“What look?”
“The one he gets on his face when he starts talking about his father and his uncle and grandfather. All the bully Byrnes who risked their lives so America can be free.” He looked disgusted. “If you knew how tired I get of listening to that crap.”
His vehemence stung her. “I thought you loved my father. He loves you.”
Rick laughed. “But he’d love me so much more if I were a Marine.”
They had always talked in the dark. It had been their way from the beginning.
“What are Glory and I supposed to do without you?”
He was calmer than he had been, more hurt than angry. But this was harder to bear. She wanted so much for him to understand.
“On the plane that hit the Pentagon there were a bunch of kids on a National Geographic field trip. And there were two little girls. Sisters. I imagine I’m their mother and I know they’re going to die and I can’t help them.”
He rested his index finger on her mouth. “Just stop. It isn’t your fault those children died and it’s not your job to save the world.”
“Your folks live in Massachusetts, Rick. We’ve flown in and out of Boston ourselves.”
“There are dozens of flights every day.”
“But it could have been us. We could have been at your folks and had Glory with us….” She sagged under the weight of the images. “It can’t happen again. Ever.”
War was men’s business and the General knew how to call in favors. Though he could not undo her enlistment, he made sure that after officers’ training and the Basic School, his daughter was separated from her unit and posted to the small finance office at the Marine Corps Recruitment Depot in San Diego, about twenty minutes from Ocean Beach. Most nights she was home from the shop in time to fix dinner. She became a fixture at the MCRD, and every day it rankled, it gnawed, it galled her that while her friends were in Iraq and Afghanistan, she was a paper pusher in her hometown.
Glory was just finishing first grade when the opportunity arose for a ten-month deployment in Iraq, what the Marine Corps called Temporary Additional Duty. Frankie would be posted to a Forward Operating Base as part of a joint effort to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. She told herself, she told Rick and her father, that the TAD was only ten months.
“I have to do this.”
Rick looked grim and clenched his jaw. The General stopped talking to her.
ALSO BY DRUSILLA CAMPBELL
The Good Sister
Bone Lake
Blood Orange
The Edge of the Sky
Wildwood
Praise for Drusilla Campbell’s Novels
LITTLE GIRL GONE
“When is the last time you cheered out loud for a character in a novel? That’s what I did as I read Drusilla Campbell’s LITTLE GIRL GONE. The complex relationships between Campbell’s richly drawn characters took me on a psychological roller coaster that tested my expectations, my values, and my heart. This story of tension and triumph is a perfect book club selection. Don’t miss it!”
—Diane Chamberlain, bestselling author of The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes
“Nobody gets to the marrow of human flaws and frailties better than Drusilla Campbell. In LITTLE GIRL GONE, you are immersed in the lives of people you think you’ll never meet and come to care deeply about what happens to each of them. This is a compelling story that won’t leave you alone even after you’ve turned the last page.”
—Judy Reeves, author of A Writer’s Book of Days
THE GOOD SISTER
“Should be on everyone’s book club list.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A novel about motherhood, sisterhood, and even childhood… In a novel which examines the sometimes devastating effects of postpartum depression, Campbell has managed to humanize a woman whose actions appear to be those of a monster rather than a mother. Through her sister’s eyes, we are able to understand and even empathize with Simone Duran, a woman who has failed as both a wife and mother.”
—T. Greenwood, author of The Hungry Season
“Can you have sympathy for a woman who attempts to murder her children? The way Drusilla Campbell tells her story, yes, you can. Even more important, in this unflinching look at family relationships, postpartum depression, and the complex lives of the characters, especially the women in this book, you can come to understand how such an unthinkable act can happen. Make no mistake, THE GOOD SISTER is a painful story, but it is also a story that will carve away at your heart.”
—Judy Reeves, author of A Writer’s Book of Days
WILDWOOD
“The pull of family and career, the limits of friendship, and the demands of love all come to vivid life in WILDWOOD.”
—Susan Vreeland, New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Hyacinth Blue
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Contents
Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Questions for Discussion
A Preview of The Good Sister
Preview of When She Came Home
Also by Drusilla Campbell
Praise for Drusilla Campbell’s Novels
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Drusilla Campbell
Excerpt of The Good Sister © 2010 by Drusilla Campbell
Excerpt of When She Came Home copyright © 2013 by Drusilla Campbell
Questions for Discussion copyright © 2010 by Hachette Book Group
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Grand Central Publishing
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First e-book edition: January 2012
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