Freedom Flight Page 2

  Paige looked around the small kitchen. Except for the clean dishes in the dishwasher, it was spotless. What was her mom talking about? She had thought that once they had gotten so much unpacked over the weekend her mom might lay off and relax.

  “I just have other things to do after school,” Paige countered.

  “There’s nothing more important than your family.”

  Paige shook her head like she’d been slapped. She wondered how such a small task had suddenly turned into such a big issue.

  “Maybe when you’re home, safe in your bed, you don’t know that, but when you’ve—”

  Paige didn’t want to hear another lecture. “Are we going dress shopping tomorrow?”

  “You’re not going to any dance with anyone until I meet him.”

  Paige started to remind her mom that she was supposed to meet David just yesterday when he’d come over to study with Paige. Instead, her mom had been asleep by eight. That was her mom’s pattern: a monster to Paige from the time she got home from work until after dinner and then behind her closed bedroom door until morning.

  “You’ll like him, I know it.” Paige didn’t know anyone who didn’t like David. Smart and good looking, but not too much so.

  “At fifteen you shouldn’t even have a boyfriend.”

  Paige answered by opening the dishwasher. Everything neat and organized, just like her mother liked it. Forks, knives, and spoons standing at attention. Good silver soldiers.

  “It can’t lead to anything but trouble.”

  Noticing her mom standing by the cabinet where they stored the coffee mugs, Paige handed her the Texas A&M mug. Taking it in her hand, her mom turned to open the cabinet and suddenly jerked and yelled in pain. The mug slipped from her hand and smashed onto the kitchen floor, shattering into small pieces. Without apologizing, she told Paige, “Get a broom.” She clutched the counter.

  Doing as she was told, Paige found the broom and swept up the mess. Her mom, her hand on her back, started out of the kitchen toward her room. No doubt toward her pills. As Paige dumped the small white pieces of china into the trash can, she knew soon her mom would dump small white pills into her hand. Her mom’s words echoed in her head—It can’t lead to anything but trouble.

  6

  OCTOBER 10 / SATURDAY EVENING

  STARBUCKS

  “Sprichst Du Deutsch?” Paige asked a befuddled Blake. His girlfriend Erin laughed.

  “Nihongo o hanashimasu ka?” Josie asked in Japanese.

  Like a rehearsal for the dinner before the Homecoming dance, Paige sat with her friends and their boyfriends around a large table at a crowded Starbucks on Saturday night. Only David, who was at a weekend church retreat, couldn’t join them. But Paige kept in constant touch via text. It was yet another language she’d mastered.

  “You’re speaking in tongues,” Blake laughed.

  “When you’re a military brat, you learn the language or else,” Josie said. Josie’s parents were both career military and had moved around the globe, while Paige had only spent her short time in Germany. She later learned a little German and liked to show off when she could.

  “And that’s what all of you are going to do, join the military?” Blake said. Like they were performing, the three girls and Alonzo nodded their heads in unison. “I just don’t get it.”

  “Blake, you don’t get wanting to serve your country?” Erin sounded peeved.

  “No, I get wanting to serve,” Blake said, his foot firmly entrenched in his mouth. “Just, I know how the wars have affected your family members. I mean, aren’t you afraid of that?”

  The girls looked at each other, back and forth, as if deciding who should strike first. “You can’t be afraid to die,” Josie said. “You can’t be afraid of paying the ultimate price.”

  “No, I mean, aren’t you afraid of what happens to those who love you,” Blake said. He squeezed Erin’s left hand. Erin blushed, Josie laughed, and Alonzo looked embarrassed.

  “You accept the risks,” Paige said softly. “You accept the consequences.”

  While her words didn’t silence the room, they did silence those at the table. Perhaps realizing his mistake, Blake excused himself to go get another cookie. Josie nudged Alonzo to join him.

  Once the girls were alone, Erin apologized. “Sorry, Blake just doesn’t get it,” she said.

  “It’s like speaking another language,” Josie added.

