CHAPTER 1

Greenwich Village, May 1990
“CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING, AUNTY?” Carly Sinclair asked, her dry
throat making her sound hoarse. In worn, acid-washed blue jeans,
she knelt on her aunt Kitty’s kitchen floor and started scrubbing
close to the baseboard. She’d tied her long black hair in a high
ponytail so it wouldn’t get into the bucket or drag on the floor. Her
heart throbbed as she scrubbed. She glanced over her shoulder at
her aunt.
In blue sweats, Kitty, who was really her great-great-aunt,
shuffled slowly over to the table and eased down across from Carly,
stifling a groan.
“Is your arthritis bothering you today?” Carly asked, pausing.
Petite, silver-haired Kitty had always been a special person in her
life. Carly had planned to use this conversation to prepare for the
inevitable confrontation with her mother. But maybe this wasn’t such
a good idea. Kitty was really old—nearly ninety-three. What if my
plan really upsets her? What if she has a stroke or something?
“Is that what you wanted to talk about? My arthritis?” Kitty
grinned, her eyes crinkling up as they always did. “And can’t I
persuade you not to scrub my floor on your hands and knees?”
Carly shook her head. “You know you don’t like the way Sylvia
just swishes the mop around. Everything gets stuck in the corners.”
Two years before, Carly had been shocked to find Kitty on her knees
trying to clean the corners herself. Carly had helped Kitty up and
then taken over the job.
“Sylvia does her best,” Kitty repeated for the thousandth time.
“This getting old is for the birds. Just look at these hideous
orthopedic shoes I’m forced to wear.”
Carly half-smiled at her aunt’s touch of humor. “Well, I’ve got
young knees.” Carly concentrated on swirling the scrub brush,
ignoring the tension in her breast. “I’m sorry it’s been so long —”
“What’s on your mind?” Kitty cut in.
Carly took a deep breath and kept her head down. Now or never.
“You know how Mom’s been after me to decide what college I want
to go to.”
“Yes.”
That’s what Carly had always liked about her aunty. Kitty really
listened. Unlike Carly’s mother, Kitty didn’t listen just long enough to
start lecturing Carly. Nor did she just ignore what Carly said and go
on as if she hadn’t spoken a word.
Carly dropped the scrub brush in the bucket of warm wash water.
She drew in a breath and began cautiously, “I don’t want to go to
college.”
Kitty didn’t answer right away. Then she said, “So, you know
what you don’t want to do. What do you want to do?”
Carly steeled herself for whatever reaction she might get. She sat
back on her heels and looked up, meeting her aunt’s eyes. “I’ve
decided to enlist in the army.”
OUTSIDE, just below the open rear kitchen window, Leigh Sinclair
Gallagher, just arriving home from work, wondered if she’d heard her
daughter right. It can’t be. She wouldn’t do anything that stupid.
“You’ve enlisted in the army?” Kitty’s surprised voice floated out
to Leigh.
“Yes, I got the idea last year at career day at school. They had
recruiters from the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, and the Marines. I
thought the army looked like the service that got things done.”
Leigh felt as if the ground were moving under her like the earth
tremors she’d felt almost twenty years before when she’d lived in
San Francisco with Kitty. The army got things done? Life magazine
images of the Vietnam War shot through Leigh’s mind. She gripped
the railing of the back steps.
“But why not go into service after you have your college
degree?” Kitty asked. “Then you’d go in as an officer.”
Leigh couldn’t believe how calm her aunt sounded. Why wasn’t
she telling Carly how stupid this was? How ridiculous?
“I don’t want to go to college—yet. I mean, I don’t know what I
want to do.”
Leigh heard the clank of metal and the slosh of water and fumed.
What was Carly doing? Was she scrubbing Kitty’s floor again? Why
didn’t Kitty let Sylvia retire and get someone younger who could
scrub the floor the way she wanted it? Leigh started up the steps,
ready to interrupt.
“But how do you know you want to join the army, then?” Kitty
asked.
“It’s just the only thing that’s appealed —”
“Hey, Mommy!” Little Michael ran up behind Leigh. “Hey, you’re
home early! Look what I did in kindergarten today!” Her auburn
haired son waved a watercolor at her. “Look! We painted today!”
Leigh put on a bright smile and examined the mostly yellow
painting while the two of them walked up the back steps, inside past
Kitty’s door, and up to the second-floor flat where Leigh, Nate,
Michael, and Carly lived.
Leigh realized Michael’s appearance had stopped her, fortunately,
from barging in on her daughter and her great-aunt. Carly was a
difficult child and she could be amazingly stubborn at times. Leigh
needed time to think about what to do, and she didn’t trust herself
to go into Kitty’s first-floor flat. She knew she wasn’t a good enough
actress to fool Kitty that she hadn’t heard exactly what Carly and she
had been talking about.
