Home Front (33 page)

When the plane landed in Seattle, the nurse seated beside her said, “You’re almost home, Chief. That must feel good.”

She turned her head away and said nothing. The nurse was right; it should have felt good, coming home. For months she had dreamed of this moment, of seeing her daughters again. Of course, she’d imagined herself walking through her own front door, dropping to her knees, and opening her arms for an endless hug.

What was wrong with her?

She should be glad she was coming home at all. What would Smitty give to trade places with her? Or Tami? The thought made her feel guilty and small. But what could she do about her feelings? They were inside of her, uncontrollable now, festering.

She simply couldn’t look the other way this time or pretend everything was fine. She had a numbness inside of her that was new and frightening. Maybe she was afraid to feel too much, afraid that if she let her emotions go, she would start screaming and never be able to stop.

The plane touched down, taxied. The nurse said, “Welcome to Boeing Field, Chief. We’ll be transporting you to an ambulance, which will take you to the rehab center.”

Jolene wanted to say thank you but her heart was beating so fast she felt dizzy. She wasn’t ready for this. She was actually afraid to see her children. What in the hell was wrong with her?

A major appeared beside her, in full uniform, and pinned a medal to her tee shirt. He talked down at her, said words she barely heard. Medals shouldn’t be given to a woman who’d gotten her aircraft shot down and a young man killed.

Still, she didn’t bother saying anything, not even, “Thank you, sir.”

They rolled her on the gurney from the belly of the plane, down a bumpy ramp and onto Boeing Field, where a row of ambulances waited to take the patients to different hospitals and rehab facilities. Rain fell on her face, the first real reminder that she was back in the Northwest. She stared up at the swollen gray sky, and then she was in an ambulance, lying next to an earnest young paramedic, who thanked her for her service to the country.

On the way north, she must have fallen asleep, because when she awakened again, they were stopped. This time, the paramedics lifted her as if she were a child and carried her over to a waiting wheelchair. They positioned her carefully in the chair, draped her lap and legs in a blanket.

Her family stood clustered in front of the rehab center’s entrance. Michael and Mila were holding flowers. Even from here, she could see how Lulu was bouncing on her feet, grinning. The girls were holding up a
WE MISSED YOU
sign painted in drippy blue acrylic, with glitter sprayed in rainbow colors above.

She loved her daughters with every ounce of her soul; she knew that,
knew
it, but somehow she couldn’t feel it, and that inability scared her more than anything ever had.

“MOMMY!” Lulu screamed, running toward her, leading the charge. Betsy was right behind her.

Betsy rammed into Jolene’s residual leg.

Pain sliced through the limb. Jolene said, “Damn it, Betsy, be careful!” before she could help herself.

Betsy stepped back, her eyes glittering with tears.

Jolene gritted her teeth, breathed shallowly until the pain subsided. “Sorry, Betsy,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to smile.

“Sorry,” Betsy mumbled, looking hurt and angry.

Lulu was on the verge of tears. “Mommy?”

Jolene felt a wave of exhaustion. She didn’t know how to rewind the past minutes and start over, how to be her old smiling self, and her leg throbbed in pain now.

Michael moved in beside her, taking control of the wheelchair. “Ma, take the girls into Jolene’s room. We’ll check in and be there in a second.”

Mila herded the confused-looking girls into the building.

“Thanks,” Jolene said.

“They’ve been really excited to see you.”

She nodded.

Michael wheeled her into a brightly lit lobby and up to a receptionist desk. There, he introduced Jolene, who smiled woodenly, and he signed a few papers. Then he wheeled her down a hallway and into a small room with a giant
WELCOME HOME, MOMMY
banner strung across one wall. There were enough bouquets to stock a flower shop, and family photographs covered every surface. Again, her daughters and Mila stood by the window, but this time their smiles were hesitant, uncertain.

Jolene wanted to reassure them, but when she saw the triangular-shaped trapeze thingy that hung from her bed, she thought,
That’s my reality now. I need help to sit up,
and the numbness was back and spreading …

Come on, Jo, smile, pretend to be who you used to be … a smile is just a frown turned upside down. You can do it.

Michael rolled her close to the bed and then stopped so suddenly she lurched forward. He stared down at her stump, covered by the blanket. “Can you get into bed?”

