Home Front

The physical therapy room was a huge bright space with four broad, vinyl-covered beds along one wall and windows along another. There were two sets of silver parallel bars anchored to the linoleum floor. Scattered throughout the rest of the area were a variety of steps with and without handrails attached to them, yoga-type mats, physio balls in all sizes and colors, stacks of hand weights, Thera-Bands, and a collection of walkers and crutches.

First, Conny had Jolene warm up. She rolled onto her side on one of the bright blue yoga mats on the floor, and stretched out as far as she could, imagining her foot still there, pressing out, reaching for the end of the mat.

With each movement, Conny charted her range of motion and encouraged her to do better.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” she said, breathing hard.

“Oh. It is. Stretch farther.”

Jolene gritted her teeth and kept at it, stretching her stump until pain made her scream out. Sweat dripped into her eyes and off her face, making the mat beneath her slippery.

“One more inch,” Conny said.

“I hate you,” she said, trying to give him what he wanted.

“I wouldn’t be doing my job if you didn’t,” he said, laughing. “That’s good.” He patted her shoulder. “Now let me see some sit-ups.”

“You are worse than any drill sergeant I ever had. You know that?”

“I aim to please.” While she did her sit-ups, he went to get her wheelchair and rolled it toward her. “Okay. That’s enough. Get in.”

She looked up at the chair, hating it. Sweat dripped down from her hair. She wiped her hands on her tee shirt, leaving damp streaks behind.

Conny lifted her onto the workout bench, got her seated, then rolled the wheelchair closer. “I’ll show you how to get into your chair. Here, make sure this brake is set. Wipe your hand so you don’t slip, and remember, don’t put any weight on your right hand. Just use it for balance. Let me help you, Jolene…”

She licked her lips nervously. “Who would have thought it took all this work to sit down. I used to run marathons. I tell you that? One time—”

“You’re stalling.”

She steeled herself again and began the work it took just to get from the bench into a wheelchair. Groaning at the exertion, she angled herself forward, stood slowly on her good leg. Balancing, she waited until she felt steady, holding the chair in her good hand. Already she was breathing hard again, sweating. And afraid she would fall. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Before, she could have lifted one leg and balanced with ease. Now her equilibrium was as shaky as her sense of herself.

With exaggerated care, she turned on her good foot and sat down in the chair; her bandaged residual limb stuck out like a bowsprit.

“You did it,” Conny said, smiling brightly.

He gave her about ten seconds to revel in her triumph, and then he had her back at the yoga mat, working again. She didn’t have the core strength to lower herself to the mat on her one good leg, so Conny helped her. “More sit-ups,” he said when she was ready. “Two hundred.”

“Two hundred? Are you mental?”

“I told you you’d hate me. Quit whining and start.”

She lay down, wishboned her arms behind her and pulled upward. “One … two … three…”

She hadn’t noticed before how your feet anchored you for sit-ups. Now, she was constantly moving, sliding, feeling unsteady on the ground as she went up, down, up, down.

“Two hundred, Jolene,” Conny said. “Don’t slow down.”

“Screw … you,” she said in between breaths. She wanted to give up, wanted it badly, but every time she considered quitting, she thought about her children, and her family, and how much she wanted to be herself again, and she kept trying.

When she finished, Conny wheeled her back to her room. “I’ll send an aide to help you shower,” he said, positioning her wheelchair by the window.

“Conny?” she said, looking up at him.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry about your son.”

He gave her a slow, sad smile. “I’m sorry about your leg, soldier girl.”

For the next week, Jolene spent her nights battered by memories, and her days pretending she was getting better. She called her daughters every evening and let them tell her about their day; at night, she called Germany and talked to Carl about Tami. Most of all, she kept working. Every morning, when she woke, her first thought—in the split second when she hadn’t yet remembered the truth—was I wonder if it’s too cold to run.

By the time she opened her eyes, that question was gone, tossed onto the pile of lost chances that made up Before.

Now, her room was dark; the door was closed. She turned her head just enough to see out the small window. Beyond the glass, she saw a bare tree, its spindly limbs sporting puffs of green moss and a few tenacious, multicolored leaves.

She grabbed the trapeze and pulled herself to a sit. By the time she was upright, she was breathing hard. Tired again. She couldn’t believe how much muscle mass she’d lost in such a short period of time.

Today she would get fitted for her temporary prosthesis. Her new leg. She wanted to be excited about it, but the truth was that she was scared. The new leg meant that she would be up and around, that she would be walking, that she would go home, to her ruined marriage and her frightened children and a life that had no foundation. She wasn’t a pilot anymore, wasn’t a soldier, wasn’t really a wife. Who was she?