  “I’m doing that now,” Paige said, placing her phone face down on the table.

  “Texting isn’t a language,” Erin said, and then laughed. “Maybe sexting is, but . . .”

  With no smile on her face, Paige cut her off. “I mean at home,” she said.

  The noise in Starbucks seemed to grow louder as Paige’s table fell silent. “Everything okay?” Erin finally asked. “I mean, you were so excited about your mom coming home for good.”

  Paige started to speak but hesitated, sipping her drink to stall for time. If she would tell anyone, it would be her best friends, but she didn’t know what, or how much, to reveal. Her mom seemed sometimes in more pain than she remembered but also a lot more distant. When she’d been home before, they’d spent lots of time together, but this time, Paige saw more of her mom’s closed bedroom door than she did of her face.

  “You know you can tell us anything,” Josie said. A hundred secrets shared among them marched in Paige’s memory. Nights spent laughing about stupid things during the school day; other nights spent crying about their parents. “Paige, what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” Paige said. “I don’t know if I’m the problem or she’s the problem.”

  “Give it time.” Josie covered Paige’s outstretched hands. Erin put her hands on top.

  “You’ve changed since she left,” Erin said and then giggled like they had in middle school.

  “She still wants me to be Pug and my brother to be Pretty,” Paige said. “And I want her to be—” Her phone buzzed. She picked it up. A text from David, who just wanted her to be Paige.

  “. . . the same mom who you remember from when you were little,” Josie finished for her.

  7

  OCTOBER 11 / SUNDAY AFTERNOON

  SOUTH PARK MALL

  “I don’t think so,” Paige’s mom said, shaking her head. She sat outside the dressing room at Macy’s in the South Park Mall on Military Drive. She’d vetoed all of Paige’s Homecoming dress choices in other stores. They were running out of mall.

  Paige sighed, turned, and looked in the mirror again. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

  In the mirror, Paige saw the pained look on her mother’s face. It fit: her mom might be in pain, but she also was a pain and a handful of pills wasn’t going to change that fact any time soon. Paige wanted to ask her mom about the pills but couldn’t think of a way to frame the question that didn’t sound disrespectful. Was she this way last time she was home? Paige didn’t think so, but she couldn’t remember, or maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention.

  “It’s too low cut,” Paige’s mom finally answered. It was one of her favorite answers.

  “Maybe I should just wear my ROTC uniform,” Paige said through tight lips, still looking in the mirror. She remembered her mom’s comment on her lip gloss: “Too shiny.”

  “Maybe you just won’t go to Homecoming,” her mom quickly countered. “I still haven’t met this guy.”

  Paige pivoted quickly, without pain. “That’s not my fault! I tried—” she stopped herself from making a snarky comment about her mom’s weird sleep patterns. “Anyway, Aunt Tracy let me go shopping with my friends.”

  Paige’s mom twisted in the hard chair. “I’m not your Aunt Tracy.”

  Taking a step forward, Paige said into the floor beneath her. “No, you’re not.”

  Loud music, louder voices, and the ringing of cash registers filled the silence after Paige spoke.

  Paige’s mom crossed her arms. “Try another dress.”

  As if in formation, Paige
’s right hand shot up toward her forehead. “Yes sir.”

  “That’s enough of that.” Her mom started to stand but quickly sank back down. “I’ve got quite enough to do without having to pick out clothes for you, Pug, since you can’t be trusted not to dress like—”

  “Paige, not Pug.” Hard. Defiant. Followed by a hard stare. But then Paige broke the stare when she saw the hurt in her mom’s eyes, coming from more than her back, Paige guessed.

  “Mom, I’m not a kid anymore,” Paige said softly.

  “No, you’re not,” her mom said just as softly. “I can see that.” Paige felt like her mom was assessing her body like the guys did at school. While she normally hid her curves under her uniform and Perry’s hand-me-downs, Paige wanted something special for Homecoming, something adult.

  Paige paused, unsure what to say or do. Her mother had surrendered, at least in this battle. Should she pick another fight or accept her mom’s terms? “I’ll try another dress,” Paige said.

