Home Front(95)

Pain pushed back.

Focus, Jo.

She loosened her grip on the bar until she had let go completely. She put all her weight on the prosthesis, ignored the pain that shot up her thigh and lodged in her hip like a hot knife blade, and took another step. It took forever but she walked all by herself to the end of the bars. When she finally looked up, sweating and red-faced and breathing hard, she saw Conny smiling at her.

“You know what this means, soldier girl?”

She wiped the sweat from her eyes, still breathing hard. “What?”

“It means she’s going home soon,” Michael answered.

Jolene glanced to the left and saw her husband standing by the wall, smiling. That was all it took, a look, a tiny adjustment to her balance, and she stumbled. Pain exploded up her right side.

Conny was beside her instantly, catching her before she hit the ground. She bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood.

“I’m tired. Can I go back to my room?”

“Sure.” Connie started to reach for the wheelchair.

“I’ll walk,” she said.

“I don’t know, Jolene, that’s—”

“She’ll walk,” Michael said, coming up beside her. His gaze was steady on her face. “She can lean on me.”

He gave her one of his old smiles, and she was surprised by how deeply it affected her. She realized all at once how much she’d missed it, missed him.

He moved in beside her, slipped an arm around her waist. His hand pressed against her hip bone, holding her steady. She felt his breath against her lips, her cheeks.

“Don’t let me fall,” she said.

“I won’t.”

She nodded and took a deep breath. Staring at the open door, she gritted her teeth and began to move like Quasimodo: step, limp, drag; step, limp, drag.

She made it one step at a time, to the door, through the door, down the hall. By the time she reached her room, the pain in her leg was unbearable.

She was so tired, she let Michael help her into bed. Neither one of them knew how to remove the prosthesis, so they just covered it with the blanket. She was pretty sure blisters were forming down there, bubbling up and oozing, and she felt no rush to look.

“You’re back,” Michael said.

She’d been thinking about the pain of her forming blisters so deeply she’d almost forgotten he was there. “What?”

“Back there, I saw the woman who could run a marathon on a high-tech leg.”

“That woman is gone, Michael,” she said.

The look in his eyes was sad. It spoke volumes about who they’d been and who’d they’d become. “I should have told her I loved her, before she went off to war.”

“Yeah,” she said hoarsely. “That would have been nice.”





Twenty-Two



Jolene woke up screaming, drenched in sweat, shaking hard.

Falling back into the pillows, she worked to slow her breathing. They were killing her, these nightmares. She tried not to fall asleep anymore, but sooner or later, it crept up on her, and the nightmares were always there, waiting for her in the dark. Every morning she woke up feeling drained, already exhausted. Her first thought was always Tami.

She stared out her one small window; that was her view now. Her world had shrunk to a single room and a three-by-three-foot sheet of glass that looked out on a tree that was losing its leaves.

From her cockpit, she had seen forever … and now she needed help to go to the bathroom.

It was demoralizing. As hard as she tried to be positive, she was irritated and shrewish when the aide finally came in to help her.

“I hear it’s a big day for you today,” the woman—Gloria—said, pushing a wheelchair into the room.

“Yeah,” Jolene said, unsmiling. “I’m getting my cast off.”

“I thought you were going home.”

Jolene thought again: What’s wrong with me? “Oh. That, too.”

Gloria helped Jolene out of bed and into the wheelchair. Talking all the while about something—Jolene couldn’t concentrate on the words—the woman wheeled her into the bathroom, helped her pull her pants down and sit on the toilet seat.

“Do you need help wiping?” Gloria asked in the same voice you’d say, Would you like fries with that? Perky. Cheerful.

“No. I’m left-handed. Thanks. Maybe a few minutes of privacy?”

“Of course.” Gloria left the bathroom and closed the door behind her, but not all the way. A slice of air showed through.

It took Jolene a long time to empty her bladder—nothing seemed to work as well these days. When she was finished, she was actually winded. And she still had dressing and hair combing and teeth brushing to accomplish. It tired her out just thinking about it.

“Are we done?” Gloria asked.

“I’m done,” Jolene said, striving not to sound irritated.

She was getting upset. It didn’t take Sigmund Freud to guess why.

She was scared to have her cast removed.

With the cast on her arm, there was hope. She could look down at it and think that within that plaster casing, the nerves in her hand were mending, growing strong. But today she would know for sure. Was she a woman with two good hands or just one?

She let Gloria help her back into the wheelchair, as humiliating as it was.