Home Front(58)

Jolene had often said she’d chosen this photo to begin her life’s trail because it was so representative: her mother was missing and her dad was leaving. He’d seen this picture lots of times, but now he really looked at it, saw how sharp she looked, how thin. Her hair looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb in weeks, and the loss in her eyes was wrenching. She was watching the man walk away. Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

“She’s about fifteen here. Not much older than you, Bets.”

“She looks sad,” Betsy said.

“That’s cuz we aren’t borned yet,” Lulu said, repeating what Jolene always said about this photograph.

Michael turned the pages slowly, taking his girls on a journey down the road of Jolene’s life. There were pictures of Jolene in her army uniform, seated in a chopper, out playing Frisbee. In each successive photograph, she looked taller, stronger, but it wasn’t until their wedding picture that he saw her, the woman with whom he’d fallen in love. She’d smiled and cried through the ceremony, and told him it was the happiest day of her life.

Our lives, he’d said, kissing her. We will always be in love like this, Jo.

Of course we will, she’d said, laughing, and they’d believed it for years and years, until … they hadn’t. No, until he hadn’t.

“She looks pretty,” Lulu said.

He knew all that Jolene had lost in her life, and the things she’d never had and the things she’d overcome, and yet in all of these pictures, she looked incredibly happy. He’d made her happy; that was something he’d always known. What he’d forgotten was how happy she’d made him.

“When is she coming home?” Lulu asked. “Tomorrow?”

“November,” Betsy said with a sigh. “For just two weeks.”

“Oh.” Lulu made a small, squeaking sound. “Will I be five by then?”

“Yep,” Betsy said. “But she won’t be here for your birthday.”

Before Lulu could start crying, Michael got up and put a tape in the TV. Since Jolene’s deployment, the girls had obsessively watched the “good-bye reels,” as he liked to call them—the tapes she’d made for each of the girls. But they hadn’t seen this one in years.

He hit Play and the movie started. The first scene was Jolene, bleary-eyed, holding a baby girl who was no bigger than a half gallon of milk. “Say hi to your fans, little Elizabeth. Or will you be Betsy? Michael? Does she look like a Betsy to you…”

Now Betsy was walking for the first time, wobbling forward, laughing as she plopped over … Jolene was clapping and crying, saying, “Look, Michael, don’t miss this…”

Twelve years of his life, passing in forty-two minutes of tape.

He hit Stop.

There she was, his Jo. Her beautiful face was distorted, pixellated by the stop-motion, but even through the grainy, muted colors, he saw the power of her smile.

He saw the whole of his life in her eyes, all his dreams and hopes and fears.

I don’t love you anymore.

How could he have said that to her? How could he have been so cavalier with their life, with the commitment they’d made?

He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but time and distance separated them now. Whatever he had to say, it would have to wait until November. Would she even want to listen?

“Let’s go shopping tomorrow and send her a care package,” Betsy said.

“Yay!” Lulu said, clapping her hands.

Michael nodded, saying nothing, hoping they didn’t see the tears in his eyes.

*



Strapped in place and weighed down by the thirty pounds of Kevlar plating in her vest, Jolene piloted the Black Hawk toward Baghdad. Sweat collected under her helmet, dampened her hair, ran down the back of her neck. Her skin was flushed; she had a little trouble breathing. Inside the gloves, her hands were slick and damp. Even with the helicopter’s doors open, it was a damn oven in here. The water in her bottle was at least 122 degrees—hardly refreshing. Tami was in the right seat.

They flew a combat spread formation, three helicopters strong, hurtling through the darkening sky. Below, the confusing sprawl of Baghdad fanned out on all sides.

“Blue rain … blue rain…” came the other pilot’s voice through the radio.

It meant that the zone into which they were flying was hot, inhospitable. It could be anything—mortar fire, a missile, an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade), a gunfight of some kind.

Jolene said on comm, “Raptor eight-nine veering east. ETA to Green Zone, four minutes.”

She moved the cyclic; the helicopter responded instantly to her touch, dropping its nose, picking up speed, hurtling forward.

Ra-ta-ta-tat. Bullets hit the helicopter in a spray. The sound was so loud that even wearing a helmet and earbuds, Jolene flinched.

“We’re taking fire,” Tami said sharply.

“Hang on,” Jolene said, banking a hard left turn.

She heard the tink-tink-tink of machine gun fire hitting her aircraft. One first, then a splatter of hits, close together, sounding like a hard rain on tin. Smoke filled the helicopter.

“There,” Tami said. “Three o’clock.”

A group of insurgents was on a rooftop below, firing. A machine gun set on a tripod spit yellow fire.

Jolene banked left again. As she made the turn, the helicopter to her right exploded. Bits of burning metal hit the side of Jolene’s aircraft. Heat billowed inside, and the aftermath rocked them from side to side.