Home Front (11 page)

She knocked on the door.

“Go away,” Betsy yelled.

“I am,” Jolene answered. “That’s why we need to talk now.” She waited a moment, collected herself, and then went into the room, which was papered in a wild 1970s foil paper and decorated with a collection of whitewashed furniture.

Betsy sat on one of the wicker twin beds with her knees drawn up. She looked royally pissed off.

“Can I sit down?” Jolene asked.

Betsy nodded mulishly and scooted sideways. Jolene and Lulu sat down beside her. Jolene wanted to jump into the ice-cold water of the conversation, but she knew Betsy needed to find a way through this, so she waited quietly, stroking Lulu’s hair.

Finally Betsy said, “Moms aren’t supposed to leave their children.”

“No,” Jolene said, feeling the sharp point of those words sink deep into her. “They aren’t. And I’m sorry, baby. I really am.”

“What if you said you wouldn’t go?”

“They’d court-martial me and put me in jail.”

“At least you’d be
alive
.”

Jolene looked at her daughter. There it was, the fear that lay beneath the adolescent fury. “It’s my job as a mom to keep you safe and be with you and help you grow up.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“But it’s also my job to show you what kind of person to be, to teach you by example. What lesson would I teach you if I ran from a commitment I made? If I was cowardly or dishonorable? When you make a promise in this life, you keep it, even if it scares you or hurts you or makes you sad. I made a promise a long time ago, and now it’s time to keep that promise, even if it breaks my heart to leave you and Lulu, and it does … break my heart.”

Jolene willed her tears away. Nothing in her life had ever hurt like this, not even hearing Michael say he didn’t love her anymore. But she had to keep going, had to make her daughter understand. “You’ve grown up safe and loved, so you can’t know how it feels to be truly alone in the world. When I joined the army, I had nothing. Nothing. No one. I was all alone in the world. And now my friends need me—Tami, Smitty, Jamie. The rest of the Raptors. I have to be there for them. And the country needs me. I know you’re young for all this, but I believe in keeping America safe. I really do. I have to keep my promise. Can you understand that?”

Tears sprang into Betsy’s eyes. Her lower lip trembled mutinously. “I need you,” she said in a quiet voice.

“I know,” Jolene said, “and I need you, baby. So much…” Her voice caught again; she had to clear her throat to keep going. “But we’ll talk on the phone and e-mail, and maybe we’ll even write good old-fashioned letters. I’ll be home before you know it.”

Lulu tugged on her sleeve. “You’ll be home before I start kindergarten, right?”

Jolene closed her eyes. How was she going to do this, really?

“Mommy?” Lulu said, her voice shaking.

“No,” Jolene said finally. “Not for kindergarten, Lulu, but your daddy will be home for that…”

Lulu started to cry.

*   *   *

Michael sat on the couch, alone now, and looked up at his mother. He could see the concern in her eyes, the unasked question. She wondered why he was out here while Jolene was handling this alone.

She stared at him for a long, assessing moment. Then she walked out of the living room and came back a few minutes later, carrying a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate full of baklava in the other. Of course. Food. Her answer to everything.

She put the cup and plate on the table beside him and then sat down on the sofa next to him. She placed her hand on his knee. “When I was young … during the war … it was a terrible time in Greece. My father and uncles and cousins were all gone. Many of them did not come back. The family stayed strong, though, and faith kept us together.”

He nodded. He’d heard her stories all his life. World War II had seemed distant to him, barely understandable; now he thought of the relatives he’d lost to enemy fire. They’d been just names in a book before. Without thinking, he reached over for a baklava and began eating it. God, he wished his father were here now.

“I will move into the house and take care of the girls.”

“No, Ma. There’s no bedroom for you, and you’ve got the Thumb. I’ll hire someone.”

“You most certainly will not. No stranger will take care of my grandbabies. I will hire another part-time employee for the store.”

“The store can’t afford that.”

“No, but I can. I will be at your house after school each weekday. I’ll pick Lulu up from preschool and meet Betsy’s bus. We will be just fine. You can count on me, and the girls will count on you.”

“Every day, Ma? That’s a big job.”

