg. “On that. You carried your best friend. I saw you, as I was scrambling, trying like hell to get Smitty out. I got him out, but it was too late.”
She saw the guilt Jamie carried.
“I saw him, Jamie. He was already gone.”
He stared down at her. “Don’t you give up,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“I don’t know how to be this woman.” She indicated her ruined body.
“You’re a soldier, Jo. That’s inside.”
“Is it?”
“I’ve been ordered back to Iraq,” he said at last.
She nodded, a lump in her throat. It occurred to her that she had just been more honest with this man than she’d ever been with her husband. “Be safe, Jamie.”
He stared down at her a long time. “You’re my hero, Chief. I want you to know that. And I’ll miss you up there in the sky.”
Then he was gone and she was alone.
SEPT.
I’m supposed to be glad I write with my left hand. I hear that a lot. But how can I be happy about anything?
I’m going home tomorrow and Tami still hasn’t woken up. Carl says the doctors have started to shake their heads and “prepare” him for her death. How can we prepare to lose her?
Tami, who sings off-key and loves mai tais and never knows when to quit. My best friend. She won’t quit now. That’s for sure.
Carl came to say good-bye to me this morning and the fear in his eyes was enough to make me sick to my stomach. He said, “Her heart stopped today. They got it going again, but…” and by then we were both crying. He doesn’t know what Tami thinks of “heroic measures,” and I told him she was a hero herself and you never stop trying. Never.
Jolene came awake with a start. She had a perfect instant in which she forgot where she was—then the truth muscled its way in. Tami lay in a bed down the hall, and Michael was gone, and she was getting ready to go home.
Home.
She opened her eyes and saw a female soldier in dress uniform standing at the end of her bed reading the latest issue of Stars and Stripes. Jolene hit the button beside her bed, which slowly angled her up until she was looking at the marine.
“Hello, Chief,” the woman said, putting the newspaper down on the flat blankets at the foot of the bed. Not quite where Jolene’s leg should be, but close.
“Do I know you?”
“No. I’m Leah Sykes. From North Carolina,” she said in a pretty, rollingly accented voice.
“Oh.”
“This is the first time I’ve been back to Landstuhl in more than nine months. Some things take a while to confront.”
“You’re a morale officer?”
Leah laughed. “Hardly. My husband would certainly tell you that I’m far from an inspiring kind of woman. But you. I hear you are a helicopter pilot.”
Jolene looked down at the place where her leg should be. “I don’t want to be rude, Leah, but I’m tired—”
“You ever hear of the Lioness Program?”
Jolene sighed. “No.”
“It started a while ago, a few years, I think. I’m no historian. The point is, when the marines did their ground searches, they encountered real resistance from the Iraqi women, who refused to be searched by men. Women soldiers were needed, so they asked for volunteers. A bunch of us who were tired of supply work and such signed up. I was one of the first.”
Jolene looked at the woman more closely. She looked like a sorority girl, with her dyed-blond french braid and mascaraed eyelashes.
“We were attached to marine combat units and sent out. We got some special training—not enough, really, a week—but we went. I liked it. Combat, I mean. Who would have thought? Not my cheerleading coach, that’s for sure. But you know.” Leah moved away from the end of the bed. Her movements were awkward. She had a strange, hitching way of walking, and as she did her pretty face grimaced.
Then Jolene saw her legs: two steel rods that ended in hiking boots.
Jolene felt ashamed of herself for complaining. She still had one leg left. “You lost both legs?”
“IED. I’m not going to lie to you, ma’am. You have a hard road in front of you. I was a bitch like nobody’s business. I don’t know how my husband stayed.”
“Will I fly helicopters?”
Leah’s sad look was worse than an answer. “I don’t know about that. But you’ll be you again. In time.”
It should have meant something to her, seeing this woman’s courage in the face of such adversity. It would have once, in a time that already felt long ago. Now all she wanted was to be left alone. She wanted to snuggle back into the warm, dark waters of self-pity, and so she did; she closed her eyes.
Every time she woke up, Leah was still there, standing beside her.
Part Two
A Soldier’s Heart
We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.
—MARCEL PROUST
Nineteen
Michael and the girls had spent all day at the mall. They’d been like search-and-rescue dogs sniffing out the things on their list with relentless purpose. A new bed, new sheets and bedding, lots of pillows. Acrylic paint, a roll of butcher paper, a set of multicolored markers, both fine-tipped and fat.
By the time they’d had lunch at the Red Robin and piled back into the car, the trunk full of their purchases, Lulu was skating on the narrow edge of an adrenaline high. She was talking so much and so fast it was impossible to keep up. Michael had stopped even trying to answer her questions. Each one started with, “When Mommy comes home—”
“—We’ll sing her favorite song. What’s her favorite song, Betsy?”
“—We’ll yell SURPRISE!”
“—We’ll dance. She loves dancing. Oh, she losted her leg. What can we do instead of dancing?”