Opening
Orders arrive, and everything fractures. Jolene Zarkades stands between two identities—mother and soldier—as deployment turns principle into painful reality and makes The Impact of War on Soldiers and Families immediate and inescapable. The family splinters under the strain while Jolene steels herself to leave, and the cost of service begins to tally in fear, silence, and unfinished sentences.
What Happens
Chapter 6: The Deployment
On the family’s waterfront deck, Jolene wrestles with the rift inside her: the duty-bound soldier and the mother who can’t bear to leave her girls. She accepts that she must go, finding a calm born of resolve. She calls her husband, Michael, asks him to come home, and drops the girls—Betsy and Lulu—at Mila’s. Every breath feels like a countdown.
When Michael arrives, their conversation detonates. He sneers, “You’re in the Guard, for Chrissake. You’re not a real soldier,” and tells her to quit. The argument lays bare their broken marriage: his recent confession that he no longer loves her, his contempt for her service, her fury at his selfishness. He asks what kind of mother leaves her children; she throws back that he doesn’t know her at all. He storms out, returns chastened but cold, and agrees to help tell the girls tomorrow. They sit side by side in the same bed, oceans apart, while Marriage, Love, and Forgiveness keeps slipping out of reach.
Chapter 7: Telling the Family
At Mila’s, Michael retreats into silence and lets Jolene deliver the news. Betsy’s face crumples: “What if you get killed?” She accuses Jolene of loving the Army more than her family. Lulu cries, confused and small. Jolene tries to explain duty and promises—why she must go—while Mila gathers the girls close, pledging help and scolding Michael for his selfishness.
Over the next two weeks, Jolene builds a binder full of schedules, instructions, and lists—a blueprint for mothering from afar. With her best friend, Tami Flynn, she spends long days at the post prepping for war and long nights walking on eggshells at home. Michael buries himself in work. In a quiet moment, Mila shares stories of her family and war in Greece, lending strength and perspective. Jolene boxes up the ache—fear, dread, and the raw edge of Grief and Loss—and forces herself to focus on the mission.
Chapter 8: The Last Days
Michael narrates from a place of resentment. He hates the pitying looks, clings to his work, and digs into the Keith Keller case, where a jailhouse informant claims Keith confessed to killing his wife. At home, he and Jolene sleep as strangers. She reaches for him; he pulls away, the rejection burning them both.
Jolene spends a night recording goodbye videos—reading Lulu a story, offering Betsy advice on boys, school, and growing up. She writes “last letters” in case she doesn’t come home. When Betsy finds her dog tags and whispers that they’re for identifying her body, the fury behind Betsy’s anger shows itself as terror. The family’s final dinner at the Crab Pot is heavy with memories and dread. They run into Tami’s family; the women share a soldier’s solidarity, wondering how their people will manage. Back home, Lulu’s “invisible” game with her cat-ear headband becomes a shield: “I want to stay inbisible ’til you come home.” On the dock, Jolene tries one last time to bridge the distance with Michael, but the kiss feels like a stranger’s. He drinks. She walks away alone.
Chapter 9: The Departure
Before dawn, Michael pretends to sleep while Jolene slips out. The girls unravel—Lulu won’t get dressed; Betsy melts down. At the ceremony, surrounded by soldiers and sobbing families, Michael finally sees the truth he’s refused to face: the real cost is measured in homes and hearts.
He hadn’t known shit. The cost of war was here, in this room. It was families being torn apart and babies born without their parent at home and children forgetting their mother’s face. ... His wife was going off to war. War. How was it he had missed the most important part of that? She could die.
Shamed and hollow, he says goodbye badly. As the buses pull away, Betsy sprints after them screaming for her mother, then collapses, realizing she forgot to say “I love you.” The next morning, Michael’s single-parent debut goes off the rails: he can’t wake Betsy, she misses the bus, and the house spirals into chaos. At work, he turns back to the Keller file and realizes Keith is a Marine with two Iraq tours, raising the specter of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that echoes Jolene’s path.
Chapter 10: New Realities
Jolene reaches Fort Hood, Texas, and settles into pre-deployment limbo: “hurry up and wait,” IED briefings, weapons quals, scorching ranges. Phone calls home hurt more than they help—Betsy is brittle with anger, Lulu weepy, Michael cool and distant. Tami reminds her that to survive they must be “soldiers first.” That night Jolene pours herself into a long email to Betsy, trying to anchor her from thousands of miles away.
