Home Front

This photograph was a lie, as was everything she’d told him about her deployment. There’s no front line over there, Cornflower had said. So there was no safe place.

Jolene—always the hero, always the mother—was sugarcoating her life to prove there was nothing for them to worry about. She’d planted the seeds early. They don’t let women in combat. I’ll be flying VIPs around, nothing dangerous.

He’d bought it because he wanted to. He’d looked away. He shouldn’t have, for God’s sake. He’d known it was a war. Maybe it was the political backlash about imaginary weapons of mass destruction, or the bait and switch with Saddam Hussein. He didn’t know why he’d imagined this to be a lesser war, maybe, one that would be over soon and with few American casualties.

He’d seen the photos on the news of soldiers walking with Iraqi children, handing out water, posing for pictures, and he’d read about suicide bombers, but somehow he’d imagined those two things as separate. He’d let himself believe Jolene when she told him that she would be far from combat.

What an idiot she must think him.

He’d been so busy thinking about himself, being pissed off about how her choice impacted his life, that he’d barely considered the truth of where she was and what she was doing.

How did she feel, lying in bed at night, alone and far from home, knowing any second a bomb could hit her trailer and she could be killed?

* * *

June slipped away from Michael; days fell like rain, disappearing in the ground at his feet. At home, he thought about work; at work, he thought about home. He was always rushing and almost invariably arriving late. I’m sorry was his new default sentence. He’d said it more in the last few weeks than in the last few years.

At the end of the school year, he’d had to recalibrate his schedule. His mom was still a huge help with the girls, but summer was her busy season at the Green Thumb, and she couldn’t be at his house as much as before. So he’d shortened his workweek to four days. Friday through Sunday he worked from home, struggling to juggle the demands of fatherhood with those of his job. When he wasn’t grocery shopping or cooking dinner or washing dishes, he was writing briefs and researching cases. He sent the girls to as many day camps as possible, and still he didn’t have time to get everything done. Driving them from one place to another—or finding someone else to drive them—took an inordinate amount of time. Last week, he’d finally admitted that he wasn’t getting as much work done as he needed to. He’d handed off most of his smaller cases to associates.

That gave him more time to work on the Keller defense.

Today, his plan was to work on the deposition questions for the policemen who’d arrested Keith, as well as the jailhouse snitch.

He woke early and went downstairs to make breakfast. At ten o’clock, he was going to drop the girls off at the Thumb, where they would “help” his mother until he picked them up at two o’clock. It wasn’t much time to work, but these days, he took what he could get.

Lulu’s questions started first thing: It’s sunny today, Daddy. Can we go to the beach? Mommy almost always takes us to the beach when it’s sunny. I could make a sand castle. Do you know how to make a sand castle, Daddy?

The questions came at him so fast he mumbled something and walked away, choosing to drink his coffee standing in front of the TV.

Another mistake. CNN reported that a suicide bomber had killed six people in a market in Baghdad.

The phone rang.

Lulu screamed, “I’ll get it!” in a voice so loud the neighborhood dogs probably came running.

He saw Lulu run for the phone, pick it up, say “Mommy?” Then her smile fell and her shoulders slumped. She hung up the phone and shuffled back into the kitchen and climbed up into her chair. “It’s Sierra,” she said glumly. “Betsy is talking to her. ”

Fifteen minutes later, Betsy came thundering down the stairs. “I’m going to the mall with Sierra to see a movie. ”

Michael leaned forward, switched off the television. “Can you please rephrase that in the form of a question?”

“Sure. Can I have some money?”

Michael turned around, ready to say, Don’t you mean please, Dad, may I go to the mall? but when he saw her, the teasing question fell out of reach.

She had on enough makeup to be an extra in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and her outfit was equally unacceptable: pink Ugg boots, a jean skirt so short it could have been a valance, and a white sweatshirt that had been cut off to reveal an inch of her stomach.

“What the hell are you wearing?”

She glared at him. “Uh. Clothes. ”

“Your mother wouldn’t let you out of the house in that getup. ”

“She’s not here. ”

“And what’s all over your face?”

“Nothing. ”