Home Front

Tears glazed her eyes, and she couldn’t see well, but she kept moving, gritting her teeth against the pain. The uneven grass threatened to break her stride at every step, but she kept going. Finally, they came to the grave site.

The bagpipes wound down, their music fading away. In the sudden silence, three helicopters roared into the airspace, rotors whirring, engines purring, and hung there.

Good-bye, Tam. Fly safe …

And it was over.

Twenty-Seven

For the next week, Jolene hung on by the thinnest imaginable thread. The grief was so overwhelming she forced herself to ignore it completely. With a combination of wine and sleeping pills, she found numbness. She went to rehab three days a week and tried to concentrate on her recovery, but to be honest she barely cared. At home, she drank two or three glasses of wine and crawled into her bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. When she was lucky, she slept at night. Other times, she lay awake in the darkness, acutely alone, remembering her best friend. She knew how her family felt about her lethargy—Betsy was pissed, Michael was saddened, and Lulu was confused.

She knew she was letting them down again, and sometimes she found the energy to care. Mostly, she just … looked away. Even on Halloween, she’d been unable to rouse herself. She’d waved good-bye to her princess and her gypsy and watched them leave with Mila and Michael for trick-or-treating.

“Okay, Jolene,” Michael said one morning in early November. He came into her bedroom and flung back the curtains, letting light steamroll over her.

She had a pounding headache. Had she had an extra glass of wine last night? “Go away, Michael. It’s Saturday. I’m not going to rehab.”

“You’re going somewhere else.”

She sat up, blinking wearily. “Where is it you think I’m going?”

He stepped aside. Seth walked into the bedroom. He was dressed all in black—wrinkled black corduroy pants and an oversized black short-sleeved shirt with an envelope stuck in the breast pocket—and his hair pulled back in a samurai topknot that only Johnny Depp could pull off. My kid’s a fashion disaster, what can I say? She heard Tami’s voice so loudly, so clearly, that Jolene caught her breath. For a split second, she thought she saw her friend standing in the corner, her arms crossed, her face lit by a smile.

“Miz Z,” Seth said, coming forward.

“Seth,” she whispered, feeling a stab of guilt. “I should have come over to see you. I’ve just been…”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”

Jolene wanted to fill the sudden painful silence, but she couldn’t.

“Her locker,” Seth said at last.

Jolene knew what he was going to ask of her, and she couldn’t do it.

“They want us to clean it out. Dad doesn’t even know where it is. Will you take me to the post, help me get her things?”

She wanted to say no. Instead, she nodded, her eyes stinging again, and said, “Of course, Seth. Maybe next week—”

“Today,” Michael said. “We’ll all go.” He came to the bed, held out his hand.

She stared at it, afraid to let him touch her. She felt so breakable right now. But Tami had asked this of her—take care of Seth—and she’d be damned if she’d let her best friend down. In an act of will, she took Michael’s hand, let him help her to her feet. She stared into his eyes for a moment, seeing the strength that was offered there, unable to take it for her own. “I’ll get ready.” She gave Seth a weak smile.

In the bathroom, she stared at herself in the mirror. Her face was healed now, but even so, it was different. Sharper. Harder. Her cheekbones were bony ridges above hollow cheeks; her lips were chapped and pale. And there was that slightest pink scar along her jaw. “You can do this.”

Of course you can.

It was Tami’s voice again, so close, Jolene turned sharply, looked behind her. There was no one there.

She limped toward the shower. When she was done, she dried her hair, coiled it in a bun, and went to her closet.

Her ACUs were right there in front. Michael must have brought them down. But she wasn’t a soldier anymore.

The thought came to her before she could guard against it.

She gritted her teeth and dressed in a pair of black pants and a gray turtleneck. When she went out into the living room, Betsy and Lulu were standing by Michael. Seth stood off by himself, his arms crossed tightly.

“Okay,” Jolene said. “Let’s go.”

She limped into the garage and opened the passenger door of her SUV. She opened it and hoisted herself up into the plush seat.

In no time, the kids were in back: Seth and Betsy were sitting together, with Lulu on the left side of them. In the rearview mirror, Jolene saw Betsy poke Seth’s upper arm. He blinked in surprise and pulled the earbuds from his ears. Betsy leaned closer to him, whispered something. He looked at her, his eyes widening at her smile.

Jolene turned away, looked out the window, watching the gray landscape blur past her. Now and then Michael tried to begin a conversation, but she didn’t bother to answer, and soon he gave up.

All she could think about was Tami. Her friend should be in the car now, cranking the music up, saying, Hey, flygirl, Prince or Madonna today?

When they drove up to the guard post, Jolene felt a sharp stab of emotion—longing, disappointment, loss.

So much of her life had been spent here. With Tami beside her, always.