She wanted to talk to someone about her fears, but it had never been her way, and God knew it wasn’t the military way. Whatever new fears and ragged nerves and residual images she’d carried home from Iraq, she was expected to deal with them herself. Besides, she’d learned as a kid how futile words could be. With Michael she’d always held back, even in the best of times, afraid to let him see how damaged she was beneath the bold surface. It was a trick she’d learned young, in that house full of alcoholics. Say nothing.

Only with Tami had she ever been truly honest.

She lay back down and closed her eyes, thinking, Tami.

How are you, flygirl? Do you need me as much as I need you? You thought I was screwed up before—you should see me now. I can’t even trust my own mind and I can’t sleep without nightmares … God, I miss you … wake up …

Jolene sighed. As she lay there, feeling scared and (admit it, Jo) sorry for herself, she heard the sounds of the rehab center waking up. In no time at all, an aide had come with her breakfast, and another had helped her into the bathroom and in and out of the shower.

At nine o’clock, Michael showed up. He walked into her room without knocking.

She was almost afraid to look at him; she felt so vulnerable right now. “I thought you had a deposition today.”

“I didn’t want you to be alone for this.”

The easy way he said it was an arrow to the heart, as if they were Michael-and-Jolene again. Don’t believe it. “Thanks,” was all she could say.

Conny rapped sharply on the door and walked into the room. If he noticed the silence between them, he made no sign of it. “Good. You’re here, Michael. Let’s go.”

Jolene felt uncomfortable getting into her chair in front of Michael—it was all so pathetically difficult for her—but it quickly became apparent that Conny had no intention of helping her. So she grabbed the bar and hauled herself upright with her left hand, then scooted over to the side of the bed and swung her legs over.

It was still a shock to land on one foot, but she concentrated on keeping her balance. Michael started to roll the wheelchair into range; she shook her head and hopped one step, then grabbed the rubberized handles and sat down with a sigh. She could feel how red her cheeks were from the exertion, and she was breathing hard—again—but she had done it herself, and there was some small satisfaction in that.

Conny smiled at her, then took his place behind the chair. The three of them set off down the hallway. For the first time, she saw how big this place was. Finally, they rolled up at a door marked Prosthetics.

Inside, it looked like Frankenstein’s laboratory. There were plastic hands and feet and arms and legs hanging from the ceilings and the walls, in every size and color and composition.

A small Asian woman with huge glasses came out from the back room. “You must be Mrs. Zarkades,” she said.

“Call me Jolene. This is my husband, Michael.”

The woman nodded crisply. “Let’s get started.”

For the next hour, the woman worked in concentrated silence. She measured Jolene’s residual leg and made a plaster cast of it.

While the plaster was drying, Michael asked questions. “Why can’t she get fitted for her permanent leg now? Why a temporary?”

The Asian woman blinked through the saucer-sized glasses. “Her stump will continue to shrink, which means that the socket will have to be changed often. It saves time and money this way, and it has the added benefit of letting her learn to be mobile while her leg shrinks. Bearing weight on it actually helps speed recovery. It will also help with desensitization.” She carefully removed the plaster mold, which Jolene had trouble looking at, and took it into the back room.

Afterward, they headed back to Jolene’s room.

“You’ll be walking in no time,” Conny said as he wheeled her up to the bed.

She maneuvered herself onto the mattress and remained sitting up, covering her legs with the blanket.

“I’ll be back at noon for PT,” Conny said.

“Lucky me.”

Conny’s laughter boomed and then faded as he walked away. Then she and Michael were alone.

“Well,” Jolene said. “I need to sleep before Genghis Khan throws me to the mat again and tells me to give him two hundred sit-ups.”

“You can do it, you know,” he said. “Whatever he asks.”

Jolene looked up at him, remembering how much his support had once meant to her. She wanted to tell him how scared she was to come home, how uncertain she felt about everything, how terrible her nightmares were. “Thanks for coming today, Michael. You didn’t have to.”

“I’ve let you down a lot in the past.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly.

“Let me make it up to you,” he said.

She thought about that, about opening herself back up to him, expecting something, and the idea was terrifying. He’d already broken her heart. How could she trust him again? Especially now.

She didn’t answer.

He waited a long time, staring down at her. Then, with a quiet sigh, he left the room and closed the door behind him.

Jolene counted the days until her temporary prosthesis was ready. When it was, Conny strode into her room with a bright smile on his face. “You ready to get a move on, soldier girl?”

“I’m ready,” she said.

He rolled the chair up to the bed, and she got into it with less effort than before.

All the way down the hallway toward the physical therapy room, she tried to prepare herself, both for triumph and failure. She didn’t want failure to suck her under again.