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Page 31

 

  “You okay, Tami?” Jolene said as they reached their trailer.

  Tami stopped. “No. Not really. ”

  They walked into the trailer. Tami flipped a light switch; on came the fluorescent bulb on the ceiling. Instantly, the dark little space was illuminated. There were family photographs everywhere—and a movie poster of Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Caribbean on the wall.

  Tami sat down on her bed. It sagged in the middle; dust puffed up from the army-green bedding. The alarm sounded.

  Jolene heard footsteps running past her trailer. She sat down opposite Tami.

  Somewhere, something exploded; the lights in the trailer flickered and remained on.

  When the alarm stopped and the world stilled, Tami went on as if nothing had happened: “Carl says Seth is having a hard time. Kids are making fun of him because of us. It makes me want to kick some preteen ass. ”

  “Michael just says the girls are fine. ”

  Tami looked up. “It’s not like you’re telling him the truth, either. ”

  “We’re hardly talking. He hasn’t sent me a single e-mail. ” Jolene bent over, began unlacing her boots.

  “You are getting a care package once a week. Who’s buying all that stuff and mailing it?”

  “My guess? Mila. And the girls. ”

  “Have you written him?”

  Jolene sighed. “You know I haven’t. What would I say?”

  “Maybe he’s thinking the same thing. ”

  “I’m not the one who said I wanted a separation. ”

  “Are you really going to play chicken with your marriage from here?”

  “I didn’t start it. ”

  “Who cares? Look at what we did today. ” She snapped her fingers. “That’s how fast it happens, Jo. Dead. Alive. ” She snapped again. “Dead. This is the time to say what needs to be said, not to play games. Your parents were losers who scarred you. I get it, I really do. But you have to find the cojones to talk to your husband or you guys are going to lose everything. ”

  “That’s easy for you to say, Tam. Your husband loves you. ”

  “It’s not easy, Jolene. None of this is easy, you know that. Michael loves you,” Tami said. “I know it. ”

  “No. I don’t think he does. ”

  “Do you love him?”

  There it was, the question she’d spent months avoiding. Leave it to Tami to throw it out like the first pitch in a baseball game. “I don’t know how to stop loving him,” she answered quietly, surprising herself. “It’s in my blood. But…”

  “But what? Isn’t that your answer?”

  “No. ” Jolene sighed. Really, she didn’t want to think about this, or talk about it. “Love is only part of it. Like forgiving is only part. Even if I could forgive him, how would I forget? He stopped loving me, Tam. Just stopped. He looked me in the eyes and said he didn’t love me anymore. How can I trust him again? How can I believe in our marriage, in forever together, if our love has some expiration date?”

  “Just don’t give up. That’s all I’m saying. Write him a letter. Start. ”

  Jolene knew it was good advice. She believed in fighting for love; at least she once had. Lately, she had trouble remembering what she believed and who she used to be. “I’m afraid,” she said after a long silence.

  Tami nodded. “He broke your heart. ”

  Jolene looked at her friend, sitting across from her in their dingy, smelly trailer, and she thought how lucky they were to have each other over here. “I’m glad you’re here with me, Tam. I don’t know what I’d do without you. ”

  Tami smiled. “I love you, too, Jo. ”

  Fourteen

  “We’ve got an emergency situation that’s going bad fast,” the captain said. “We need to run search and rescue in a very tight spot. Reports give us a narrow weather window. We need two helicopters in the air in fifteen minutes or less. ” He turned to point at a map. “Here. We’ve got two army rangers trapped by enemy fire. ”

  “We can be up in ten,” Jolene assured him. She looked at Tami, who nodded sharply, and led the way to the tarmac. There was no conversation along the way.

  As they walked across the base, a sharp wind blew up dust that bit into skin and eyes; it raked the flag overhead, whipped it into a frenzy. After a quick check of her craft, Jolene climbed into the left side of the cockpit and took her seat.

  She was the first one inside, but within seconds, the crew was all in place. Jolene ran the preflight check, cleared departure with the tower, and started the engine.

  The aircraft climbed slowly into the air as she worked the controls—her hands and feet in constant motion. With each mile flown, the dust storm intensified. Wind smacked their windshield.

  “Deteriorating viz,” Jolene said. She reached over, flipped a toggle switch, and glanced at her instrument readings. Wind gusted against them, pushed the Black Hawk sideways. A pothole of air sucked at the rotors; the helicopter dropped two hundred feet in a plunging, heart-stopping second. “Hold on, guys,” Jolene said into her mouthpiece. She clung to the bucking, jerking controls and steadied the Hawk.

  At the search vector, it took all of Jolene’s upper-body strength to descend evenly in the maelstrom. Below them, the land was craggy, broken.

  “There’s nowhere to land,” Jamie called out.

  “Roger that,” Jolene said. She worked the two foot pedals, finding the delicate balance between the tail and main rotors.

