Jana couldn’t believe she’d cried all over the captain. Despite his fantastic letters, and the genuine apology in his behavior and words, he was a stranger, and she’d wept brokenly in his arms. “And then I laughed.” She stared at the small round mirror affixed to the wall in the tiny bathroom. “Laughed like a lunatic.” Talking out loud to yourself doesn’t make you any less crazy. Her emotions see-sawed between euphoria and depression. In clinical terms, she wasn’t coping well despite all her good intentions and plans. During the weeks leading up to the trip, while negotiating her security clearance and arrangements with the congressman’s office and the military liaison, she’d been so focused on getting to the base and being able to make the dinner, she hadn’t really given any thought to what it would be like to be there. Where Robbie died. Bracing her hands on the edge of the cold steel sink, she bowed her head. Get it together. You knew it would be hard and that it would take everything to make this work.