  “Maybe something in blue.”

  “Maybe.”

  Paige wandered around the store, avoiding her mom, avoiding another confrontation. She gazed with envy at groups of girls she knew from school, shopping together and laughing. When she saw moms and daughters talking, not fighting, the envy overtook her like a tidal wave. Paige picked five more dresses, four of which she guessed her mom would hate (“Really Paige, show some modesty”) so she’d have to accept the fifth: a strapless dress that was Air Force blue.

  When Paige returned to the dressing room area, her mom was gone. Paige thought it was odd but went inside to try on the dress. She texted pictures of each of them to Josie and Erin. Since her mom still wasn’t back, Paige sat in the dressing room texting with her friends. The vote for the blue dress was unanimous. Paige slipped it on again and gazed in the mirror. She loved it, her friends loved it, and so would David. Their opinion mattered more than her mom’s. They knew Paige in the now, not in the past.

  “Mom? This is the—” Paige started talking as she stepped out of the dressing room and turned where she hoped her mother would be seated. “Mom?”

  Paige’s mom didn’t respond. Instead, she sat in the chair, head down, fast asleep. But not actually asleep, Paige knew—just passed out from pain meds.

  Turning back to her dressing room, Paige thought bitterly about how her mom escaped bad dreams and memories by passing out, only to cause nightmares for the ones still awake.

  8

  OCTOBER 14 / WEDNESDAY / LATE AFTERNOON

  HARKINS’ HOUSE

  “I never thought I’d feel this way,” Paige confessed to her brother. They sat in the living room. Paige balanced her phone on one leg, her algebra book on the other. Perry drank an oversized Mountain Dew and watched ESPN with the volume muted.

  “Mom’s just getting used to the house again. Throw all your girly stuff around in your room if you want to make a mess to make it feel homey,” Perry said.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Paige said. She slammed her book shut, but Perry didn’t take that as a sign to turn off the TV. “I mean I actually dread her coming home.”

  “Hey, inspections, cadet. Get used to them.”

  Paige tapped her foot nervously. Paige and Perry were brother and sister, not friends. With six years difference in their ages and even more in experiences growing up, Paige loved her brother, but had never felt tight with him. Unlike their mom, he was always in close physical proximity . . . but he was never emotionally close. Perry was a proud, stand-tall, stand-alone Texas man. Especially when in uniform, Perry looked a lot like their father in the few pictures still around.

  Paige glanced around the room. Everything was in place here and in the rest of house. With her mom’s back pain, all household chores fell to Paige. She’d quit cross-country—one of the few things she’d ever quit—to help out around the house. Running she would give up, but ROTC marching, never. She still hadn’t told her aunt and uncle about cross-country, though.

  “It’s more than that, Perry.”

  Perry nodded, smiled, and then reacted to the game on ESPN, not Paige.

  “I’m worried about her,” Paige said, as she ran her fingers nervously through her hair.

  “She’s fine, Paige. You worry too much,” Perry said, sounding bored. “We’ve been through this how many times? She comes home, it takes a while, but we readjust.”

  “It’s different this time,” Paige said.

  Her mom had been hurt two years ago, but Paige mostly remembered her mom’s fight to recover. Once she’d exceeded the doctors’ predictions, Paige thought everything was going to be fine and her mom would just get better and better. She had hardly even been aware of her mom using pain meds before. Had her mom always been affected like this by them, and Paige had just been too young to tell? Or had her injuries gotten worse again? Or was it something else?

  “She’s adjusting to civilian life,” Perry said. “When she was deployed, she had to be on edge all the time. You never knew if your number was coming up. A shell shot into the base. A mortar fired at your helicopter. An Afghan guy you trained to protect you turning his weapon on you. Now, she sits in an office reading reports or something. It would change you too.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “She told me.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me?” Paige asked the question out loud, but it was mostly to herself.

  Perry shrugged, readjusted his place on the sofa, and leaned toward the TV screen. “I don’t know, Pug, did you ever ask her?”