Before she could answer, there was a knock at the open door. Jolene turned to look as a big black man with gray dreadlocks walked into the room. Dressed in pink scrubs, he smiled like a lottery winner as he sidestepped past Michael. With exquisite gentleness, the man lifted Jolene out of the chair and placed her in bed. He removed her slipper, set it aside, and then covered her with the bright purple blanket on her bed. When he was done, he leaned down and said softly, “Just breathe, Jolene. You’ll get through it. I hear you’re tough as nails.”

She looked up at him in surprise. “Who are you?”

He smiled. “I’m your physical therapist, Conny. I’ll see you tonight at six for your orientation.”

“You don’t look like a Conny.”

“Honey, I been hearing that all my life.” Still smiling, he introduced himself to the family, shook Michael’s hand, and left the room.

And then she was alone with her family.

Jolene looked at her loved ones. She wanted—desperately—to feel joy, but she didn’t, and the absence both terrified and depressed her. She felt nothing.

Lulu broke free of the pack and walked over to the bed. She looked at the flat place on the blanket where Jolene’s leg should be. Frowning, Lulu leaned over her, patted the empty spot. “Yep, it’s gone. Where is it?”

“Not there, Lulu. My leg got really hurt and they fixed me right up. I’m perfect now.” Jolene’s voice caught on the lie.

Lulu got up on her tiptoes and peered at Jolene’s casted arm, with its swollen, pale, useless fingers sticking out. “But you still got two hands,” she said, turning to Betsy. “She gots two hands, Bets. So we can still play patty-cake.”

Betsy didn’t respond. She just stood there, staring at Jolene, her eyes wide with hurt. She was scared, too. And why wouldn’t she be? Her mother had come home missing a piece of her body. It didn’t exactly paint a comforting picture for the future. And the first words her mother had said to her had been in anger.

Jolene knew this was the time to set the tone, to say hey,
I’m missing a leg, but who needs two, anyway
and make them all feel better, but she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t. She hadn’t found the courage to even look at her leg. How could she act like it didn’t matter?

Mila came up behind Betsy, put a hand on her shoulder, and pushed her forward. “Your girls were so excited to see you again. They hardly slept a wink.”

Jolene heard the hesitancy in her mother-in-law’s voice, and the subtle rebuke. Jolene should be handling this differently.

“You will be yourself again,” Mila said after an uncomfortable silence in which Betsy stared down at the floor and gnawed on her thumbnail.

Jolene nodded. She wanted to believe that. “Of course I will. It’s just been a long flight, and my leg hurts.”

“It will just take time.”

She gritted her teeth. Hopefully it looked like a smile.

“Well,” Mila said, “we should get home and let your mom rest.”

“Yeah,” Betsy said too quickly.

“Kiss me, Mommy!” Lulu said, opening her arms for a hug.

Michael picked her up and Lulu leaned forward, throwing her arms around Jolene’s neck and burrowing into her neck like a little bunny. “I love you, Mommy.”

And there it was. The love. It filled Jolene’s heart to overflowing. She didn’t even realize she’d started to cry. She held on to her daughter so tightly neither one of them could breathe. “I love you, too, Kitten. And I love you, Betsy and Mila. I’m sorry I’m so tired. It’s been a long flight.”

“We understand, don’t we, girls?” Mila said, patting Betsy’s shoulder.

“Betsy?” Jolene said. “Do you want a kiss good-bye?”

“I wouldn’t want to hurt you,” Betsy said, sounding sullen.

“Betsy,” Mila said warningly.

Betsy walked woodenly forward and leaned down to kiss Jolene’s cheek. It was lightning fast, that kiss, over before it began, and then Betsy was edging away from the bed.

Jolene waved good-bye with her left hand and watched them walk away. Only Betsy didn’t pause at the door, didn’t look back and smile.

Michael stayed at her bedside.

“The house is almost ready,” he said. “Your friends from the Guard helped me build a ramp. We turned my office into a bedroom. No stairs.”

“The separation you wanted.”

“Don’t do that, Jo. Please. I’m trying.”

