Home Front

Betsy nodded and went back to reading. When Jolene was to the door, she said, “Happy birthday, Mom.”

Jolene smiled. “Thanks, Bets. And I love the journal you gave me. It’s perfect.”

Betsy actually smiled.

Downstairs, Jolene went into the kitchen and put the last of the dishes away. Her dinner—a rich, savory pot of beef short ribs braised in red wine and garlic and thyme—bubbled softly on the stove, scenting the whole house. The girls hadn’t loved it, but it was Michael’s favorite.

Wrapping a soft pink blanket around her shoulders, she poured herself a glass of soda water and went outside. She sat down in one of the worn bent-twig chairs on the porch and put her bare feet on the weathered coffee table, staring out at the familiar view.

Home.

It had begun with meeting Michael.

She remembered it all so clearly.

For days after her parents’ deaths, she had waited for someone to help her. Police, counselors, teachers. It hadn’t taken long for her to realize that in her parents’ deaths, as in their lives, she was on her own. On a snowy Wednesday morning, she’d wakened early, ignoring the cold that seeped through the thin walls of her bedroom, and dressed in her best clothes—a plaid woolen skirt, Shetland sweater, kneesocks, and penny loafers. A wide blue headband kept the hair out of her eyes.

She took the last of her babysitting money and set off for downtown Seattle. At the legal-aid office, she’d met Michael.

His dark good looks and easy smile had literally taken her breath away. She’d followed him to a shabby little office and told him her problem. “I’m seventeen—eighteen in two months. My parents died this week. Car accident. A social worker came by and said I would have to live with foster parents until I turned eighteen. But I don’t need anyone. Certainly not some fake family. I can live in my own house until June—that’s when the bank is repossessing it—and then I’ll be done with high school and I can do … whatever. Can you make it so I don’t need to go to a foster family?”

Michael had studied her closely, his eyes narrowed. “You’d be alone then.”

“I am alone. It’s a fact, not a choice.”

When he’d finally said, “I’ll help you, Jolene,” she’d wanted to cry.

In the next hour, she’d told him a tidied-up version of her life. He’d said something about attorney-client privilege and how she could tell him anything, but she knew better. She’d learned a long time ago to keep the truth secret. When people knew she’d grown up with alcoholic parents, they invariably felt sorry for her. She hated that, hated to be pitied.

When they were done and the paperwork was filled out, Michael had said, “Come back and see me in a few years, Jolene. I’ll take you out to dinner.”

It had taken her six years to find her way back to him. By then, she’d been a pilot in the army and he’d been a lawyer in partnership with his father, and they’d had almost nothing in common. But she’d seen something in him that first day, an idealism that spoke deeply to her and a sense of morality that matched her own. Like her, Michael was a hard worker and had a keen sense of duty. True to his word, Michael had taken her out to dinner … and that had been the beginning.

She smiled at the memory.

In the distance, lights came on along the shore, golden dots that indicated houses in the darkness. Gauzy clouds wafted across the moon; in their absence, it shone more brightly. It was full night now, and dark. She glanced at her watch. Eight thirty.

She felt a pinch of disappointment and pushed it away. Something important must have come up. Life was like that sometimes. Things were rarely perfect. He would show up.

But …

Lately, it seemed that their differences were more pronounced than the things they shared. Michael had always hated her commitment to the military. She’d left active duty for him and gone into the Guard instead, but that hadn’t been good enough for Michael. He didn’t want to hear about her flying or her drill weekends or her friends who served. He’d always been antimilitary, but since the war in Iraq had started, his opinions had grown stronger, more negative. Their once-companionable silences had become awkward. It was pretty lonely when you couldn’t talk to your husband about the things that mattered to you. Normally, she looked away from these truths, but tonight they were all that occupied the chair beside her.

She got up and went back inside.

8:50.

She opened the heavy yellow pot lid and stared into the meal she’d made. The rich sauce had reduced too far; it looked a little black around the edges. Behind her, the phone rang. She lunged for it. “Hello?”

“Hey, Jo. I’m sorry I’m late.”

“Late was an hour ago, Michael. What happened?”

“I’m sorry. What can I say? I got into work and forgot.”

“You forgot,” she said, wishing it didn’t hurt.

“I’ll make it up to you.”

She almost said how? but what was the point? Why make it worse? He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. “Okay.”

“I’ll try to get home quickly, but…”

Jolene was glad they were on the phone; at least she didn’t have to smile. The thought came to her that he hadn’t been trying hard enough lately, that his family—and his wife—seemed not to matter to him. And yet she still loved him as deeply as the day he’d first kissed her, all those years ago.

Time, she thought. It will be okay next week or next month. He was still grieving over the loss of his father. She just needed to be understanding.

“Happy birthday,” he said.

