Tony’s attention strayed to where shrieks echoed throughthe high-ceilinged kitchen, but his reaction was unconcerned. “We joke about it all the time,” he admitted, “butI don’t know what I would have done without them.”
Claire could have told him. She didn’t.
“Jess is sure in hog heaven out there,” she said instead.“Three seventeen-year-olds and her. I can’t wait to hear theversion she tells her friends.”
Taking a sip of the coffee that had been weighing down acorner of the blueprints, Tony chuckled. “I imagine it’llchange the minute the three of them take off in a car without her. She wasn’t serious about flunking this afternoon,was she?”
Claire sighed. Sipped at her own coffee. “I’m afraid so.Jess is my athlete, but she’s had the devil’s own time inschool. She has dyslexia.”
Immediately Tony’s features clouded over. “Oh, I didn’tknow. Is there anything—”
Claire almost smiled. “She’s in special classes for it, andshe has two wonderful tutors. Like anybody else, she just needs to know that nobody pities her.”
Tony’s smile, with all its memory and understanding, wasanswer enough.
“Hey!” Pete suddenly called out. “That’s theYorktown!Hey, you guys, come look! It’s dad’s carrier! Looks like it’s time to kick some butt! Therealmilitary, right,John?”
Just the words lodged in Claire’s chest like ground glass.
“Mrs. Henderson, you have to come see!” Pete insisted,his voice rising.
“Oh, God,” Johnny was breathing out in the kitchen asthe room filled with the unmistakable whine of jet engines.“Look at that Tomcat climb.”
Claire squeezed her eyes shut. Pete needed the reinforcement. He only really had his dad, who wasn’t aroundenough. He only had the image of a man he adored and the fantasies of any seventeen-year-old boy who still found warexciting.
She climbed to her feet. She was working up the courageto walk into the kitchen when she felt a hand on hers. Tony.She opened her eyes to find that he hadn’t moved, hadn’tchanged his expression. He’d simply laid a hand over hersto let her know it was okay.
Claire wanted to cry. She smiled instead.
“Hurry, Mom!” Jess cried. “You’re gonna miss it! Isn’tthat him there, Pete?”
With the feel of Tony’s hand still against hers, she walkedon into the kitchen to find the four children glued to thesmall black-and-white she’d set up on the counter in the timebefore the news had been filled with war.
“Go get ’em!” Johnny crowed as one of the tiny planesshot off the end of the carrier and sought the sky.
Claire saw the scene, heard the same banshee screams thathad so often awakened her all those years ago and foughtthe urge to run and hide.
I know what they look like when they crash, she wantedto say. I know how the pilots bleed and moan. I know howa country forgets them when the job is over and they come home twisted and empty.
I know how young they are.
“Oh, man,” Pete moaned dramatically, his eyes as wideas moons. “If I were a year older, I’d be invited to thatparty. My luck, I’ll get in and there won’t be any fightinggoing anywhere.”
“There’s always a need for pilots,” Johnny said as if hewere reciting a long-practiced prayer.
Claire wanted to vomit.
“It’s a fantastic ship, Pete,” she managed, her voice calm.“Your dad should be proud of her.”
“You bet he is,” Pete assured her, never taking his eyesaway from the screen.
The visit to theYorktownended, the news anchor cameback on to hoots and jeers from the assembled teens, andthe cleanup continued. Claire escaped before Johnny couldbeg her another time to reconsider her decision about flying warplanes.
“It’s always a surprise that nobody seems to have learnedany lessons,” Tony said as Claire sat down again.
“There will always be wars,” Claire answered bleakly. “There will always be young men drawn to the lure of thebattle.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Pete was saying as the clatter ofdishes replaced the sounds of war. “This time we don’t haveto worry about wading through antiwar protesters to get thejob done. My dad says that if the press hadn’t been in Nam,there wouldn’t have been any problems.”
