Jillian Reese is sipping a venti Starbucks Green Tea Frappuccino on a bench in the Men’s Department of Nordstrom’s. So far, for the occasion of her fiancé’s return from a three-year deployment in Afghanistan, she hasn’t garnered the energy she needs to begin searching for something special to wear on the day she welcomes him home. Her plan is to continue sitting and sipping until inspiration strikes. 

Jillian practically grew up inside this store trailing behind her mother’s shoes. Brown snow boots with black fur trim in wintertime. Pastel, strappy sandals in the hot weather. When she was a child, department store mannequins looked different. Then, they looked like real people. Male mannequins in pleated shorts and short-sleeved golf shirts with muscled arms hanging relaxed by their thighs. Overly animated child mannequins frozen in action shots as if by camera flash. Plastic boy and girls kneeling on sleds, catching primary-colored beachballs, or plopped down on shiny, alabaster knees tying bandanas on dog mannequins. Jillian remembers gripping their hard, little hands. Tracing the impressions depicting the fingernails. Pretending they could all be one, big, happy pack of friends, running around the store after hours, climbing up onto counters, eating bowls of ice cream in the café.

Jillian examines the store mannequins posed around her now. The preference of this decade appears to be that store mannequins should not resemble living human beings at all. Most of them have no heads. In place of heads, plateaued rows of smoothly severed necks scattered throughout the quiet, carpeted sales floor. The mannequins that were allotted heads have no faces. Only hills and valleys suggesting where eyes, a nose, lips, a set of teeth might be.

What happened to all those bright-eyed, realistic, cheerful mannequins from her childhood? Are they in some back storage room now, smushed together, staring into each other’s necks, noses poking into ears, layered in dust? Were they gathered up and ground up in a recycling center? Jillian clears her throat, hoping to unearth some store personnel, a person who might know the answer, but the store appears to be completely emptied of hired help this morning. Jillian uncrosses her legs. Her left leg is numb. Her whole body feels numb for that matter. Her brain too. She’s been detached from the real world for over a week now, watching her own body going through the motions of someone else’s daily life. Jillian sighs. Groans to no one.

Jillian still remembers the day her mother stopped so abruptly in the Women’s Department on the third floor that Jillian plowed right into the back of her. A mannequin with shoulder length, messy, brown hair, peach lips, and a row of smiling teeth had captured her mother’s attention. Of course, she got a cross “Jillian!” and a scolding glare. Shopping was serious business with her mother.

“I think this lady could use an appointment with Velma, but her smile is just perfect, so lovely, and isn’t this an elegant coat,” Dorothy Reese had purred to herself. “If I had all the money in the world, I would own a winter white coat just like this one.”

Jillian, left with a tickertape of her own thoughts, had reached up to stroke the coat’s fabric, soft as horseback. The coat wasn’t really white, though. It was closer to beige. White was freshly fallen snow. White was powdered sugar on funnel cakes. And the mannequin’s mouth was completely out of whack. No different than the dentures that resided inside Velma’s mouth, her mother’s hairdresser, lending a horse-like quality to both women.

Jillian glances down at her Starbucks cup. At the age of twenty-seven, she has finally secured a good paying job as a paralegal. She can afford treats like Starbucks now. And hanging in the hallway closet of her own townhouse, a new, belted, black cashmere coat ready for winter’s bluster. Burberry. Not winter white, but her fashion-crazy mother who moved to Paris years ago would approve of the coat no matter the color. It has a designer name.

Her mother has been begging Jillian to come to Paris especially since Jillian’s engagement. To see the sights, of course, but also her mother wants to buy her a couture wedding dress from the city of lights. The promise of a Parisian wedding dress is no longer exciting and glamourous. Now, the whole idea feels ridiculous and self-aggrandizing.

Nearby, another new age mannequin, a glossy, yellow suggestion of a man, is waiting stoically for someone or something beside the entrance to the Men’s Fitting Room. Poor guy. Stark naked. Didn’t get a head. Below his broad shoulders, arms that end where elbows should be. Truncated. Lopped-off. Stumps. All such repulsive words. Someone should come around and dress this poor guy at the very least. Jillian leans forward, gags audibly, then tosses her unfinished Frappuccino into a trash can. That thing tasted a bit off from the first sip. Sour. Something spoiled about it.

