The Farmhouse We Painted in Nine Days

The Bus

They left from the armory on Thursday morning at seven. It was cold enough to see your breath. There were maybe two hundred people in the parking lot, wives and mothers and grandfathers in VFW caps, and the high school band.

Josh had June in one arm and Wyatt by the hand. Addie would not let go of his belt loop. She had been holding on to it since we got out of the van.

“You’re the big sister,” he told her, squatting down so they were eye to eye. “That means you help Mama. It doesn’t mean you do Mama’s job. Understand?”

Addie nodded. She was eight and she understood more than I wanted her to.

“Where will we live?” she asked him.

He looked at me over her head. I had not told the kids yet.

“Wherever Mama says,” Josh said. “And wherever it is, you leave the porch light on for me. Every night. Deal?”

“Every night,” Addie said.

Wyatt, who was five, asked if Daddy was going to see a camel. Josh said probably. Wyatt asked if he could have it. Josh said camels did not fit on buses, and that was the last thing he said to us before the sergeant major started calling names.

I watched the buses go out onto the highway and turn south. Then I took three crying children to the Sonic and bought everybody a slush at eight in the morning, because some days that is what you do.

At noon I went in to the bank, ran a copy of the orders, and mailed the letter to Ed Deckard certified, return receipt. Then I called my dad.