She smiled at him. “I am a big woman, as you may have noticed. I need to help you, Michael. Let me.”

He didn’t know how to respond: he still couldn’t wrap his mind around how completely his world had changed.

“These are details, though, and not the thing that matters most.” She looked at him. “You should be with her now, telling your children they will be fine.”

“Will they … be fine?”

“It’s not your children you should be worrying about right now, Michael. Their time will come.”

“And Jo?” he said. “Will she be fine?”

“She is a lioness, our Jolene.”

Michael could only nod.

“Already you are letting her down. Your father was like this, God rest his soul. He was selfish. This is a time for you to see beyond yourself.” She touched his cheek, resting her knuckles against his skin as she’d done so often in his youth. “You be proud of her, Michael.”

He knew he was supposed to nod and agree and say that of course he was proud of his wife, but he couldn’t do it.

“I’ll do what needs to be done,” he said instead, and knew that he’d disappointed his mother.

How many more people would he let down before this was over?

*   *   *

Michael spent the weekend watching his life as if from a distance. Betsy alternated between being blazingly pissed off and desperately clingy. Lulu was so confused she became overwrought and cried at everything. Michael couldn’t bear any of it, could hardly look at the pain in his daughters’ eyes, but Jolene was a warrior, as strong as tested steel. He saw how carefully she treated the girls, how tenderly. It was only when they weren’t looking that her pain was revealed; tears welled in her green eyes, and when they did she turned away quickly, dashing the moisture away with the back of her hand.

An hour ago, she’d put them to bed. God forgive him, but Michael had let her do it alone.

Now he was in the family room, standing in front of the fireplace. Bright orange and blue flames danced across a tepee of logs, sending off waves of heat, and yet still he was cold. Frozen, really.

He glanced through the kitchen. In the window above the sink, he could see moonlight skating across the bay.

“They’re asleep,” Jolene said, coming into the room. “We can talk now.”

Michael wanted to say
no, I don’t want to talk, not about this, not yet, not anymore.
He knew it was selfish of him, and small, but it pissed him off to be left here as Mr. Mom. Not that he could tell anyone this. He’d look like an asshole if he admitted that he didn’t want this job that had fallen in his lap, didn’t know if he could even do it. How was he supposed to manage a sixteen-person legal firm, defend his clients, and handle the day-to-day minutiae that came with raising two kids? Carpool. Field trips. Meals. Laundry. Homework.

Just the thought of it overwhelmed him.

“How the hell am I supposed to do it?” he said, turning to her. “I’ve got a job to do.”

“Your mom will be a huge help. She said she’ll hire someone for the store, and that’s perfect. I don’t want a nanny taking care of the girls—they’ll be so scared and confused,” Jolene said. “Especially Betsy, she’s fragile these days, and kids can be cruel. She’ll need you, Michael. They both will. You’ll have to be really present. I want—”

“You want.” Already he was losing patience with that sentence. “Classic, Jo. You’re the one leaving—but not before you tell me how you want me to handle things while you’re gone.”

“Not things, Michael. My children.”

He heard the way her voice broke on that and knew how deeply his words had cut her. Not that long ago, he would have turned to her and taken her in his arms and apologized. Now, he just stood there, dropping his chin forward, staring dully at the scuffed hardwood floor beneath his stockinged feet. The echo of that word—
divorce
—hung like smoke in the air between them.

She waited a long time. Her breath sounded like waves breaking along a shore, ragged and uneven. He could feel her judging him. Then, quietly, she left the room.

*   *   *

On Monday morning, Tami showed up after carpool, and honked her horn.

Jolene walked down the driveway and climbed into her friend’s big white truck.

They looked at each other, and in that look—unaccompanied by words—they revealed their fears, their hopes, their worries.

Tami sighed. “How was it?”

“Brutal,” Jolene said. “For you?”

“I barely survived.” She put the truck in reverse and backed down the driveway. In no time, they were speeding down the interstate toward Tacoma.

“Seth tried to act cool when I told him,” Tami said after an unfamiliar silence that had gone on for miles. “He asked what would happen if I didn’t come back. He’s not even thirteen. He’s not supposed to have to ask his mom a question like that.”

