Jolene dared to open her eyes.
The minister from Tami’s church stood by the casket. He had no microphone—no one had expected such a crowd—but the people quieted instantly, until all you could hear was the wind fluttering the flags out front. “But she wasn’t Tamara to us, was she? She was just Tami, the girl who used to climb trees with the boys and run wild along the beach. I remember when her mother despaired that she would ever slow down enough to find a career.” He looked up the hill.
Jolene knew what he was seeing—hundreds of people, and more than half of them in uniform. “She did find that career, though, and I have to say, I wasn’t surprised that she found her passion in the sky. She loved flying. She once told me that it was as close to God as she could imagine being.”
He looked down at his hands, then up at the crowd again. “We lost her, and that is a wound that won’t heal. We lost her in a faraway land, doing something that most of us can’t begin to understand. We ask how we could have lost her in such a way. But then we know: that was Tami. If someone needed help, she was the first to show up. Of course she put herself in harm’s way. That’s who our Tami was.”
Jolene heard Seth make a sound beside her. She reached for his hand, took it. He held on tightly.
“We thank Tami for her service today, as friends and as Americans. She gave the full measure to protect, and she is a hero. But we knew that, didn’t we? We knew she was a hero long before today. To Seth and Carl, whom she loved with a fierceness that was matched only by her courage, I say, remember her, all of her. And when you look at the sky, think of her up there, in her beloved blue, with our Lord beside her. She would not want you to mourn.” He looked up at the sky and said quietly, “Good-bye, Tami. Peace be with you.”
He stepped aside and one of the uniformed soldiers marched up to the casket. The soldier removed the flag from the casket, and, along with another soldier, carefully folded it into a near triangle. Then he offered it to Captain Ben Lomand, who stood nearby. The soldier saluted and handed Ben the flag. Ben turned crisply on his heel, pivoted, and brought the flag to Carl.
Jolene saw that Carl’s hands were shaking as he reached out.
On the ground, two rows of soldiers pointed their guns skyward and shots rang out. A twenty-one-gun salute. Carl stood, walked toward the casket. He stood there a long time, his head bowed; then he placed a red rose on the gleaming mahogany top. Seth followed. The rose he placed on the casket slipped off, and he bent to retrieve it, placing it next to his father’s. One by one Tami’s relatives came up to say their last good-bye and put a rose on the casket.
When it was Jolene’s turn, she stood slowly. She felt awkward, uncertain that her legs would hold her up.
“You can do it,” Michael said.
She moved cautiously forward. At the flower-strewn coffin, she stopped, and put her hands out, touching the smooth wood. The rose she held bit her with its thorn. Good-bye, flygirl. I’ll miss you …
She put her rose with the others and then joined the five soldiers who’d gathered at the casket. The bagpipes started to play again, and Jolene watched as the soldiers—her friends from the Guard—picked up the casket. The soldiers carried it down the grass toward its final resting place. Jolene limped beside them, an honorary pallbearer.
Tears glazed her eyes, and she couldn’t see well, but she kept moving, gritting her teeth against the pain. The uneven grass threatened to break her stride at every step, but she kept going. Finally, they came to the grave site.
The bagpipes wound down, their music fading away. In the sudden silence, three helicopters roared into the airspace, rotors whirring, engines purring, and hung there.
Good-bye, Tam. Fly safe …
And it was over.
Twenty-Seven
For the next week, Jolene hung on by the thinnest imaginable thread. The grief was so overwhelming she forced herself to ignore it completely. With a combination of wine and sleeping pills, she found numbness. She went to rehab three days a week and tried to concentrate on her recovery, but to be honest she barely cared. At home, she drank two or three glasses of wine and crawled into her bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. When she was lucky, she slept at night. Other times, she lay awake in the darkness, acutely alone, remembering her best friend. She knew how her family felt about her lethargy—Betsy was pissed, Michael was saddened, and Lulu was confused.
She knew she was letting them down again, and sometimes she found the energy to care. Mostly, she just … looked away. Even on Halloween, she’d been unable to rouse herself. She’d waved good-bye to her princess and her gypsy and watched them leave with Mila and Michael for trick-or-treating.