The Empty Nesters

by Brown, Carolyn

  “Sounds good,” Joanie said.

  She wasn’t as tall as Diana but certainly not as short as Carmen. They all kind of reminded her of a singing group she’d seen somewhere in her travels. Diana was the tall redhead. Carmen was the short brunette. And Joanie was the blonde that stood between them if they were lined up by height. She had brown eyes and was a little on the curvy side. Brett was between Gerald and Eli in height and had dark hair and the clearest blue eyes she’d ever seen on a man.

  A good mixed group, Tootsie thought as she watched the little girls playing with the bean-toss game. Even the kids. Rebecca was all skinny legs at this age and constantly humming while she played. Natalie was a little shorter and heavier. Zoe was the prissy one. Tootsie predicted that Rebecca would be musical when she was a little older. Natalie was a tomboy type, so she’d play basketball. And Zoe, no doubt about it, she’d be a cheerleader.

  But it didn’t matter what they did or didn’t do; Tootsie was glad to have them all living on her block.

  Later that night, Joanie read Zoe a book about living in a new house, tucked her into bed, and stayed with her until she fell asleep. Then she went into her new bedroom to sleep with Brett for the first time in their new home, and the last time for at least three months. He was team leader of a Special Forces group of five people that included Gerald and Eli. They had a mission, and right after that, they were scheduled to teach a class in desert survival.

  She curled up beside him and laid her head on his chest. She’d known what she was getting into when she married Brett, and for the most part she’d accepted their lifestyle. But what she’d give right then for at least a week with him in this new place—well, that couldn’t be measured in dollars and cents.

  “I like Tootsie and Smokey.” She bit back tears. A good army wife didn’t cry and throw fits. She held down the fort while her husband was gone.

  “Me, too, and I feel better knowing you girls have a good neighbor.” Brett pulled her even closer to his side. “But I don’t want to talk about neighbors tonight. I want to hold you and make memories to last me for the next three months.”

  Diana awoke the next morning, and it took several seconds before she remembered that they’d moved the day before. She eased out of bed and went straight to the kitchen, where she stirred up pancakes. When the guys were leaving on a mission, she always sent Gerald away with his favorite breakfast.

  Rebecca came wandering into the room and crawled up on a barstool. “Pancakes? No, Mama, not Daddy’s pancakes.” Her little chin began to quiver. “I don’t want him to go. He’s supposed to stay with us now that we gots a house.”

  “He’s got to go away for a little while and make some money to pay for this house,” Diana explained.

  Rebecca crossed her arms over her chest and blew her dark hair away from her face. “Then give it back. I don’t want him to leave.”

  Gerald appeared at that moment, swept her off the barstool, and spun her around. “It’s only for a little while, and you’ve got all of your friends right here on the same block. Y’all can play all day, every day, and not just have playdates.”

  “I’d rather have you,” she said. “Don’t go, Daddy. Stay home with us.”

  “I wish I could. I promise, after a few more years, I’ll be here so much that you’ll want me to leave.” He chuckled.

  Rebecca did pretty well during breakfast, but when the knock came at the door and she knew that it was time for her daddy to leave, she burst into tears. “I hate goodbyes,” she said as she ran to her room.

  Diana opened the door to find both Eli and Brett standing there. Their expressions said that they hadn’t had any easier a time at their houses. “He’s giving Rebecca one more hug.”

  The sound of Gerald’s footsteps on the hardwood floor preceded him to the door. “I did the best I could, darlin’.”

  “She’ll be fine. Call me when you can, and come home in one piece.” She raised her head for that final kiss.

  “Do my best,” Gerald said, and then they were gone.

  She slid down the back of the door in a house that wasn’t familiar yet, that had days of unpacking to do, and waited. In less than a minute, someone knocked again. She got up and opened the door for Carmen and Joanie. Natalie and Zoe went straight back to Rebecca’s room.

