Home Front

He went to the bed, sat down facing her. He felt unable to sit straight in her presence; his shoulders slumped forward, as if his spine had begun to go soft. “Betsy,” he said tiredly.



She sniffed, looked at him from beneath heavy lashes.



In her teary eyes, he saw the full import of what he’d done, what he’d said. His love for Jolene was only a part of their life together, the skeleton of their family; but there was more. Their children were the sinew and muscles. The heart. How could one love be extracted from the other without it all collapsing?



“I’m sorry I missed your race.”



“It was stupid anyway. I didn’t win” was what she said, but in her eyes, he saw heartbreak.



“You ran the race, that’s what matters. There will be lots of winning and losing in your life. All of it makes you who you are. I’m proud of you.”



She wiped her eyes and studied him.



He could see what she was thinking. He sighed, pushed a hand through his hair. Turning slightly, out of his depth, he glanced out the window.



“Grown-ups fight,” he said, too ashamed to look at her. Was he lying? He didn’t even know. Ten minutes ago it had been so clear to him—he had fallen out of in love with his wife. Now he saw that it had been a drop of water, that moment, falling into the ocean of their connected lives. “You and Lulu fight all the time and you still love her, right?”



“But you said—”



“Just forget it, Betsy. I didn’t mean it.”



“It was a mistake?”



He looked at her at last. “A mistake,” he repeated, hearing the word as something unfamiliar. “I’m sorry you heard our fight, and I’m sorry I missed your track meet. Forgive me?”



Betsy stared at him so long he thought maybe she was going to say no. Finally, though, she nodded solemnly.



He leaned forward and drew her into his arms. He felt her start to cry again, so he held on, let her be. When she finally quieted, he let go of her and eased off the bed, standing beside her.



She looked up at him. “You love Mom, too, right?”



He said yes—the right answer—but he could tell by the sadness in her eyes that he had waited too long, that the silence convinced her of more than his words had.



Leaving her, he went back downstairs, steeling himself to face Jolene, but she wasn’t down there, waiting. She’d picked up the room and turned off the lights.



That was Jolene, cleaning up even while life was falling apart.



* * *



Jolene made it up the stairs and into her bedroom without coming apart, although how she did it, she wasn’t quite sure. Somehow, her heart was still beating and her brain was still sending signals of the most rudimentary kind—breathe, lift your foot, step forward.



She closed the door quietly behind her, wondering for a split second why she didn’t slam it shut. Maybe a sound like that, a crack, would make her feel better.



Through her window, she saw a block of night and the Big Dipper, slanted on its side.



She meant to sit on her bed, but she missed, was off by inches, and so she slid down to the floor.



She sat there, her knees drawn into her chest, staring into the darkness.



I don’t love you anymore.



It hurt so much she thought her heart might stop.



She leaned back against the bed she shared with her husband.



She didn’t want to think about that, or him, but how could she help herself now?



He had changed her, completed her. Or so she’d thought.



In the army, she’d found herself; in the air, she’d found her passion. But it wasn’t until she met Michael that the missing part of her began slowly, cautiously to fill back in.



Tami had encouraged her to go in search of the young lawyer who’d helped her, and flight school had given her confidence to do it. He’d been easy to find at Zarkades, Antham, and Zarkades.



You came back, he said when he saw her standing in the lobby. Those were the very first words he spoke. He said it, smiling, as if the six years in between had passed in a breath. She knew then that he’d been waiting, too, in his way. I came back, she answered, not even surprised when he reached for her hand. It had been more than a start; love was a deep blue sea and they dove in. She hadn’t known how to believe in love, but he’d swept her away; it was as simple as that. With their first kiss, she’d forgotten the love that had been her birthright and begun to believe in him and forever.



Somewhere along the way, she’d forgotten that love had a dark underside. Too many years in its sunlight had blinded her. She’d handed Michael her heart, wrapped it up and placed it in his hands, and she’d never bothered to worry that he might be careless with it. Even as he’d pulled away from her in the last few years and spent more hours at the office, she’d believed in the durability of their vows and made excuses for him. Like Pollyanna, always believing …



Downstairs, she heard a door slam shut, then a car engine start. She stumbled over to her window and stood there, watching him drive away, wondering if he would come back.



* * *



He didn’t.



Jolene spent the restless, unbearable hours of the night cleaning and doing laundry. She vacuumed, dusted, polished silver, and scrubbed toilets—anything to keep her mind off his I don’t love you anymore.



Not that it worked. The words had changed her perception of her life, if not herself.



Five words to change a world, to dissolve the ground beneath a woman’s feet. It was a tidal wave, that sentence, whooshing in without warning, undermining foundations, leaving homes crumbled in the aftermath.



By morning, she was so exhausted she could barely stand and so wired she didn’t bother making coffee. More than anything, she wanted to escape this too-quiet house and get in her helicopter and fly away. Instead, in the pink and lavender light of a rising dawn, she went for an eight-mile run, but it didn’t help.



