Call him a coward, but he couldn’t deny her. She looked so damned desperate and lonely, and he knew now how much this turnaround with Sierra meant to Betsy. “You look fine, Betsy. And you can go to the mall. Just let me call Sierra’s mom.”
“I already called. It was so embarrassing to say that my dad wouldn’t let me ride with Tod.”
“Horrifying,” he agreed.
“Anyway, Mrs. Phillips is picking us up in ten minutes. So can I have money?”
“How much do you want?”
“Fifty.”
“Dollars?”
“Okay.” She sighed dramatically. “Twenty-five.”
Michael dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. While he was counting his bills, Betsy shrieked.
“They’re here! Give me the money, Dad. Now! Hurry! They might leave.”
“I’m walking you out to the car.”
“No!”
He smiled.
She grimaced. “Fine.”
He walked her out of the house and down the driveway, where a blue minivan waited.
Sure enough, a woman was driving.
“Here, Betsy,” he said, handing her thirty dollars. She swiped it like a raptor taking prey and mumbled something that might have been good-bye.
The driver rolled down her window. “Hi,” she said to him. “I’m Stephanie. I understand Betsy thought Tod would be driving.” She smiled. “Hardly.”
Michael smiled back. “That’s good to hear. I remember being eighteen. Focus behind the wheel was not my strength.”
“My husband says the same thing.” Stephanie glanced in the backseat, then leaned closer. “It’s good to see the girls together again. How’s Jolene?”
People asked him that all the time. He never really knew what to say. “Fine.”
“Tell her I said hi.”
“Will do.” He backed away, watching the car back down the driveway and then drive away.
He walked back up to his house. On the porch, he stopped, looked around. Sunlight spilled across the white slats, brightening the faded chair cushions. The grass out front was still a deep, rich green—summer’s heat hadn’t found its way here yet. Down below, across the road, he could see a family gathering, building a fire and setting up chairs for a day at the beach. In a normal year, Jolene would be down there already, setting up coolers and chairs.
He went back inside. “Hey, Lulu,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Want to help me find our flag?”
Twelve
Dear Mom:
I had the best weekend EVER! You won’t believe what happened. I’ll start at the beginning. First, I got my phone—you remember that—and Sierra thought it was so cool and we sat together. Then she talked to me in PE, and THEN she got in a fight with Zoe because Zoe like, totally, lied to her about what Jimmy said about her. So Sierra is my friend again! Last week we went to the mall together and saw War of the Worlds, which was so cool.
And guess what? Zoe was there and we didn’t even talk to her.
Dad says Sierra and me can go to kayaking camp together in July. Cool, huh?
Anyway, that’s everything. Things are okay here.
Lulu doesn’t think she’s invisible all the time anymore, so that’s good. We made Daddy put up a flag.
Well, I gotta go. Dad is ordering pizza for dinner again and I want pineapple on it. Be careful, Mom.
Love, B.
P.S.: Sierra wants to know if you’ve shot anybody yet. Have you?
Dear Betsy:
Wow. That’s a lot of news! I am so glad to hear about you and Sierra working on your friendship. You two have been friends for a long time, and those relationships are important. BUT I want you to be careful, too. I haven’t forgotten about Sierra’s thing with the cigarettes, and honestly, I think she can be kind of a mean girl sometimes. Be careful.
Also, you should think about how it felt when Sierra and Zoe froze you out. Do you really want to be the kind of person who treats someone like that, who hurts a girl’s feelings for sport? Be nice to Zoe. Be the kind of girl I know you can be.
Glad you’re having a fun summer already, though. I wish I were there. I sure do miss you guys.
And don’t worry about me. I know you saw that report on CNN, but I’m fine. It’s dangerous over here, that’s true. But mostly, Tami and I are flying way away from the bad areas. We fly a bunch of VIPs around, and supplies. You don’t need to worry about me. Honest.
Love you to the moon and back. Mom
P.S. Tell your dad enough pizza! And no, I haven’t shot anyone. Did Sierra really ask you that?
JULY 2005
I once read a Stephen King book that used the term SSDD. Same shit, different day. That’s pretty much what the last month in Iraq has been. Day after day of rising at 0 dark thirty, getting mission orders, checking my aircraft, and flying out.
Today I was on duty for more than fourteen hours all together. Honestly, Tami and I are so tired most of the time that we hardly talk before we fall asleep. The heat and dust are unbearable. It’s over 125 degrees most days, and when you consider that I’m wearing a helmet, gloves, and Kevlar. Well, the way I smell after a mission cannot be good.
We’ve been flying at night a lot, and that’s better, at least with regard to the heat. Sometimes we’re supporting the medevac guys, and I have to say, that’s no easy job. I can’t get the images out of my mind—soldiers blown apart, bleeding, screaming for help.
