Home Front

She hopped closer, stepped down on one pant leg, and lost her balance; her ankle twisted. Falling sideways, she grabbed the towel rack. It ripped out of the wall, and she crashed to the floor, hitting her shoulder on the edge of the sink hard enough to make her cry out.

She lay there for a moment, dazed, her shoulder and ankle throbbing, and suddenly she was screaming in frustration.

The bathroom door banged open. “Jolene?”

“Go away. ”

Michael knelt beside her, touched her face. “Baby,” he said softly, in the voice she had once loved—still loved—and it made her feel so lonely and lost she couldn’t stand it.

“Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?”

“Baby,” he said again, and suddenly she was crying. Sobbing. She tried to stop, to hold back these useless, useless tears and be strong.

Michael took her in his arms and held her tightly, stroking her hair.

Once she’d started to cry, she couldn’t stop. Great, gulping sobs wracked her body, shook her like a rag doll until her nose was running and she couldn’t breathe. She cried first for Tami, but then it was for everything she’d lost, all the way back to her parents, and even before that, for the family she’d longed for as a child and never had. She cried for Smitty, and her lost career and her missing leg and her best friend and her marriage.

When she finally came back to herself, she felt weak, shaky. She drew back and saw that Michael was crying, too.

He gave her an unsteady smile and she needed it—needed him. Telling herself anything else was a lie. “I take it you need to go to the bathroom. ”

It made her laugh. Only she could have the breakdown of her life on the bathroom floor, with her jeans down around her ankles. Ankle. “Yeah. ”

He got up and picked her up as if she weighed nothing and set her on the toilet, then he reached over and unspooled a wad of toilet paper, handing it to her like a perfect white rose.

She’d peed in front of him a thousand times in their marriage, but now the act felt painfully intimate. She thought about asking him to leave and changed her mind. Whatever was happening now between them, she didn’t want to ruin it.

She flushed the toilet when she was done.

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He knelt in front of her, helped her pull her panties back up.

She saw him look at her gel-socked stump and felt sick to her stomach. He would look away now …

Instead, he slowly peeled off the gel sock, and there it was—the ugly, rounded stub of her once-beautiful leg. He leaned forward and kissed the bright pink scar.

When he looked up, she saw the love in his eyes—there was no denying it anymore. Impossible as it seemed, he’d fallen in love with her again. She’d known on that day in the courtroom, hadn’t she? Known it and feared it.

“You know, right?”

She nodded.

“No arguments,” he whispered, then he picked her up and carried her out of the bathroom. She expected him to set her down on her bed, but he kept walking, out of her room and up the stairs.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Our bed,” he said, climbing the stairs with her in his arms.

She clung to him. All the way up the stairs she thought of why it was a bad idea for them to make love. The doctors had told her she could “resume sexual activity” when she felt ready, but what would it be like?

She wanted to say stop, I’m not ready, but even as she had the thought, pushed up by a lifelong fear, she knew it was a lie. She had been ready to love this man from the moment she first saw him. In all these years, that had never changed. They’d hurt each other, let each other down, and yet, here they were after everything, together. She needed him now, needed him to remind her that she was alive, that she wasn’t alone, that she hadn’t lost everything.

She had to believe in him again; it was their only chance. Her only chance. There was no protection from being hurt except to stop loving all together, and she couldn’t do it. She’d tried. She wanted love—reckless, unpredictable, dangerous. Even with her damaged body and her even more damaged heart. She wanted it. Wanted him.

He shoved the bedroom door open and then kicked it shut behind him. At the bed, he stopped, breathing a little hard from the exertion of carrying her up the stairs. In his eyes, she saw the same intense passion that had jolted her body at his touch, brought her back to life, but she saw fear, too, and worry. They lay down together.