  Carmen carried a box of tissues. Joanie had a bottle of orange juice. The usual fare for the mornings when their husbands left for an extended time. They made it to the kitchen before the tears started. Diana pulled a bottle of champagne from the cabinet and mixed mimosas. Carmen passed out tissues, and Joanie got out three glasses.

  “Champagne shouldn’t be used for days like this. It’s a celebration thing.” Diana wiped away tears.

  “We are celebrating.” Carmen tossed a fistful of tissues into an empty paper bag. “We’re rejoicing in the fact that one more time we’ve held it together like good little army wives. We didn’t scream and bawl like our daughters, even though we wanted to. We were strong.”

  “And now we can fall apart.” Diana filled three glasses and touched hers with the other two, then reached for another tissue.

  Chapter One

  Over the past thirteen years, the ladies who lived on the same block in Sugar Run had been through wars, rumors of wars, death, divorce, fears, and joys, but nothing had prepared Carmen, Diana, and Joanie for the day they walked away from the army recruiter’s office in downtown San Antonio. Each of their daughters had enlisted and would leave in less than an hour, heading to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for basic training. Backs straight, the three mothers managed to keep smiles on their faces until they were all inside Diana’s van, and then the waterworks started.

  “I need a drink.” Diana wiped at the never-ending tears with a tissue, then passed the box around.

  “This is ten times—no, a hundred times—worse than when Eli deploys. But, good God, Diana, it’s eight o’clock in the morning. If we start drinking now, we’ll be passed out by noon,” Carmen sobbed as she blew her nose and tossed another fistful of tissues into the plastic trash bag Diana kept in the van.

  Diana pushed a strand of red hair away from her wet cheeks. “Passed completely out sounds good to me, and if you’ll remember, we always have mimosas when the guys leave on missions.”

  Joanie took a compact from her purse and checked her reflection, then broke down into more weeping. “Zoe doesn’t look a thing like me. She’s got Brett’s dark hair and blues, and since she’s got nurse’s training, they’ll probably send her to some god-awful country. She took ballet, for God’s sake, and she was a cheerleader. She doesn’t belong in a foreign country seeing soldiers with their legs blown off.”

  “In the words of Jimmy Buffett, ‘It’s five o’clock somewhere,’ so let’s go to Diana’s.” Blotches spotted Carmen’s translucent skin from crying so hard. Several strands of dark-brown hair had escaped her ponytail and hung limp like a frayed flag of victory on a rainy day. “At least Zoe will be able to tell you where she’s going. Natalie passed that language test with flying colors. She’ll be put somewhere to translate, and you know what that means. Everything will be classified, and she won’t be able to talk about it.”

  Diana started the van and then laid her head on the steering wheel. “This is worse than kindergarten, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” the women agreed.

  “We were able to pick them up at the end of the day back then,” Joanie sighed.

  Carmen stared at the front of the recruitment center. “I wanted one more glimpse of her, but I guess they went out a back door. I prayed every day from the time that Natalie was born that she’d do anything rather than join the service. I didn’t care if she flipped burgers at the local McDonald’s for the rest of her life, but oh, no, she made her daddy proud. He’s over there in God knows where, doing God knows what, and I’m the one left at home with the empty nest,” Carmen declared. “And yes, I need a good stiff drink. Maybe two or three.”

  “That would be great. I’m
not ready for an empty house.” Diana sniffled as she put the van in gear and headed north toward Sugar Run, population 3,412, according to the city-limit signs on either end of town.

  Diana had known when she married Gerald that she’d spend months alone when and if he was deployed. She’d accepted that, and when he divorced her for another woman, she’d lived through that, too, with the help of her friends. She’d raised Rebecca on her own for the most part, and even though the teenage years were unbearable at times, she’d gotten past them. But seeing her only child leave for the service—that was more than a mother should have to bear after all she’d already endured.

  She parked her van in the driveway of her small three-bedroom house—the place where she’d raised her daughter for most of the child’s life, and the house that she called home. When she got out of the vehicle, she could hear the high school band practicing its fight song. The fact that the house was close to the school had been a plus when she and Gerald had looked at it the first time. The music brought back the memory of Rebecca when she was in the fifth grade and learning to play the flute. At the time, Diana had kept earplugs in the kitchen drawer to be used for that hour every afternoon; now she wished she could go back in time to those days.

