Home Front(53)

He went back inside. “Hey, Lulu,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Want to help me find our flag?”





Twelve



Dear Mom:



I had the best weekend EVER! You won’t believe what happened. I’ll start at the beginning. First, I got my phone—you remember that—and Sierra thought it was so cool and we sat together. Then she talked to me in PE, and THEN she got in a fight with Zoe because Zoe like, totally, lied to her about what Jimmy said about her. So Sierra is my friend again! Last week we went to the mall together and saw War of the Worlds, which was so cool.



And guess what? Zoe was there and we didn’t even talk to her.



Dad says Sierra and me can go to kayaking camp together in July. Cool, huh?



Anyway, that’s everything. Things are okay here.



Lulu doesn’t think she’s invisible all the time anymore, so that’s good. We made Daddy put up a flag.



Well, I gotta go. Dad is ordering pizza for dinner again and I want pineapple on it. Be careful, Mom.



Love, B.





P.S.: Sierra wants to know if you’ve shot anybody yet. Have you?





Dear Betsy:



Wow. That’s a lot of news! I am so glad to hear about you and Sierra working on your friendship. You two have been friends for a long time, and those relationships are important. BUT I want you to be careful, too. I haven’t forgotten about Sierra’s thing with the cigarettes, and honestly, I think she can be kind of a mean girl sometimes. Be careful.



Also, you should think about how it felt when Sierra and Zoe froze you out. Do you really want to be the kind of person who treats someone like that, who hurts a girl’s feelings for sport? Be nice to Zoe. Be the kind of girl I know you can be.



Glad you’re having a fun summer already, though. I wish I were there. I sure do miss you guys.



And don’t worry about me. I know you saw that report on CNN, but I’m fine. It’s dangerous over here, that’s true. But mostly, Tami and I are flying way away from the bad areas. We fly a bunch of VIPs around, and supplies. You don’t need to worry about me. Honest.



Love you to the moon and back. Mom





P.S. Tell your dad enough pizza! And no, I haven’t shot anyone. Did Sierra really ask you that?





JULY 2005



I once read a Stephen King book that used the term SSDD. Same shit, different day. That’s pretty much what the last month in Iraq has been. Day after day of rising at 0 dark thirty, getting mission orders, checking my aircraft, and flying out.



Today I was on duty for more than fourteen hours all together. Honestly, Tami and I are so tired most of the time that we hardly talk before we fall asleep. The heat and dust are unbearable. It’s over 125 degrees most days, and when you consider that I’m wearing a helmet, gloves, and Kevlar. Well, the way I smell after a mission cannot be good.



We’ve been flying at night a lot, and that’s better, at least with regard to the heat. Sometimes we’re supporting the medevac guys, and I have to say, that’s no easy job. I can’t get the images out of my mind—soldiers blown apart, bleeding, screaming for help.



Only yesterday, I ended up sitting with a kid outside one of the hospital tents. He was young—no more than twenty-five—and I knew he wasn’t going to make it. I’m no doctor, and even now I can’t describe his wounds, they were too horrific. I knew, that’s all. Anyway, I held his hand and listened to him talk, and mostly what he kept saying was “tell my wife I love her.” I told him I would, and I’ll write her a letter—what else can I do? But when I left him, when he died, and I was standing there, listening to the war going on and the doctors yelling and a helicopter landing somewhere close by, I thought: What would I say at the end like that? Of course I’d be thinking about my children, whom I love more than the world, but what about Michael? I know he doesn’t love me anymore—if words hadn’t been enough to prove it, the lack of letters since I went away certainly make his position clear—but do I still love him?



The truth is, at the end, I’d be reaching for him. I know I would. Reaching out for a man who no longer wants to be there.



Just like my mother.



*



By late July, Michael and the girls had settled into a manageable routine. This week, Betsy was away at a weeklong summer camp on Orcas Island, where she was learning to kayak; Lulu was spending the weekend with her grandmother. Last he’d heard, they were making stuff out of dry macaroni.

Without them, the house was quiet. Maybe too quiet.

It was growing late; night was beginning to fall. After a long day at the office, Michael had come home, eaten a bowl of Raisin Bran, and then gone back to work. He’d finally received a copy of Keith Keller’s military records, and he had the documents laid out on his kitchen table, alongside interview transcripts. In the past week he’d spoken with Ed and his wife, as well as Dr. Cornflower. There was also a list of prospective witnesses, military and civilian.

By all accounts, Keith had been an ordinary small-town boy before he went off to war. He’d won local scholarships and hit home runs and graduated from high school. He’d fallen in love, almost literally, with the girl next door. They’d had a country club wedding, complete with DJ and no-host bar, and gone to Honolulu for their honeymoon.