Michael chattered as she fixed him an after-school snack. Then
she decided she needed to enlist her husband’s support. Carly loved
Nate, and Leigh didn’t doubt that Nate could persuade Carly to drop
this insane plan. Please come home, Nate. I need to talk to you. I
need you tonight.
THAT EVENING, Nate walked into the apartment in the nick of time to
help Leigh get their little son in bed and say good night. Then he
headed straight for Carly’s door to wish her a good night, too. But
Leigh whispered to him not to and to follow her. Her expression was
stormy, and he began to expect the start of another one of the
endless circular arguments between his wife and himself. But he
wasn’t participating tonight. He was too beat.
“Okay.” Nate leaned against the kitchen doorjamb, looking
around for leftovers. His stomach growled. “What’s put you in a foul
mood?”
“Maybe if you’d come home earlier, you’d know.” Leigh opened
the refrigerator and then slipped a covered dish into the microwave
above the stove.
Nate just stared at her. How could she make that accusation with
a straight face? “You know when I’m working a case, I don’t keep
regular hours. When you have to work late, I don’t nag you about
it.”
Leigh gave him her look that said, “Oh, really?”
He hated that look. When had they started acting out this
endless domestic drama, comprised of sharp words and unpleasant
glares?
Then Leigh surprised him by holding her index finger to her
closed lips and motioning him to join her at the table at the far side
of the blue-and-white kitchen, farthest from the children’s bedrooms.
“Let’s talk quietly. I don’t want Carly to overhear us.”
Concerned, Nate moved forward. He picked up a box of wheat
crackers on the counter and then sat down at the table. “What’s
wrong?” he asked in a subdued tone. “Did something happen to her
at school?”
Leigh flicked away a few grains of salt from the oak tabletop.
“You won’t believe this, but this afternoon I overheard her tell Kitty
that she wants to go into the army.”
“You’re kidding, right?” As he munched a salty cracker, he leaned
back and let his tired legs stretch out under the table.
“I wish I were. What are we going to do?”
Listening to the whir of the microwave made him even hungrier.
“She must have a reason —”
“I know what the reason is,” Leigh snapped. “Some army
recruiter who wanted to meet his quota got hold of her at career day
last year and filled her full of —”
“But Carly isn’t the kind of kid who’s swayed by salesmanship,”
Nate interrupted, not liking Leigh’s spin. “Carly’s got a good head on
her shoulders.”
Leigh gave him her superior expression—raised eyebrows and
pursed lips—that always grated on his nerves.
“Don’t give me that look,” Nate snapped. “Our daughter isn’t
stupid. There must be more to this than we know —”
“Why do you always take her side?”
“Because you never do,” Carly declared from the kitchen
doorway.
Hearing the hurt in his stepdaughter’s voice, Nate stood and
opened his arms.
In an old T-shirt, cotton pajama pants, and barefoot, Carly
hurried to him and hugged him hard. “I heard you come in, and
when I finished the chapter I was reading, I came out to hug you
hello.”
Nate rubbed her slender back. “Thanks, sweetheart. I always
count on your hello-hugs.” Because I never get them from your
mother anymore.
“I wanted to discuss this with your stepfather first,” Leigh
announced, “but we might as well get this out in the open.”
Carly stepped out of his embrace and faced her mother. “We
might as well. I don’t know how you found out, but yes, I want to
enlist in the army.”
“You’re a minor and I won’t sign for you to enlist,” Leigh said,
folding her arms.
“I expected that.” Carly raised her chin. “I’ll just work a grunt job
until my birthday next year and then enlist.”
“Why are you doing this?” Leigh asked. “What can you be
thinking?”
The microwave bell rang. Carly lifted out the warm plate of
chicken and wild rice and set it on the table in front of Nate. “Here,
Dad.”
“That can wait.” Nate pushed the dish aside. The conflict had tied
his stomach into double knots. “Come on, Carly.” Scraping the wood
floor, Nate pulled out the chair between his and Leigh’s and
motioned her to be seated and then he sat down again. “We three
can talk this over rationally and figure out how to work this out.”
“‘Work this out’?” Leigh echoed. “She’s not going to enlist. I
forbid it.”
Nate held up a hand to stop Carly from replying. “Leigh, Carly is
a young woman now. Your days of forbidding her are over. Deal with
it.”
“She’s only seventeen.”
“You were only sixteen,” Nate countered, “when you defied your
mother and went to Dr. King’s march in Washington.”
“That isn’t anything like this.” Leigh’s glance promised him open
warfare. “That was just one day. This decision could change her life
forever.”
“From what you’ve told me, that day changed your life forever.”
He wouldn’t let Leigh stonewall Carly. He’d seen her do it one time
too many. “And any decision Carly makes about how to start out as
an adult will impact her life, whatever that decision is.”
“Don’t you care about her?” Suddenly Leigh looked ready to cry.
“Nate loves me,” Carly said, folding her arms in front of her.
“And I suppose that means I don’t,” Leigh snapped, blinking
away tears