Home Front(27)

Tears sprang into Betsy’s eyes. Her lower lip trembled mutinously. “I need you,” she said in a quiet voice.

“I know,” Jolene said, “and I need you, baby. So much…” Her voice caught again; she had to clear her throat to keep going. “But we’ll talk on the phone and e-mail, and maybe we’ll even write good old-fashioned letters. I’ll be home before you know it.”

Lulu tugged on her sleeve. “You’ll be home before I start kindergarten, right?”

Jolene closed her eyes. How was she going to do this, really?

“Mommy?” Lulu said, her voice shaking.

“No,” Jolene said finally. “Not for kindergarten, Lulu, but your daddy will be home for that…”

Lulu started to cry.

*



Michael sat on the couch, alone now, and looked up at his mother. He could see the concern in her eyes, the unasked question. She wondered why he was out here while Jolene was handling this alone.

She stared at him for a long, assessing moment. Then she walked out of the living room and came back a few minutes later, carrying a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate full of baklava in the other. Of course. Food. Her answer to everything.

She put the cup and plate on the table beside him and then sat down on the sofa next to him. She placed her hand on his knee. “When I was young … during the war … it was a terrible time in Greece. My father and uncles and cousins were all gone. Many of them did not come back. The family stayed strong, though, and faith kept us together.”

He nodded. He’d heard her stories all his life. World War II had seemed distant to him, barely understandable; now he thought of the relatives he’d lost to enemy fire. They’d been just names in a book before. Without thinking, he reached over for a baklava and began eating it. God, he wished his father were here now.

“I will move into the house and take care of the girls.”

“No, Ma. There’s no bedroom for you, and you’ve got the Thumb. I’ll hire someone.”

“You most certainly will not. No stranger will take care of my grandbabies. I will hire another part-time employee for the store.”

“The store can’t afford that.”

“No, but I can. I will be at your house after school each weekday. I’ll pick Lulu up from preschool and meet Betsy’s bus. We will be just fine. You can count on me, and the girls will count on you.”

“Every day, Ma? That’s a big job.”

She smiled at him. “I am a big woman, as you may have noticed. I need to help you, Michael. Let me.”

He didn’t know how to respond: he still couldn’t wrap his mind around how completely his world had changed.

“These are details, though, and not the thing that matters most.” She looked at him. “You should be with her now, telling your children they will be fine.”

“Will they … be fine?”

“It’s not your children you should be worrying about right now, Michael. Their time will come.”

“And Jo?” he said. “Will she be fine?”

“She is a lioness, our Jolene.”

Michael could only nod.

“Already you are letting her down. Your father was like this, God rest his soul. He was selfish. This is a time for you to see beyond yourself.” She touched his cheek, resting her knuckles against his skin as she’d done so often in his youth. “You be proud of her, Michael.”

He knew he was supposed to nod and agree and say that of course he was proud of his wife, but he couldn’t do it.

“I’ll do what needs to be done,” he said instead, and knew that he’d disappointed his mother.

How many more people would he let down before this was over?

*



Michael spent the weekend watching his life as if from a distance. Betsy alternated between being blazingly pissed off and desperately clingy. Lulu was so confused she became overwrought and cried at everything. Michael couldn’t bear any of it, could hardly look at the pain in his daughters’ eyes, but Jolene was a warrior, as strong as tested steel. He saw how carefully she treated the girls, how tenderly. It was only when they weren’t looking that her pain was revealed; tears welled in her green eyes, and when they did she turned away quickly, dashing the moisture away with the back of her hand.

An hour ago, she’d put them to bed. God forgive him, but Michael had let her do it alone.

Now he was in the family room, standing in front of the fireplace. Bright orange and blue flames danced across a tepee of logs, sending off waves of heat, and yet still he was cold. Frozen, really.

He glanced through the kitchen. In the window above the sink, he could see moonlight skating across the bay.

“They’re asleep,” Jolene said, coming into the room. “We can talk now.”

Michael wanted to say no, I don’t want to talk, not about this, not yet, not anymore. He knew it was selfish of him, and small, but it pissed him off to be left here as Mr. Mom. Not that he could tell anyone this. He’d look like an asshole if he admitted that he didn’t want this job that had fallen in his lap, didn’t know if he could even do it. How was he supposed to manage a sixteen-person legal firm, defend his clients, and handle the day-to-day minutiae that came with raising two kids? Carpool. Field trips. Meals. Laundry. Homework.