Home Front

He hated his own weakness, felt as if he were stewing in this pot of his own worst traits. He wanted to be the kind of man who just wanted her to live, in any condition—and he did, he was that man—but he was the other man, too, the one that couldn’t imagine looking at her in the same way if she lost her leg and couldn’t use her hand.

He moved in closer, careful not to disturb the tubes coming out of her.

Her face looked flushed; beneath the yellow and purple bruising, her skin had a reddish cast, and she was sweating profusely, breathing shallowly. Dirty, greasy hair flanked her injured face. Her lips were chapped and cracked and peeling, colorless. It made him think that he should have ChapStick with him. The smell was worse today, like garbage left out on a hot day. He fought the urge to gag.

He glanced down the blanket. Her right leg, on top of the blanket, was still swollen and awkward looking, the foot turned almost unnaturally to the right. That vacuum sucked and wheezed, drawing viscous yellow liquid from the wound.

He heard her come awake, heard the catch in her breathing.

“Mi … chael,” she said, her head lolling sideways to look at him. Her gaze was glassy, unfocused. “You’re … here … thass nice…”

“I was here before, remember?”

She frowned, licked her lips. “You were?”

“Jo?” He had so much to say to her, but where should he start? It was hard enough to undo damage done in a marriage without all of this. He brushed the hair from her face and felt her forehead.

She was burning up.

“Wait…” she said, drawing the word out. “You doan love me…”

Michael hit the nurse’s button. When a woman came in, he said, “She’s burning up. ”

The nurse pushed him aside so hard he stumbled back. Within seconds, the room was full of people, taking Jolene’s temperature, pulling back the covers. A nurse unwrapped the gauze on her leg.

The smell almost made him sick.

“Get her to the OR, stat. ” This was Dr. Sands. When had he come in?

“Wait,” Michael said, surging toward her, bending down. “I love you, Jolene … I do. ”

It was too late; she was unconscious. He stood there while they wheeled her away.

* * *

She is crawling through the thick, sucking mud, carrying her best friend. “Hang on, Tami … don’t you die … I’ll get us there…”

But where are they going, where is she taking Tami?

Somewhere close by a bomb hits. The sky is full of fire and bullets and burning bits of steel. A helicopter hits the ground and bursts into flames.

She throws her body over Tami’s, trying to protect her, but when the night stills and she draws back, Tami is shriveling up in front of her, bleeding through her nose … her mouth … her eyes. There’s blood everywhere, and smoke. Jolene screams, “NOOOOO!”

She came awake, still screaming.

It took her a second to remember where she was: in a hospital. In Germany.

She moved with extreme caution, lifting her head off the pillow. She felt woozy and unfocused, a little sick to her stomach. Through slitted lids, she saw the machines around her. That whooshing, sucking vacuum was gone. So was the smell of rotting flesh. Now she smelled antiseptic and plastic.

She tried to rise on one elbow, but the effort winded her. Breathing hard, dizzy, she stared down at her legs.

Leg.

From about the knee down, the right side of her bed was a flat expanse of white blankets. She had a distant, watery memory of recovery, of seeing nurses and doctors come and go, monitoring her progress.

They had amputated her leg. Cut it off at the knee.

She grabbed a pillow and covered her mouth and howled in grief and pain; she screamed until her throat was parched and her eyes were stinging and her chest ached. She imagined her new life, off-balance, differently abled, broken, and each image was a scab she had to pick—no more flying Black Hawks or running along the beach or picking up her children and twirling them around on a summer’s day.