Home Front(20)

I don’t love you anymore.

It hurt so much she thought her heart might stop.

She leaned back against the bed she shared with her husband.

She didn’t want to think about that, or him, but how could she help herself now?

He had changed her, completed her. Or so she’d thought.

In the army, she’d found herself; in the air, she’d found her passion. But it wasn’t until she met Michael that the missing part of her began slowly, cautiously to fill back in.

Tami had encouraged her to go in search of the young lawyer who’d helped her, and flight school had given her confidence to do it. He’d been easy to find at Zarkades, Antham, and Zarkades.

You came back, he said when he saw her standing in the lobby. Those were the very first words he spoke. He said it, smiling, as if the six years in between had passed in a breath. She knew then that he’d been waiting, too, in his way. I came back, she answered, not even surprised when he reached for her hand. It had been more than a start; love was a deep blue sea and they dove in. She hadn’t known how to believe in love, but he’d swept her away; it was as simple as that. With their first kiss, she’d forgotten the love that had been her birthright and begun to believe in him and forever.

Somewhere along the way, she’d forgotten that love had a dark underside. Too many years in its sunlight had blinded her. She’d handed Michael her heart, wrapped it up and placed it in his hands, and she’d never bothered to worry that he might be careless with it. Even as he’d pulled away from her in the last few years and spent more hours at the office, she’d believed in the durability of their vows and made excuses for him. Like Pollyanna, always believing …

Downstairs, she heard a door slam shut, then a car engine start. She stumbled over to her window and stood there, watching him drive away, wondering if he would come back.

*



He didn’t.

Jolene spent the restless, unbearable hours of the night cleaning and doing laundry. She vacuumed, dusted, polished silver, and scrubbed toilets—anything to keep her mind off his I don’t love you anymore.

Not that it worked. The words had changed her perception of her life, if not herself.

Five words to change a world, to dissolve the ground beneath a woman’s feet. It was a tidal wave, that sentence, whooshing in without warning, undermining foundations, leaving homes crumbled in the aftermath.

By morning, she was so exhausted she could barely stand and so wired she didn’t bother making coffee. More than anything, she wanted to escape this too-quiet house and get in her helicopter and fly away. Instead, in the pink and lavender light of a rising dawn, she went for an eight-mile run, but it didn’t help.

When she got back, she took a long shower, dressed in worn jeans and a gray army sweatshirt, and then went to wake up Betsy. She knocked on the door and went inside. “Hey, Betsy,” she said, forcing a smile. She should have spoken to her daughter last night—that was what a good mother would have done, a stronger mother, but Jolene had been afraid of breaking down in front of her child, of crying, of scaring Betsy even more.

“Don’t say anything,” Betsy said dully.

“I know Daddy talked to you. I thought—”

“I do NOT want to talk about it.”

Jolene stopped, unsure of what to say anyway. How did you talk to a child about such adult things? She’d never been good at knowing when to push with Betsy and when to back off. Invariably, she pushed when she should have let go. It was one of Jolene’s flaws: she was good at holding on. Letting go, not so much.

But one thing she saw clearly: Betsy was afraid and confused, and so she was angry. There was nothing Jolene could offer that would help. How could she talk about what she herself didn’t understand?

Instead, Jolene went to her daughter and pulled her to her feet and took her into her arms. It took a supreme act of will not to layer words onto the hug, but she managed it, just let it be.

She felt Betsy’s haggard sigh, and knew how her daughter felt. It was terrifying to see your parents fight. She knew Betsy would remember last night, and she would notice Michael’s absence this morning.

Lulu walked into the bedroom, dragging her favorite yellow blanket behind her. “Hey, I want a hug, too.”

Jolene opened one arm and Lulu rushed forward, folding her little body alongside her sister’s. They stood there a second longer; then Lulu pulled back. She scratched her tangled black hair, pushed it out of her eyes. “Can I have Cap’n Crunch?”

“No Captain Crunch. That’s for special mornings,” Jolene answered automatically.

“Today could be special,” Lulu chirped.

“It’s the opposite of special,” Betsy said bitterly.

“Why?” Lulu wanted to know.

Jolene sighed. “Come on, girls. Let’s get breakfast going.”

As they made their way downstairs, Jolene felt Betsy’s gaze on her. In the kitchen, Betsy seemed to notice everything—the way Jolene’s hands shook just a little when she got out the flour and eggs for pancakes, the way she kept sighing, the way she opened the fridge and just stared inside. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore, being under this scrutiny. She poured the girls Cheerios.

“Where’s Daddy?” Lulu asked, concentrating on getting the right number of Cheerios in her spoon.