How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [3]
Not a soldier, baby, I kept thinking.
And yet as soon as I met Oscar Wilson, with his beautiful face and kind eyes and gentle manners, I knew exactly why she loved him. It was plain he worshipped her in return.
But here is the phone call.
“Yes,” I say with more confidence than I feel. “Just a minute please.” I put the mouthpiece against my stomach, turn to my daughter. “Remember, they come to the door if he’s dead.”
Sofia stares at me for a long, long second. Fear bleeds the color from her lips. But she has the courage of a battalion of soldiers. Taking a breath, she squares her shoulders and reaches for the phone. Her left hand covers her belly, as if to spare the baby. “This is Mrs. Wilson.”
She listens, her face impassive, and then begins to fire questions, writing down the answers in a notebook lying open on the counter. “How long has he been there? Who is my contact?” And then, “Thank you. I’ll call with my arrangements.”
As she hangs up the phone, her hand is trembling. Unspilled tears make her lashes starry. She stands there one long moment, then blinks hard and looks at me. “I have to go to Germany. Oscar is … he was …” She clears her throat, waits until the emotion subsides. “His truck hit an IED four days ago. He’s badly injured. Burned.”
I think that I will always remember how blue her eyes look in the brilliant sunshine of the kitchen. Years and years from now, this is what I will recall of this day—my daughter staring at me with both terror and hope, and my absolute powerlessness to make this better.
“I have to go to him,” she says.
“Of course.”
I think, How badly burned?
She turns, looks around as if there will be a list she can consult. She’s like my mother in that way, wanting everything to be orderly. “I guess I should pack.”
“Let me scrape this into a bowl and I’ll help you.”
As if her legs are made of dough, she sinks suddenly into the chair. “How long do you think I’ll be there? What about the baby?”
“One step at a time, Sofia. I’m sure you’ll have those answers before long. Just think about getting there, see what … how … what you need to find out.”
“Right.” She nods. Touches her chest. “Mom. What about Katie? She can’t stay where she is.”
A thirteen-year-old whose mother is in jail, whose father is wounded, and whose stepmother is pregnant with a new baby and flying off to Germany, leaving her with a woman she doesn’t know. “She’s never even met me. Won’t she be scared?”
“Maybe for a while, but I can’t let her go to a foster home. She can come just for the summer. Grandma will help you, I’m sure, and Uncle Ryan and—”
I hold a hand up. There is only one answer. “Of course, baby. Let’s get those arrangements made now, too, so you don’t have to worry about her.”
She leaps up and hugs me, her mound of belly bumping my hip. It is only as I put my arms around her that I feel the powerful trembling in her shoulders. I squeeze my eyes shut and rub her back, wishing I could tell her that everything is going to be okay. “Do your best, Sofia. That’s all the world can ask.”
Her arms tighten around my neck, like iron. Against my shoulder, I feel her hot tears soaking into my blouse. “Thank you.”
Together, Sofia and I arrange for Katie to come to Colorado Springs, then we gather Sofia’s things and I drive her down to Fort Carson. There she is met by the women—wives of other men in Oscar’s unit—who will kindly shepherd her through the flight and to her wounded husband’s side. Her spine is straight, her face pale as they gather her in to their circle—three women, smartly dressed. Women, I think, stepping back, that I have seen on the local news all of my life, raising money for causes, standing by their men, sitting in the front row of the chapels where empty boots and photographs are lined up for memorial services. It’s a large base. A lot of memorials the past few years.
“Take care