Home Front(69)

Michael nodded. He didn’t have the strength to speak, not even to say thank you. He stood there in the doorway, watching the captain walk down the driveway, his back ramrod straight, his hat fixed firmly on his head, his arms at his sides.

Time fell away from Michael. One minute he was standing there, watching a soldier walk to his car, and the next minute he was alone, standing in the cold of an open doorway, staring at a yard that was slowly growing dark.

In his career, he’d heard dozens of victims and defendants say I don’t remember what I did … and I just snapped, my mind went blank.

He knew now how that felt, how a mind could simply shut down, stop working.

Slowly, he closed the door and returned to the warmth of his kitchen. All he could hear was his own heartbeat, his own breathing, and those words, over and over and over again.

Shot down.

She could be dying right now … all alone …

He closed his eyes, imagining it for a moment, the loss of her, the funeral, the words, the feelings. As much as it pained him, he couldn’t stop. He wanted this pain; he’d earned it, and how would he survive the worst if he wasn’t ready?

The problem was, he didn’t know the worst, couldn’t identify it. There was telling the children, raising them without her, failing at it, stumbling; there was standing in front of their friends—a widower who had let his wife go to war on a tide of bad words, broken promises; there was coming home without her and learning to sleep alone.

Missing her.

That would be the worst. How was it he hadn’t thought of all of this when he’d so foolishly said I don’t love you anymore? Then, he’d thought of the worst of who they’d become. She’d seemed to him to have grown so big and so small at the same time—the lynchpin of his existence in an irritating way. He’d resented her strength, her independence. He’d wanted to be needed by her, even though he knew he was unreliable. He’d blamed her for his unhappiness, when all along he had been the one to let go of what mattered.

And now maybe he would have to live without her. The idea was overwhelming. He could consider the symptoms—the talks, the responsibilities, the public moments—but the real truth of it, the imagining of a life going on with no heartbeat, was more than he could bear.

He stumbled over to the kitchen counter and picked up the cordless phone. It took him three tries to dial his mother’s number—his fingers were shaking so badly he kept hitting the wrong numbers. When his mother answered, sounding breathless and happy to hear from him, pain rushed in, tightened Michael’s throat until he could hardly speak.

“Hey, Michael. It’s good to hear from you. I’m just unpacking some boxes at the store. Are we still on for—”

“Jolene,” he said, his eyes stinging.

“Michael?” his mother said slowly. “What is it?”

He leaned forward, rested his head on the kitchen wall (papered in sunny yellow, shouldn’t a kitchen be sunny, Michael? It’s the heart of a home). He couldn’t see anything now. “Jo’s been shot down. She’s alive—on her way to a hospital in Germany.”

He heard his mother’s indrawn breath. “Oh, my God. How—”

“That’s all I know, Mom.”

“Oh, kardia mou, I am so sorry…”

The endearment, spoken so softly, cracked his composure. He drew in a great, shuddering breath, and then he was crying as he’d never cried before, not even at his father’s death. He thought of Jolene, smiling, laughing, sweeping their daughters into her strong arms, twirling them around, and putting her arms around him, holding him close at night.

He cried until he felt empty inside, hollow, and then, slowly, he straightened, wiped his eyes. His mother was still talking, saying something … her voice droned on, but he couldn’t listen. There was nothing to comfort him now. “Give me a little time, Ma. A couple of hours to tell the girls,” he said.

She was still talking when he hung up.

He leaned over the kitchen sink, thinking for a second that he might vomit. He’d done that before at bad news—when they told him his father’s cancer had metastasized. He swallowed thickly, trying to calm his heart rate by force of will. She could die. The silver drain blurred before his eyes, and fresh tears formed, burned, fell down his cheeks, splashing on the white porcelain.

How long was he there, bent over, crying into the sink?

When he could breathe again, he dried his face and forced his spine to straighten. Moving slowly, he went through the house, up the stairs. Every riser he took was a triumph, like bicycling up the Rockies. By the time he reached Betsy’s door, he was breathing hard, sweating.

He paused at the door, wishing more than anything that he didn’t have to tell them this … Then he went inside, remembering a second too late that he was supposed to knock, that adolescent girls demanded privacy.

They were on the bed together, watching the videotape of Jolene reading a bedtime story.

Michael wanted to stop right there, on the threshold to his daughter’s room, and turn around. They wouldn’t be the same after he gave them this news. They’d know, from now on, that bad things could happen, and they could happen fast, while you weren’t even paying attention. Helicopters could be shot down. Mothers could be hurt … and worse.

He actually stumbled.