Jillian is engaged to Kyle Richardson, a former Lenape High School star quarterback. A Marine who happened to be in a Humvee near a land mine that blew to hell and took most of his right arm with it. It is the nineth day since the accident. Jillian has been getting steady updates from Kyle’s mother, Tess, via text messages, ever since it happened. She checks her phone now. No new messages. Scrolling up, she rereads some old messages from her future mother-in-law.

Kyle is stable. Bleeding under control. Pain managed. Thank GOD he’s alive. Thank GOD!

One guy might not make it. TERRIBLE! SO DEVASTATING! Kyle’s in shock. To be expected.

Kyle should be up to talking to us soon. We have so much to be thankful for. He’s going to be okay. THANK YOU, GOD!

The doctors say Kyle will heal quickly. He’s very strong. The US military has the most state of the art prosthetics. Just above the elbow is a fortunate thing. Confirmed now that he has full movement of that shoulder. Kyle could always print really well with his left hand. Thank God for our blessings.

Kyle will be back in the states by the end of this week!!!!!! He still isn’t up to talking on the phone yet but his nurses say he is doing well and he sends his love to all especially “to Jilly!”

We asked about bringing Roscoe but the request was denied. No civilian dogs allowed on base.

Jillian folds her hands in her lap and tries to picture herself at the base standing with Kyle’s mother and father, his four brothers and little sister, Alice. It’s true that Rosco should be there too. Kyle is crazy about the family dog. Probably launched a million neon tennis balls far and wide across cornfields plowed to stubble for the black lab to gallop after and retrieve with his tail wagging his whole body.

Jillian shakes her head.

It’s such an unforgivable thing to give thought to fun and games at a time like this. How dare she think of Kyle’s arm arching back like the arm of a Roman gladiator as the colosseum erupts with cheers. She wishes she saw golden javelins, paper airplanes, tomahawks, sparrows, or frisbees flying through her nightmares. Anything other than what she does see during her restless nights, Kyle’s right arm tossing those bright tennis balls for Roscoe or Kyle’s right arm hurling a simple, brown ball father and better than any other boy from their hometown ever had before. All those Hail Mary’s that delivered the Lenape Tigers to victory, obliterated state records and some national ones too.

 Jillian rereads the last text from Tess:

We’ll pick you up at 7 a.m. on Friday. I asked again. No Roscoe. Alice wants to sneak him in. I told her he barks too much.

Jillian stands up, turns her back on The Men’s Department of Nordstrom’s and all its soulless mannequins and walks toward the other stores inside the mall.

On Friday morning, Jillian and Kyle’s family wait at a grassy area with picnic tables for the arrival of Kyle’s aircraft. Jillian glances up at the heavens. A grey, humid day. Rain threatening. Wind picking up. Clouds slung low and heavy-bellied.

The air force base reminds Jillian of the Playmobile Airport her little brother Seth used to play with. Plastic airplanes. Doors and hangers that opened and closed. Landing wheels that rotated. A giant’s child would have a lot of fun in a place like this. The child might plop down right in the middle of things, tattooing the earth with a jagged crack. She might pluck one of these transport planes off the tarmac and make the giant, grey whale of a thing soar. Shred up these rain clouds. Maybe she’d pinch Kyle’s plane out of this ominous sky and set it down safely right in front of Jillian’s nose.

Military personnel stream past: navy blue or drab olive-green fabrics, sharp corners, ironed cuffs, expert tailoring, shoes shining without the light of the sun. No stooped backs. No tilted chins. Brisk salutes here and there. The occasional exchange of a sentence or two. A general lack of loose hair. Crewcuts. Tight buns. Caps. Heads that turn to acknowledge Jillian’s group with respectful nods. Wide-eyed as Seth’s Playmobile people.

Kyle’s parents are talking with the parents of other returning service men and women, exchanging notes on place of service, lengths of missions. Kyle’s brothers and Alice are listening, watching their parents. They nod and smile when they have to. Jillian can’t seem focus on the exchange of words. It is difficult to breathe.

Since the news of the accident, Jillian has been going over and over the features of Kyle’s face in her memories. She’s been dusting, smoothing, touching up, and resting her lips upon the clay bust of Kyle she tends in her brain. Kyle’s patented, sheepish grin. His twinkling, crinkling eyes. How he looks teasing her, telling her one awful joke after another.

