They talked with David on the rare occasions he was allowed to talk. He always looked happy to see them, but distracted, like they’d caught him at a bad time, when he’d been the one to call.
“Are you eating well?” she asked him, sounding like her own grandmother.
“Are you getting enough sleep?” Val asked, sounding like her father.
“When you come home will you take me to the Renaissance Faire without the moms?” Sophie asked, then added for their benefit, “No offense.”
What felt like seconds later, he’d apologize and go, leaving them staring at a blank screen, their questions mostly unanswered, even more unasked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
VAL
The David they met at the airport looked like the expanded director’s cut of the David who had left.
“You’re taller!” Sophie threw herself into his arms.
He caught her like she weighed nothing and hugged her back. “You, too, Softserve.”
“Only an inch. I’m still short for my age.”
Sophie was right. He’d grown a lot. Not just taller, but broader, with wider shoulders and better posture and a more angular adult face superimposing itself on the boy face. In the calls he always sat close, leaning into the screen so they saw him from the shoulders up; the differences in person were striking. When Val took her turn for a hug, she had to stretch. He had been her height, five feet ten, when he left.
“You’re solid muscle,” she said, squeezing an arm.
Julie didn’t stretch. “C’mere, boy.” She reached up and pulled him to her level, kissing the top of his head. “I’m so happy you’re home.”
He looked around. “Not home yet. Unless we’ve moved to the airport?”
“Surprise!” said Julie. “Do you want a gate for a bedroom, or the chapel?”
“How about baggage claim? I could sleep on the belt, round and round.” He circled his finger in the air.
Julie pointed to the conveyor, crowded with luggage. “You’d have to dodge bags.”
“And people would watch you while you slept,” said Val.
“And people aren’t allowed on the belt. It says so.” Sophie got the final word.
David grinned at her. “Good point. Wouldn’t want to get in trouble. I guess I’d rather go back to the house, if I can’t live on the baggage claim. Where’s the car?” He shouldered his duffel and stood at loose attention.
“E6,” said Julie. “We’ve got some walking to do.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He fell into line behind her, grabbing Sophie’s shoulders and making her shriek. Val followed, enjoying the sight of the two kids together.
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” David asked his sister as they walked toward the skyway.
“I’m allowed to stay up ’til nine thirty these days.”
“Nine thirty? That’s pretty late. But it’s past eleven now.”
“I wanted to see you.”
“You could have seen me in the morning.”
“Yeah, but that would be different. I didn’t want to wait.”
Sophie fell asleep in the car on the way home, her head against the window. Val watched her in the vanity mirror, then shifted it again and caught David’s face instead. He smiled.
She smiled back. “Just checking that you’re really here.”
“I’m here,” he said. “For a couple of weeks, anyway.”
“We’ll take what we can get,” said Julie from the driver’s seat. “I imagine some of your friends are off partying somewhere instead of going home.”
“Yeah. Milo’s in New Orleans, but I needed a break from the South. I can’t believe I complained summers here were hot and sticky.”
“Summers here are hot and sticky,” said Julie. “But there are definitely hotter and stickier places.”
“Yeah, I know that now. And it’s good practice, I guess.”
“Good practice?”
“Yeah, for deployment.”
Val’s heart dropped into her stomach.
It didn’t take a Pilot to catch that Julie had stiffened and swerved slightly before tightening her hands on the wheel. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be deployed.”
“Everybody gets deployed, Mom. It’s a matter of when.”
“That Fuentes guy said control rooms, not battlefields.” Julie’s voice carried a knife edge.
“They have control rooms over there, too, Mom, but everyone takes a turn.”
“Where is over there?” Val asked, watching Julie watch the road. “And when?”
“When I get back. I can’t tell you where. Look, I—”
“For how long?”
“A year.”
Val’s breath left her. Could she hold her breath for a year? She’d find out.
David leaned forward between them. He’d outgrown this car’s back seat; his knees bumped Val’s seat and his head brushed the roof. “I didn’t want to tell you until later. I wanted a nice visit home, no worry or fuss. Can we still do that?”
“Yeah.” Julie wiped a hand across her eyes. Val didn’t say anything.
“Do you want me to tell the squirt? Or do you want to tell her?”
Julie said, “We can do it together, Davey, but maybe you were right about waiting ’til the end of the visit. Don’t ruin it for her.”
Val shifted the mirror to look at Sophie again, but she was sound asleep. For a moment, she envied the kid; she would have liked to miss this conversation, too. David was right. The whole visit was going to be tarnished, even more than it had been already. She envisioned a countdown clock, then blinked it away.
She could lock him in the basement, keep him from leaving. They could move to Canada. She could say those things alone to Julie, who would recognize them for what they were. David would misinterpret them, think she wasn’t proud of him, or wanted to keep him a child forever, though that wasn’t it. She didn’t wish him to stay a child, and she knew she couldn’t keep him safe. She just wanted to protect him.
“I know what you mean,” Julie said when Val voiced it later that night. They spoke with low voices, in case David was still awake. “It’s like, we don’t need to keep him bubble-wrapped, but did he have to pick such a dangerous career?”
“Maybe he’s making up
