“Rebecca’s dad told her about the divorce, Mama, and she told me and Zoe. I was mad as hell at first, but I’m over it now. Are you all right?”
“I’m working through it. This trip has helped.” Carmen sat down with a thud on the floor beside her bed.
“I saw it coming this summer when he was home. I just didn’t say anything because I wanted to be wrong,” Natalie said. “He was all the time taking phone calls outside or in the garage, and I heard him whisper ‘Love you, too’ one time. I convinced myself that he was talking to Grandma.”
The lump in Carmen’s throat was at least the size of an orange, maybe even a grapefruit. “I agonized over telling you. I didn’t want the news to upset you so much that you had trouble in basic.”
“I’m just worried about you, Mama. What are you going to do? Can we keep the house? Will you get a job? I can send money home, but it won’t be enough to . . .” Natalie paused for a breath.
“Honey, I’ve already got a job offer, working on the base with children, and we can keep the house. You aren’t to send a dime home. You take care of you and enjoy life. Now tell me what’s going on with you other than this. Do you know anything about AIT yet?”
“Well, me and Rebecca have been singled out to probably go to . . .” She talked on nonstop about the possibility of training for her job at Goodfellow. “And you can drive down and see me on weekends the six months I’ll be there.”
“What about Zoe?” Carmen asked.
“She might get a chance at being a combat medic and will be getting part of her training, if not all of it, right there at Bullis. She’ll be coming right back to where she started for the training, and her folks are moving to Virginia. Go figure how fate works,” Natalie giggled.
“We’ll all help take care of her for sure, but that is kind of weird.” Carmen laughed with her.
“Give everyone my love, Mama, and tell Tootsie the next time I call we’ll put it on speaker so I can talk to her, too. That will probably be next Sunday, if all goes well. It’s just great to hear your voice, and please don’t worry. We’ll be fine. After all, we’ve spent most of our lives alone. This isn’t anything new. Don’t get me wrong. I love Daddy, but he’s a son of a bitch for the way he’s acted,” Natalie said. “Love you. See you.”
“See you. Love you more,” Carmen said.
Since she was a little girl, Natalie had refused to tell Eli or anyone goodbye. She said that was a bad word that made her cry, so she just said, “See you.” She’d even whispered those words to Smokey as she walked past his casket at the funeral.
Carmen put her head on her drawn-up knees and took several deep breaths. Natalie knew and wasn’t hysterical. That brought her more closure than anything else had until now, including splitting a shed full of wood.
Joanie took her call in the dining room and was just hanging up when the rest of the family joined her around the table. “I guess y’all know about everything I do. Can you believe my kid could be coming right back to Bullis, not twenty minutes from our house, and we’re selling it and moving to Virginia?”
“I’ll take good care of her. Don’t you worry one bit,” Tootsie said.
“Thank you.” Joanie smiled. “One year ago today, we were all having Veterans Day dinner at Tootsie and Smokey’s place. I’m wondering what we’ll be looking back on one year from today.”
“Well, every one of us has been touched by a veteran in some way, and we never know, when we’re part of a family like this, what the future holds,” Tootsie said.
Joanie cocked her head to one side. “The way you loved Smokey, I’m surprised you didn’t enlist full-time, Luke.”
“My stint in the National Guard was enough for me. I used the money to pay for my education and start up my business,” he said. “I could’ve gone active duty, but they wanted me to use my techie knowledge for something other than building games.”
“And now you’re a millionaire and retired at thirty-two,” Tootsie said.
“Not until November twenty-eighth.” He grinned. “Are we having a party?”
“Of course,” Tootsie said. “With turkey and dressing,