She has never seen Kyle cry, but Kyle must have cried out when the accident happened. He must have screamed. He must have wept. His features contorted by the agony, the horror of it. And in that moment, during all the blood and gore, Kyle would have looked like someone Jillian has never seen.

In his official Marine photograph from five years ago when he enlisted, Kyle appears stoic and because she knows him so well, also amused by something, though she can’t imagine now what that could possibly be. Didn’t he know something awful like this might happen to him. Even then. Even on that day when they were both so young. Neither of them thought anything like this could happen to their story, but they should have. If only she had talked him into some kind of technical school instead. Something that had nothing at all to do with the military and never would.

Jillian glances down at the dress she bought to wear to the homecoming and frowns. She is a monstrous, iridescent termite trapped inside a hill of industrious, sensibility dressed worker ants in this white dress with the crimson flowers from ZARA. In the store’s dressing room, the flower petals had appeared more muted, the whole dress more tasteful. But here, among monochromatic people and identical, brick buildings, her choice of attire is nothing short of ridiculous. No need for black. Kyle isn’t dead. Others have suffered so much more. But no need to look like she’s about to attend a luau on a Hawaiian honeymoon and she’s cheerful as hell about it. If only she could ask one of these military people if she could borrow a sweater or a jacket. Anything colorless.

She needed professional advice at ZARA but just like Nordstrom’s that morning, no employees as far as the eye could see. Jillian had stepped out of the dressing room and to ask a young women who appeared to be around Jillian’s age what she thought of the dress. The woman was standing outside the next fitting room, gawking at the beam emanating from her iPhone, waiting for a friend to decide on a bikini.  Jillian smiles bitterly now as the conversation replays.

I hate to bother you, but I was just wondering what you think of this dress.

That looks great on you. Love the red flowers.

Maybe it’s too bright. I don’t want anything too bright.

No, no. It’s a rich color. Would be good for work or a party or…

No, no. Not a party. My fiancé is coming home after a deployment.

A deployment?

A military deployment. In Afghanistan.

Afghanistan?

You’ve heard of Afghanistan, right?

Yea, I think I so. Yea, sure. I have. I think I have. What was the deployment for?

War. He was fighting in a war.

We’re in a war? An active war? I didn’t know that, actually. Er, sorry.

It’s fine.

Where is it again?

Are you fucking kidding me?

Jillian had slammed the door to her fitting room and changed as quickly as she could while the two women whispered. Tamping down the urge to scream at both of them on her way out, she stomped to the register, paid for the damn dress and left the mall.She should have called her mother before going there in the first place. Together, they could have sorted out what Jillian should look like at this very moment standing on an air force base waiting to greet her fiancé after such a long time apart, after what has happened. At least she would have gotten that much right.

Jillian glances over at Tess Richardson. She is being very brave. Talking, smiling, even laughing with the others. She’s always been nice to Jillian, but with four sons younger than Kyle and Alice, Tess doesn’t have much time to chat. She could have texted Tess about what she was planning to wear though. Tess is wearing black slacks, a grey blouse, pearl earrings, no makeup. Perfect.

The plane will set down in about fifteen minutes, someone announces. Everyone cheers and claps except Jillian. Her mouth is stuck shut and her arms are too heavy to lift.

Jillian strains to hear the drone of distant engines.

Only the snapping of flags on the tall, metal poles nearby.

She can’t know exactly what she will feel when she sees Kyle again, but she knows what she won’t do.

She won’t look at that side of his body, where she imagines his shirt will be folded and neatly pinned or maybe there will be the crisscross of a truly white bandage peeking out.

She will set her eyes on his face instead.

She will hope like hell it looks like his face.

She will make sure she smiles no matter what that requires of her.

She will let his mother go to him first, his father, his siblings.

Then it will be her turn.

She won’t embrace Kyle.

She won’t wrap her arms around him and hug him to her, because what if he tries to squeeze her back and he can’t or it’s awkward or it hurts or it’s humiliating for him.

She will wait for Kyle to make the first physical move.

If he doesn’t, if he can’t, if he falters, she will open both of her palms wide.

She will place them gently against the middle of his chest where his heart resides.

Then, she will reach her lips up toward Kyle’s perfect mouth.

– Virginia Watts

Author’s Note: “Homecoming” is a story that asks the reader to walk a mile in the narrator’s shoes because sometimes there is no other way to understand the human experience with the compassion we all deserve.