She nodded, hating the sick feeling that clutched her stomach. “Okay. But the kids don’t need to be here for this.”
“Why not?” Michael said, coming to the side of the bed.
“They shouldn’t see this,” she told him, her eyes pleading. She could see that he was afraid, too.
“This? You mean you, Jo? We talked about it,” he said, nodding down at the girls. “It’s you, and we love you, and you’re hurt. We’re not afraid. We’re more afraid of what we can’t see.”
“Like nightmares and monsters in the closet,” Lulu said. “When you turn on the light, poof! They’re gone and you’re safe.”
Jolene stared at Michael, mouthed please.
We’re staying, he mouthed back.
Conny moved down to the center of the bed, opposite her family, and pulled back the covers. Jolene saw Betsy flinch at the sight. Her daughter edged toward the door.
Jolene gritted her teeth as long, dark fingers began slowly unwrapping the elastic bandage. “It’s in a figure-eight pattern, see? That’s how you wrap it back up, keeping it tight to help with the swelling.”
Then the bandage was off; beneath was a soft white gauze.
She clutched at the blanket in her left hand, squeezed the fabric in her fist. Michael put his hand over hers, held it.
She saw her half leg for the first time, and it made her sick to her stomach. It was huge and swollen. Ugly. Tears flooded her eyes, and she fought to hold them back.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Betsy said, grunted really, and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
“It looks like a football,” Lulu said, frowning curiously.
Michael looked at Jolene; she saw her own emotions mirrored in his eyes: fear, loss, sadness, pity.
“Come on, Jolene,” Conny said.
She drew in a shaky breath and slowly, slowly bent forward, picking up the new gauze Conny had put beside her.
“Carefully,” Conny said, putting his hands over hers, showing her how to bandage it.
Her skin was taut and sensitive; swollen; not hers, somehow. Bile rose in her throat; she swallowed and forced herself to keep going.
For Betsy and Lulu, she thought, over and over. Act like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t hurt and make you sick. Be their mom again.
She wrapped her leg back up tightly, placed the small silver hooks in place, and then sat back, her eyes stinging as she yanked the blanket back up.
“Beautiful job,” Conny said. “Practically perfect.” He looked down at Lulu. “You and your mom are so brave.”
“We’re soldiers,” she said. “Well, I’m just pretend.”
Conny smiled. “That explains it. And now, young lady, I need to get some things to help your mom exercise. You want to help me get them?”
“Can I, Daddy?” Lulu asked.
“Sure.”
When they were gone, Jolene flopped back into her mound of pillows, exhausted.
“You okay?” Michael asked, leaning over her.
She didn’t have the strength to deal with him right now. She felt so weak and vulnerable, and in that split second when their gazes had met, she’d imagined love. Nothing could scare her more. She’d given him her heart long ago, and for so many years, and then he’d crushed it. With her body so broken, she couldn’t let anything else be hurt. “Why are you even here, Michael? You know we’re over.”
“We’re not.”
She struggled to sit back up, hating how she looked doing something so simple, all off-balance and breathing hard. She threw back the covers. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes.”
She drew in a sharp breath. “Don’t lie to me, Michael.”
“I’m not lying. I learned a lot while you were gone, Jolene. About you … about me … about us. I was an idiot to tell you I didn’t love you. How could I not love you?”
She wanted it to be true, wanted it so badly she felt sick with longing. But she was broken now, and Michael had always had a keen sense of duty. It was one of the things they’d shared. He wouldn’t let himself walk away from his wounded wife, no matter how much he wanted to.
“We’re back, Mommy,” Lulu said, coming back into the room with Conny. “And Conny says we get to play catch!”
Jolene drew in a tired breath. She wanted to say, Really? With one hand? Won’t it be more like fetch? but she didn’t. Keeping silent felt like a minor triumph. She managed a small, hopeful smile. “Okay, Lulu,” she said. “I love playing catch. So let’s get started.”
* * *
Michael stood by Jolene’s bedside.
She had fallen asleep almost immediately after her PT session. He was hardly surprised. She must be exhausted. Today he’d seen the woman who flew helicopters. The warrior.
He stared down at her scabby, bruised face. Always, from the beginning even, when she’d come into his office that first day, he’d seen Jolene as a powerhouse, a woman with steel in her spine.
He saw her vulnerability now. Maybe for the first time ever she needed him. It surprised him how much that meant to him, how much he wanted to be there for her.
He touched her face gently. “Have I lost you, Jo?” he whispered.
He heard Lulu’s helium-high voice in the hallway, and he turned, realizing too late that he had tears in his eyes. He wiped them away as Lulu said, “Look, Daddy, we have ice cream.”
Smiling as best he could, he turned again to his wife, kissed her cheek, and lingered there just a second. Then he straightened and walked away, leading his girls toward the car. All the way home—on the long ferry wait and crossing—Lulu chattered. She wanted a wheelchair of her own.
