An older man greeted them in the main room of the house. He was tall and gangly-looking, with long, unkempt gray hair and an angular face. He was wearing baggy black pants, orange clogs, and a Grateful Dead tee shirt. “Hello, Jolene,” he said. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
This was her doctor? “Oh,” was all she could think of to say.
He smiled broadly. “I’m Chris Cornflower. I see Michael didn’t prepare you.”
Michael laughed. “There’s no preparing someone to meet you for the first time, Chris. It’s an experience.”
“He told me you were a Vietnam vet,” Jolene said.
“And I am. A POW, too.” He reached out and shook her hand. “I’m thrilled to meet you, Chief.”
“I’m not that woman anymore.”
“And there’s our job, Jolene, to find out who you are now. Would you like to come back to my office?”
She hesitated, looked back at Michael, who smiled and nodded. “Okay,” she said.
She followed Chris into a small, nicely decorated room in the back. She was glad to see that there was no couch. “I don’t know exactly how to do this,” she said, taking a seat in the comfortable chair positioned near his desk.
“I have some experience,” he said, giving her a smile. “We could start so many places. Your childhood, your experiences in Iraq, your best friend, your civilian future. Whatever you want to talk about first.”
She laughed nervously. “When you put it like that, it makes me think we’ll be doing this for a while.”
“Only as long as you want to, Jolene. You’re the chief here; I’m the private. You lead, I follow.”
She was afraid to dive into this conversation. They both knew it. But she’d already let fear guide her before, and that hadn’t worked. “People see my lost leg and they think that’s the problem. But I lost more than that. Sometimes I have no clue who I’m supposed to be or what my life will look like from here on. I was good at being a soldier. I like answers.”
“Why did you join the military, Jolene?”
“I was eighteen and alone in the world with no money. It gave me a place to belong.”
“A family.”
“Yes,” she said after a pause.
“But it’s an easy family to belong to, isn’t it? Rules guide every situation and behavior. There are no hurt feelings or broken hearts in that family. You always know who you are and what your job is. When you’re in trouble, your unit is always there for you. You know you’ll never be left behind.”
Jolene felt herself relax a little. He understood. Maybe finally—finally—she could talk honestly about the pain in her past, and maybe if she could tell him, she could tell Michael, and she could begin to heal. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“You were a POW. So, you endured a lot. How did you know when you were out of the woods?”
“An excellent question. There were a lot of angry years after I got home. Lost years. I guess I knew I had begun to heal when I was ready to help someone else.”
Jolene knew how that could happen, how you could sink into a pool of anger or grief or sadness or guilt and simply drown. She thought about the letters she’d received in rehab, especially the one from the young marine, Sarah, who’d lost her leg. She’d ignored the young woman’s plea for help. “I used to be the kind of woman who helped people.”
“You can be that woman again, Jolene.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “I want to start with the nightmares…”
*
On the second Friday in December, Lulu woke early and went straight to her bedroom window, pressing her nose to the glass. “No snow,” she whined.
“Maybe God’s waiting ’til Christmas Eve,” Jolene said. “A white Christmas would be great, wouldn’t it?”
Lulu’s little shoulders slumped as she turned away from the window. “I was hoping for no school.”
“But, Lulu, you love kindergarten.”
“I know,” she said miserably. “But I wanted to go with you today.”
Jolene pulled her youngest into her arms and kissed her cheek, then patted her butt. “Get dressed, Kitten. You’ll just have to wait to see my new pretty leg. Surprises are good, right?”
“I guess so,” Lulu said, although clearly she didn’t believe it.
“Good. Now let’s go wake up your sister. You know how cranky she gets if we’re late.”