They parked in front of the hangar. Jolene steeled herself. It would be a tough day—and not just because hours on the temporary prosthesis came at a price. She climbed out of the SUV and stood there, both feet firmly planted, waiting for Seth.

Michael said, “Lulu has to go to the bathroom.”

Jolene nodded. “It’s in that building right there. First door on the left. We’ll meet you back at the car. It … won’t take long.”

Michael leaned forward, kissed her lightly on the cheek, whispered, “You got this, Jo.”

She shivered at the touch of his lips.

“I’ll go with Mom and Seth,” Betsy said quietly.

Seth looked at her. “Really?”

She gave him a shy smile. “Really.”

Jolene moved closer to Seth, placed a hand on his thin shoulder. “You ready?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Yeah, well that makes two of us.”

Jolene led the way to the hangar. The last time she’d been here, she’d been deploying …

As they crossed the threshold, moving into the giant space full of helicopters and cargo planes and people in uniform moving from place to place, Jolene stopped.

She didn’t mean to. She just saw the Black Hawk and couldn’t move.

My turn to fly. It’s right seat for you today, no arguing.

“Jolene?”

She looked down at the boy beside her, seeing how pale and sad he looked, and she forgot about her own loss for a minute. You make sure he knows who I was. “She loved to fly,” she said quietly. “She would want you to know that. She loved to fly, but … you … you were her whole life, Seth. She would have done anything she could to get back to you.” She forced a smile. “And she sang off-key. Did you know that? I swear, dogs joined in when she sang.”

Tears brightened his eyes.

Jolene stared up at the helicopter, with its open door and back bay cluttered with straps and metal boxes. She let go of Seth’s hand and walked forward. She didn’t mean to, didn’t really think about it; she just moved forward and stared up at the cockpit.

Her residual limb ached, as if in reminder.

“Can you still fly?” Seth asked, coming up beside her.

“Not a Black Hawk,” she said, and for a split second, she remembered all of it—flight school, Tami, flying into the blue, looking down on the trees in bloom. “I loved it, though,” she said, more to herself than to Seth.

How long did she stand there, staring up at her past, grieving for both the loss of her leg and the loss of her friend and the end of an era?

“You’ll never be able to fly again?” Betsy asked, sounding surprised.

Jolene couldn’t answer.

“My mom would say you can do anything,” Seth said.

Jolene nodded. Those few words brought Tami into the hangar so clearly she could practically smell her gardenia shampoo. “Yes, she would. And she’d kick my ass if she saw us standing here with tears in our eyes.”

He wiped his eyes. “Yep.”

“Come on, guys.” She led him through the building to the locker room. Betsy followed a pace behind.

Jolene limped through the narrow area, lined with metal lockers. At number 702, she stopped.

“Is that my mom’s?”

Jolene nodded, feeling Betsy come up beside her. Jolene hesitated a second, and then spun the lock into its combination. It clicked open.

At the bottom of the locker were a pair of sand-colored boots, a green tee shirt, a helmet, and a silver water bottle. A picture of Seth and Carl, its edges curled up, was taped to the inside wall. Jolene reached in and took the items out, setting them aside. She handed Seth the picture.

That was when she saw the envelope. There was just one—a long, business-sized white envelope with one word written across it: Jolene.

“I knew she’d write you one,” Seth said. His hand made its way to his pocket; he fingered the envelope that stuck up. “It’s her ‘in case I die’ letter.”

Jolene couldn’t reach for it.

“Do you think she knew?” he asked, looking at her.

“No,” Jolene said thickly. “She thought she’d come home. She wanted to, so much. For you and your dad.” She took a breath. “I know I’m not her, Seth, but I will be here for you your whole life. If you need anything—advice with girls, driving lessons, anything. You come to me. We can talk about anything. When you’re ready, we’ll talk about your mom and how much she loved you, and what her dreams for you were. I’ll show you some pictures and tell you some stories.”

“When I’m ready?”

Jolene knew what he meant. She wasn’t ready yet, either. She couldn’t read Tami’s letter until she was stronger, until she was sure the good-bye wouldn’t break her. Hell, maybe she’d never be able to read it.

The Keller trial ended amid a flurry of icy rain in downtown Seattle. Michael fought for the jury instructions he wanted, and he got them. The prosecution had amended the charges to include both murder in the second degree and manslaughter to the charges—a good sign for the defense. For weeks, Michael had put on witnesses and offered evidence about PTSD. He’d argued fervently that Keith had been incapable of forming the specific intent necessary to commit the crime of murder in the first degree. One witness after another had confirmed Keith’s deep and abiding love for his wife. Even Emily’s mother had tearfully confessed that she had known something was wrong with Keith, that he’d come home “messed up in his head somehow,” and that the killing was terrible and tragic but that she didn’t see how prison would help. “We just have to live with it,” she’d concluded, dabbing at her eyes.