I found a letter …
He went into his office and turned on the computer, then pulled up his e-mail.
And there it was in the in-box: Jolene’s military e-mail address in bold, black type.
When had she written it? Yesterday, just before her flight?
He clicked on it.
My loves.
Thanks so much for the care packages you sent this week. I was the Queen of Dpod, I can tell you! Everyone wanted some of my tasty treats and the baklava was awesome. I took one bite and thought of all of you. Ask your Yia Yia to tell you the story of when she taught me to make it. I was not her best student, that’s for sure. Not as good as Betsy.
You know what else makes me think of home? The weather over here. It’s September and that means rain, even in the desert. The base is one big mud hole. You’d love it, Lulu. Splash! Splash!
Things are pretty much routine over here these days. I’ve been flying a lot. Recently we flew to a place called the Green Zone and had made-to-order milkshakes. Yum!
The Black Hawk is getting to be my home away from home. It has so much equipment, the whole world is at my fingertips. Whenever I look at the GPS, I think of you guys and home and I count the days till I’m back.
Until then, I know how much you both miss me, and I want you to know I miss you just as much. You are the first thing I think of every morning and the last thing I think of at night.
Lulu, I can’t wait to hear every little thing about your first day of school. I know you still feel a little scared, but try to remember that everyone feels the same way. Have you made any new friends? How is your teacher? Tell me everything!
Betsy, I know how lonely you sometimes feel these days. Middle school isn’t easy for anyone, especially not for a girl who is worried about her mom and having troubles with her friends. Life is messy—especially now—it will help if you accept the mess and let it be. Don’t be afraid to talk to Sierra about what scares you. Or Seth. Or your dad. You never know who will say just the thing you need to hear. And remember, a girlfriend can get you through the worst of times. I know because Tami is helping me every day over here.
One thing I see from here, from a distance, is how lucky we all are to have each other.
I love you both to the moon and back.
Mom
He sat back. I love you … both.
He deserved that, of course, but still it hurt. He’d thought his letter might have made a difference, but why would it? One letter—coming so late—could hardly undo the harm he’d done.
“Michael?” his mother said behind him, coming into the office.
Slowly, he turned. His chair squeaked. “There’s a letter from Jo. The girls will want to read it in the morning.”
“Come with me,” she said.
He followed her out of the office and into the family room, where she sat down in the overstuffed chair by the window. He sank onto the sofa’s deep cushions. Between them was an antique coffee table—Jolene’s first “faux finishing” project—pale blue and covered with the detritus of family life. A pencil, two photographs in drugstore frames, a poorly fired thumb pot from one of the girls, an unread magazine. If Jolene had been here, it would have been cleaner.
“You need to be strong for your girls,” his mother said. “All of them.”
“Before she left,” he said, knowing even as he formed the thought that he shouldn’t speak it aloud—it would make her ashamed of him—but he couldn’t help himself, “before she left I told her I didn’t want to be married to her anymore.”
His mother’s face seemed to fall at that. “This is what she took away with her?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Michael.” She sighed heavily. “I wondered. Her letters…”
“Are to the girls. Yeah.”
“Well,” she said. “You are an idiot, of course. But we’ve all been idiots when it comes to love. It’s not as if your father and I never had our problems. He once moved out—for six months. You were young. I made excuses. I waited. It is a long story that doesn’t matter anymore, except for this: he came back, and I took him in. We found a way to be happy again. So will you.” She got up from her place and stepped around the coffee table. Sitting down on the sofa, she put an arm around him and pulled him against her, soothing his tattered nerves in the way that only a mother could. “I’ll take care of the girls. You go to her, Michael.”
They sat there a long time. When his mother finally fell asleep, Michael got up. He covered his mother’s sleeping body with one of her own hand-knit blankets and wandered through the dark house. He checked on his daughters repeatedly, standing in the doorway and watching them sleep, hating the new life to which they would awaken. Unable to sleep, he started drinking coffee at 5:00 A.M., mostly because, although he couldn’t sleep, he was so tired he kept stumbling, hitting things, knocking them over. Sometimes an image of Jolene, smiling, flashed through his mind, and it caused a kind of temporary blindness. That was when he’d stumble into a chair or knock over a family photo.