The aircraft climbed slowly into the air as she worked the controls—her hands and feet in constant motion. With each mile flown, the dust storm intensified. Wind smacked their windshield.
“Deteriorating viz,” Jolene said. She reached over, flipped a toggle switch, and glanced at her instrument readings. Wind gusted against them, pushed the Black Hawk sideways. A pothole of air sucked at the rotors; the helicopter dropped two hundred feet in a plunging, heart-stopping second. “Hold on, guys,” Jolene said into her mouthpiece. She clung to the bucking, jerking controls and steadied the Hawk.
At the search vector, it took all of Jolene’s upper-body strength to descend evenly in the maelstrom. Below them, the land was craggy, broken.
“There’s nowhere to land,” Jamie called out.
“Roger that,” Jolene said. She worked the two foot pedals, finding the delicate balance between the tail and main rotors.
“There!” Smitty said. “At one o’clock. ”
Jo held the helicopter in a hover, but every second was a fight. Wind clawed at them, kept battering the aircraft. On the rugged desert floor below, she could just make out the two soldiers. They were obviously taking heavy fire. Bullets pinged off the aircraft.
Jamie shoved the door open and laid down a heavy cover of fire.
“All clear,” he said after a few seconds. “Good to land. ”
A blast of dust and wind gusted through, swinging the Hawk side to side.
“Low and slow,” Jolene said into her mic. She lowered the aircraft slowly to the ground. The other helicopter remained in the air, covering them.
Jolene watched her gauges closely as they rescued the two army rangers.
When the soldiers were safely loaded in the back bay, Jolene finally breathed a little easier. In seconds, they were back in the air, flying toward the base.
There, they heard about another helicopter that had gone down near Baghdad, killing the whole crew.
That night, she couldn’t sleep. Everytime she closed her eyes, she saw helicopters hurtling to the ground, heard people screaming. She saw children, dressed in black, huddled around a flag-draped casket; a soldier in dress uniform walking to her front door … Finally, she gave up trying. Turning on her small light, she reached for her journal.
AUGUST
I love flying. I’ve always loved it, and I’m proud to be here, doing my job, helping my country. But there’s this fear in me lately, a terrible, frightening thing, like a bird flapping to get out of my chest. I have a bad feeling.
The things I’ve seen stay with me. Even in sleep, I can’t get rid of them—arms and legs blown off, soldiers dying, pictures of children pinned to trailer walls, curling in the heat. Every time I take off, I wonder: will this be it? I imagine my family getting the worst news.
Tami keeps telling me I need to reach out to Michael. She tells me how much Carl is helping her cope with what we’re facing. She says I am being stubborn and playing chicken with my marriage.
But how can I take her advice? How can I talk to Michael—Michael, whom I loved from the moment he first kissed me—Michael, who is my family. Or was, until he said he didn’t love me anymore. I watched my mom do that, year after year, reach out for a man who’d stopped loving her. It ruined her. I never thought I’d be like her. Am I?
Am I losing myself out here or just falling out of love with him? Or is this just a part of war? I know that no one at home can matter too much. My friends over here are the people who have my six, the people who will save me and cover me.
It’s not enough sometimes, though. Sometimes, I need … Michael.
I need him. But I don’t want to. I don’t trust him to be there for me. Not anymore.
No wonder I feel so alone. And now my damn watch alarm is going off, reminding me …
* * *
August passed in a blur of hot, lazy blue-skied days. Betsy and Lulu were busy almost all the time, going to day camps and spending time at the Green Thumb with Mila. Lulu’s fifth birthday party had gone off without a hitch, although it had been a quieter version of earlier parties.
On this Thursday morning, the sun rose hot and bright into a cloudless blue sky. It would be a glorious summer day. At nine thirty, Michael pushed away from his home computer and went upstairs. He knocked on the girls’ bedroom doors, saying, “Wake up, sleepyheads, Yia Yia will be here in a half an hour to pick you up. ”
Then he went downstairs and put breakfast on the table. French toast with fresh blackberries. “Come on, girls,” he yelled again.
Sipping his coffee, he turned on the TV in the family room.
“… in heavy fighting last night near Baghdad. The helicopter, a Black Hawk flown by female warrant officer Sandra Patterson, of Oklahoma City, was hit by an RPG and crashed within seconds, killing everyone on board…”