Twenty-Eight
The next day was Carl’s “celebration of Tami’s life” for friends and family.
All day, Jolene had been shaky, angry. She’d snapped at her children and cried at the drop of a hat. The fight with Michael had pushed her to the very edge of control. She kept her emotions in check with the fiercest grip of her life. A headache throbbed behind her eyes. She drank two glasses of wine, but it didn’t still the trembling in her hands. She should have been at Tami’s house at three o’clock, setting out food and plates and utensils, making sure that everything was ready. It was a best friend’s job to help out the husband at a time like this.
Jolene had nothing to give. She was so empty inside she was surprised every time she looked in the mirror—how could her veins not be showing through her pale skin, how could her bones not be visible?
At seven, Michael knocked on her bedroom door and came inside, closing the door behind him.
She sat on the bed, dressed in jeans and a white blouse, her hair still damp. She knew by the look on his face that her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot.
“You don’t have to do this if you can’t,” he said tiredly, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. She saw how much she’d wounded him, hurt him, and it shamed her. She thought of the letter she’d written to Michael before she left for Iraq. I loved you, beginning to end.
“I have to.” She got unsteadily to her feet.
He was there in an instant, holding her arm. At his touch, she felt a surge of loss. Had it only been a few weeks ago that he’d kissed her? That she’d thought maybe? and began to fall in love with him again? It all felt so far away now, like memories held under water.
He kept hold of her arm as they went into the family room, where Mila and the girls were waiting. Mila and Betsy both held foil-wrapped casserole dishes, and Jolene thought, I should have cooked.
Tami’s seven-layer dip. She loved it …
She almost stumbled; Michael held her steady. They walked out of the house and across the yard. On this cold November evening, it was already darkening. Soon, there would be frost on the fence posts and across the green surface of the grass.
Michael opened the gate. They walked through the opening and over the hump of grass and up the Flynns’ gravel driveway. At the house, there were dozens of cars and trucks parked out front. Lights blazed from the windows.
I love a party.
She heard Tami’s voice, her throaty laugh … or was that the wind through the cedar boughs?
Seth welcomed them into the house; he looked as dazed and shaky as Jolene felt. She saw the envelope sticking out of his pocket. It was a reminder of her own last letter from Tami, which lay hidden in a drawer in her nightstand, still unopened. He wore his mother’s dog tags around his neck.
“Stay with your mom,” Michael said to Betsy. He and Mila worked their way through the crowd, taking the food to the table.
“Lucky me,” Betsy muttered under her breath.
Jolene barely heard. She remained by the door. She heard talking, even laughing, but it made no sense to her. Tami should be here. It was her house …
The narrow manufactured home was too full of people; food covered every surface in the kitchen and dining room. Most of their Guard unit was here. Oh, God, there were Smitty’s parents, their faces different now, lined by the kind of grief that constricted blood flow and tightened skin. What would she say to them? What would they say to her?
An easel in the center of the room held a poster-sized picture of Tami in her ACUs, smiling brightly for the camera, waving to the folks back home. Jolene had taken that picture only a few weeks before the crash … Give me your real smile, Tam, come on …
She closed her eyes, trying not to remember. Count to ten. Breathe. She needed to go talk to Smitty’s parents, to tell them how sorry she was for their loss and how brave their son had been. He didn’t suffer. Was that what they would want to hear? Or that he’d been courageous or funny or thoughtful?
Behind her, a door slammed shut. Bam! Jolene screamed. In an instant, she was in Balad again, and the base was under attack, and a rocket whizzed by her head. She reached for Tami, told her to take cover, and threw herself to the ground.
She hit so hard it knocked the breath from her lungs, made her dizzy.
When she opened her eyes, she saw a pale white patch of linoleum and a sea of feet. Not boots … not sand. Nothing smelled like smoke or mortar fire.
Feeling sick with shame, Jolene realized that she was on the floor of Tami’s house.
Her family and friends—and the soldiers from her unit—stood around her, beers in their hands, smiles faded, peering down at her with concern. They were talking. Was it to her or themselves? She couldn’t tell; their voices were a chain-saw buzz of sound. Michael was in the kitchen, standing beside Carl. A song—“Crazy for You”—blared through old speakers in a distant room.