In Washington, everything falls apart. Mila’s flat tire forces Michael to leave work early; instead of waiting for the ferry, he drives the long way and hits a massive traffic jam. Hours pass. Betsy, dropped at an empty house, goes missing. Panicked, Michael calls the Flynns; their son Seth finds Betsy at her secret beach spot. She explodes—“Don’t you get it? I thought you were dead.” Jolene calls right then. Betsy sobs that Michael “forgot” her. When Michael takes the phone, Jolene tells him she ships out to Iraq tomorrow. The failure and fear finally land.
Character Development
These chapters harden everyone into new roles: a soldier who must mother from afar, a father who must parent without a partner, and children who must learn to live with absence.
- Jolene: Straddles mother and soldier, channels control into binders, lists, videos, and “last letters,” then forces herself to compartmentalize to function downrange.
- Michael: Begins as contemptuous and defensive, experiences a shattering epiphany at the ceremony, yet still fumbles the realities of care, shame pushing him toward slow growth.
- Betsy: Weaponizes anger to hide terror; the dog tags and bus-chasing scenes expose her fear of death and abandonment.
- Lulu: Retreats into her “invisible” headband game, a child’s attempt to stop time until her mother returns.
- Mila: The family’s steady anchor—practical, compassionate, and unafraid to confront Michael—she models resilience and continuity.
- Tami: Loyal battle buddy who provides soldierly perspective and a mirror for Jolene’s sacrifices, reinforcing the discipline of “soldiers first.”
Themes & Symbols
War’s private toll eclipses its public rhetoric. The deployment transforms policy into intimacy’s undoing: meals that feel like last suppers, bedtime stories captured as keepsakes, and routines turned into lifelines. The marriage buckles under accumulated hurts and unmet needs, while duty keeps pulling Jolene forward. Motherhood collides with service; love demands sacrifice in both identities, and neither lets her off the hook.
Parallel to Jolene’s path, the Keller case foreshadows the psychological aftershocks that can follow service. PTSD hovers at the edge of the narrative, raising the question not just of whether Jolene will return, but who she will be when she does.
Symbols sharpen the emotional stakes:
- Lulu’s “Invisible” Headband: A child’s spell against loss, granting the illusion of control when she has none.
- Jolene’s Binder and Lists: Love organized into systems—a way to mother from distance and to soothe her own terror with order.
- Dog Tags: Cold, unyielding reminders that bodies must be identified—that service always carries the possibility of death.
Key Quotes
“You’re in the Guard, for Chrissake. You’re not a real soldier.”
This line exposes Michael’s ignorance and contempt, reducing Jolene’s identity to a caricature and igniting the chapter’s central conflict. It marks the point where marital strain becomes open disrespect, forcing Jolene to defend both her service and her selfhood.
“What if you get killed?”
Betsy’s question slices through adult euphemisms. It crystallizes the children’s fear and shifts the conversation from abstract duty to concrete mortality, making the family’s stakes unmistakable.
“I want to stay inbisible ’til you come home.”
Lulu’s mispronounced wish distills the grief of a child who cannot change events, only hide from them. The line becomes a symbol of suspended life, as if invisibility could pause time until reunion.
He hadn’t known shit. The cost of war was here, in this room. It was families being torn apart and babies born without their parent at home and children forgetting their mother’s face. ... His wife was going off to war. War. How was it he had missed the most important part of that? She could die.
Michael’s epiphany reframes the entire section, pivoting him from denial to recognition. It also reframes the reader’s understanding: the battlefield begins at the kitchen table, and the casualties include trust, routines, and certainty.
“Don’t you get it? I thought you were dead.”
Betsy’s accusation, hurled at Michael, reveals how quickly fear colonizes daily life once one parent is gone. It shows the fragility of the children’s security and how absence magnifies every delay into disaster.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
Chapters 6–10 form the novel’s crucible. The family’s everyday world breaks under the pressure of deployment, and each character is forced into a new role before they feel ready. Jolene’s path bends from spouse and mother to mission-focused soldier, while Michael’s shifts from detached critic to overwhelmed caregiver. The Keller subplot threads in a warning about psychological fallout, widening the story from one household to a broader portrait of service and its aftershocks. Together, these chapters transform a marital rupture into a war story at home, setting up the emotional and ethical tests that will define the rest of the book.