Home Front (18 page)

“Mom,” Betsy said, holding the phone to her ear, looking furious. “Dad wasn’t here when I got home today. He forgot me. If
you
were here this wouldn’t happen.”

Lulu threw herself at Betsy. “Give it back! I was talking to her—”

Betsy pushed her away. Lulu plopped onto her butt and screamed. “I wanna talk!”

“Betsy,” he said, “let Lulu talk, too.”

Betsy made a face, but let Lulu into the conversation. The two girls sat down together at the table, talking over each other.

Sighing, Michael went into the kitchen and poured himself a drink. Within ten minutes, Betsy was handing him the phone. “She wants to talk to you, Dad. She doesn’t have much time for us. Like always.”

He took the phone and went into the family room, sitting down. “Hey, Jo.”

“Really, Michael? You forgot her?”

“If you want to bitch me out, don’t bother, Jolene. I feel bad enough.”

There was a pause, then, “You scared her, Michael.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Another pause. “We’re leaving tomorrow,” she said. “For Iraq.”

“Has it been a month already?”

“Yes, Michael.”

In the insanity of the last four weeks, he’d forgotten this date, almost forgotten that she was going to war. He hadn’t
really
forgotten, of course; the knowledge had been a shadow, rarely glimpsed in the hectic mess of his days. Up until now she’d been safe, so it had been easier to think about himself.

“I don’t know what communication will be like at Balad, or how long we’ll be there. I’ll keep in touch as best I can.” She paused. “Michael, it would be really nice if the girls could send me letters or e-mails if we have Internet.”

He thought about her days over there, how empty a part of her would be without her girls. It was kind of shameful that she’d had to ask this. Especially since he knew how hard it was for her to ask for favors from him or anyone. “I’ll make sure,” he said.

“Thanks. Well. I gotta go now, the natives are getting restless.”

“Jo?”

“Yeah?”

“Be safe,” he said. “Take care of yourself.”

She sighed. “Good-bye, Michael.”

“Good-bye.”

All he wanted to do was go to the counter, retrieve his drink, and finish it. He even thought fondly of getting drunk.

Instead, he dialed the local pizza shop, ordered dinner, and went upstairs.

Betsy’s bedroom door was open. He peeked in, saw that she wasn’t there, and walked down the hall to the bathroom.

She was peering into the mirror, messing with her face.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to squeeze those things,” he said.

She pivoted, screamed, “GET OUT,” and slammed the door shut in his face.

He stood there a long time, waiting for her to change her mind and apologize.

Nothing.

Finally, he went back downstairs and found Lulu watching Jolene’s good-bye video again.

He groaned.

The pizza arrived, and he paid the kid and slapped the pie on the table, yelling, “Dinner.”

“Pizza is for birthdays, Daddy. Not dinner,” Lulu said with a sigh. She walked past him and climbed up to the table just as his mother walked into the house, looking irritated.

“Don’t you ever hang up on me again, young man. Is Betsy okay?”

“She’s here,” he said. “I don’t know how okay she is.”

“Thank God. From now on—”

“Please, Ma. Yell at me tomorrow. It’s been a hell of a day.”

His mother stared up at him. “You need to do better, Michael,” she said evenly.

“Yeah. I’m aware.”

Before she could say anything to make him feel worse, he left the kitchen and walked into his office, where, thankfully, it was quiet. He closed the door behind him and sank into the chair by his desk.

He didn’t think he could do this. And
this
was taking care of his children.

What in the hell was wrong with him? How could he be such a success in the courtroom and in his office and with his clients but fail so completely with his own family?

He sighed. His wife had been gone less than a month, and already he was tired of feeling like a failure in his own home.

Eleven

The next morning, Betsy still wasn’t talking to him. Michael awoke early, started breakfast, and got the girls to school on time. When he finally got to his desk—late—he was already tired. But at least he felt competent here.

At eleven o’clock, the call he’d been waiting for came in.

Keith had requested an interview. Finally.

Michael grabbed his notes and left the office. Fifteen minutes later, he arrived at the King County jail and took a seat in a dingy interview room.

