Home Front(98)

“Looks like soldier girl is trying to do everything all by herself. I thought we talked about that.”

Conny crossed the parking lot and came toward them, his dreadlocks swinging. As he moved, he retied them in a ponytail.

“Hey,” Jolene said when he stopped beside her.

“You sneaking out on me? I stayed late to say good-bye.”

“It’s not good-bye.” She looked up, afraid suddenly to leave him, afraid to go home, where everything that she’d lost would be so apparent. With Conny, effort was enough; at home, the expectations would be higher.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be seeing you three days a week.”

She nodded, tilting her chin up. He knew how badly she wanted to be the mother she’d once been, the woman she’d once been—and he knew, too, how scared she was that she would fail. They had talked and talked about it. Or rather, he had talked and she had listened.

He squatted down beside her, his knees popping in protest at the movement. “Everyone is scared to go home,” he said softly, so that Michael couldn’t hear. “It’s safe here.”

He reached out for her left hand, held it in his dark baseball mitt of a hand. “Don’t tell me you’re not tough enough for what comes next, soldier girl, ’cause I know better. It’s a new beginning, that’s all.”

It was true. She was tough enough. She always had been, from the moment she’d realized that her parents were unreliable. She’d learned to take care of herself. If she could survive her parents’ deaths and Michael falling out of love with her and losing her leg and Smitty dying, she could handle going home … she could love her babies again and be a new version of herself.

She swallowed hard. “By this time next week I’ll be playing lacrosse.”

Conny grinned. “That’s my girl.” He patted her hand and stood up. “Ten o’clock tomorrow. Don’t be late.”

“She won’t be,” Michael said.

“Michael,” Conny said. “Here’s how you help our girl get into the car.”

Jolene let Conny help her to a stand and then she pivoted on her foot and backed into the passenger seat with Conny’s hand steadying her. She couldn’t help noticing how her half leg stuck forward when she was seated.

Conny patted her shoulder one last time and closed the door.

Then it was just she and Michael, sitting in a car together. She didn’t want to remember the look on his face in the parking lot, when it had been time to touch her, but what else could she think of?

He made small talk all the way home. She nodded and made listening sounds and stared out the window.

The familiarity of the landscape sucked her in, reminded her of the life they’d shared in the shadow of these magnificent mountains; when they turned into their driveway and the headlights shone on their white fence, she thought: I’m home, and for a split second the joy of that was pure and sweet and intoxicating. She forgot about her leg and her husband and her lost crewman and comatose best friend; she thought how lucky she was to be here at all. She still had what mattered most to her in the world: her daughters. And now, finally, she would be Mommy again.

There, just next door, was Tami’s house. You should be there, Tam, she thought sadly.

As they drove up to the garage, the security light came on in a burst of brightness—

And she was in the helicopter suddenly, turning back around to look at Smitty. All she could see was the gaping, smoking hole in his chest and the flatness of death in his eyes …

“Jo? Jo?”

She snapped back to the moment and found that she was shaking. Swallowing hard, she clasped her hands together to still them. A banner hung across the front door—WELCOME HOME TO OUR HERO!

Hero. Heroes brought their people home.

She knew then she was in trouble.

“Jo?”

“I’m fine,” she said woodenly. “The banner is great.”

“They worked really hard on it.”

Michael pulled into the garage and parked; the overhead light came on. He went to the trunk of the car and wrestled her wheelchair to the ground and brought it to her side, then opened the door.

He looked at her and frowned. “Are you okay?”

No, she wanted to say, but she didn’t know how, and she wouldn’t have said it to him anyway. She gripped the car frame and pivoted on her butt, so that her legs were facing out. Michael moved in awkwardly, looked at her, and then slid his hand beneath her, anchoring her, helping her into the wheelchair. For that moment when he was in control of her body, she felt unsteady, but she made it.

He wheeled her into the house.

“She’s home!” Lulu shrieked, running down the stairs. Mila and Betsy came down behind her.

“You’re here, you’re here!” Lulu said, dancing. “Did you see the stuff we made for you? Betsy? Let’s show her the stuff we made for her. Are you hungry, Mommy?”

Jolene gripped the rubberized handles of the wheelchair, tried to slow her racing heart. What was wrong with her? She wanted to be here, wanted it with every molecule in her body, and yet …

“She looks weird,” Betsy said, crossing her arms. “What’s wrong with her?”

Lulu walked up to her, cocking her head. “You care about all the stuff we did, don’t you, Mommy?”