Home Front (49 page)

Michael laughed. “There’s no preparing someone to meet you for the first time, Chris. It’s an experience.”

“He told me you were a Vietnam vet,” Jolene said.

“And I am. A POW, too.” He reached out and shook her hand. “I’m thrilled to meet you, Chief.”

“I’m not that woman anymore.”

“And there’s our job, Jolene, to find out who you are now. Would you like to come back to my office?”

She hesitated, looked back at Michael, who smiled and nodded. “Okay,” she said.

She followed Chris into a small, nicely decorated room in the back. She was glad to see that there was no couch. “I don’t know exactly how to do this,” she said, taking a seat in the comfortable chair positioned near his desk.

“I have some experience,” he said, giving her a smile. “We could start so many places. Your childhood, your experiences in Iraq, your best friend, your civilian future. Whatever you want to talk about first.”

She laughed nervously. “When you put it like that, it makes me think we’ll be doing this for a while.”

“Only as long as you want to, Jolene. You’re the chief here; I’m the private. You lead, I follow.”

She was afraid to dive into this conversation. They both knew it. But she’d already let fear guide her before, and that hadn’t worked. “People see my lost leg and they think that’s the problem. But I lost more than that. Sometimes I have no clue who I’m supposed to be or what my life will look like from here on. I was good at being a soldier. I like answers.”

“Why did you join the military, Jolene?”

“I was eighteen and alone in the world with no money. It gave me a place to belong.”

“A family.”

“Yes,” she said after a pause.

“But it’s an easy family to belong to, isn’t it? Rules guide every situation and behavior. There are no hurt feelings or broken hearts in that family. You always know who you are and what your job is. When you’re in trouble, your unit is always there for you. You know you’ll never be left behind.”

Jolene felt herself relax a little. He understood. Maybe finally—
finally
—she could talk honestly about the pain in her past, and maybe if she could tell him, she could tell Michael, and she could begin to heal. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“You were a POW. So, you endured a lot. How did you know when you were out of the woods?”

“An excellent question. There were a lot of angry years after I got home. Lost years. I guess I knew I had begun to heal when I was ready to help someone else.”

Jolene knew how that could happen, how you could sink into a pool of anger or grief or sadness or guilt and simply drown. She thought about the letters she’d received in rehab, especially the one from the young marine, Sarah, who’d lost her leg. She’d ignored the young woman’s plea for help. “I used to be the kind of woman who helped people.”

“You can be that woman again, Jolene.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “I want to start with the nightmares…”

*   *   *

On the second Friday in December, Lulu woke early and went straight to her bedroom window, pressing her nose to the glass. “No snow,” she whined.

“Maybe God’s waiting ’til Christmas Eve,” Jolene said. “A white Christmas would be great, wouldn’t it?”

Lulu’s little shoulders slumped as she turned away from the window. “I was hoping for no school.”

“But, Lulu, you love kindergarten.”

“I know,” she said miserably. “But I wanted to go with you today.”

Jolene pulled her youngest into her arms and kissed her cheek, then patted her butt. “Get dressed, Kitten. You’ll just have to wait to see my new pretty leg. Surprises are good, right?”

“I guess so,” Lulu said, although clearly she didn’t believe it.

“Good. Now let’s go wake up your sister. You know how cranky she gets if we’re late.”

Jolene and Lulu walked down the hall and awakened Betsy, and then the three of them went downstairs.

Today was supposed to be oatmeal.

“Cap’n Crunch,” Lulu said, climbing onto her chair. “Cuz it’s a special day.”

Jolene smiled at her daughters. “You know what, Lulu, it
is
a special day.”

Michael stumbled into the kitchen after the girls, looking tousled and a little bleary-eyed. A five o’clock shadow chiseled his jaw, gave him that rock star look she loved.

She handed him a cup of coffee.

He took it gratefully. “Thanks.”