Only yesterday, I ended up sitting with a kid outside one of the hospital tents. He was young—no more than twenty-five—and I knew he wasn’t going to make it. I’m no doctor, and even now I can’t describe his wounds, they were too horrific. I knew, that’s all. Anyway, I held his hand and listened to him talk, and mostly what he kept saying was “tell my wife I love her.” I told him I would, and I’ll write her a letter—what else can I do? But when I left him, when he died, and I was standing there, listening to the war going on and the doctors yelling and a helicopter landing somewhere close by, I thought: What would I say at the end like that? Of course I’d be thinking about my children, whom I love more than the world, but what about Michael? I know he doesn’t love me anymore—if words hadn’t been enough to prove it, the lack of letters since I went away certainly make his position clear—but do I still love him?
The truth is, at the end, I’d be reaching for him. I know I would. Reaching out for a man who no longer wants to be there.
Just like my mother.
* * *
By late July, Michael and the girls had settled into a manageable routine. This week, Betsy was away at a weeklong summer camp on Orcas Island, where she was learning to kayak; Lulu was spending the weekend with her grandmother. Last he’d heard, they were making stuff out of dry macaroni.
Without them, the house was quiet. Maybe too quiet.
It was growing late; night was beginning to fall. After a long day at the office, Michael had come home, eaten a bowl of Raisin Bran, and then gone back to work. He’d finally received a copy of Keith Keller’s military records, and he had the documents laid out on his kitchen table, alongside interview transcripts. In the past week he’d spoken with Ed and his wife, as well as Dr. Cornflower. There was also a list of prospective witnesses, military and civilian.
By all accounts, Keith had been an ordinary small-town boy before he went off to war. He’d won local scholarships and hit home runs and graduated from high school. He’d fallen in love, almost literally, with the girl next door. They’d had a country club wedding, complete with DJ and no-host bar, and gone to Honolulu for their honeymoon.
And then: September Eleventh.
That day had changed the course of Keith’s life. He’d had a friend on Flight 93, a classmate who had gone east to check out colleges. When Keith heard about the crash, and the sudden, unexpected danger of terrorism on American soil, he’d enlisted in the Marines.
He was that kind of guy, Ed had said, shaking his head. Keith wanted to be part of the solution.
So off Keith went to boot camp and then to war. He’d done two tours in Iraq, and with each return, Ed said he saw less of the boy he’d raised.
Michael flipped through the research his team had put together. Keith had been in the Sunni triangle, one of the deadliest regions of the war. Roadside bombs hit my brigade at least twice a day, every day, for a year, Keith had said. That’s a lot of shit blowing up around you. A lot of your friends dying … when I got home, sounds were the worst. When someone slammed a door or a car backfired, I hit the ground. Sudden light could totally freak me out.
Michael sat back. Why was it he hadn’t known all this, about the deaths and the devastation, about the wounds our soldiers were suffering? This was 2005, for God’s sake. The war had been going on for a while. The truth should have been more apparent. The nightly news should have been showing images of flag-draped coffins being carried onto cargo jets, of heroes coming home in boxes.
He got up, walked away from the table. The Keller case was beginning to trouble him deeply, and not for the usual reasons. The more he read about his client, the more he worried about Jolene.
He grabbed a Corona from the fridge, popped its cap, and went out to stand on the porch. There, he touched the fraying white wicker back of the chair beside him. Why get new furniture? Jolene had said when they’d found this chair abandoned by the side of the road. Back then, they’d had more love than money, and he’d been unable to deny her anything, even a crappy used chair. I want a chair that tells a story.
The night was quiet around him. Somewhere, a coyote howled; it was a mournful, elegiac sound.
On the road below, a bicycle turned onto the Flynns’ driveway—Seth. Michael had a sudden memory of years ago, when Betsy and Seth had ridden their bikes together constantly, and Jolene had worried so much …
Michael waved at Seth.
Seth saw him and pedaled from one driveway to the other.
“Hey, Seth,” Michael said as the kid rode into the light thrown by the fixtures at the garage. As always, Seth looked thin and odd, with his flat cheeks and straight black hair. Tonight he was dressed all in black. Not a great idea when biking at night.
He got off his bike, held it beside him. “Hey, Mr. Z.”
“How are you, Seth?”
The kid shrugged. “Fine, I guess. My grandma’s staying with me. She rented a movie for tonight. It’s probably G-rated and stars a talking dog. Dad had to go to Ellensburg this week for some car part. Is Betsy still at kayak camp?”
Michael nodded. “’Til Sunday.”
“Oh.”
Michael frowned. “You want a Coke?”
Seth grinned, showing off his braces. “Rad.”
Michael took that as a yes and went inside for a soda. When he returned to the porch, Seth was leaning back against the railing; his bike lay on its side in the gravel driveway.
Michael sat down. He should have known this kid really well—he had been around forever; once, he and Betsy had been inseparable—but honestly, Michael had barely shared ten words with Seth in all the years he’d been coming around. It was like with Carl. Michael just didn’t have much in common with them. Until now.