“What do I do? How do I help her?”
“Pray, Michael. That’s all we can do for her right now. As soon as we have information, a Red Cross worker will call you.”
Michael stared down at his hands, saw that they were shaking. Funny things came to him, stupid things—he heard his own heartbeat and the way breath escaped him, the sound of a beam settling somewhere in the house.
“People will stop by later. To help,” Lomand said.
Michael had no idea how strangers could help, but he didn’t care so he said nothing. Words seemed dangerous suddenly; there was too much he didn’t want to hear or think. He wanted this man gone. “I need to see her.” That was all he knew for sure.
“Of course.”
Lomand stood there a moment longer, looking pained. “She’s a fighter,” he said quietly.
“Yeah.” Michael couldn’t listen anymore. “Thank you…” He meant to say the man’s name, but he’d forgotten it. He got up and headed toward the door, opening it. He heard the captain behind him, heard his heavy footsteps on the wooden floor, but neither of them spoke.
At the door, the captain said, “We’re all praying for her.”
Michael nodded. He didn’t have the strength to speak, not even to say thank you. He stood there in the doorway, watching the captain walk down the driveway, his back ramrod straight, his hat fixed firmly on his head, his arms at his sides.
Time fell away from Michael. One minute he was standing there, watching a soldier walk to his car, and the next minute he was alone, standing in the cold of an open doorway, staring at a yard that was slowly growing dark.
In his career, he’d heard dozens of victims and defendants say I don’t remember what I did … and I just snapped, my mind went blank.
He knew now how that felt, how a mind could simply shut down, stop working.
Slowly, he closed the door and returned to the warmth of his kitchen. All he could hear was his own heartbeat, his own breathing, and those words, over and over and over again.
Shot down.
She could be dying right now … all alone …
He closed his eyes, imagining it for a moment, the loss of her, the funeral, the words, the feelings. As much as it pained him, he couldn’t stop. He wanted this pain; he’d earned it, and how would he survive the worst if he wasn’t ready?
The problem was, he didn’t know the worst, couldn’t identify it. There was telling the children, raising them without her, failing at it, stumbling; there was standing in front of their friends—a widower who had let his wife go to war on a tide of bad words, broken promises; there was coming home without her and learning to sleep alone.
Missing her.
That would be the worst. How was it he hadn’t thought of all of this when he’d so foolishly said I don’t love you anymore? Then, he’d thought of the worst of who they’d become. She’d seemed to him to have grown so big and so small at the same time—the lynchpin of his existence in an irritating way. He’d resented her strength, her independence. He’d wanted to be needed by her, even though he knew he was unreliable. He’d blamed her for his unhappiness, when all along he had been the one to let go of what mattered.
And now maybe he would have to live without her. The idea was overwhelming. He could consider the symptoms—the talks, the responsibilities, the public moments—but the real truth of it, the imagining of a life going on with no heartbeat, was more than he could bear.
He stumbled over to the kitchen counter and picked up the cordless phone. It took him three tries to dial his mother’s number—his fingers were shaking so badly he kept hitting the wrong numbers. When his mother answered, sounding breathless and happy to hear from him, pain rushed in, tightened Michael’s throat until he could hardly speak.
“Hey, Michael. It’s good to hear from you. I’m just unpacking some boxes at the store. Are we still on for—”
“Jolene,” he said, his eyes stinging.
“Michael?” his mother said slowly. “What is it?”
He leaned forward, rested his head on the kitchen wall （papered in sunny yellow, shouldn’t a kitchen be sunny, Michael? It’s the heart of a home）。 He couldn’t see anything now. “Jo’s been shot down. She’s alive—on her way to a hospital in Germany.”
He heard his mother’s indrawn breath. “Oh, my God. How—”
“That’s all I know, Mom.”
“Oh, kardia mou, I am so sorry…”