“I’m sorry to call at the last minute like this,” Jolene said, bumping the car door shut with her hip.
Mila shook the dirt from her gardening gloves; it rained onto her boots. “Ah, honey, what’s family for?”
Lulu got out of the car and put on her kitten-ears headband, mewing loudly for attention.
“Not this again,” Betsy said, pushing past her sister.
Mila put down her watering can and glanced around. “Hmmm. Where is my granddaughter, Jolene? Did you leave her at home? In the car?”
Lulu giggled.
“What was that noise?” Jolene said.
Lulu whipped off the headband. “I’m here! Yia Yia.”
Mila picked Lulu up and held her.
For a moment, Jolene couldn’t say anything. The weight of her future pressed down on her chest so hard she couldn’t breathe.
Mila frowned. “Are you okay, Jo?”
“I’m fine. Michael and I need to talk, that’s all. I’ll pick the girls up tomorrow if that’s okay?”
Mila stepped closer. “You tell my son he needs to do better. Work is important, but so is family. I tried to teach his father this lesson, too, but…” She shrugged. “You will do a better job of it than I did.”
Jolene could only nod. It seemed a lifetime had passed since the missed track meet. She almost blurted out—I’m being deployed. She needed to tell Mila, needed to feel a mother’s embrace, but she couldn’t do it, couldn’t be comforted yet.
She mumbled good-bye and went back to her car. By the time she got home, she was sick to her stomach.
This deployment changed everything. He would see that. Whatever their problems were—had been—they would have to be set aside. She and Michael would have to come together now, for the children, for their family. And she would need him now, really need him. His love would save her over there, keep her warm at night, just as her children’s love would bring her home.
She thought about what Tami had said. Couples fight. They say things they don’t mean; they stomp off.
They come back.
She wanted to believe that, believe in that, even though she’d never seen it. She wanted to forgive Michael and find a way to scrub his declaration from her brain so they could go back to who they’d been.
All she had to do was give him a chance.
She could do it; she could be strong enough to let him know she still loved him. These were the things she told herself as she waited for him.
And waited.
Finally, at seven o’clock, he came into the kitchen and immediately poured himself a scotch.
“Hey,” Jolene said, rising from her seat on the hearth.
He turned. In the ambient light from above the stove, he looked more than tired. His hair was a mess. The skin beneath his eyes had a violet cast, as if he’d slept as badly as she had last night.
“Jo,” he said quietly; there was a gentleness in his voice that surprised and saddened her. It swept her back, in a breath, to who they used to be.
She ached for that—needed it, needed him. “I’m being deployed.”
Michael went so still it was as if he’d stopped breathing.
“You’re kidding, right?” he finally said.
“Of course I’m not kidding. Who kids about going to war?” Jolene’s voice cracked. For a split second, her strength wavered. She realized how desperate she was to have him take her in his arms and tell her they’d be okay through this. “I’m going to Fort Hood first for combat training, then it’s off to Iraq.”
“You’re in the Guard, for Chrissake. You’re not a real soldier.”
Jolene flinched. “I’m going to do you a favor and forget you said that.”
“You are not going to war, Jo. Come on. You’re forty-one years old—”
“Now you remember.”
“People are dying over there.”
“I’m aware of that, Michael.”
“Tell them you’re a mother. They can’t expect you to leave your children.”
“Men leave their children to go off to war every day.”
“I know that,” he snapped. “But you’re a mother.”
“I was a soldier first.”
“This is not a damn game, Jo. You are not going to war. Tell them thanks but no thanks.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “I would be court-martialed for that. I’d go to jail. You don’t say no.”
“Quit then.”
He didn’t know her at all if he could say that to her. Honor was just a word to him, and lawyers made a game of playing with words. He had no real idea what a dishonorable discharge meant. “I gave my word, Michael.”