Home Front(115)

He stepped aside and one of the uniformed soldiers marched up to the casket. The soldier removed the flag from the casket, and, along with another soldier, carefully folded it into a near triangle. Then he offered it to Captain Ben Lomand, who stood nearby. The soldier saluted and handed Ben the flag. Ben turned crisply on his heel, pivoted, and brought the flag to Carl.

Jolene saw that Carl’s hands were shaking as he reached out.

On the ground, two rows of soldiers pointed their guns skyward and shots rang out. A twenty-one-gun salute. Carl stood, walked toward the casket. He stood there a long time, his head bowed; then he placed a red rose on the gleaming mahogany top. Seth followed. The rose he placed on the casket slipped off, and he bent to retrieve it, placing it next to his father’s. One by one Tami’s relatives came up to say their last good-bye and put a rose on the casket.

When it was Jolene’s turn, she stood slowly. She felt awkward, uncertain that her legs would hold her up.

“You can do it,” Michael said.

She moved cautiously forward. At the flower-strewn coffin, she stopped, and put her hands out, touching the smooth wood. The rose she held bit her with its thorn. Good-bye, flygirl. I’ll miss you …

She put her rose with the others and then joined the five soldiers who’d gathered at the casket. The bagpipes started to play again, and Jolene watched as the soldiers—her friends from the Guard—picked up the casket. The soldiers carried it down the grass toward its final resting place. Jolene limped beside them, an honorary pallbearer.

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.”