When she got back, she took a long shower, dressed in worn jeans and a gray army sweatshirt, and then went to wake up Betsy. She knocked on the door and went inside. “Hey, Betsy,” she said, forcing a smile. She should have spoken to her daughter last night—that was what a good mother would have done, a stronger mother, but Jolene had been afraid of breaking down in front of her child, of crying, of scaring Betsy even more.



“Don’t say anything,” Betsy said dully.



“I know Daddy talked to you. I thought—”



“I do NOT want to talk about it.”



Jolene stopped, unsure of what to say anyway. How did you talk to a child about such adult things? She’d never been good at knowing when to push with Betsy and when to back off. Invariably, she pushed when she should have let go. It was one of Jolene’s flaws: she was good at holding on. Letting go, not so much.



But one thing she saw clearly: Betsy was afraid and confused, and so she was angry. There was nothing Jolene could offer that would help. How could she talk about what she herself didn’t understand?



Instead, Jolene went to her daughter and pulled her to her feet and took her into her arms. It took a supreme act of will not to layer words onto the hug, but she managed it, just let it be.



She felt Betsy’s haggard sigh, and knew how her daughter felt. It was terrifying to see your parents fight. She knew Betsy would remember last night, and she would notice Michael’s absence this morning.



Lulu walked into the bedroom, dragging her favorite yellow blanket behind her. “Hey, I want a hug, too.”



Jolene opened one arm and Lulu rushed forward, folding her little body alongside her sister’s. They stood there a second longer; then Lulu pulled back. She scratched her tangled black hair, pushed it out of her eyes. “Can I have Cap’n Crunch?”



“No Captain Crunch. That’s for special mornings,” Jolene answered automatically.



“Today could be special,” Lulu chirped.



“It’s the opposite of special,” Betsy said bitterly.



“Why?” Lulu wanted to know.



Jolene sighed. “Come on, girls. Let’s get breakfast going.”



As they made their way downstairs, Jolene felt Betsy’s gaze on her. In the kitchen, Betsy seemed to notice everything—the way Jolene’s hands shook just a little when she got out the flour and eggs for pancakes, the way she kept sighing, the way she opened the fridge and just stared inside. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore, being under this scrutiny. She poured the girls Cheerios.



“Where’s Daddy?” Lulu asked, concentrating on getting the right number of Cheerios in her spoon.



“At work,” Jolene said, wondering what she’d say if he stayed away tonight, too.



Betsy looked up sharply. “He left already?”



Jolene turned to pour herself more coffee. “You know what it’s like when he has to catch an early ferry,” she lied, not looking at her daughter.



The moment seemed to draw out; she could feel Betsy’s suspicious gaze on her back. “Hurry up,” she said. “We need to leave in twenty minutes.”



As soon as breakfast was over, Jolene herded the girls upstairs to finish getting ready. They left right on time, and by nine fifteen, she was home again.



She parked in her garage and then walked next door. Waving to Carl, who was working on a Ford truck, she went to the front door, opened it, and said, “Hey, Tam,” at the same time she went inside.



Tami was in the living room, in a fraying blue robe and sheepskin slippers, sipping coffee from a huge insulated mug. Behind her, the wood-paneled walls were studded with dozens of family photographs, all framed in white. Dead center was Tami’s military portrait.



“Hey, flygirl,” Tami said, grinning. She sat on the blue plaid sofa, her slippered feet propped on the glass coffee table.



She looked at Tami, and for a second she couldn’t say it, couldn’t force the words out.



Tami frowned and put down her coffee cup. “What is it, Jo?”



“Michael said he doesn’t love me anymore,” she said quietly.



“You don’t mean—”



“Don’t make me say it again.”



Tami walked forward slowly, put her arms around Jolene, and held her. It took Jolene a minute to lift her own arms, to hold on to Tami, but once she did, she couldn’t let go. She wanted to cry, was desperate for a way to release this pain, but no tears came.



“What did you say to him?”



“Say?” Jolene stepped out of the embrace. “After I don’t love you, what is there to say?”



Tami sighed. “Couples fight, Jo. They yell, they say things they don’t mean, they storm off and come back. Granted, Michael said a stupid thing, but he didn’t mean it. You can forgive him. This isn’t the end.”



Jolene heard the undertone of pain in Tami’s voice, knew her friend was remembering the affair Carl had had ten years ago. “I know about forgiving people and loving them anyway, even after they hurt you.”



She did know. Jolene had spent a childhood forgiving her parents, hoping that tomorrow or next week or next month they would change. But they hadn’t changed and they hadn’t loved her. She’d started to get better when she accepted that simple truth. She’d stayed whole, become whole, by not needing their love anymore. She knew what Tami was saying; hell, it was what Jolene would have said if the situations were reversed. One sentence couldn’t end a marriage. But she couldn’t hang on alone, either. Hadn’t she learned that from her mom?