One September Morning. Rosalind Noonan

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СКАЧАТЬ of the porch rail, Abby turns toward the kitchen. You can’t keep going back to that. If she’s losing her mind, she’s not about to go down without a strong cup of coffee.

      While coffee brews, she flips open her laptop and checks her e-mail. Nothing from John, but then sometimes he is assigned to shifts that keep him away from the computer for extended periods. She dashes off an e-mail, telling him about the vivid dream.

      I knew I missed you, she writes, but now I’m dreaming you into our bed. Sure sign that I’m losing my mind without you. December can’t come soon enough.

      Although this is John’s second deployment to Iraq, this time the detachment feels more acute, the parting more intimate, and Abby still wonders how she fell into this role of military wife. It was not something she foresaw for herself when she was making plans, thinking she’d make very conscious choices, as if life were a route that could be charted on Mapquest. She’d never imagined saying good-bye to her new husband and trying to patch together a life on an army base with other women married to the military. Although Abby has always been independent and competent, this separation from the man she loves seems endless, as if she’s put her life on hold, sealed into an airtight container until the day of John’s return.

      You’ve got your job to do, John e-mailed her when she mentioned her feelings. Remember the deal? Finish that master’s and study for the licensing exam.

      The plan made perfect sense when John departed on the drab green bus. While he was gone, she would focus on her psych degree, finishing up her course work before embarking on clinicals. But she hadn’t expected to be distracted with worry, flipping on CNN, Nightline, the Today show in search of news that might involve John. Tuning in to NPR while driving. Naively, she’d thought it would end soon. Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad fell in 2003; wasn’t that the goal of the U.S. Army? They’d found no weapons of mass destruction. Recently, she’d heard a politician compare the use of force in Iraq to trying to fix a wristwatch with a sledgehammer. But the word was, our armed forces were in it for the long haul.

      Outside, she lowers her laptop and books onto the table. Their yard backs up to a common area that John rallied residents to refurbish soon after they moved here. Japanese maples and boxwood shrubs were planted, a brick barbecue was built, and a play structure installed for children of all the military families housed here. “Don’t you think you should ask permission to do all this stuff?” one resident asked, squinting at John suspiciously. Abby sips her coffee, recalling John’s answer: “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.” Looking at the play structure, Abby can still see John drilling while Suz’s husband, Scott, kneeled on the ground with the level, ready to pour cement over the anchors.

      Funny, but she can feel John’s presence here, too.

      Now the scent of apple blossoms and September roses sweetens the air as Abby waves to Peri Corbett, who is mowing her lawn on the other side of the commons. Peri lifts one hand, then cautiously steers around a flower bed, and for the bazillionth time Abby wonders how the woman manages so well with three kids, and her husband deployed overseas. “You just do it,” Peri always says when she and Abby run into each other at the commissary and chat over fresh tomatoes or blocks of cheddar.

      Abby sinks into a chair and drags the textbook into her lap. As if she has time to mope around and fantasize about making some telepathic connection with her husband. She’s got a Power-Point to write on solution-focused family therapy. This evening she is scheduled to present this approach to the rest of the class. She works steadily, spurred, as always, by the impending deadline. Having typed five bulleted points, she frowns, not sure where to go next.

      “You know I love you, so you won’t mind my saying that you look like hell.” A familiar voice calls from the kitchen window of the attached duplex.

      Her neighbor Suz.

      “I couldn’t sleep last night,” Abby replies to the dark window screen.

      A moment later Suz appears at her back door, stepping onto the patio, hands on her hips. “I never sleep anymore, but that’s no reason to be nodding off at this time of the morning.”

      It’s as close as Suz has ever come to complaining. In the four months since her husband, Scott, was killed outside the city of Baghdad by an IED, a roadside bomb, Suz has pushed herself, sometimes stoically, to “shut up and move on,” as she puts it. The army allows widows and their families to remain in base housing for six months after the death of the service member; Suz will need a new place by December.

      “Where’s Sofia?” Abby asks. Suz usually keeps her three-year-old daughter within reach.

      “Day care. I dropped her off for a full day today. Got some leads on apartments near here, and I figured I’d check ’em out without the mommy baggage. One of them’s supposed to have a hot tub,” Suz adds, an enticing lilt in her voice. “Want to come with and check ’em out?”

      “I wish. But I’m beat. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

      Suz tilts her head, the concerned mother. “You feeling okay, sweet pea?”

      “Just hallucinating in my sleep. I dreamed John was in my bed last night.”

      “A juicy dream, I hope.” Suz grins wickedly.

      “It was sort of reassuring…except that it felt so real. I swear, when I woke up, there was a warm spot in the bed beside me. I could smell his aftershave on the pillowcase.”

      Suz rubs her arms. “I’m getting goose bumps. Come with me and you can fill in all the details.”

      “Can’t. I’m pulling some notes together for a presentation due tonight.”

      “Well, you were in a funk when I caught you. You got to visualize success, honey.”

      Abby reaches back and twists her hair into a loose knot. “Does that work for you?”

      “Hell, I’m always too busy visualizing whirled peas. That and wrapping up dolls for a three-year-old. As of this morning, we’ve got another baby in the box.”

      “Really?” Abby bites back a grin. In the past few months, three-year-old Sofia has insisted on having her baby dolls tucked into shoe boxes and wrapped up as if they were gifts, which she carries around in a large shopping bag. Abby suspects that the behavior has something to do with the loss of her father, but as she’s pointed out to Suz, it’s a harmless practice. “Maybe Fia is onto something,” Abby says. “I’m going to try that the next time I’m feeling blue. Wrap up something I own and give it to myself as a gift. Maybe carry it around for a few weeks so that everyone will know I’ve got something special.”

      “Well, good luck with that,” Suz says. “’Cause my daughter has cleaned every last shoe box out of your closet.”

      Abby smiles at her friend, who looks almost professional with her ginger-colored hair swept back with a skinny headband. She’s wearing a lime green tank with a matching polka-dotted sweater, a denim skirt and black polka-dotted flip-flops. “You’re all dressed up today.” When Suz works the counter at Java Joe’s, she sticks to shorts or jeans and a T-shirt. “What’s the occasion?”

      “Just trying to look respectable for my potential landlords.” Suz yanks off the headband and shakes out her hair. “Respectable, but not loaded. Rents aren’t cheap around here.”

      “True.” Abby is relieved that her friend wants to stay in the area. At first, she thought СКАЧАТЬ