“You look tired,” Jolene said, pressing against him. He leaned back against the counter, and put the cup down so he could grab her by her butt and pull her against him.

“I
am
tired,” he said, grinning. “I’m not getting much sleep lately.”

“Gross,” Betsy said from the table.

Lulu sat up, looked around. “What’s gross?”

Jolene laughed and pulled free, executing a pretty decent twirl on her clunky fake foot. She poured the girls some orange juice, then started packing lunches.

Michael kissed the girls good-bye and went upstairs to take a shower. Jolene moved through the morning routine with an ease that belied her inner excitement.

All week, she had tried to tamp down her expectations for this day. Repeatedly, she’d warned herself not to want too much, not to let hope run away with her, and honestly, until this morning, she’d done pretty well.

“Good luck, Mommy,” both girls said, one after another, as they left the warm house and ran down the wet driveway to the yellow school buses that pulled up out front. Jolene stood on the porch for each, waving until the bus was gone around the bend.

She felt Michael come up behind her. “Hey, you,” he said, holding her shoulders, kissing the back of her neck. “You ready?” he said from behind her.

She turned to face him. “I’ve been ready for months.”

“Then let’s go.”

They got into the car and drove away. All the way to the rehab center, Jolene stared out the window at the falling rain. Hope was an elevator right now, broken from its cables. She could feel herself plunging with it.

At the center, she and Michael met Conny in the lobby.

“Well, well, look how good you’re walking on that ugly clunker of a leg.”

“You said it wasn’t so bad,” she teased.

“I lied.” He held out his hand. “Come on.”

The three of them walked down the wide white hallway to the prosthetic center.

Jolene smelled plastic. Artificial arms and legs and hands and feet hung on the walls and around her.

“Jolene Zarkades is here,” Conny yelled toward the back room.

A moment later, the Asian woman came into the front area, holding an artificial leg.

Jolene stared at it in awe. It was shapely, almost pretty, with a foot that could be adjusted for heels.

Conny took the limb from the woman and knelt before Jolene. He took off the heavy, unwieldy temporary leg and tossed it aside. Because her limb had shrunk so much in the last few months, she’d needed more and more gel socks to keep the fit tight in her prosthesis. Conny peeled the socks away, dropped them in a pile, until there was only one left, which he smoothed carefully to remove any wrinkles. Then he fitted her into the new prosthesis.

“Wow,” she said, shaking her head. It didn’t look exactly real, of course, but it was close enough. She took a step forward, amazed at its lightness, its ease of movement. “It’s almost like having my leg back,” she said, looking at Michael, her eyes shining. “I could dance on this leg.” She turned to Conny. “Can I run?”

Conny said gently, “One mountain at a time, Jolene.”

For the next hour, she worked in the PT room with Conny, while Michael made notes on a deposition.

Jolene discovered that she could skip. She hadn’t skipped since childhood; now she couldn’t stop. She laughed so much and so often the other patients probably thought she was loony tunes, but she didn’t care.

“Well, Jolene,” Conny said at the end of the day. “It’s been good knowing you.”

Jolene felt a tightening in her throat. How could she ever thank this man, who had been there for her every step of the way? She walked to him, barely limping at all, feeling no pain in her stump. “You saved me, Conny. Without you—”

“It was always you, soldier girl. You have the heart of a champion.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’ll miss you, too, but don’t make a scene.”

“I never used to be a scene-making gal,” Jolene said, her eyes bright.

“Life changes us, that’s for sure.”

Jolene stared at him a moment longer, thinking that he was like the men and women in her unit. The job was what mattered, not the thanks. She nodded one last time, letting her gaze say it all, then she took Michael’s hand and they walked outside.

Rain engulfed them, splashing beneath their steps. Jolene amazed herself—she ducked her head, held on to Michael’s hand, and ran for the car.

Ran
.

It wasn’t perfect, of course, her leg didn’t bend like it should, but she did it. Her hair was dripping wet by the time she got into the car.

