Home Front (10 page)

And waited.

Finally, at seven o’clock, he came into the kitchen and immediately poured himself a scotch.

“Hey,” Jolene said, rising from her seat on the hearth.

He turned. In the ambient light from above the stove, he looked more than tired. His hair was a mess. The skin beneath his eyes had a violet cast, as if he’d slept as badly as she had last night.

“Jo,” he said quietly; there was a gentleness in his voice that surprised and saddened her. It swept her back, in a breath, to who they used to be.

She ached for that—needed it, needed him. “I’m being deployed.”

Michael went so still it was as if he’d stopped breathing.

“You’re kidding, right?” he finally said.

“Of course I’m not kidding. Who kids about going to war?” Jolene’s voice cracked. For a split second, her strength wavered. She realized how desperate she was to have him take her in his arms and tell her they’d be okay through this. “I’m going to Fort Hood first for combat training, then it’s off to Iraq.”

“You’re in the Guard, for Chrissake. You’re not a real soldier.”

Jolene flinched. “I’m going to do you a favor and forget you said that.”

“You are not going to war, Jo. Come on. You’re forty-one years old—”

“
Now
you remember.”

“People are
dying
over there.”

“I’m aware of that, Michael.”

“Tell them you’re a mother. They can’t expect you to leave your children.”

“Men leave their children to go off to war every day.”

“I know that,” he snapped. “But you’re a mother.”

“I was a soldier first.”

“This is not a damn game, Jo. You are not going to war. Tell them thanks but no thanks.”

She looked at him in disbelief. “I would be court-martialed for that. I’d go to
jail
. You don’t say no.”

“Quit then.”

He didn’t know her at all if he could say that to her. Honor was just a word to him, and lawyers made a game of playing with words. He had no real idea what a dishonorable discharge meant. “I gave my word, Michael.”

“And what was ‘I do’?” he snapped back.

“You son of a bitch,” she yelled at him. “For all these years, I’ve loved you. Adored you. And last night you tell me you don’t love me anymore, that maybe you want a divorce. And then, because you’re a selfish prick who doesn’t know me at all, you tell me to quit the Guard.”

“What kind of mother could leave her children?”

She drew in a sharp breath. It would have hurt less to be smacked across the face. “How
dare
you say that to me?
You,
who are the least reliable person in this family. It breaks my heart to leave them, but I have to.” Her voice broke. “I have to.”

“So you’re going to war,” he said.

“You make it sound like a choice, Michael. There’s no choice here. Either I go to war or I go to jail. How can you not understand this? I’m being deployed.”

“And you’re surprised I’m pissed off. I never wanted you in the stupid military in the first place.”

“Thanks so much for minimizing what I do.”

“War—and this war in particular—is a waste, and I might not be Colin Powell, but I know that helicopters are big targets in the sky that get shot at. What am I supposed to say? ‘Good for you, Jolene. You go off to Iraq and be careful. We’ll be waiting for you.’”

“Yeah,” she said quietly. The fight drained out of her. “That would have been really nice.”

“Well, you married the wrong man then.”

“Obviously. Look on the bright side, Michael. You wanted time apart.”

“Fuck you, Jo.”

“No. Fuck
you,
Michael.” On that, she turned on her heel and walked out of the room. She didn’t run, although she wanted to. She kept her chin up and her shoulders squared as she walked up the stairs and into her bedroom.

Downstairs, a door slammed. She was reminded of her childhood and all the fights she’d heard from a distance. She’d never imagined she would grow up to be a wife listening to her own husband leave. But even with the pain of that sad and pathetic echo, she thought
Go, Michael, run
.

She should have known better anyway. She knew better than to count on anyone to stand beside her, to
stay
. And yet even knowing that, knowing that she was alone again and that she was strong enough to take it, she felt herself breaking inside. She sat down on her bed, unable to stand any longer.

Sometime later, the floor outside her bedroom door creaked, and the door opened. Michael stood there, looking both angry and defeated. His hair was a mess, as if he’d run his hands through it repeatedly, which he probably had. It was a nervous habit. A half-full drink—scotch, no doubt—hung from one hand. She found herself looking at that hand for a moment; his fingers were long, almost elegant. She’d often said he had pianist’s hands, painter’s hands. She’d loved what those hands could do to her body.

