One September Morning. Rosalind Noonan

story, and if Abby doesn’t approve? Well, eventually she’ll get over it.

      Downstairs, from the trail of discarded flip-flops, backpack, hoody, and empty yogurt cup, Sharice can see that Madison has blazed through here on her way up to her room. And she’s left the computer on. Well, for once, Sharice has good reason to go online.

      Sitting at the unfamiliar computer, Sharice searches online to find contact information for the Seattle newspapers, as well as the local TV stations affiliated with national networks. She starts by drafting an e-mail to one of the TV stations, but halfway through, she realizes this is going to be a time-consuming process for someone who’s not computer literate.

      “Sometimes you just need to make a good old-fashioned phone call,” she tells Jim, who is tucked into in his old blue recliner, watching the ten o’clock news.

      While she’s on hold, Sharice paces into the small laundry room to start a load of colors, and there, hanging on the “wall of fame,” as the kids dubbed it, are three framed montages, one devoted to each of her children. She quickly pours in detergent, then takes the framed pictures of John from the hook on the wall, studying the photos of her oldest son, from infancy to manhood, the most recent shot taken last Christmas right here in this house.

      Still holding the phone to her ear with one shoulder, she closes the door to the living room, leans back against the filling washer, and allows herself to gape, open-mouthed, over the photos of her son, her first baby, her oldest child, who is never coming home again.

      A sharp howl escapes her throat, but she staves off feeling, wanting to see her son, his life in its entirety, captured in still photographs.

      Her eyes dash from the photo of John potty training with a rebellious smirk on his face to a shot of him pressing a ball to his mouth below a miniature basketball hoop. There he is as a baby, swaddled in a downy blue blanket, looking so innocent you’d never believe he was a howler, that she’d spent night after night trekking up and down the stairs in their quarters outside Stuttgart, Germany, because the gentle jostling was the only thing that seemed to ease the discomfort of his colic. My, how the baby weight melted for her that time.

      With apple red cheeks, John the toddler hangs from his dad’s arm, those red cheeks the tip-off that he was sick with fever. How sick, Sharice had not realized until the doctors admitted him to the army hospital at Robinson Barracks. An abscess in his throat, swollen to the size of a golf ball…a wonder he could breathe or swallow. Sharice remembers the sleepless days spent sitting beside his hospital bed, an IV line strapped onto his tiny arm, telling him what a brave boy he was, assuring him that everything would be just fine when she was actually quivering at the thought of losing him.

      There’s John at age ten, looking dark and serious in his Boy Scout uniform. Barefoot on a summer day, chasing his brother through a shallow stream. At dusk, he’d loved to catch lightning bugs but refused to put them in a jar like his friends because he didn’t want to harm a living thing.

      John at twelve, when she home-schooled him during a short tour of duty in Japan. Twelve years old and he was reading Kierkegaard, discussing existentialism and the search for the “true self” like a seasoned philosopher. Another shot of him holding baby Maddy at that time, singing her the ABC song, using her Elmo puppet to teach her to count and say words. What twelve-year-old nurtures and teaches an infant, sharing joy with such alacrity?

      He was an exceptional child; she realized that years ago.

      Not that he was without flaw.

      John could be stubborn. Bullheaded. How many times had he defied her and Jim, standing his ground because he felt that his actions were justified. “I’m doing it in the name of right!” he told her, time and again. After he’d chastised her father for smoking cigarettes. Protested that enlisted men weren’t welcome in the Officers Club. Convinced some of his friends to join him in tree hugging so that a grove of trees wouldn’t be cut down by the base maintenance crew. Such a tough nut, he could be. Uncompromising and determined.

      She recalls Jim’s disappointment when John graduated from high school and chose to attend Rutgers University. It had been Jim’s dream for his oldest son to attend West Point and become a commissioned officer, but although John was accepted there he bucked his father—“I just can’t hide in my father’s shadow,” he’d said—and taken the scholarship offered by Rutgers. Such a disappointment to Jim, despite the fact that John developed a national profile as a running back and was drafted to the NFL right out of college.

      That he’d landed in Seattle, not too far from Fort Lewis, had been a stroke of luck. And playing the first year that the new stadium opened. Sharice will never forget standing in the new stadium on opening night, her arm linked through Jim’s, as the stadium and the sky above it glowed from festive fireworks. And though Jim’s pleasure may have been tempered by disappointment, Sharice was proud that John was achieving his goals—playing professional football, performing beyond all expectations. That night, when he broke away from the pack and ran the ball into the end zone, leaping and bounding like a stag in the woods, she couldn’t deny the swell of pride and pleasure.

      He achieved so much in his twenty-seven years.

      Her throat tightens at the sight of him in his dress uniform—so stern and strong. When he’d called to share the news, told them that he and Noah were signing up together.

      That day that John and Noah enlisted…perhaps it was the happiest day of their lives, hers and Jim’s. It changed something in Jim, made him stand taller, knowing his sons would be serving, following in his footsteps.

      She hugs the montage to her breast, unable to imagine the world without him…her son, her oldest. How could he be gone?

      Sharice’s face crumples as a quiet whimper escapes her throat.

      Her son, her baby boy, who grew into a beautiful, responsible man…

      She presses her eyes closed and purses her lips with deep resolve. If he’s really gone, she will not let his life end with a whisper. She’ll make sure everyone knows of his heroic decision to leave pro football to serve his country because, despite Abby’s hesitance to attract publicity, she knows John did it all for a reason. Sharice will dedicate herself to making sure people remember that John Stanton stood up for his country and gave his life to keep America free of terrorism.

      “Hello?” someone says on the line, and Sharice realizes she has passed through the black hole of a telephone system to a real person, whose voice becomes alert when she mentions that she’s John Stanton’s mother.

      “I’m so sorry for your loss,” the woman on the phone says. “I’m a segment producer, and this is certainly newsworthy.” The woman wants to ask Sharice a few questions over the phone, then send out a camera crew for some video footage. “Would tomorrow morning be okay?” asks the producer, Lacey Phelps. “I know this is a difficult time for you, but this is definitely a story with local appeal…probably even national.”

      “Tomorrow morning is fine,” Sharice says. She presses the framed montage to her breast, unable to view the photos of her son and keep the tremors from her voice. Preparing to answer Lacey’s questions, she braces herself and takes a deep breath.

      Stay focused on the mission. Maintain composure. Don’t fall apart and play the overwrought soldier’s mom. You can do this…for John.

      Chapter 15

      Al Fallujah, Iraq

       Emjay

      From high up in the warehouse, Emjay stares down at a stain that won’t go away.

      Some of the guys from Alpha Company were here last night and again this morning scrubbing the hell out of the bloodstain for hours, pouring on bleach and cleansers. Emjay heard them cursing under their breath, unaware that he was watching from above.

      But it won’t go away. Damned bloodstain. You’d think John was freakin’ Superman or something. The whitewashed surface continues to ooze rusty brown, as if the blood is now running from beneath the floor, an underground spring.