A Hero to Come Home To (24 page)

A gasp tried to escape her, but the tightness of her throat strangled it into nothing more than a small sound. It was too early to pack away Jeff’s things.

It had been twenty-six months.

But he’d left them in the closet, right where he wanted them.

And he wasn’t coming back. He had no need of them. And it didn’t matter whether the clothes stayed in the closet.
He
was in her heart and always would be.

She was wiggling an orange tub from the stack when a thought occurred to her: Had this idea suddenly come into her head because it was time…or because of Dane?

She yanked hard on the tub, and it popped out, sending the rest of the stack tumbling to the floor. When she whirled around, she hit the pile of lids and they fell, too, scattering across the tile.

“And here I thought I was the only one who created messes like this in public.” Ilena pushed her cart out of the way among racks of sales clothes, then bent to pick up a few lids. “Thank you for assuring me I’m not the only klutz in the world.”

“Happy to serve.” Carly picked up the rest, balancing four tubs and lids on her shopping cart before straightening the rest. “Why aren’t you at work? Are you and Hector okay?”

Ilena patted her stomach. “We’re fine. Dr. Madill just said so.” She wiggled her fingers in the direction of Carly’s cart. “Easter shopping. What fun. I’m spending this Easter with Juan’s family in Broken Arrow. They color about ten dozen eggs. Of course, they have five dozen grandchildren.”

An exaggeration, Carly knew, though she did remember some mention of Juan’s eight siblings and more than twenty grandkids. Quite a change for only-child Ilena.

Ilena eyed the bins. “Doing a little spring cleaning?”

“I, uh, I’m packing up Jeff’s uniforms. Maybe. I think. Soon.” Her voice trembled on the last few words. “Do you think it’s too soon?”

Ilena’s smile was tinged with sadness. “We all have to figure out what our own ‘too soon’ is. I gave Juan’s uniforms to his brother who’s in the Army about a month after the service, and his other brothers and nephews took the rest of his clothes. My mother said it was too early, but like Juan’s mom said, he doesn’t need them anymore.”

Carly had still been pretty much nonfunctioning a month after Jeff’s funeral. She’d barely been able to dress herself. Dealing with his clothing would have been impossible.

“It depends on what brings you comfort, Carly. I have a friend whose husband died in 2004. She’s still got his stuff everywhere. Marti’s and Lucy’s husbands died together, and Marti still has Joshua’s things while Lucy cleaned out Mike’s on the first anniversary of his death.” Ilena shrugged. “You do it when it feels right for you, not because someone else thinks it’s right.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “Is Dane pushing you?”

“No. Oh, no. He’s never mentioned…He understands…”
Any time you want to talk, I don’t mind listening,
he’d told her. He would never pressure her. She was sure of that. “I just thought…it occurred to me…” She blew out her breath, then combed her hair back. “I’m dating another man. Maybe it’s time.” Self-consciously she twisted her wedding band. “It’s not like I’m sleeping with one of Jeff’s shirts or—or standing in the closet with my face buried in his coat. The clothes are there, just like the furniture and the light fixtures. I don’t need them to remember him.”

Ilena clasped Carly’s hands in hers, stilling the ring-twisting. “I kept some of Juan’s stuff—his dress uniform, a couple of his favorite shirts, a pair of the god-awful holey socks that he wouldn’t let me throw away. And you know what, Carly? Giving away the rest didn’t make a big difference. It didn’t make me miss him any less or any more. It didn’t make the house seem any less empty. There wasn’t any closure, but there haven’t been any regrets, either.”

Regrets.
Carly echoed the word silently after saying good-bye to Ilena and continuing to the aisle that contained shipping material. She had plenty of sorrows, but not many regrets. Other than putting off having a baby, she wouldn’t change anything she’d done.

She finished her shopping, checked out, then battled the afternoon wind across the parking lot to the car. One thing she could say for Oklahoma: no matter how hot it got, there was usually a breeze. Unfortunately, that went for no matter how cold it got, too.

At home she carried the storage tubs into the guest room, then spent the next hour divvying the Easter goodies, signing cards, stuffing pastel gift bags, and packing them into shipping boxes. Tomorrow after work, she would mail them to Lisa, letting her play Easter Bunny on the big day.