Keith came into the room, wearing the orange jail jumpsuit, his wrists shackled in front of him, leg chains scraping and jangling across the stone-tiled floor.

“Leave us,” Michael said to the guard. “And uncuff him.”

“Sir—”

“Uncuff him,” Michael repeated. “I understand the risks.”

The guard frowned but did as he was asked, then left the room to stand guard just outside the door.

Keith sat down at the table across from Michael, rigidly upright. In the pale overhead lighting, he looked surprisingly young and fresh-faced. His crew cut had grown out, stood up now like a jagged blond crown above his face. “My father says I have to talk to you.”

“I’m trying to keep you out of prison. You’re not making my job easy, by the way.”

“Did you ever think I don’t deserve to be saved?”

“No,” Michael said evenly. “I didn’t. And neither has your father. Or your mother, who I hear cries herself to sleep at night.”

“Low blow.”

Michael opened his pad and uncapped a pen. “You know why I’m here, Keith. You promised your dad you’d tell me what happened that day. And I hear you military types are big on keeping promises.”

“I killed the love of my life,” Keith said, and finally there was emotion in his eyes. “I must have.”

“What? What do you mean, ‘you must have’ ? ”

“I’m crazy,” Keith said quietly. “I must be. I can’t remember shooting my own wife. Does that sound sane to you?”

Michael studied his client. Honestly, this was the first good news he’d gotten on this case. He hated that he was analytical enough to hear pain and think
good,
but that was his job, sorting through heartache for reason. Although the law was a codified set of rules, justice was far from set in stone. In court, there was always room for ambiguity, for emotion, for sympathy. “Tell me what happened, Keith. Minute by minute.”

Keith stared dully at the wall. Michael saw that blank look come back into the young man’s eyes.

“She wanted to go to Pike Place. I knew it was a bad idea, but I didn’t know why, I couldn’t say why. And you know, I love … loved Emily and we did what she wanted, especially after I got back from Iraq.”

“Why then specifically?”

“I was hard to live with. I was constantly having to make shit up to her. Anyway, we went to the market.” He paused so long Michael was about to prompt an answer when Keith started talking again. “It was sunny that day. The market was crowded. Piano players, jugglers, magicians, fish throwers, bums. You couldn’t walk a foot without someone bumping into you or running out in front of you or trying to sell you something.”

He looked down at his shaking hands. “I started to get edgy, tight. So I had a straight shot of tequila at the Athenian, but it wasn’t enough to calm me down. I got so jumpy. I get jumpy a lot lately. That day, every movement startled me, got my heart pumping—and there were a lot of movements. I kept thinking people were after me. So, while Emily was picking out flowers, I zipped back into the Athenian, and had a few more shots.”

“How many?”

“A lot.” Keith sighed. “I
know
drinking doesn’t help. It’s something Emily and I had been fighting about. She thought I drank too much and got mean. And I could feel it that day, me getting mean.”

“Did you drink much before Iraq?”

He shrugged. “I guess not.”

“Afterward?”

“Lots. Sometimes it made the … yelling in my head quiet down. But it didn’t help that day.”

“It made it worse.”

Keith nodded. “We were leaving the market—I was pissed and pretty drunk by this time—and this homeless guy jumped out at me. Emily said he just walked up, but it didn’t seem like that to me. Or, he came up
fast,
and he was a skuzzy-looking guy with all this long black hair and a Jesus beard and I hit him so hard he went down. I saw blood spray up from his nose. Emily started screaming that she didn’t know me anymore and there was this … shaking that made it impossible for me to stand still. The next thing I remember is seeing Emily lying on the floor in our living room.” In his lap, his hands clenched and unclenched. “It was like I woke up in someone else’s nightmare. There was blood everywhere, on me, on the wall, on Em. Half of her head was just … gone. I bent down and tried to give her mouth to mouth and I did compressions. The whole time I was screaming and crying. It wasn’t until I saw the gun—my gun—that I knew what I’d done.”

“And that’s all you remember.”

“That’s it.”

