One September Morning Read Free Page A

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 adrenaline, alarm coursing through her. It’s the casualty notification team, the messengers all the army wives talk about, the sight every military wife dreads seeing outside her door.
    Don’t panic, she tells herself. Maybe they’re John’s friends. Maybe someone you know on leave here, come to bring one of John’s creative personal greetings.
    But she does not recognize their faces, and there’s no joke in the demeanor of this woman who stares down at her well-shined shoes, no animation in the face of this man who stands, jaw clenched, regret embedded in his eyes.
    And suddenly, she knows.
    She knows they bring her the absolute worst news.
    “Are you Mrs. John Stanton?” the man asks.
    She nods, feeling like an actress playing out a melodramatic scene. Despite the panic beating like a hummingbird’s wings deep in her breast, she wants to laugh it all off. This can’t be true. They must have the wrong information.
    He gives his rank and introduces the female soldier, but it’s drowned out in the deafening roar swirling in her head and her acute awareness of bizarre details. The sergeant must have cut himself shaving this morning, and there’s a pinpoint of tissue stuck to the edge of his jaw. A flock of small birds rises from some nearby laurels. They circle, then return to their spot. The woman wears a ribbon that’s green and red, reminding Abby of Christmas. Home by Christmas,