Home Front

“You know what this means, soldier girl?”

She wiped the sweat from her eyes, still breathing hard. “What?”

“It means she’s going home soon,” Michael answered.

Jolene glanced to the left and saw her husband standing by the wall, smiling. That was all it took, a look, a tiny adjustment to her balance, and she stumbled. Pain exploded up her right side.

Conny was beside her instantly, catching her before she hit the ground. She bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood.

“I’m tired. Can I go back to my room?”

“Sure. ” Connie started to reach for the wheelchair.

“I’ll walk,” she said.

“I don’t know, Jolene, that’s—”

“She’ll walk,” Michael said, coming up beside her. His gaze was steady on her face. “She can lean on me. ”

He gave her one of his old smiles, and she was surprised by how deeply it affected her. She realized all at once how much she’d missed it, missed him.

He moved in beside her, slipped an arm around her waist. His hand pressed against her hip bone, holding her steady. She felt his breath against her lips, her cheeks.

“Don’t let me fall,” she said.

“I won’t. ”

She nodded and took a deep breath. Staring at the open door, she gritted her teeth and began to move like Quasimodo: step, limp, drag; step, limp, drag.

She made it one step at a time, to the door, through the door, down the hall. By the time she reached her room, the pain in her leg was unbearable.

She was so tired, she let Michael help her into bed. Neither one of them knew how to remove the prosthesis, so they just covered it with the blanket. She was pretty sure blisters were forming down there, bubbling up and oozing, and she felt no rush to look.

“You’re back,” Michael said.

She’d been thinking about the pain of her forming blisters so deeply she’d almost forgotten he was there. “What?”

“Back there, I saw the woman who could run a marathon on a high-tech leg. ”

“That woman is gone, Michael,” she said.

The look in his eyes was sad. It spoke volumes about who they’d been and who’d they’d become. “I should have told her I loved her, before she went off to war. ”

“Yeah,” she said hoarsely. “That would have been nice. ”

Twenty-Two

Jolene woke up screaming, drenched in sweat, shaking hard.

Falling back into the pillows, she worked to slow her breathing. They were killing her, these nightmares. She tried not to fall asleep anymore, but sooner or later, it crept up on her, and the nightmares were always there, waiting for her in the dark. Every morning she woke up feeling drained, already exhausted. Her first thought was always Tami.

She stared out her one small window; that was her view now. Her world had shrunk to a single room and a three-by-three-foot sheet of glass that looked out on a tree that was losing its leaves.

From her cockpit, she had seen forever … and now she needed help to go to the bathroom.

It was demoralizing. As hard as she tried to be positive, she was irritated and shrewish when the aide finally came in to help her.

“I hear it’s a big day for you today,” the woman—Gloria—said, pushing a wheelchair into the room.