“That was a pretty sexy bit of running on your new leg, Mrs. Zarkades.”

“Everyone’s going to want one, I can tell you.”

She couldn’t help looking at her new leg; she kept lifting her pant leg and staring at it. It was almost impossible to stop smiling.

He stopped at the mailbox, picked up the mail, and drove up the driveway. When they pulled into the garage, she turned to her husband. “You’ll be home for dinner?”

He handed her the mail. “Before that, even. As soon as the Byer dep is done, I’m coming home. How about dinner at the restaurant above the marina?”

“Perfect.” She leaned over and kissed him, then got out of the car and practically skipped into the house.

Inside, it was quiet. Jolene made herself a cup of hot tea and went through the mail.

There was another letter from Sarah Merrin, the young marine who had lost her leg in Iraq.

Jolene sat down at the kitchen table and opened the letter.

Chief,

I understand why you haven’t written to me. You probably feel as crappy as I do. I guess I’m just hoping there’s a silver lining out there. Ha.

I’m still at Walter Reed. I’m thinking of painting the walls, that’s how long I’m going to be here. They had to amputate the other leg. Infection.

Honest to God, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.

How do you do it? I guess that’s all I really want to know. They tell me I’ll be able to walk again—even skate—but I think they’re full of shit. And my husband couldn’t get out of here fast enough.

Again, any words of wisdom you got would sure be helpful.

Sincerely,

Sarah Merrin

Jolene sat there a long time, staring down at the words.

*   *   *

On a cold, rainy mid-December day, Jolene and Michael boarded an airplane for Washington, D.C., and took their seats in the third row.

Michael settled back into the comfortable blue leather and buckled his seat belt.

Jolene was turned away from him, looking out the small oval window, watching the ground crew do its job. He could see by the tightening of her mouth that she was missing her old life now: the military, flying, the woman she’d been before the war.

He reached over, took her hand in his. It was rare these days for her to be sad, but at times like this, when the melancholy seized hold, she gave in to it, let it be. The watch he’d given her for her birthday encircled her small wrist, the faceted face glinting in the light. It was an odd contrast with the plainness of her gold wedding band. When he’d first seen her wearing it, he’d been embarrassed. He’d offered to replace it.
I shouldn’t have bought it for you,
he’d said,
that was when I was different. I should have gone with you to the damn party.

Old news,
she’d said with a smile.
We’re both different now, and thank God.

It was true. They had all been changed in the past year.

Jolene most of all. She’d learned in the last few weeks—they all had—not to gloss over sadness. She squeezed Michael’s hand.

The plane’s engines started up, rattling the seats slightly. She was probably remembering how it felt to climb into the pilot’s seat, to put on a helmet, to go through the preflight check.

The plane backed away from the Jetway and rolled across the airport to the runway. It picked up speed, rocketed forward, rose up … up … up into the air.

Blue sky filled the windows.

“Did I ever tell you about the plum trees?” she said quietly. “We used to see them when we took off from the post. You’d look down through the blue sky and see these blurry pink trees, and it was so beautiful.”

It took his breath away, how easily she said it, how good she sounded. After a moment he said, “I want to take the girls to my dad’s grave.”

She looked at him. “You’ve never gone there, not since the funeral.”

“I guess I’m not the only one in this family who has trouble letting go.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “I still haven’t read Tami’s letter.”

“I know.”

She leaned against him.

“By the way, I talked to Ben Lomand last week,” he said.

She turned. “You did?”

“I was going to save it for Christmas, but here we are, up where you belong … so, I talked to him about you flying again. He doesn’t see any reason why you couldn’t do it on your snazzy new leg. He said something about a smaller chopper—there were a bunch of weird words and letters, and, well, he lost me. But he’s willing to work with you. When you’re ready. Maybe you could fly a news helicopter someday. Who knows?”

“Who knows indeed?” She smiled. “I love you, Michael Zarkades.”