“Thanks.” She hung up the phone and sat down at the kitchen table. In the shadowy room, decorated with her family photos and mementos and the furniture she had salvaged and restored herself, she felt alone suddenly. All dressed up, sitting in this darkened room. Lonely.

Then there was a knock at the door. Before Jolene even stood up, the kitchen door opened. Tami walked into the house, holding a bottle of champagne. “You’re alone,” she said quietly.

“He got caught up at work,” Jolene said.

“I was afraid of that.” Sadness passed through Tami’s eyes, and Jolene hated how it made her feel. Then Tami smiled. “Well. It’s no good to turn forty-one without an audience,” she said, kicking the door shut behind her. “Besides, I’m dying to know if you’ll start wrinkling up right in front of me, like Gary Oldman in Dracula.”

“I am not going to start wrinkling up.”

“You never know.”

“Champagne?” Jolene said, arching one eyebrow.

“That’s for me. I don’t have alcoholic parents. You can guzzle soda water, as usual.”

Tami popped the champagne bottle effortlessly, poured herself a glass and headed into the family room, where she plopped down on the overstuffed sofa and raised a glass. “To you, my rapidly aging best friend.”

Jolene followed Tami into the family room. “You’re only a few months younger than I am.”

“We Native Americans don’t age. It’s a scientific fact. Look at my mom. She still gets carded.”

Jolene sat down in an overstuffed chair and curled her bare feet up underneath her.

They looked at each other. What swirled between them then, floating like champagne bubbles, were memories of other nights like this, meals Michael had missed, events he’d been too busy to attend. Jolene often told people, especially Tami, how proud she was of her brilliant, successful husband, and it was all true, but lately he seemed unhappy. His father’s death had capsized him. She knew how unhappy he was, she just didn’t know how to help.

“It must hurt your feelings,” Tami said.

“It hurts,” Jolene said quietly.

“You should talk to him about it, tell him how you feel.”

“What’s the point? Why make him feel worse than he already does? Shit happens, Tami. You know Michael’s work ethic. It’s one of the things I love about him. He never walks away from responsibility.”

“Unless it’s a family obligation,” Tami said softly.

“He’s just really busy right now. Since his father’s death…”

“I know,” Tami said, “and you two don’t talk about that, either. In fact, you don’t talk.”

“We talk.”

Tami gave her an assessing look. “Marriages go through hard times. Sometimes you have to get in there and fight for your love. That’s the only way for it to get better.”

Jolene couldn’t help thinking of her parents, and the way her mother had fought for a man’s love … and never gotten it. “Look, Tami. Michael and I are fine. We love each other. Now, can we please, please talk about something else?”

Tami lifted her half-full glass. “To you, my friend. You look fabulous for being so freakishly old.”

“I look fabulous, period.”

Tami laughed at that and launched into a funny story about her family.

It was ten forty before they knew it, and Tami put her empty glass down on the table. “I have to get home. I told Carl I’d be home for Letterman.”

Jolene got to her feet. “Thanks for coming, Tam. I needed it.”

Tami hugged her fiercely. Together, they walked to the back door.

Jolene watched her friend cut across the driveway and head toward the adjoining property. At last, she closed the door.

In the quiet, she was alone with her thoughts, and she didn’t like their company.

It was midnight when Michael pulled into the garage and parked next to Jolene’s SUV. On the seat beside him lay a dozen pink roses bound in cellophane. He’d been on the ferry, already on his way home, when he remembered that Jolene preferred red roses. Of course. Soft and girly wasn’t her style, never had been, not even on that first, sad day when she walked into his life.

She’d been seventeen. A kid, dressed in thrift-store clothes, with her long blond hair a mess and her beautiful green eyes puffy from crying, and yet, with all of that, she’d walked into the legal-aid office with her back straight, clutching a ratty vinyl purse. He’d been an intern then, in his first year of law school.

She had seemed impossibly brave to him, a girl refusing help even in the worst days of her life. He’d fallen a little in love with her right then, enough to ask her to come back and see him when she was older. It had been her boldness that spoke to him from the beginning, the courage she’d worn as easily as that cheap acrylic sweater.

Six years later she’d walked back into his life, an army helicopter pilot, of all things. He’d been young enough to still believe in love at first sight and old enough to know it didn’t happen every day. He’d told himself it didn’t matter that he was blue state and she was military, that they had nothing in common. He’d felt so loved by her, so adored, that he couldn’t breathe. And their lovemaking had been amazing. In sex, as in everything, Jo had been all in.

He picked up the roses and the small Tiffany’s box beside it, wondering if the expensive gift would redeem him. She would see that he’d bought it before—that he’d remembered her birthday in time to have her gift engraved—but would that be enough? He’d missed her birthday dinner—forgotten.