“Who would notice?” he insisted. “And then you’ll be free to hook up with a Frenchman, a man who can feed you baguettes and café au lait every morning, make love to you every night.”
“Every night? When am I going to get my beauty sleep?” she’d argued….
“Abby? Are you okay, honey?” Suz’s voice breaks into her memory, and she opens her eyes and finds herself back in the kitchen, crowded with people fighting to preserve John’s memory, arguing for their notion of right.
“I’ve never been comfortable with cremation,” Sharice says. “Leave it to John to push for the extreme.”
“It’s done more and more often these days,” Sgt. Palumbo says. “The truth is, the space for cremated remains is more plentiful in most national cemeteries.”
“Arlington Cemetery would be quite an honor,” Jim says, nodding.
“Abby?” Suz leans close and rubs Abby’s back between her shoulder blades. “Maybe you need some fresh air.”
Abby nods and follows Suz out to the back patio, where a sunny autumn afternoon resounds with haunting beauty.
“I can’t do this,” Abby says.
“What? The military funeral? The in-laws? The mourners who are going to wear down your carpeting and consume all your chips and soda?”
“All of it,” Abby admits. “I don’t want any of this in my life. I just want my husband back.”
Biting her lower lip, Suz just nods, and Abby knows that she gets it.
Chapter 10
Fort Lewis
Madison
Madison can’t take one more minute of this coffee talk. She’s going to scream if she hears one more speech about what a great hero John was or how he made the ultimate sacrifice (like he had a choice!). And if she sees one more person rubbing their hands greedily over the prospect of the president awarding her brother a posthumous medal, she’ll go ballistic.
No way will she let that asshole present anything to John—not even to John’s memory. It’s the sort of thing that would have pissed her brother off if he were alive, and if they let it happen now, John is going to rise up and haunt them all!
“This is all happening so fast,” her mother says, fanning herself with a magazine from Abby’s coffee table. “What’s your take on it, Jim? Do you think the Congressional Medal of Honor…really?”
“I’d say it’s a distinct possibility.” Her father speaks in a lowered voice, probably so people won’t overhear him and know him for the greedy mercenary he is, counting his son’s medals before he’s even buried. He leans close to Mom to add: “Our son died a hero, Sherry.”
“Oh, my God, listen to yourself,” Madison says, unable to restrain herself any longer. “Do you hear what you’re saying? Don’t you remember that John didn’t believe in this war? He enlisted to stop terrorism and violence, not to encourage more war.”
“Madison…” Jim Stanton’s voice is a low growl. “That’s enough. Don’t muck this up with your personal politics.”
“My politics? What about what John believed? That war is wrong. Even back in college he wrote his senior thesis on the cost of war.”
Her mom is shaking her head. “He did not, and you were only eleven when he graduated. How would you know, Maddy?”
She points toward the door. “I know because I’ve got it in my room—right in the desk drawer.”
“That’s enough, Madison,” her father says in the authoritative tone born of military life. “Maybe you’d better step outside and calm yourself. You can return when the hysterics have ended.”
She has to bite back tears as she pushes herself out of the rocking chair and steps around them. What a nightmare! Her brother’s gone and already they’re trying to make him into the model soldier embodying all the crap be was fighting against.
Weaving through the throng of neighbors, she feels her face pucker, on the verge of tears. John would hate this! To be mourned by a bunch of army wives gossiping over casseroles and kids.
On her way out, Madison grabs the frosted glass from where she stashed it on the third shelf. She pushes the door to the back patio and takes a slug of the hard lemonade—the second one she’s pilfered behind her parents’ back. She thought it would dull the pain, but instead it seems to intensify it, as if someone took a photo of her edgy nerves and enlarged it ten times. Still, she takes another sip, liking the taste. She swallows until the cup is empty.
Behind her, the screen door creaks. Caught, Madison wonders what to do with the empty cup—the evidence—until she hears Abby’s voice. “Hey, you.”
Madison puts the cup on the table and turns to find Abby looking so incredibly calm in the midst of this storm. Her dark hair shines in the sun and her shoulders are set back, her head lifted high like a flower in the sun. “Oh my God, you look so normal.”
Abby tries to smile but her lips crinkle in a pucker. “I may look that way, but inside, my heart is breaking,” she admits, her voice cracking.
“Abby! I am so sorry.”
Abby opens her arms and Madison falls into them, and, for a moment, Madison feels like her true emotion can flow in front of this girl who loved her brother with all her heart. Loved him so much she gave up an exciting life in the capital to move to this army base and be a military wife.
“I can’t believe it, Maddy,” Abby says, her voice thick with tears. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
“Barely gone, and already they’re screwing him over.” Madison steps back and swipes at the tears on her cheeks. “Are you hearing what they’re saying in there about him?”
Abby frowns. “The hero stuff?”
“They’re talking about medals and…and an audience with the fucking president!” Madison spins on her heel, stomps toward the back yard and takes a seat on the edge of the patio. “It’s disrespectful to John. They might as well kick dirt on everything he stood for. But when I point that out they act like I’m an idiot.”
“Everybody is out of sorts,” Abby says from behind her. “Grief does strange things to people.”
“They’re vultures. Did you hear my mother? It’s like she’s looking forward to the funeral. Giddy about John getting medals. Can’t wait to have Noah back so she can show him off to her friends.” Madison closes her fingers over a clump of crabgrass and tears at it. “Better show him off before he gets killed, too.” A sob rises in her throat and she hugs her knees, grateful to be able to wipe the hot tears against her bare legs.
“Oh, Maddy.”
She feels Abby’s hand rubbing her back, is conscious of her sitting beside her.
“This is hard for all of us,” Abby says.
“It sucks.”
“Harder for you in a lot of ways. You’ve grown up an army brat, but I came into this much later. And right now it’s really hard for me to face those people in there without feeling like they’re part of the problem, part of the system that took John’s life. You can bet I’m angry at the army, but I’m still cognizant of the fact that I can’t take that out on Sergeant Palumbo…or on the neighbors who are trying to maintain a normal life in the shadow of this war.”
“So what about my parents? Are they driving you nuts yet?”
“I’ve been trying to avoid them,” Abby admits, “but whenever your mother corners me I feel a panic rising. I don’t want to cross her, but it might come to that.”
“Welcome