“We’re reading the letter now. Come downstairs.” He left her standing there, so mad she was practically emitting smoke, and went down to his office.

There, he planted Lulu on the chair at his desk and went to the sofa to wait for Betsy. It didn’t take long. She stomped down the stairs and swept into the room like the Red Queen, muttering, Fine, where’s the stupid letter?

Betsy scooted Lulu sideways and sat down, then Lulu scrambled onto her sister’s lap, saying, “Read, Betsy.”

Betsy pulled up the e-mail, opened it.

A photo filled the computer screen. In it, Jolene and Tami were standing in front of some open-air market stall with their arms around each other. Everything was washed out, a little colorless, as if maybe it was raining or really windy. But you couldn’t miss how bright their smiles were.

“Mommy.” Lulu pointed at Jolene.

Betsy scrolled down and started to read the letter out loud. “It was a long flight over here…”

… and I have to admit that I’m tired.

Betsy, you wouldn’t believe how flat it is, and how everything is the same color, like dying wheat. And man is it hot. I think I was sweating before I even got off the plane.

Tami and I are roommates in a little trailer. It’s kind of how I imagine college would be. So we need photos and posters to make it homey. Can you help us out? I’ll send pics when I can.

We had dinner at the DFAC tonight—the dining facilities. Lulu, they had your favorite—peach pie. It wasn’t as good as Yia Yia Mila’s, but it made me think of home.

We are what’s called backfill (an army word for substitutes, kind of) for the 131st. Everyone we’ve met is great. I’m sure we’ll make lots of friends.

Well, guys, I better get some sleep.

I’m thinking of you all the time and loving you to the moon and back.

XXXOOO

Mom

P.S.: Good luck on your math test, Bets. I know you’ll rock it. I’m proud of you!

“Read it again,” Lulu said. “My part. Daddy, make her read it again,” she whined.

“There, I read it. Big deal. It’s hot,” Betsy said. She turned to look at Michael. “Can I go back upstairs and call Sierra now?”

“Fine,” Michael said, barely listening. As she ran past him, he got up from the chair and went to stand in front of the computer.

He stared at the picture of two women in uniforms smiling for the camera.

“She looks happy,” Lulu said.

Michael thought about what he’d learned today and he couldn’t reconcile it with this photograph. He thought about the descriptions of the war he’d heard, about finding your friends’ body parts and roadside bombs and raining shrapnel.

Two women, best friends, smiling for the camera.

He understood suddenly what Cornflower had meant. She’s a mother. Her instinct is to protect.

This photograph was a lie, as was everything she’d told him about her deployment. There’s no front line over there, Cornflower had said. So there was no safe place.

Jolene—always the hero, always the mother—was sugarcoating her life to prove there was nothing for them to worry about. She’d planted the seeds early. They don’t let women in combat. I’ll be flying VIPs around, nothing dangerous.

He’d bought it because he wanted to. He’d looked away. He shouldn’t have, for God’s sake. He’d known it was a war. Maybe it was the political backlash about imaginary weapons of mass destruction, or the bait and switch with Saddam Hussein. He didn’t know why he’d imagined this to be a lesser war, maybe, one that would be over soon and with few American casualties.

He’d seen the photos on the news of soldiers walking with Iraqi children, handing out water, posing for pictures, and he’d read about suicide bombers, but somehow he’d imagined those two things as separate. He’d let himself believe Jolene when she told him that she would be far from combat.

What an idiot she must think him.

He’d been so busy thinking about himself, being pissed off about how her choice impacted his life, that he’d barely considered the truth of where she was and what she was doing.

How did she feel, lying in bed at night, alone and far from home, knowing any second a bomb could hit her trailer and she could be killed?

* * *

June slipped away from Michael; days fell like rain, disappearing in the ground at his feet. At home, he thought about work; at work, he thought about home. He was always rushing and almost invariably arriving late. I’m sorry was his new default sentence. He’d said it more in the last few weeks than in the last few years.

At the end of the school year, he’d had to recalibrate his schedule. His mom was still a huge help with the girls, but summer was her busy season at the Green Thumb, and she couldn’t be at his house as much as before. So he’d shortened his workweek to four days. Friday through Sunday he worked from home, struggling to juggle the demands of fatherhood with those of his job. When he wasn’t grocery shopping or cooking dinner or washing dishes, he was writing briefs and researching cases. He sent the girls to as many day camps as possible, and still he didn’t have time to get everything done. Driving them from one place to another—or finding someone else to drive them—took an inordinate amount of time. Last week, he’d finally admitted that he wasn’t getting as much work done as he needed to. He’d handed off most of his smaller cases to associates.

That gave him more time to work on the Keller defense.

Today, his plan was to work on the deposition questions for the policemen who’d arrested Keith, as well as the jailhouse snitch.

