...On The Homefront Too

Norma

There are certain things you remember. First times. Last times.

I remember, for instance, the day I met Patrick. First day of high school, his brother and I sat together in home room and hit it off. Sean introduced me to his older brother that afternoon. Patrick was two years older, tall and rangy, with short blond hair and absurdly dark brown eyes. What use would a sixteen-year-old have for a gawky girl? But he had smiled at me, and that had been all it took.

I remember the first time we kissed. It was a short year later, in his parents' living room where he and Sean and I were all playing video games. Sean had gone to the kitchen to get another soda, and Pat had leaned over all of a sudden and kissed me. It had been quick and firm, close-mouthed, but like a lightning strike.

I remember our last day in San Antonio. It was the day after our wedding. We'd watched the sun rise from the balcony of our hotel room downtown, the Crockett. Sunrise over the Alamo, probably the purest vision of that city one could wish for.

I do not remember the last time I saw him, not clearly, and that has haunted me ever since. I don't know why I don't remember it; I guess after fifteen years' worth of deployments they all start to run together. I know that it rained, and that in spite of the rain it was lush and green, and I know that I drove him in and there was one last kiss in spite of ribald jokes from the other soldiers reporting in, and that afterward I took Naomi to breakfast at Zippy's, but I know all of this only because it had become our routine over the two years Pat had been stationed at Schofield. I could not tell you exactly what he said to me the last time he held me in his arms, and there are some nights I dream of him telling me again, but I never remember it when I wake up.

***

The ringing phone woke me up. Naomi was stretched out across the foot of the bed asleep, her blond hair falling over the edge along with one little foot, so that when my brain registered what that infernal noise was I had to scoot out of bed awkwardly, trying not to wake her, so as to shuffle zombie-like toward the kitchen, regretting that we'd chosen to put the only phone in the house there.

"Norma. Turn on the TV. There was an ambush, and our guys got caught in it. We're waiting for news." It was Becky, my closest friend on post. I took the phone out into the living room and thumbed the power button on the remote. Brit Hume appeared, looking concerned. I tried hard not to process his words, not to wonder where they'd gotten the video from. I did not want to see the explosions, hear the gunfire and the screams. When did war become a spectator sport for those of us back home?

Susan

John served in Vietnam. It doesn't surprise anyone to hear this, given our age. What surprises them is that he didn't have to. He walked away from a full ride to Texas A&M to enlist, in 1968. We got married during the 36 hours he was home in between basic training and medic training, and I spent the next four years terrified of a knock on the door and a telegram, which was how they sent the news those days. The Department of the Army regrets to inform you...I never saw those words, but I sat with plenty of women who did.

Texas is five hours ahead of Hawaii, outside of Daylight Savings. So when the phone rang at ten in the morning, I wasn't expecting to hear Norma's voice. To hear it so flat and emotionless. "You need to turn on the news. Pat's unit has been hit. We don't know what's going on yet; they say two casualties."

"I'll call John. He's in Norfolk on business."

John

I took an early lunch that day. Too many meetings, too much bullshit from vendors. There's an Applebee's right off base in Norfolk; I left Submarine Squadron Six at ten past eleven and headed over and sat at the bar, it being the closest place I could thing to get a burger and a beer.

Usually these places show sports, but maybe it was a slow day or something, because the TV behind the bar was tuned to Fox News; some anchorman was droning on while onscreen explosions made the camera shudder. Kandahar, Afghanistan, the screen read at the bottom. Taliban had surrounded and ambushed an Army patrol. I missed hearing the unit when the waitress sat my plate down in front of me. When I looked up, a pale hand was flopped out of a stretcher, covered in blood. I shivered. Something about it...

My phone rang. Susan. "Hey, Suzy Q. You watching the news? Bad stuff happening over in Pat's neck of the woods."

Sean

San Antonio calls itself Military City, USA. We give a lot of our boys. It's generational. So I wasn't at all surprised when Pat told me he planned to enlist, so that when Norma hit eighteen they could get hitched and he could support her. Dad did a hitch in the Army, and then sixteen more years in the Air Force, back when the Air Force still let that happen. Dad's only problem had been that Pat didn't want to enlist in the Air Force. JROTC at school was Army, and I guess that's why Pat chose it, but Dad said it was too dangerous.

Pat liked danger. He enlisted, and went into the infantry. Thought Dad was going to burst a vessel at that one, but I approved. Heck, I'd have gone in myself, but for that whole not being able to tell people about my boyfriend thing.

Pat was always the lucky one. I think our Mom liked me better, but Pat was the one who brought home the perfect report cards and the perfect girlfriend. He never dated anyone but Norma, in fact. Played basketball in high school and was varsity three years. Could have gotten a scholarship wherever he wanted to go--UT kept calling the house his senior year--but he was always his father's son.

Norma

I was starting to think about making lunch when the knock came. Becky had come over with Mikayla and Wolf right around seven that morning, just after Naomi woke up, and we'd worked together to make the kids breakfast. Coffee cake and milk; sweet stuff to try to keep them distracted.

"Y'all go out back and play." Becky shooed the kids out the sliding glass door.

"Mama, the door!"

"I know, Naomi, I'm getting it. Now go play."

I knew before I opened the door who it was; I didn't even have to use the peep-hole. There is this certain sort of officious knock that I think the Army teaches in tech school. I thought about not opening the door. Surely, if I ignored them they would go away and then nothing would be changed. I looked at Becky. She stood by the glass door with her arms crossed over her stomach, almost as milk-white as the wall. I knew she had left a note on her door that she was here, and she knew what the knock was for because every military wife knows what that knock is for, and the only question right then was which one of us were they looking for?

The knock sounded again. I sighed and turned the deadbolt. Mrs Kraczynski, the FRG coordinator, stood on my step, along with a tall black man who had a gold cross on his uniform collar. Both of them were holding Bibles, and for a mad second I thought about grabbing my own from the bookcase right there and suggesting we all go and try to convert the atheists three houses down, but I didn't.

"Norma. Can we come in?"

Sean

I saw them first. I was sitting on my parents' porch, smoking a cigarette and waiting for my date to show up. It was First Friday, and he had a new installation opening. We were all worried about Pat, and I wanted a head start on drinking away the tight feeling in my chest. It was a good excuse, and free booze. A silver Buick parked in front of the yard instead of the yellow Mini I was expecting, and an elderly woman got out and squinted at me.

"Is this the Holbrooke residence? I'm Ginny Petersen; I'm with the Red Cross. I'm looking for Susan and John Holbrooke."

"I'm Sean; I'm their son. Mom and Dad are inside. Come on in."

Norma

It is always hot in San Antonio. That is a truism, much as is the fact that it always rains on deployment days. It was February eleventh, and in Hawaii it would be balmy and there would be a cool breeze, but in San Antonio it was ninety and the breeze was like an oven fan.

I sat and watched the funeral detail fold the flag, and didn't see a thing. The leader came and handed me the flag, his white-gloved hands brushing my bare ones gently, pressing the flag into my grasp, and I held it to my chest and looked at his shined shoes and tried to remember just what Pat had said that last time.

Had it been, "I promise I'll be home by Valentine's Day?"