A Time for Patriots

This was turning out to be a pretty sucky day, Patrick told himself as he headed to his trailer to change out of his flight suit — and it wasn’t even half over yet. Like Jon, he felt sorry for Brad. But he was acting more like a ten-year-old than an eighteen-year-old. He would have to make some phone calls to the aerospace physiology folks in the Air Force — the ones who installed an electronic heart monitor in him when he started suffering from heart arrhythmias during space flight — and find out the best way to treat Brad. But whatever the outcome, he wanted to cure the boy of whining and feeling sorry for himself whenever…

… and it was then, just before he was going to pull into his hard-baked mud driveway beside the trailer, that he noticed the front door to his trailer partly open.

That was not unusual — these were not the best-constructed trailers in the world, not by a long shot — and he or Brad could have failed to close and lock it properly. But alarm bells were going off in his head, and he had learned many years ago that ignoring those bells was extremely unwise.

Patrick activated his intraocular computer monitor and called up the security-camera images from inside his trailer. The security system’s readouts showed that the door had been opened by key just a few minutes ago. He could see a person wearing a cowboy hat, blue jeans, a white untucked shirt, and a long black-and-gray ponytail with his back to the camera, going through mail and articles on the dining-room table. The other cameras revealed no other intruders. Patrick then retrieved an object from under his Wrangler’s seat that resembled a flashlight, but was actually a launcher that would fire a wireless projectile that would act like a Taser, embedding probes into a person’s skin and incapacitating the person with a high-voltage but nonlethal shock.

He stepped quickly to the porch, skipped the steps, pushed open the door, and aimed the launcher at the intruder. “Stop right there!” he shouted.

The intruder jumped, a little cloud of mail flying from his hands, and whirled around to face him. “Patrick! You startled me!”

“Oh my God… Gia

!” Patrick cried. He put down the launcher and rushed into her arms. Gia Cazzotto buried her face into his shoulder, sobbing. “You’re back, you’re finally back!”

“Oh, Patrick, I’m so sorry I left like I did,” Gia said after several long moments, “and for not keeping in touch, but… well, I wanted to get well before I came back to you.” She looked up at him, her brown eyes searching his for any signs of hostility or distrust. Her dark hair was much longer and streaked with a lot more gray than he remembered, and she looked thinner. He didn’t smell any alcohol on her breath — that was a major change right there. “Do you… want me to go, or—”

“Of course not, Gia!” Patrick said, hugging her tightly again. “I’ve been waiting for you to come home! I knew you had a key, so I never changed the lock. Sit down, sit down, for God’s sake!” He led her to the couch, sat on the ottoman before her, and took her hands in his. “Are you all right? Where have you been?”

“Southern California,” Gia said. “I went back to Palmdale to see if I could get work. But with the economy still in the tank, no one was hiring.” She lowered her eyes, then added, “Even for jobs that didn’t require a security clearance.”

“I told you before: just wait another four years, and you can apply for a full pardon,” Patrick said. “The president has told me often he’ll do that, as long as you don’t have any other convictions.” He looked at her carefully. “Everything okay in that regard, Gia?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “No other convictions.” But her voice told him that this wasn’t all. After a few moments, she looked up and said, “I met someone.”

Patrick felt his heart explode in his chest, and he had to choke down a surge of anger. “ ‘Met someone’?”

“In rehab,” Gia said. “He’s an alcoholic, like me. He’s a building contractor. He’s been sober for a few years, and he was helping me, making sure I went to the meetings, making sure I was applying for work and benefits, giving me some part-time work here and there.”

There was still something in her voice that said there was much, much more to tell, Patrick thought. “What else?” he demanded, a lot harsher than he intended.

“That’s all,” she insisted. He didn’t believe her, and she could see that in his eyes, and she didn’t try to defend herself. “I told him about you, and he said I had to choose, because he knew I still wasn’t over you, and he said I had to go back and see you, and—”

“What? Choose between us?” Patrick snapped. “Compare notes?”

“Find out if you still loved me, Patrick,” Gia said. “I know I haven’t been here for you, trying to deal with my own problems. I wanted to be with you, but I had to leave so I could figure out if I wanted to be sober or not.”

“You had to decide whether or not to be sober?”