“Okay. I’m going to need you to talk to a psychiatrist. Will you do that for me, Keith?”

“Sure. It won’t make a difference, though. I don’t need a doc to tell me I’m crazy.”

Michael looked at his client, thinking,
This kid needs my help.
He knew how heavily the deck was stacked against them, and for the first time in a long time, he felt hopeful. This could be the kind of case that mattered. He wished his dad were here to hear about it. “I’ll set up the appointment.”

Dear Mom:

You are NOT going to believe this. Dad bought me a cell phone. My very own one. Yesterday I was in the lunch room and I put it down on the cafeteria table and you should have seen Sierra’s face. She couldn’t STAND it. Only the high schoolers have cell phones. I told Sierra she could make a call if she wanted and she did and then she walked to class with me. You said one smile could make a difference—maybe you’re right. Maybe she’ll want to be my friend again. I really miss her. Well, I have to go now, Dad’s yelling for me. Like always. He is totally stressed. Yesterday he forgot to put the garbage out for the truck. Everyone misses you. Xo Betsy

Dear Betsy:

I’m glad to hear about your cell phone. It will be good for emergencies. Take good care of it and use it wisely. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t say that if you have to bribe someone into liking you, she’s not much of a friend, but we can talk more about this later. I’m FINALLY leaving for Iraq today. I’ll write again when I land. Love you to the moon and back.

Mom

P.S. I hope you’re helping your dad around the house …

*   *   *

When Jolene stepped off the cargo jet and onto the flat sand at Balad, it was like stepping into a furnace. Tiny sand granules moved invisibly on the hot wind, insinuating themselves into everything—eyes, ears, nostrils, hair, throat. Jolene wanted to cover her mouth and nose in protection, but she stood tall, eyes watering, waiting.

There was a lot of waiting: for orders, for supplies, for transport. Their trip seemed to have taken forever. From Texas to Germany to Kuwait to Tallil to Al Kut to, finally, Balad Air Base.

Wind blew through the base, hot as fire. In seconds, Jolene was sweating. After what felt like hours of waiting, she and Tami were assigned to a small trailer with wood-paneled walls that were pockmarked with tack and nail holes from previous tenants. A pair of sagging beds and a pair of scarred-up metal lockers were the only furniture.

Jolene dropped her heavy duffle bag on the floor: dust puffed up around it. Dust, she knew already, was one of the many new facts of her life. She sat down on the narrow bed, holding her rough, newly issued bed linens and the pillow she’d brought from home. The bed squeaked beneath her.

“We need some pictures and posters,” Tami said, coughing as she sat down on her own bed. “Like Keanu or Johnny.”

Jolene sighed and looked at her friend. The trailer smelled of dust and heat and of the men who’d inhabited it before them. Wind rattled the room, plied at the windows and doors, trying to come in.

Suddenly an alarm sounded.

Jolene was first to the door. She opened it for Tami, grabbed her friend’s wrist and pulled her through. The alarm and speakers were on a pole just outside their trailer and the repeated announcement—GET TO THE BUNKERS!—was so loud she couldn’t hear anything else.

There were dozens of cement bunkers positioned around the base. Jolene and Tami ran for the nearest bunker and went inside.

There was no one else in here. They sat on the floor inside, in the dark, while mortar fire exploded all around them. Shards of cement rained down. Somewhere close, a rocket hit hard and exploded. The acrid smell of smoke slipped through the cracks in the door.

And then it was over.

Jolene stood up, not surprised to find that her legs were a little shaky.

“You notice we’re the only ones in here?” Tami said. “Where is everyone?”

Jolene opened the door. Sunlight, bright as a starburst, blinded them. Black smoke hung in the air, burned their eyes. Everywhere she looked, she saw troops acting as if nothing had happened. They were riding bikes from one trailer to another, standing in line at Porta-Potties, playing football. She turned to Tami. “They told us Balad was called Mortaritaville. I guess now we know why.”

The alarm sounded again. Mortar fire erupted to their left, a cement wall exploded. Smoke wafted their way.

“That’ll take some getting used to,” Tami said when it was quiet again.