And really, Michael, it’s about you
. She sighed, too tired suddenly to do anything—to fight, to pretend, to feel. This day had gone from bad to worse and there was no end in sight. She’d thought the worst of her injuries was her amputated leg, but there was something else wrong; this numbness inside of her. She wanted to do the whole reunion over and be a better mother this time. “Good-bye, Michael,” she said.

“You keep pushing me away.”

She laughed bitterly; it turned into a sob. Throwing back the covers, she showed him her half leg, swollen to twice its size, cut off above the knee, and wrapped in gauze and elastic bandages. “Look at it, Michael. Look at
me
.”

The pity and sadness in his eyes was her undoing. “Jo—”

“Get out, Michael. Please.
Please
. I’m tired.”

“My mom read me the riot act for leaving you in Germany. Apparently when a woman says go, it means stay.”

“Not this woman. Go means go.”

She wanted to cross her arms and sigh dramatically, but of course she only had one good arm. She used that hand to pull the covers up, and she closed her eyes.

She heard him move toward her, felt his breath on her cheek as he leaned forward and kissed her temple. The gentleness of it made her want to cry. She swallowed hard and said nothing.

Finally, he left her, and she was alone again.

It was a long time before she fell asleep.

*   *   *

Jo! Don’t leave me—

Tami is screaming, crying … blood is spurting from her nose and her mouth … her eyes. Jolene is trying to get to her, trying to reach out, but a bomb falls … exploding. The black night is full of fire and falling shrapnel, and now she can’t find Tami. Somewhere, Smitty is yelling out for her, saying he’s trapped. Jolene is yelling for them, coughing through the smoke, dragging herself through the dirt, looking …

Jolene woke up, gasping in pain. It felt as if someone was twisting her foot in the wrong direction, as if the bones were snapping in protest.

She grabbed the overhead bar in her one good arm and hauled her body upward until she was sitting up. Breathing hard, she stared down at the flat blanket. “You’re not there,” she screamed. “You shouldn’t hurt anymore.”

She flopped back onto the bed, staring up at the speckled white acoustical tile ceiling, gritting her teeth. Tears burned her eyes. She wanted to give into them, maybe cry so hard she washed away on a river of tears and disappeared. But what was the point of crying? Sooner or later she’d wipe her eyes and look down and her leg would still be gone.

“It’s common, you know.”

With a sigh, she turned her head. Through the billowy wave of her pillow, she saw the black man standing in her doorway and knew why he was here. To
help
.

“Go away, Conny,” she said.

He came into the room anyway.

As he moved, he took something out of his pocket—a rubber band, maybe—and pulled his gray dreads into a ponytail. Diamond earrings glinted in his dark ears.

“It’s not every man who can wear pink scrubs,” she observed wryly.

“Not every woman can fly a helicopter.” He stopped at her bedside. “May I?”

“May you what?”

“Help you to sit up,” he said gently.

She swallowed hard and met his gaze. The compassion in his black eyes hurt as much as the phantom pain in her leg. “Go away.” The words were a croak of sound.

“You just gonna lay here and feel sorry for yourself?”

“Yeah,” she said. That was exactly what she wanted now—to be left alone. She’d spent a lifetime being Pollyanna, believing in the power of positive thinking, and where had it gotten her? Tami was hurt, her marriage was broken, and she couldn’t even get out of bed on her own.

He put an arm around her and eased her upright, positioning the pillows as a comfortable backrest.

She fought him weakly, too depressed to even care, really, then she gave up.

When she was upright, he stepped back just enough to be polite, but not enough so that she owned her space. “Like I said, it’s common.”

She didn’t want to talk, but she was pretty certain that a mulish silence wouldn’t work with this man. She’d lay odds that he had the patience of a sniper.

“Fine. What’s common?”

“The pain in your lost leg. It’s weird, I hear. Feels like it’s actually in the foot.”

That got her attention. “Yeah. How am I supposed to forget about it if it keeps hurting?”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to forget about it anytime soon, do you?”

“No.”

“It’s the cut nerves. They’re just as confused down there as you are. Nothing feels right to them; they’re looking for that foot.”

“Me, too.”

“I can help you deal with the pain until the nerves heal completely. Teach you some basic relaxation techniques. Exercise and a nice hot bath can help, too.”