That done, she stood at the kitchen table a long time before slowly walking down the hall to the guest room. It wasn’t particularly inviting: a small room with two windows facing the street and a closet behind louvered doors. The walls and ceiling were white, dingy after so many years without touch-ups. The double bed was inexpensive, the night tables hand-me-downs from Jeff’s uncle. Only one thing hung on the wall, a needlepoint Mia had given them, and a plain spread in pale blue covered the bed.

The bright orange tubs popped against such drabness.

She opened the closet doors, clasped her hands and stared at the uniforms. Old fatigues in woodland green and desert camouflage and newer digitized ACUs hung next to Class B and dress uniforms. Pushed to one end by itself hung Jeff’s dress blue uniform that he’d worn for their wedding. She fingered the material, remembering how handsome and impressive and
happy
he’d been that day. He’d never had a moment’s nervousness or doubt, no last-minute jitters.

He’d been that certain about everything—even going to war. He’d been so positive everything would turn out just fine that she had, too.

She’d just never thought that
fine
could mean his dying. Granted, he was in heaven with God. That was about as
fine
as life could be for him. But for her…

She was doing okay. She was healthy and hopeful and falling in love again. She was way better than okay.

Carefully she closed the louvered doors, turned off the light and left the room and the house, heading for The Three Amigos. This time she wasn’t first to arrive. Fia sat at the table, her back to the wall, eyes closed, head down. Carly slipped into the chair beside her and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Hey, kiddo.”

Fia was smiling when she looked up, but the lines of fatigue etched at the corners of her mouth and around her eyes lessened the impact. “Hey yourself. How are you?”

“Good,” Carly said. And she truly meant it. “How about you?”

Fia’s smile weakened as she straightened her shoulders, then shoved her hands through her hair. “I’ve been better.” Quickly, though, she went on. “I just have a headache, and my shoulder’s sore. It’s nothing. It’ll go away.”

For a personal trainer who could outrun, outlift, and outlast just about everyone, Fia had had some tough days in the past month, Carly reflected. She’d always been slender—body fat around 18 percent—but this evening she was looking a little gaunt. The healthy glow to her skin was gone, and there was a faint tremor in her hand when she picked up her margarita.

“When’s the last time you had a checkup?”

Fia’s laugh sounded as genuine as ever. “Don’t worry, Mom. I saw the doctor last week, and he said there’s nothing to worry about. I’ve just had a run of bad luck with pulled muscles. That happens to active people, you know.”

“Actually, I’d—”

Fia chimed in. “You don’t.”

They both laughed. “What can I say? If God had intended me to be athletic, He wouldn’t have birthed me into a family of scientists. My family would never set foot outdoors if it wasn’t necessary to get to their labs.”

They chatted until the rest of the group drifted in, two and three at a time. Once everyone had arrived and their dinners had been ordered, Marti called for attention. “Don’t forget Lucy’s birthday dinner this Saturday at KariOkie. We’ll be leaving here at five thirty. I’ll drive, and if we have more than my truck can hold, Therese will take her van, too.”

Jessy raised her hand. “I’ve slept since we decided this. Refresh my memory. It’s a karaoke bar without the bar, right?”

Carly hadn’t forgotten. It was one of the few notations on her practically empty social calendar. The restaurant, located south of Tulsa and named for its owner, Kari, who was, of course, an Okie, was known for its food and incredible desserts. Lucy had heard raves about the caramel cake and thought the whole Saturday-night karaoke thing would be too much fun.

It would be the first Saturday night Carly had spent without Dane since they’d met. She would have a lot of fun, as she always did with the club, but she would miss him.

It was a nice feeling—missing that was temporary.

Pizza, mozzarella, hot pepper shaker, pop, napkins, and crutches. With everything in place, Dane sat down on the sofa, unfastened his prosthetic, set it aside and began eating while his laptop booted. There’d been a time when he was technology obsessed. Television, cell phone, computer, game systems—he’d had the latest and best. With combat pay, he’d made good money, and without Sheryl, he hadn’t had anything else to spend it on.

