In her crisp white shirt, dark neck tab, and jacket decorated with honors and trimmed in gold, she was a soldier again.
We’re graduating, flygirl, stand up straight …
Mila took Jolene in her arms, holding her tightly.
Jolene drew back. She couldn’t be touched right now; she was like fine antique china. The smallest pressure in the wrong place and she’d crack. She limped out into the family room, where Betsy and Lulu and Michael were waiting, all of them dressed in black.
When she looked at them, the membrane between what had happened and what could have seemed as fragile as a spider’s web. She was lucky to be here. It could easily have been her funeral that had made them wear black. They were thinking the same thing; she could see it in their eyes.
She managed a smile, wan though it must be, because it was expected of her.
Her family came forward, bookended her. She knew that Michael had already loaded her crutches and wheelchair into the SUV. He also knew how much she wanted to walk on her own today.
Perhaps he thought she wanted to look whole, unharmed, soldierlike. But the truth was that it hurt her to walk still, and she wanted that pain today, welcomed it. It was proof in some sick way that she’d given her best that night, that she had barely survived.
She walked—limped, really; she’d gotten new blisters on her trip to the courthouse—out to the garage.
She climbed awkwardly into the passenger seat of her SUV and forced her prosthesis to bend at the knee. The ugly ankle boot on the clunky foot hit the car’s rubber floor mat and stuck there.
She knew she should say something to her family now. They needed her to put them at ease and let them know she was okay.
But she wasn’t okay and they knew it. They were afraid of her now, afraid she’d blow up or start crying or yelling or maybe even that she’d hit someone.
She didn’t even care. The numbness was back, and this time, she was grateful for it.
Michael started the engine and opened the garage door. It clattered up behind them.
Outside, rain fell in broken threads, strands so slim and pale you only knew it was raining because you could hear it pattering the roof. Michael didn’t even bother to turn on the wipers.
The radio came on. “Purple Rain” blared through the speakers.
Jolene glanced to her left, and for a split second Tami was there, moving side to side, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, singing pur-ple rain … puur-urr-ple rain … at the top of her lungs.
Michael leaned forward and clicked off the radio. It wasn’t until he looked at her, laid his hand on her thigh, and squeezed gently that she realized she was crying.
She looked at him, thought, How am I going to get through this?
Michael squeezed her leg again.
She turned away from him, looked out the window. They were still on the bay road, and the water was calm today, as shiny and silver as a new nickel. By the time they turned onto Front Street, the sky had cleared. A pale sun pushed its way through the layer of cottony gray clouds, limning them with lemony light. In an instant, colors burst to life: the green trees on either side of the road seemed to swallow the sun and glow from within.
In town, there was bumper-to-bumper traffic.
“They all have their lights on,” Michael said.
“But it’s not night,” Lulu said from the backseat.
“It’s for Tami,” Mila said quietly.
Jolene climbed out of the darkness of her own grief and looked around. The hearse was about three cars in front of them, crawling forward. There had to be a hundred cars behind them.
They were going through town now. On either side of the street, people stood in front of the shops, gathered in clusters, waving at the passing hearse.
There were flags everywhere—on posts and poles and streetlamps. Yellow ribbons fluttered in the breeze—from doorknobs and flower boxes and car antennae. A sign in the window of Liberty Bay Books read: GOODBYE TAMI FLYNN. SAFE JOURNEY HOME.
By the time they made it to the end of town—only a few blocks later—there were hundreds of people waving at the hearse as it passed.
Then the honking started. It sounded like a symphony as the snake of cars turned up toward the cemetery. Once there, on the crest of the hill above Liberty Bay, you could see forever—the Sound, the town, and the jagged, snow-covered Olympic Mountains.