He woke early and went downstairs to make breakfast. At ten o’clock, he was going to drop the girls off at the Thumb, where they would “help” his mother until he picked them up at two o’clock. It wasn’t much time to work, but these days, he took what he could get.

Lulu’s questions started first thing: It’s sunny today, Daddy. Can we go to the beach? Mommy almost always takes us to the beach when it’s sunny. I could make a sand castle. Do you know how to make a sand castle, Daddy?

The questions came at him so fast he mumbled something and walked away, choosing to drink his coffee standing in front of the TV.

Another mistake. CNN reported that a suicide bomber had killed six people in a market in Baghdad.

The phone rang.

Lulu screamed, “I’ll get it!” in a voice so loud the neighborhood dogs probably came running.

He saw Lulu run for the phone, pick it up, say “Mommy?” Then her smile fell and her shoulders slumped. She hung up the phone and shuffled back into the kitchen and climbed up into her chair. “It’s Sierra,” she said glumly. “Betsy is talking to her.”

Fifteen minutes later, Betsy came thundering down the stairs. “I’m going to the mall with Sierra to see a movie.”

Michael leaned forward, switched off the television. “Can you please rephrase that in the form of a question?”

“Sure. Can I have some money?”

Michael turned around, ready to say, Don’t you mean please, Dad, may I go to the mall? but when he saw her, the teasing question fell out of reach.

She had on enough makeup to be an extra in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and her outfit was equally unacceptable: pink Ugg boots, a jean skirt so short it could have been a valance, and a white sweatshirt that had been cut off to reveal an inch of her stomach.

“What the hell are you wearing?”

She glared at him. “Uh. Clothes.”

“Your mother wouldn’t let you out of the house in that getup.”

“She’s not here.”

“And what’s all over your face?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re wearing makeup.”

“No, I’m not.”

He couldn’t believe she could stand there and lie to him. “No, you’re not? You look like Tootsie waiting for a close-up.”

“Whatever that means.”

“It means, young lady, that you are not leaving the house like that.”

“Oh, yes, I am. Sierra’s brother is picking me up in a half an hour.”

“Sierra’s brother? And how old is he?”

“He’s a senior.”

“Well, I hope you mean senior citizen, because no eighteen-year-old boy is taking you to the mall.”

“You are ruining my life.”

“I know. You’ve said so before. Give me Sierra’s number and I’ll call her mom. If you dress like a human, I’ll drive you girls there.”

“I’d rather die.”

“Really? Well, I feel the same way about a trip to the mall. It’s up to you, kiddo.” He shrugged and turned the TV back on, changing the channel. An ad for the new Spielberg movie, War of the Worlds, filled the screen.

War. It was everywhere.

Betsy stomped her foot.

Michael ignored her. In the past weeks, he might not have learned everything he needed to know about parenting a preteen, but he’d learned a few valuable lessons: don’t back down. And use peer pressure. Oh, and try to be calm. Two crazies did not make for a good day.

“Fine. I’ll go take off the makeup I’m not wearing.”

“And change your clothes.”

“Aaagh!” she yelled, running up the stairs. He could hear her stomping around up there.

Michael shook his head. So much drama.

He walked into the kitchen, where Lulu sat at the kitchen table, kneeling on a pillow she’d placed on one of the chairs. Her My Mommy Fights for Freedom coloring book was open in front of her, along with a pick-up-sticks tangle of crayons. She was furiously adding red streaks to an American flag.

“How come we don’t have a flag up, Daddy?” Lulu said. “Mommy’s gone.”

Michael stopped. How was it possible that he’d never considered this before? All the things he’d learned from Cornflower and Keller slipped into his mind again.

They were a military family.

He heard that all the time; people said it to him and he shrugged it off, thinking, no, not really; my wife is just in the Guard. Because HE wasn’t in the military, it hadn’t felt real to him, and God knew he’d never liked her commitment or supported it.

Still, they were a military family, and his wife was at war. And a four-year-old had seen the truth of that before he had.

He tousled Lulu’s hair, watching her color a scene of a girl waving good-bye to a woman in uniform. “We’ll put one up,” he said quietly.

Betsy stomped back into the room, coming up behind him. “I look sufficiently gross now. Can I go?”

He turned.

Betsy was dressed in cutoffs that were too short in his opinion, but not enough to fight about, a tee shirt that read Oops! I Did It Again, and flip-flops. She’d taken off most of the makeup, but was still wearing blue mascara and blush.

Did she think he couldn’t see it?

“Well?” she demanded, and at that her voice broke. He saw how much this meant to her, and he was lost. The games these preteen girls played with each other seemed ridiculous to him. Betsy could go from smiling to ballistic in a second, all based on some under-the-breath comment from a former friend. God forbid someone laughed at her hair. “Come on, Dad, it’s Sierra. I’ve waited so looong for her to call. I need to go. Pleaaaase.”