  “There!” Smitty said. “At one o’clock. ”

  Jo held the helicopter in a hover, but every second was a fight. Wind clawed at them, kept battering the aircraft. On the rugged desert floor below, she could just make out the two soldiers. They were obviously taking heavy fire. Bullets pinged off the aircraft.

  Jamie shoved the door open and laid down a heavy cover of fire.

  “All clear,” he said after a few seconds. “Good to land. ”

  A blast of dust and wind gusted through, swinging the Hawk side to side.

  “Low and slow,” Jolene said into her mic. She lowered the aircraft slowly to the ground. The other helicopter remained in the air, covering them.

  Jolene watched her gauges closely as they rescued the two army rangers.

  When the soldiers were safely loaded in the back bay, Jolene finally breathed a little easier. In seconds, they were back in the air, flying toward the base.

  There, they heard about another helicopter that had gone down near Baghdad, killing the whole crew.

  That night, she couldn’t sleep. Everytime she closed her eyes, she saw helicopters hurtling to the ground, heard people screaming. She saw children, dressed in black, huddled around a flag-draped casket; a soldier in dress uniform walking to her front door … Finally, she gave up trying. Turning on her small light, she reached for her journal.

  AUGUST

  I love flying. I’ve always loved it, and I’m proud to be here, doing my job, helping my country. But there’s this fear in me lately, a terrible, frightening thing, like a bird flapping to get out of my chest. I have a bad feeling.

  The things I’ve seen stay with me. Even in sleep, I can’t get rid of them—arms and legs blown off, soldiers dying, pictures of children pinned to trailer walls, curling in the heat. Every time I take off, I wonder: will this be it? I imagine my family getting the worst news.

  Tami keeps telling me I need to reach out to Michael. She tells me how much Carl is helping her cope with what we’re facing. She says I am being stubborn and playing chicken with my marriage.

  But how can I take her advice? How can I talk to Michael—Michael, whom I loved from the moment he first kissed me—Michael, who is my family. Or was, until he said he didn’t love me anymore. I watched my mom do that, year after year, reach out for a man who’d stopped loving her. It ruined her. I never thought I’d be like her. Am I?

  Am I losing myself out here or just falling out of love with him? Or is this just a part of war? I kno
w that no one at home can matter too much. My friends over here are the people who have my six, the people who will save me and cover me.

  It’s not enough sometimes, though. Sometimes, I need … Michael.

  I need him. But I don’t want to. I don’t trust him to be there for me. Not anymore.

  No wonder I feel so alone. And now my damn watch alarm is going off, reminding me …

  * * *

  August passed in a blur of hot, lazy blue-skied days. Betsy and Lulu were busy almost all the time, going to day camps and spending time at the Green Thumb with Mila. Lulu’s fifth birthday party had gone off without a hitch, although it had been a quieter version of earlier parties.

  On this Thursday morning, the sun rose hot and bright into a cloudless blue sky. It would be a glorious summer day. At nine thirty, Michael pushed away from his home computer and went upstairs. He knocked on the girls’ bedroom doors, saying, “Wake up, sleepyheads, Yia Yia will be here in a half an hour to pick you up. ”

  Then he went downstairs and put breakfast on the table. French toast with fresh blackberries. “Come on, girls,” he yelled again.

  Sipping his coffee, he turned on the TV in the family room.

  “… in heavy fighting last night near Baghdad. The helicopter, a Black Hawk flown by female warrant officer Sandra Patterson, of Oklahoma City, was hit by an RPG and crashed within seconds, killing everyone on board…”

  Pictures of bright-eyed soldiers in uniform filled the screen, one after another …

  “I thought women weren’t allowed in combat,” Betsy said quietly behind him.

  Michael thought, God help me. It was bad enough that he’d just heard the report, and now he had to comfort his daughter. How could he reassure her when the truth was obvious to both of them?

  What would Jolene do? What would she want him to do?

  He turned slowly, saw the tears in Betsy’s eyes. She looked as fragile and shaky as he felt right now.

  “She’s lying to us,” Betsy said. “All those letters and pictures … they’re lies. ”

  He reached out for Betsy, took her hand, and led her over to the sofa, where they sat down together. “She doesn’t want us to worry. ”

  “Are you worried?”

  He looked at her, into her scared eyes, and knew that she would remember what he said next. Would he tell her a lie? He knew how to bend the truth, but for once he wanted more of himself. “I’m worried,” he said at last, pulling her onto his lap.

  “Me, too. ” Betsy coiled her arms around his neck as if she were a little girl again, buried her face in his neck. He felt her crying—the shuddering of her slim shoulders, the dampness on his skin, and he said nothing more.

  When she finally drew back, shaking, her pale face streaked with tears, he felt a surge of love as powerful as any he’d ever known. “I love you, Betsy, and we’re all going to be okay. That’s what we have to believe. She’ll come home to us. ”

  Betsy nodded slowly, biting her lower lip.

  “Hey,” Lulu said, coming into the room. “I want a hug. ”

  Michael opened his other arm and Lulu scampered up beside her sister. “I think I should take my girls to the beach today,” he said after a moment.