  With Carmen and Joanie following her—the daughters had teased them all about starting a singing group like Pistol Annies—Diana crossed the yard and unlocked the door, leaving it open for them to come on in. She tossed her purse and sweater onto the sofa and kept going right through the small dining room into the kitchen, where she opened the cabinet door to the liquor supply.

  “I’m having a double shot of Jack Daniel’s to start with. Y’all can mix your own.” Diana poured up her drink and carried it to the living room. She kicked off her shoes, sat down on the end of the sofa, and drew her feet up. “Rebecca’s going to have a tough time. Her room looks like a dumping ground. Bed’s unmade. Clothes are scattered on the floor, and there’s a quarter inch of dusting powder covering the top of her dresser. She may get kicked out and sent home the first week. Of course, as much as I already miss her, I don’t want her to fail.”

  Carmen moved Diana’s sweater and purse to a rocking chair and sat down on the other end of the sofa. “My Natalie will be fine on that part of it, but I worry about her temper. If something doesn’t make sense to her—like algebra—she fights against it. But she’ll be okay with keeping things straight. She could go into her room at midnight with no lights on at all and put her hands on anything she wanted. She got her looks and her OCD from her father. I guess that’ll do her well in whatever part of the intelligence field they train her for. Don’t they have to be super organized?”

  “Yes.” Joanie sank into a spot between the two women and sipped a glass of coconut rum. “And Rebecca will be all right, too.” She patted Diana’s knee. “Basic training for her will be like she told us once about history tests. You memorize it. Pass the test. Then you forget it and go on. She’s strong, and she’s independent. She may end up being one of the elite few that get sniper training.”

  Diana threw a hand over her eyes. “Dear God, I don’t want to hear that.”

  “We have to be strong for them.” Joanie’s chin quivered. “But I’ve watched too many television shows about medical stuff. Zoe’s had technical-school training to be a nurse, but she’s never seen a field hospital with bloody towels on the floor, and she’s never lost a patient. I worry about her the first time one of her patients doesn’t make it.”

  “Zoe’s tough. They all are.” Diana tried to convince herself as well as her friends. “When we start to miss them, we need to remember that they’ve driven us batshit crazy the past year with their senioritis and their too-big-for-their-britches attitudes. God, this house is going to be like a tomb without her.” Diana finished off her whiskey. “Besides, y’all do realize we’re worrying for nothing. They’ve got to get through basic training and then Advanced Individual Training before they go into their actual fieldwork. We’ll have to take it one day at a time for the next couple of months. Right now, I’ll just be glad when the first part of basic is over and they can call us.”

  “That’ll be at Halloween,” Carmen groaned. “For the first time ever, Natalie and I won’t decorate the house for Halloween together.” She got up and went for another drink and returned with half a wineglass of coconut rum. “Nine months of carrying them, then we basically raised them on our own while our husbands were deployed or got sent someplace to train other officers. And now they’re gone, and we won’t see them for Halloween or Thanksgiving. And who even knows about Christmas? It’s not fair.”

  “We’ll see them right before Christmas at the graduation at Fort Sill,” Joanie reminded her. “And if we’re lucky, they might not be sent to their AIT until after the holidays, so we could possibly get one of those rent-by-the-week places in Lawton and spend Christmas Day with them.”

  Carmen glanced around at the house that was basically the same floor plan as the one she lived in on the other end of the block—living room, small dining area, kitchen, hallway to three bedrooms and a bath and a half. Now all three homes were going to be downright lonely. “And have Christmas dinner all together like we’ve always done,” she sighed. “I might be able to survive the next few weeks with that goal in mind. After this drink, I’m going home. You’ve got work to do, Diana McTavish, and besides, you are not a nice drunk. If you have another double shot, we’ll have to put you in restraints to keep you from driving up to Oklahoma and bringing Rebecca back home with you. Remember how you were on her first day of kindergarten?” She patted her friend on the shoulder.