But they were uncalloused, those hands, unused to manual labor. A thinking man’s hands, unlike her own. Maybe it all came down to that. Maybe she should have seen this scene unfolding the second she first held his hand.

“You’re going,” he said, and his voice was thin, tinged with the kind of banked anger she’d never heard from him before.

“I have to,” she said.

“Does it matter that we need you here?”

“Of course it matters.”

He finished his drink and came into the room. Putting the empty glass on the nightstand, he sat down on the bed beside her, but not close enough to touch. With a sigh, he slumped forward. The wavy mass of his hair spilled forward. Seeing him now, his sharp profile, his defeated shoulders, she was reminded of the week in which his father had lain dying. Michael had been unable to stand seeing Theo that way, gray and hollow and in pain, connected to life by machines. He’d tried to sit by the bed, but he could never do it for long. More often than not, Jolene had found him pacing in the hallways, beating himself up for his weakness. She had gone to him then, taken him in her arms and held him until he could breathe again. To her, it had been second nature, caring for him when he was hurting. But now she saw what she had never dared to see before: this love of hers was one-sided. She was the one who took care; he was the one who took.

“Okay, then,” he finally said.

Jolene felt a profound sense of relief. She didn’t realize until right now, when her breath rushed out, how nervous she’d been, sitting beside him, waiting. “So you’ll wait for me,” she said.

“How long until you leave?”

“Two weeks. That’s quicker than usual. Special circumstances.”

“And you’ll be gone for a year.”

She nodded. “I’ll get Leave in six months. I’ll be able to come home for two weeks.”

He sighed again. “We’ll tell the girls tomorrow. And my mom.”

“Yeah,” Jolene said, but it was barely above a whisper, that word; there was so much more to say, plans to be made, problems to be solved, but neither one of them said anything.

They sat on the bed in which they’d made love so many times, silent, each staring out at nothing, until it was time to turn out the lights.

Seven

The next morning, Michael and Jolene drove to Mila’s house.

He pulled into the driveway and turned off the car’s engine. For the first time all morning, he looked at her. “Are you ready to do this?”

Jolene saw the banked anger in his eyes and it made her feel empty and painfully alone. She didn’t bother to answer. Instead, she reached for the handle and opened the door and got out. As they walked to the front door, she couldn’t help noticing how far apart from her he stood.

Michael knocked on the door. In moments, the sound of footsteps came from inside. Then the door swung open and Mila stood there in a fuzzy pink bathrobe, with her black hair a tangled mess. Behind her, the room was a wash of pale green walls, windows to the water view, and rattan furniture from the fifties positioned on wide-planked pine floors. The overstuffed cushions were in muted tones of celery and rose and white. “Oh, you’re early!” she said, stepping aside to let them in to a living room strewn with toys and books and DVDs.

Lulu jumped up from her place on the cream-colored shag rug. She was wearing the kitten headband.

“Someone has embraced her invisibility,” Mila said quietly, smiling.

Jolene frowned thoughtfully and made a great show of looking around. “Hmmm … Mila, have you seen Lulu? I wonder what happened to my kitten? Has anyone seen my Lucy Louida?”

Lulu giggled.

Michael frowned. “What are you talking about? She’s right—”

Lulu whipped off the headband and grinned. “I’m here, Mommy!”

Jolene rushed forward and took Lulu in her arms. “You sure are.” Jolene buried her nose in Lulu’s velvety neck, smelling her little girl sweetness, trying to memorize it.

“Mommy,” Lulu whined, kicking to be free. “You’re smovering me.”

Jolene loosened her hold on Lulu, let her wiggle to the floor.

“Are you hungry?” Mila asked, picking up an empty DVD case, frowning, looking around for the disc.

“Actually, we have something to tell you and the girls,” Michael said tightly.

“Oh?” Mila looked up. “Is something wrong?”

Michael actually stepped aside. “This is Jolene’s show, Ma. She’s the one with the news.”

Mila frowned. “Jo?”

“Where’s Betsy?” Jolene said, unable to get much volume out of her voice. She could fly helicopters and shoot machine guns and run ten miles with a full pack on her back, but the thought of saying these few words to her children made her feel weak.

