Home Front(91)

She wanted it to be true, wanted it so badly she felt sick with longing. But she was broken now, and Michael had always had a keen sense of duty. It was one of the things they’d shared. He wouldn’t let himself walk away from his wounded wife, no matter how much he wanted to.

“We’re back, Mommy,” Lulu said, coming back into the room with Conny. “And Conny says we get to play catch!”

Jolene drew in a tired breath. She wanted to say, Really? With one hand? Won’t it be more like fetch? but she didn’t. Keeping silent felt like a minor triumph. She managed a small, hopeful smile. “Okay, Lulu,” she said. “I love playing catch. So let’s get started.”

*



Michael stood by Jolene’s bedside.

She had fallen asleep almost immediately after her PT session. He was hardly surprised. She must be exhausted. Today he’d seen the woman who flew helicopters. The warrior.

He stared down at her scabby, bruised face. Always, from the beginning even, when she’d come into his office that first day, he’d seen Jolene as a powerhouse, a woman with steel in her spine.

He saw her vulnerability now. Maybe for the first time ever she needed him. It surprised him how much that meant to him, how much he wanted to be there for her.

He touched her face gently. “Have I lost you, Jo?” he whispered.

He heard Lulu’s helium-high voice in the hallway, and he turned, realizing too late that he had tears in his eyes. He wiped them away as Lulu said, “Look, Daddy, we have ice cream.”

Smiling as best he could, he turned again to his wife, kissed her cheek, and lingered there just a second. Then he straightened and walked away, leading his girls toward the car. All the way home—on the long ferry wait and crossing—Lulu chattered. She wanted a wheelchair of her own.

As they turned onto the bay road, Lulu started singing and clapping her hands together; then she started pretending she was playing patty-cake with her mother. “Help me make one up, Betsy, like Mommy does. Patty-cake, patty-cake—”

“She only has one good hand now,” Betsy snapped. “How do you think she’s going to play patty-cake with you?”

Lulu gasped. “Is that true, Daddy? Tell her to shut up. They’ll take off the cast and Mommy will be fine, right?”

Michael pulled the car into the garage and parked next to Jolene’s SUV. “Leave each other alone.”

Lulu wailed.

Betsy bolted from the car and ran out of the garage, slamming the door behind her.

“Great.” Michael unhooked Lulu from her car seat and pulled her into his arms.

In the house, she immediately wiggled out of his grasp and ran upstairs, probably to torment her sister.

Michael went to the kitchen, poured himself a drink, and stood by the counter, drinking it, gathering strength for what was to come. When he finished the drink, he set down the glass and headed upstairs.

He knocked on Betsy’s door. “Betsy, it’s Dad. Can I come in?”

She waited almost too long, then muttered, “Whatever.”

A phrase he’d come to loathe.

Inside the room, Betsy stood with her back to him, at her window, woodenly rearranging her plastic horses. He didn’t need Cornflower to tell him that it was a desperate attempt to create order from chaos.

“She’s in pain, Betsy,” he said.

She went still. Her hand hovered above a black-and-white pinto, her fingers trembling. “She’s different.”

He went to her, took her hand, and led her to the bed, where they sat side by side. “It’s okay to be afraid.”

“But it’s her fault. She picked the army—”

“Betsy, honey—”

“Sierra’s dad says it’s Mom’s fault. He says women shouldn’t be flying helicopters in wartime anyway. If she hadn’t been flying, none of this would have happened. I told her I wouldn’t forgive her … and I can’t.”

Michael sighed. “Sierra’s dad is a dick who doesn’t know shit. And you can tell him I said so.”

“I’m scared, Dad.”

“Yeah,” he said, putting an arm around her. “Me, too.”

Then the door burst open and Lulu stood there, frowning furiously. “There you are. Were you hiding from me?”

Betsy turned, sniffling. “I’m sorry I was mean to you, Lulu.”

Lulu grinned, showing off her tiny teeth and bright pink gums. “I know, silly,” she said. “Can we play patty-cake now?”





Twenty-One



Yesterday, Jolene had worked harder than she’d ever worked in her life—army-ranger training hard—and for what? So that she could sit upright in a chair, to stretch a leg that wasn’t there, to hold a rubber ball with fingers that barely worked.

Now, she lay in bed, too exhausted and depressed to reach for the trapeze and pull herself to a sit. How pathetic was that? She called Carl at the hospital in Germany, but he didn’t answer the phone. She left a message and hung up.

Tami, girl, where are you? Why aren’t we going through this shit together?

There was a knock at her door, and she knew who it was. Conny the dreadlocked torturer. She didn’t open her eyes.

“I know you aren’t sleeping,” he said, coming into the room.