The C-141 medical evacuation jet descended, touched down on the runway, came to a stop.
Reporters ran forward, stretching out microphones and video cameras, clamoring with questions, but were stopped by a barrier from getting too close to the plane.
The three women were jostled by the crowd; a yellow line held all of the families back, but the wives and children strained against it, signs upheld, each jockeying to be in front.
At the plane, sailors moved the exit ramp into place. A naval officer stood at the bottom of the ramp, holding the reporters and families at bay.
The jet door opened and the first POW emerged, wearing khakis that were too big for him. Commander James, shot down in 1967. He paused at the top of the ramp, blinked in the harsh sunlight, and made his way down to the tarmac. At the bottom, he saluted the officer in front of him and was helped to a podium, set up in front of a phalanx of reporters.
He looked out at the crowd, searching for his family. “Thank you, America. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to serve our country, and grateful that our country has brought us home.”
His wife broke free, pushed past the reporters, ducked under the yellow tape, and rushed toward her husband, throwing herself into his arms. The crowd spread out, families clumped together. Frankie saw Anne Jenkins, standing with her children, and Joan and her daughter, and several of the other wives she’d met along the way. They all looked anxious, didn’t even wave to each other.
A commander emerged from the jet next. His wife and sons—and a man who was probably his father—moved forward to greet him.
And then there he was—Rye—standing at the top of the ramp, blinking as the others had, wearing freshly pressed khakis that were too big, a belt cinched tight at his waist. He limped down the ramp, clutching the rail with one hand.
Everything else fell away; the world around him blurred. Frankie saw the smear of camouflage-colored paint that was the jet, and a blob of reporters vying for comments, and heard the sound of sobbing all around her. She needed to push her way through the people in front of her, to get to the yellow tape, but she could hardly move. She was crying too hard to see. “Rye,” she whispered.
He limped forward, searching the crowd. Not seeing her, he veered left, toward the group of waiting wives.
“Rye!” she yelled, but her voice was lost in the sound of cheering. “I’m here!”
He headed for a tall, curvy woman with a cascade of curly blond hair who stood to one side, holding on to a little girl’s hand. The child held up a sign that read WELCOME HOME, DADDY!
He ran the last few steps forward, pulled the woman into his arms, and kissed her. Deeply.
Then he bent down to kiss the little girl with the WELCOME HOME, DADDY! sign. He swept her up into his arms. The woman wrapped her arms around both of them; all three were crying.
“He’s married,” Ethel said softly. “Son of a bitch.”
“Oh my God,” Frankie whispered, feeling everything inside of her start to crumble.
Twenty-Nine
Frankie became aware of the music: first the beat, then the words. “Hey Jude…”
She was in the O Club, dancing with Rye. She felt his arms around her, his hand at the curve of her spine; familiar, where it belonged, holding her close. He whispered something she couldn’t hear. “What?” she said. “What?”
I’m married.
I was always married.
Suddenly the music blared, turned loud enough to break glass.
She opened her eyes. They were groggy with grit, wet with tears.
The music snapped off.
She was in her own house, in her bed.
She sat up, saw Barb and Ethel standing there, looking so sad that Frankie’s wound opened again.
He lied.
She remembered asking him the wrong question in Kauai, and his answer: I swear I’m not engaged. The words played over and over in her head.
“You need to get up, honey,” Ethel said. “Henry is on his way over.”
Frankie couldn’t respond. She’d come home from the air station and climbed into bed and cried herself first to a headache and then to sleep.
She knew her friends were ready to lift her up, buoy her, but this pain, this betrayal, was worse than her grief had been. She’d made her friends stop on the way home to buy a local newspaper. She’d read and reread the article about Joseph “Rye” Walsh, the local hero who had married his college sweetheart just before going off to war and never met the daughter who’d been born in his absence. Josephine, called Joey.
“Frankie?” Barb said gently, sitting on the bedside, pushing the damp hair back from Frankie’s face.