Jolene waved good-bye with her left hand and watched them walk away. Only Betsy didn’t pause at the door, didn’t look back and smile.
Michael stayed at her bedside.
“The house is almost ready,” he said. “Your friends from the Guard helped me build a ramp. We turned my office into a bedroom. No stairs.”
“The separation you wanted.”
“Don’t do that, Jo. Please. I’m trying.”
And really, Michael, it’s about you. She sighed, too tired suddenly to do anything—to fight, to pretend, to feel. This day had gone from bad to worse and there was no end in sight. She’d thought the worst of her injuries was her amputated leg, but there was something else wrong; this numbness inside of her. She wanted to do the whole reunion over and be a better mother this time. “Good-bye, Michael,” she said.
“You keep pushing me away.”
She laughed bitterly; it turned into a sob. Throwing back the covers, she showed him her half leg, swollen to twice its size, cut off above the knee, and wrapped in gauze and elastic bandages. “Look at it, Michael. Look at me.”
The pity and sadness in his eyes was her undoing. “Jo—”
“Get out, Michael. Please. Please. I’m tired.”
“My mom read me the riot act for leaving you in Germany. Apparently when a woman says go, it means stay.”
“Not this woman. Go means go.”
She wanted to cross her arms and sigh dramatically, but of course she only had one good arm. She used that hand to pull the covers up, and she closed her eyes.
She heard him move toward her, felt his breath on her cheek as he leaned forward and kissed her temple. The gentleness of it made her want to cry. She swallowed hard and said nothing.
Finally, he left her, and she was alone again.
It was a long time before she fell asleep.
*
Jo! Don’t leave me—
Tami is screaming, crying … blood is spurting from her nose and her mouth … her eyes. Jolene is trying to get to her, trying to reach out, but a bomb falls … exploding. The black night is full of fire and falling shrapnel, and now she can’t find Tami. Somewhere, Smitty is yelling out for her, saying he’s trapped. Jolene is yelling for them, coughing through the smoke, dragging herself through the dirt, looking …
Jolene woke up, gasping in pain. It felt as if someone was twisting her foot in the wrong direction, as if the bones were snapping in protest.
She grabbed the overhead bar in her one good arm and hauled her body upward until she was sitting up. Breathing hard, she stared down at the flat blanket. “You’re not there,” she screamed. “You shouldn’t hurt anymore.”
She flopped back onto the bed, staring up at the speckled white acoustical tile ceiling, gritting her teeth. Tears burned her eyes. She wanted to give into them, maybe cry so hard she washed away on a river of tears and disappeared. But what was the point of crying? Sooner or later she’d wipe her eyes and look down and her leg would still be gone.
“It’s common, you know.”
With a sigh, she turned her head. Through the billowy wave of her pillow, she saw the black man standing in her doorway and knew why he was here. To help.
“Go away, Conny,” she said.
He came into the room anyway.
As he moved, he took something out of his pocket—a rubber band, maybe—and pulled his gray dreads into a ponytail. Diamond earrings glinted in his dark ears.
“It’s not every man who can wear pink scrubs,” she observed wryly.
“Not every woman can fly a helicopter.” He stopped at her bedside. “May I?”
“May you what?”
“Help you to sit up,” he said gently.
She swallowed hard and met his gaze. The compassion in his black eyes hurt as much as the phantom pain in her leg. “Go away.” The words were a croak of sound.
“You just gonna lay here and feel sorry for yourself?”
“Yeah,” she said. That was exactly what she wanted now—to be left alone. She’d spent a lifetime being Pollyanna, believing in the power of positive thinking, and where had it gotten her? Tami was hurt, her marriage was broken, and she couldn’t even get out of bed on her own.
He put an arm around her and eased her upright, positioning the pillows as a comfortable backrest.
She fought him weakly, too depressed to even care, really, then she gave up.
When she was upright, he stepped back just enough to be polite, but not enough so that she owned her space. “Like I said, it’s common.”