  Paige fingered her algebra book. Simple problems, simple answers. This was hard. “I’m worried about her using all those pain meds.”

  Perry remained focus on the TV. “She got wounded and the meds are helping her.”

  “It’s worse than before.”

  “Just shut up about it,” Perry said. “Nobody knows and you need to keep it that way.”

  Perry unmuted the TV. A team must have scored a touchdown—from the TV came the loud roar of the crowd, loud enough to cover Perry’s silence, Paige’s tears, and the sound of the front door opening.

  Mom was home, Paige knew. It’s what I always wanted, she thought, until I got it.

  9

  OCTOBER 16 / FRIDAY EARLY EVENING

  JACOB AND TRACY ALEXANDER’S HOUSE

  “It was probably an old Russian SAM,” Paige’s mom said. David had asked her if she’d been wounded in battle. Paige hated the story more every time she heard it. The first time all she felt was fear at how close her mother came to dying, but now she resented how the injury from the crash kept her mom from living fully.

  Paige, Perry, her mom, and David sat around the dinner table at Uncle Jacob and Aunt Tracy’s house. Never knowing which Capt. Harkins would show up, Paige thought her mom’s first meeting with David should include reinforcements. Especially since tomorrow was Homecoming.

  “That couldn’t have been your only one,” David said. Polite. Measured. David.

  “One time, this was back in ’07 . . .” And Paige’s mom told a story she’d never heard before about another close call on a training mission. Paige shifted in her chair with a pained expression on her face, noticing a similar look on her mom. That meant she was in pain rather than on pain meds, at least. Paige’s mom kept twisting her body in her chair and spewing stories, maybe to distract herself.

  In a small voice, Paige asked aloud, “Mom, why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  Paige’s question rattled her mom, and as she fished for an answer, Perry spoke up.

  “Because, Pug, you were a child and children don’t need to know this stuff.”

  “Correct, Perry,” Paige’s mom said.

  “A friend of mine who grew up in Killeen near Fort Hood told me this story.” Perry sipped from a bottle of Lone Star beer. “One of the teachers thought it would be a good idea to honor the parents who died. So she put up an American flag sticker on this wipe board every time she heard that a student had lost a
parent. Pretty soon she was on her second wipe board. That board had more stickers than the flag had stars. Wish you had gone to that school, Pug?”

  “Weren’t your parents at Fort Hood, David?” Uncle Jacob said.

  “Yeah,” David said. “Both of my folks were infantry,” he told Paige’s mom. “One died in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan. Everybody I knew lost somebody. We became instant friends.”

  “Shared loss brings people together,” Aunt Tracy said.

  “I think I became friends with everybody who lost a parent like I did,” David said. “The schools in Killeen did a good job helping us through it, but you never get over it.”

  Paige started to speak but instead joined in the silence which had overtaken the room.

  “I was glad that when my aunt and uncle moved that we came here and I could meet other military kids who could relate,” David added.

  “Well, David, you certainly are a fine young man,” Paige’s mom said. Paige tried to mask her sigh of relief. “Polite and willing to listen.”

  Paige’s head snapped back: those words seemed directed at her. She wanted to say something but didn’t have a chance while her mom asked David more questions about his parents, growing up without them, and everything else. Like she was debriefing after a mission.

  When David talked about his father’s funeral, he started to cry. Paige could tell her mom’s pained expression wasn’t just about her back—his crying was an affront to her.

  “What about Dad’s funeral?” Paige asked, feeling defiant but also wanting to save David from embarrassing himself. “You’ve never talked about it, Mom.” The room silenced again. Paige’s mom stared at her like a sniper.

  “So about the Homecoming dance,” was Paige’s mom’s non-answer. “I expect you to bring Paige home on time. No drinking, no drugs, no funny business. Understand, Mr. Garcia?”

  David nodded while Paige covered her face.

  “You can trust me, Capt. Harkins,” David said. Paige liked how he used her rank.