Home Front(8)

“Hey, Jo. I’m sorry I’m late.”

“Late was an hour ago, Michael. What happened?”

“I’m sorry. What can I say? I got into work and forgot.”

“You forgot,” she said, wishing it didn’t hurt.

“I’ll make it up to you.”

She almost said how? but what was the point? Why make it worse? He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. “Okay.”

“I’ll try to get home quickly, but…”

Jolene was glad they were on the phone; at least she didn’t have to smile. The thought came to her that he hadn’t been trying hard enough lately, that his family—and his wife—seemed not to matter to him. And yet she still loved him as deeply as the day he’d first kissed her, all those years ago.

Time, she thought. It will be okay next week or next month. He was still grieving over the loss of his father. She just needed to be understanding.

“Happy birthday,” he said.

“Thanks.” She hung up the phone and sat down at the kitchen table. In the shadowy room, decorated with her family photos and mementos and the furniture she had salvaged and restored herself, she felt alone suddenly. All dressed up, sitting in this darkened room. Lonely.

Then there was a knock at the door. Before Jolene even stood up, the kitchen door opened. Tami walked into the house, holding a bottle of champagne. “You’re alone,” she said quietly.

“He got caught up at work,” Jolene said.

“I was afraid of that.” Sadness passed through Tami’s eyes, and Jolene hated how it made her feel. Then Tami smiled. “Well. It’s no good to turn forty-one without an audience,” she said, kicking the door shut behind her. “Besides, I’m dying to know if you’ll start wrinkling up right in front of me, like Gary Oldman in Dracula.”

“I am not going to start wrinkling up.”

“You never know.”

“Champagne?” Jolene said, arching one eyebrow.

“That’s for me. I don’t have alcoholic parents. You can guzzle soda water, as usual.”

Tami popped the champagne bottle effortlessly, poured herself a glass and headed into the family room, where she plopped down on the overstuffed sofa and raised a glass. “To you, my rapidly aging best friend.”

Jolene followed Tami into the family room. “You’re only a few months younger than I am.”

“We Native Americans don’t age. It’s a scientific fact. Look at my mom. She still gets carded.”

Jolene sat down in an overstuffed chair and curled her bare feet up underneath her.

They looked at each other. What swirled between them then, floating like champagne bubbles, were memories of other nights like this, meals Michael had missed, events he’d been too busy to attend. Jolene often told people, especially Tami, how proud she was of her brilliant, successful husband, and it was all true, but lately he seemed unhappy. His father’s death had capsized him. She knew how unhappy he was, she just didn’t know how to help.

“It must hurt your feelings,” Tami said.

“It hurts,” Jolene said quietly.

“You should talk to him about it, tell him how you feel.”

“What’s the point? Why make him feel worse than he already does? Shit happens, Tami. You know Michael’s work ethic. It’s one of the things I love about him. He never walks away from responsibility.”

“Unless it’s a family obligation,” Tami said softly.

“He’s just really busy right now. Since his father’s death…”

“I know,” Tami said, “and you two don’t talk about that, either. In fact, you don’t talk.”

“We talk.”

Tami gave her an assessing look. “Marriages go through hard times. Sometimes you have to get in there and fight for your love. That’s the only way for it to get better.”

Jolene couldn’t help thinking of her parents, and the way her mother had fought for a man’s love … and never gotten it. “Look, Tami. Michael and I are fine. We love each other. Now, can we please, please talk about something else?”

Tami lifted her half-full glass. “To you, my friend. You look fabulous for being so freakishly old.”

“I look fabulous, period.”

Tami laughed at that and launched into a funny story about her family.

It was ten forty before they knew it, and Tami put her empty glass down on the table. “I have to get home. I told Carl I’d be home for Letterman.”

Jolene got to her feet. “Thanks for coming, Tam. I needed it.”

Tami hugged her fiercely. Together, they walked to the back door.

Jolene watched her friend cut across the driveway and head toward the adjoining property. At last, she closed the door.

In the quiet, she was alone with her thoughts, and she didn’t like their company.

*



It was midnight when Michael pulled into the garage and parked next to Jolene’s SUV. On the seat beside him lay a dozen pink roses bound in cellophane. He’d been on the ferry, already on his way home, when he remembered that Jolene preferred red roses. Of course. Soft and girly wasn’t her style, never had been, not even on that first, sad day when she walked into his life.

She’d been seventeen. A kid, dressed in thrift-store clothes, with her long blond hair a mess and her beautiful green eyes puffy from crying, and yet, with all of that, she’d walked into the legal-aid office with her back straight, clutching a ratty vinyl purse. He’d been an intern then, in his first year of law school.