Page 98 - 2023-bfw-FLL-2e

terrifying shots of missiles exploding their targets. safe. She wrote to us on Desert Storm stationary
5
Everywhere, there were people in camouflage, and sent postcards emblazoned with phrases
but it wasn’t the green and black my mom wore like “Somebody in Saudi Arabia loves me!” At
for duty with the Army Reserves. It was brown like one point she mailed my sister and me matching
dirt. There was a lot of dirt on the news when they T-shirts with pictures of camels wearing combat
Narrative
talked about the war. I thought it must be hard for boots and gas masks. I still have that shirt, a
Mom to stay clean. child’s size small, buried in the back of a drawer.
I remember the braid. Before my mom left Mom and Dad sheltered us kids from the
she wove my hair into a tight French braid, just worst of it. I didn’t learn until years later that the
like she did when I had soccer or softball games, deployment orders had been for an undetermined
the only thing that would keep my hair in place length of up to two years. I didn’t know that
under a helmet and through trips up and down because of the threat of chemical weapons and
the field. But this braid was special. It held the the size of Mom’s medical unit — which made
memory of Mom’s touch — her slender fingers them an appealing target — it was thought to be a
brushing across my scalp, the nail of her little suicide mission. In her phone calls and letters
finger drawing a part down each side, her soft home, Mom didn’t discuss her terror at the nightly
breath on the back of my neck. I wanted to keep air raids, or her aching loneliness, or her doubts
the braid forever. I promised Mom I would. It about her ability to handle combat. I didn’t know
would be our special connection while she was she carried trauma with her every day, even after
gone, and every time I looked in the mirror I she returned home. All I ever saw was her strength.
would think of her. As the days passed, though, as
oil slickened my hair and it began to unwind from “When will Mom come home?” was one of the 10
its tidy twist, my dad forced a compromise. For a many games we played to make time and
few weeks a neighbor cleaned and re-braided my distance not seem so massive, to trick ourselves
hair. It looked exactly the same. But it wasn’t. into feeling like we might have some sort of
In war correspondence before email, we control. The whole family — my dad, sister,
lived for weekly calls from Mom, letters, occa- brother, grandparents and I — scribbled our
sional pictures, anything to let us know she was return date guesses across the calendar. My

This is a photograph of Johnson being
sworn into military service by her own
mother.
How is this image framed to show a
parallel between the two of them?
Based on what you read, why is
it significant that her mother was
performing this role for her?
Courtesy Lauren Kay Johnson

196
Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample.
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.

06_SheaFLL2e_40926_ch05_130_243_6PP.indd 196 28/06/22 8:57 AM