  “I was afraid someone would make fun of her because she was so tall and skinny. I just wanted to be there in case they made her cry.” Diana set her empty glass on the coffee table. “And besides, y’all were just as bad as I was.”

  “I made an excuse to go to the school at noon.” Joanie finally smiled.

  “And I sat in my car and watched Natalie when it was time for recess,” Carmen admitted as she got up to leave.

  “Y’all will come back this evening, right?” Diana asked.

  “Sure we will,” Carmen said.

  “Don’t we always?” Joanie finished off her rum and took the glass to the sink. “But work is what we all need now. Not having hangovers tomorrow morning.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Diana said.

  “We’re only half a block and a phone call away. If any of us feel the world dropping out from under our feet, we can get back together in less than five minutes.” Carmen carried her empty glass to the kitchen, rinsed it, and put it into the dishwasher. “I’ll see y’all later. I’ll bring a pan of lasagna for supper.”

  “I’ll try to be sober,” Diana called out.

  “I’ll make fresh yeast rolls, and, Diana, you’d better be able to make dessert,” Joanie scolded.

  “Does Jack Daniel’s count as dessert?” Diana joked.

  “It does not.” Carmen put a lot of emphasis on the last word. “Our girls aren’t the only females who have to be tough. We’ve got to hold down the fort.”

  “Is she going to be all right?” Joanie whispered as she and Carmen walked out to the end of the driveway. “We’ve at least got husbands who’ve got our backs. She’s only got us.”

  “We’ve been through worse than this,” Carmen said. “And she’s lived through a cheatin’ husband and a messy divorce.”

  “Thank God we’re here for each other.” Joanie headed out to the right.

  “Amen.” Carmen went in the opposite direction. They had met when their daughters were all just babies and their husbands had been assigned to the same team. And then they’d all moved to Sugar Run the same summer just before their girls started kindergarten. With their husbands gone so much of the time, they wanted to be close to each other. Other army wives had come and gone through the years, some living in Sugar Run for a few months, others a couple of years, but none of them had maintained the long-term friendship that Diana,
Joanie, and Carmen had.

  Carmen unlocked the door to her house, tossed her purse on the foyer table, and went straight for Natalie’s bedroom. She threw herself onto the bed and inhaled the vanilla scent of her daughter’s perfume still lingering on a throw pillow. After a while she got up and made sure all the wrinkles were gone from the bed and the pillow was put back at just the right angle. Then she heard the mail carrier opening the squeaky lid to the mailbox and hurried out to see if maybe she’d gotten a note from Eli.

  The lady still had an envelope in her hand and looked shocked when the door flew open. “I was just about to ring the doorbell. You need to sign for this one, Miz Walker.”

  Carmen scribbled her name beside the X and took the manila envelope. “Thank you,” she said, hoping that it was from Natalie. It would be just like her to send something cute because she knew her mother would be sad.

  She rushed into the living room, sat down on the sofa, and carefully opened the end of the envelope. From the heft of it, she could tell there were several pages hiding inside. She slipped the stapled pages out, expecting to see a silly drawing, only to read in fairly large letters, DECREE OF DIVORCE.

  “That’s not funny, Natalie,” she chuckled. “Just because you’re leaving home doesn’t mean we’re getting a divorce. I might have thought about it when you were so rebellious this past year, but we . . .” She stopped at the sight of her name and Eli’s at the top of the page.

  She sat in stunned silence, paralyzed from her eyes to her toes. She wasn’t dying, but her life flashed before her at warp speed—weepy goodbyes, joyous homecomings, happy times, bad moments, scary events.

  Finally, she found her voice and started to scream, a guttural noise that sounded like a dying animal.

  “Okay, Smokey, you’ve got to help me out here.” Tootsie Colbert stared at the picture of her husband in his dress uniform. “Should I go on the trip by myself in memory of you, or do I sell the motor home and forget all about it?”