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 know 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.
Lulu drew back, her eyes big. “You?”
“But it’s a workday,” Betsy said.
“I’ve worked enough,” Michael said. The unfamiliar words loosened something in him, made him feel buoyant. He reached for the phone on the end table and called his mom. “Hey, Ma, I’m going to stay home with the girls today. We’re going to hang out at the beach. You want to come?”
His mother laughed. “I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do at the store. I’ll meet you there?”
“Perfect,” Michael said, hanging up. Then, to his stunned daughters, he said, “Why are you sitting there? I thought we were going to the beach.”
“Yay!” Lulu yelped, bouncing off his lap and running upstairs.
In the garage, Michael found that Jolene had everything organized neatly—folding beach chairs, marshmallow-roasting sticks, lighter fluid, coolers. He had an entire cooler packed by the time Betsy and Lulu came back downstairs, wearing their bathing suits and carrying beach towels. “I got Lulu ready,” Betsy said proudly.