For months now, he’d rarely bothered with the computer. Whatever buddies had still emailed him after he’d come back to the States had pretty much stopped when he never answered. He should have—he knew that. No one had so many friends that he could afford to lose them for no reason other than self-pity.

But he’d gotten pretty good with self-pity.

There was more spam in his mailbox than actual mail. He deleted the junk, opened a few brief
how are you
and
where are you
notes from friends, then paused the cursor over the last one.

On the surface, it looked like two dozen others he’d received over the past year: same sender, same subject line. It was from Ed Rowan, one of his buddies in the 173rd. Ed kept in touch with other buddies, some still in the Army, some back in the civilian world, and shared news with them all. The first email Dane had gotten had been an update on a friend’s injury. The second had detailed Dane’s own injury.

Guys had called him, sent him emails. One had driven with his wife from Fort Bragg to Bethesda to visit him a couple times. More than his own mother had visited.

The emails were usually encouraging, sharing good news, offering shoulders to lean on, ears to listen. Ed firmly believed there was no problem so great that Sky Soldiers and hope couldn’t deal with it together.

A lot of times Dane had thought hope was a fragile thing—when he’d first seen his leg, each time the doctors had said
“
We’re going to have to amputate
,”
when physical therapy had beaten him down, when his mother had looked at him with revulsion.

But if the past year had taught him anything, it was that there was nothing fragile about hope. No matter how many times he’d thought he’d lost it, it was still there, the most resilient thing in his world.

Ed understood that.

Finally Dane clicked on the email. It wasn’t the same as the others. It was short, to the point, written by a stranger.

I’m Ed’s brother, Lenny. Ed shot himself last night and died at 3:22 this morning. You guys meant the world to him. He wanted to help you all, but he couldn’t help himself.

The service will be Friday in Bangor, Maine.

Dane stared at the screen, tears seeping into his eyes. His mother had done her best to teach him that men didn’t cry, not for anything, but his first combat experience had undone that. If a man couldn’t cry while he helped gather the remains of what had been a friend a few minutes earlier, or while he tried to hold pressure on a wound so devastating that the guy’s face was unrecognizable, if he couldn’t cry at the loss of lives that had meant something to him, he wasn’t a man, just a machine.

Hands shaking, he tried to type a response to the email, but he kept hitting the wrong keys. Finally, swiping one arm across his eyes, he closed the computer and tossed it aside, then reached for his cell.

The phone rang twice before he realized it was Tuesday night. His finger was on the end button when Carly’s voice came through. “Hey, how are you?”

If he hung up now, she’d just call him back, so he cleared his throat. “Sorry. I forgot it’s Tuesday.”

She was silent a moment, but the noise level in the background changed, the women’s voices fading, replaced by the soothing splashing of water. He could imagine her sitting on the edge of the tiled fountain in the restaurant lobby, and he felt a little soothed himself. “They won’t miss me. Are you okay? You sound…”

He cleared his throat again. “Yeah. No. I just found out…a friend of mine…” The lump in his throat wouldn’t let him continue.

“Where are you? I’ll come over.”

He glanced at his crutches, leaning against the coffee table, and his prosthetic, standing on the sofa cushion as if it were a guest. “Thanks, but no. You’re busy. I know you look forward to this time with them. I really did just forget. I’ll talk to you—”

“Dane.” Her tone was sharp to get his attention. “I’ll tell them I have to leave early. It’s not unusual. People do it all the time. Do you want to tell me where you are or would you rather come to my house?”

He became aware of some emotion, warm and comforting, settling through him. Sure, people left the Tuesday night dinners early, but not Carly. She had no other claims on her time, no other priorities greater than her friends. But she was making him a priority.

He hadn’t been anyone’s priority for a long time.

“I’ll see you there.”

“Be careful.”

Maybe he’d been too careful, he thought as he replaced his leg. Maybe if he’d talked more, if he’d been more open and receptive to Ed’s emails, maybe he would have known Ed needed help. Maybe—

Grimly he shut down that part of his mind. The rest—putting away the leftover pizza, putting on his jacket and driving—could be done on autopilot, exactly what he did. When he found himself in Carly’s driveway, he couldn’t remember the route he’d taken there, if traffic had been light or nonexistent, if he’d caught a single red light.