As they turned onto the bay road, Lulu started singing and clapping her hands together; then she started pretending she was playing patty-cake with her mother. “Help me make one up, Betsy, like Mommy does. Patty-cake, patty-cake—”
“She only has one good hand now,” Betsy snapped. “How do you think she’s going to play patty-cake with you?”
Lulu gasped. “Is that true, Daddy? Tell her to shut up. They’ll take off the cast and Mommy will be fine, right?”
Michael pulled the car into the garage and parked next to Jolene’s SUV. “Leave each other alone.”
Lulu wailed.
Betsy bolted from the car and ran out of the garage, slamming the door behind her.
“Great.” Michael unhooked Lulu from her car seat and pulled her into his arms.
In the house, she immediately wiggled out of his grasp and ran upstairs, probably to torment her sister.
Michael went to the kitchen, poured himself a drink, and stood by the counter, drinking it, gathering strength for what was to come. When he finished the drink, he set down the glass and headed upstairs.
He knocked on Betsy’s door. “Betsy, it’s Dad. Can I come in?”
She waited almost too long, then muttered, “Whatever.”
A phrase he’d come to loathe.
Inside the room, Betsy stood with her back to him, at her window, woodenly rearranging her plastic horses. He didn’t need Cornflower to tell him that it was a desperate attempt to create order from chaos.
“She’s in pain, Betsy,” he said.
She went still. Her hand hovered above a black-and-white pinto, her fingers trembling. “She’s different.”
He went to her, took her hand, and led her to the bed, where they sat side by side. “It’s okay to be afraid.”
“But it’s her fault. She picked the army—”
“Betsy, honey—”
“Sierra’s dad says it’s Mom’s fault. He says women shouldn’t be flying helicopters in wartime anyway. If she hadn’t been flying, none of this would have happened. I told her I wouldn’t forgive her … and I can’t.”
Michael sighed. “Sierra’s dad is a dick who doesn’t know shit. And you can tell him I said so.”
“I’m scared, Dad.”
“Yeah,” he said, putting an arm around her. “Me, too.”
Then the door burst open and Lulu stood there, frowning furiously. “There you are. Were you hiding from me?”
Betsy turned, sniffling. “I’m sorry I was mean to you, Lulu.”
Lulu grinned, showing off her tiny teeth and bright pink gums. “I know, silly,” she said. “Can we play patty-cake now?”
Twenty-One
Yesterday, Jolene had worked harder than she’d ever worked in her life—army-ranger training hard—and for what? So that she could sit upright in a chair, to stretch a leg that wasn’t there, to hold a rubber ball with fingers that barely worked.
Now, she lay in bed, too exhausted and depressed to reach for the trapeze and pull herself to a sit. How pathetic was that? She called Carl at the hospital in Germany, but he didn’t answer the phone. She left a message and hung up.
Tami, girl, where are you? Why aren’t we going through this shit together?
There was a knock at her door, and she knew who it was. Conny the dreadlocked torturer. She didn’t open her eyes.
“I know you aren’t sleeping,” he said, coming into the room.
She rolled away from him. Even that was hard to do with only one good leg. The motion was pathetic and lurching. “Go away.”
He came over to the bedside. “You can’t hide from this, soldier girl.”
“I rolled over. Why don’t you give me a treat and we’ll call it a day?”
He laughed at that. It was a bold, rich, velvety sound that clawed at her already-frayed nerves. “I can just pick you up and haul your scrawny white ass outta that bed.”
“You would, too.”
“What happened to the woman who made it through boot camp and flight school?”
“Her leg is in Germany and she needs it.”
“She’s not getting it back.”
Jolene glared at him. “Do you think I don’t know that?”
“You want me to go, Jo?”
“Yes,” she said, almost cried it.
“Then get out of this bed and start working with me. Let me help you.”
She looked up at him, knowing there was fear in her gaze and unable to mask it. “This is killing me, Conny.”
He brushed the hair from her eyes with a gentleness that brought tears to her eyes. “I know that, soldier girl. I been there.”
“How have you been here?”
“Pain’s pain. I have had my share—more than my share, really. My son died. Elijah. I’ll tell you about him someday. He was a beautiful boy, had a smile that could light up the room. After he passed, I was full of anger. Darkness. Started drinking and yelling. Well, I imagine that’s all you need to know. Took me a long time—and a hell of a wife—to find my way back. I know about hurting all the way to your bones. And I know about giving up. It ain’t the way.”
“I used to be the kind of woman who never gave up.”
“You can be her again.”
Jolene turned away from the compassion and understanding in his dark eyes.
“Come on, Jolene,” Conny said, reaching for her. She didn’t pull away but let him lift her out of the bed and into the wheelchair.