One September Morning. Rosalind Noonan

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 Suz might take Sofia home to Nebraska. Suz and Scott both enlisted years ago to “get the hell out of Dodge,” as Suz likes to say.

      “I thought you were going to look for a place closer to Seattle?” Abby says.

      “Yeah, I was, but those places are really expensive. I don’t know what to do. I’d sort of like to stick nearby and keep Sofia in the same day care. Continuity and all. But part of me wants to make a clean break and start over somewhere else.”

      Abby nods, slipping her feet out of her sandals and hugging her knees. “Joe should give you a raise. You certainly deserve one.”

      “Yeah, well, I’m not sure that Joe can afford me much longer. With Scott gone, I need a real job. A career. That’s the only way Sofia and I will get anywhere.”

      “I like the way you’re thinking,” Abby says. “The way you’re always pushing ahead. You’re amazing, Suz.”

      “Talk is cheap…a helluva lot cheaper than housing in the Seattle area. Besides, I’ve got a deadline breathing down my neck. The army wants me outta here in December, and with the holidays coming, it just complicates things for a move.” She slides the headband back into place. “You sure you can’t come along? I’ll buy you a latte.”

      “Next time.” Abby leafs through the pages, searching for the chapter’s end. “And if I’ve got any say, I vote for the place with the hot tub.”

      “Yeah, I’m going to need it for all those wild parties I throw…for three-year-olds.” She slides the patio door open. “Listen, I’ve got the sprinkler going out front, so’s we don’t get our own version of a dust bowl. Do me a favor and turn it off in, like, half an hour.”

      “Got it.” Abby waves good-bye even as her eyes skim down a page of the textbook.

      Talking with Suz has energized her, and she works more efficiently now, organizing the material, writing an outline for her presentation and inputting the presentation into the Power-Point format. When she’s done, she clicks on the Save icon, then notices the time in the corner of the screen.

      “Damn! The lawn’s going to be a swamp.” Leaving her sandals on the patio, she clamps a textbook under one arm and races through the house and out the front door to find the sprinkler silently rotating. The lawn isn’t too soaked, though a puddle of excess water is now running over the sidewalk and down toward the street.

      She steps off the narrow brick porch, gasping as her feet sink into the wet mulch behind a shrub John planted. Her fingers close over the handle of the spigot and twist toward the right. Right tight, lefty loosey. Out on the lawn, the fountain of water dies down as the sprinkler stops whirling. Straightening up, Abby wipes her hand on her shorts as a dark car rolls slowly up the quiet street. It’s not Suz’s boxy Volvo wagon, and not one of the neighbors’. She takes in the shiny black sedan, which slows and then parks right in front of her house.

      Her focus sharpens on the two officers inside the vehicle—a man and a woman who exchange a word, then reach for their hats.

      Their dress hats, she notes, as they step out in full dress uniforms, pants creased, shirts smooth and starched.

      Abby is stung by