“I’ll go get her,” Lulu said and ran off, screaming, “Bet—sy! Get out here!”

Mila looked from Jolene to Michael, and back to Jolene.

Then Betsy came into the living room, trailing behind Lulu, looking sleepy, rubbing her eyes. She was wearing a huge tee shirt and white ankle socks. “Why did you wake me up?”

Jolene picked Lulu up, carried her to the sofa, and sat down. “Have a seat, Betsy. We need to talk to you guys. It’s important.”

Michael sat down on the sofa beside Jolene.

Betsy stopped suddenly. “Are you getting divorced?”

“Elizabeth Andrea,” Mila said. “Why would you say such a—”

Michael sighed. “Just sit down, Betsy.”

Betsy knelt on the ivory-colored shag rug in front of them, crossing her arms, jutting her chin out. “What?”

They were all looking at Jolene. She almost lost her nerve; she looked at Michael, who shrugged.

She was alone in this. What a surprise. With a sigh, Jolene looked at Betsy and then down at Lulu. “You remember the story I told you about when I joined the army?” she said. “I was eighteen and had no direction. My parents had just died. I was so alone. You can’t imagine how alone. Anyway, you all were a dream I had, but of course, you were in my future then.”

Betsy sighed impatiently. “Duh. Can I go back to sleep now?”

“I’m not doing this well,” Jolene said.

“Just tell them,” Michael said.

Lulu started bouncing on Jolene’s lap. “Tell us what?”

Jolene took a deep breath. “I’m going to Iraq to help—”

“
What
?” Betsy said, clambering to her feet.

“Huh?” Lulu said.

“Oh, Jolene,” Mila whispered, bringing a hand to her mouth. She sank into the celery-colored, overstuffed chair by the window.

“No
way,
” Betsy said. “Oh my
God,
no one has a mom in the war. Will people know?”

“
That’s
your concern?” Michael asked.

Jolene was losing control of this.

“But you’re a
mom,
” Betsy cried out. “I
need
you here. What if you get killed?”

Lulu’s eyes filled up with tears. “What?”

“That won’t happen,” Jolene said, trying to keep her voice even. “I’m a woman. They don’t let women in combat situations. I’ll be flying VIPs around, moving supplies. I’ll be safe.”

“You don’t know that. You
can’t
know that,” Betsy said. “Tell them you won’t go. Please, Mommy…”

At that, the small
Mommy,
Jolene felt a tearing in her heart. She wanted to hold Betsy close, reassure her, but what comfort could she offer? This was a time for strength. “I have to go. It’s my job,” Jolene said at last.

“If you go I won’t forgive you,” Betsy said. “I swear I won’t.”

“You don’t mean that,” Jolene said.

“You love the army more than us,” Betsy said.

Beside her, Michael made a sound. Jolene ignored him.

“No, Bets,” she said quietly. “You and Lulu are the air in my lungs. The blood in my veins. Without you, my heart stops. But I have to do this. Lots of working women have to leave their kids sometimes—”

“Ha!” Betsy screamed. “I’m not stupid. Do those moms get shot at on their business trips?”

“You’ll come home, right, Mommy?” Lulu asked, biting her lower lip.

“Of course I will,” Jolene said. “Don’t I always? And in November I’ll be home for two weeks. Maybe we could even go to Disneyland. Would you like that?”

“I hate you,” Betsy said and ran out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Mila got slowly to her feet. She started to walk toward Jolene, then stopped dead, as if she couldn’t make her legs work quite right. “How long will you be gone?” she asked. Her voice wobbled with the effort to appear strong.

“One year,” Michael answered.

Lulu frowned. “How long is a year? Is that like next week?”

Jolene turned to her husband. “Maybe you should talk to Betsy.”

“Me? What the hell am I supposed to say to her?”

That single question brought it all crashing down on Jolene and scared her as much as everything else combined. How would he be a single father? Would his children be able to count on him in a way that Jolene no longer could?

Jolene stood up. She tried to put Lulu down, but the child clung like a barnacle. So she said nothing to Michael or Mila, just walked out of the living room and down the hallway to the guest bedroom, carrying Lulu. It wasn’t ideal, trying to talk to the girls together, but nothing was ideal about this situation.