“Betsy was pissed off. She said she wouldn’t forgive me if I left her. That I love the army more than I love her.”

“Carl cried,” Tami said softly after another long silence. “I’ve never seen him cry before. It was like…” Her voice broke. “Man, this is hard.”

Jolene swallowed the lump in her throat. “What’s worse,” she said quietly, “a man who cries when you go to war or one who doesn’t?”

At that, they both fell silent. The miles passed quickly, and in no time, they were at the post, driving up to the checkpoint.

They handed over their IDs, nodded to the soldier, and drove onto the post.

In the hallway outside the Black Hawk classroom, they found several members of the unit seated in chairs along the wall. No one was saying much of anything, except for the younger men, who seemed amped up and eager. Smitty—young, young Smitty, with his braces and pimples and puppy-dog buoyancy—was grinning, going from man to man, asking what combat was like, saying they were going to kick some ass over there. Jolene wondered how his mother felt right now …

Jolene and Tami leaned back against the concrete-block wall, waiting their turns.

The classroom door opened. Jamie Hix strode out. His army-issue hair—short and dirty blond—stood up from his tanned, broad forehead. Lines fanned out from the corners of his gray eyes—they were new, those lines, etched in the days since their deployment had been announced. No doubt he was thinking about his young son. Would his ex-wife use this deployment to take his son away from him? “Your turn, Jo,” he said.

With a nod, Jolene walked into the classroom, where she found a man in dress uniform seated at a long desk with papers spread out in front of him.

“Chief Zarkades?” he said, looking up at her. “At ease. Have a seat. I’m Captain Reynolds. Jeff.”

She sat down in a chair facing him, her back ramrod straight, her hands in her lap.

He pushed a stack of papers toward her. “Your family plan is in place. Your daughters, Elizabeth Andrea Zarkades and Lucy Louida Zarkades, will be cared for by your husband, Michael Andreas Zarkades. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your mother-in-law is also available, I see.”

“Yes, sir.”

The lawyer looked down at the paper, tapped his pen. “Deployment can be difficult on a marriage, Chief. Is there any cause to worry about this plan?”

“No, sir,” Jolene said.

The captain looked up. “Do you have a will?”

“Yes, sir. I’m married to an attorney, sir.”

“Good.” He pushed a stack of papers toward her. “Sign and date your family plan. And the funeral arrangement addendum. I assume you want Michael notified in the case of your death. Anyone else?”

“No, sir.”

“Okay, then, Chief. That’s all. Dismissed.”

She stood. “Thank you, sir.”

“Oh, Chief? We recommend you write letters … to your loved ones.”

Jolene nodded. Letters. Good-byes. They
recommended
she write letters in which she said good-bye to the people she loved most in this world. She tried to imagine that … Betsy opening a letter one day in the blurry future, seeing her mother’s handwriting, reading her last words—and what would they be, those last words, written now, before she knew all that she had to say, before they’d had this lifetime together? Lulu would be crying, wailing, yelling,
What? She’s gone where?
her small heart-shaped face scrunching up, tears forming in her dark eyes as she tried to understand what that even meant.

“Be safe, Chief. God bless.”

*   *   *

The next two weeks passed so quickly Jolene half expected to hear a sonic
boom
echoing along behind. She wrote and edited and rewrote at least a dozen to-do lists, filled a three-ring binder with every bit of information she could think of. She canceled the magazines she wouldn’t receive, hired a neighbor’s son to mow the grass in the summer and check the generator next winter, and she paid as many bills in advance as possible. All of this she did at night; during the day she was at the post, preparing to go off to war. She and her unit flew so many hours they had begun to breathe as one. By the first of May, she—and the rest of the unit—were actually getting itchy to leave. If they were going to do this thing, they wanted to
go
. It was the only way they’d start marking off the time until their return.

At home, life was an endless series of poignant moments and elongated good-byes. Every look, every hug, every kiss took on the weight of sorrow. Jolene didn’t know how much longer she could stand it. Every time she looked at her babies, her throat tightened.