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flipped the pencil in my fingers. Move toward healing.
    That was better, but not very specific. What had they told me in that Saturday business class Pilgrim Cleaners sent me to? Make your goals measurable.
    I chewed the soft yellow wood of the pencil, then wrote, Be Penny again, in time for Tom’s return.
    The concrete goal helped me turn to the second page.
    I’d had plenty of plans for after we settled here in Chesapeake. I’d been sidetracked, but it was time to start moving forward again.
    Join PTA—help out at school.
    Mow lawn.
    Take Bryan to the beach.
    Explore neighborhood. My writing slowed. These plans should have stirred eagerness in me, but even shaping the letters took unimaginable effort. Maybe I needed more information about the emotions that had sunk their claws into me.
    Research trauma recovery.
    Information would be sure to help. With that added to the list, I had the courage to keep brainstorming. Simple tasks that I used to be able to do without a second thought piled up as daunting as mountains. But these steps would make me normal again before Tom got back.
    Organize kitchen. I wrote faster.
    Attend mixer for Navy spouses.
    Back- to-school shopping for Bryan (long past due).
    That one wouldn’t be a hit with my restless boy. To make it up to him, I added the next item.
    Get a pet for Bryan.
    I could imagine his whoop of glee when I reached that task.
    Get to know neighbors.
    Choose a way to volunteer at church.
    My hand hovered over the page. Since I wanted to recover as quickly as possible, I should be able to tackle each of these in the weeks between now and Thanksgiving.
    Boldly, I wrote in the crowning goal. Attend Thanksgiving play at Bryan’s school. Bryan in a Pilgrim costume, with beaming smile, shone in my imagination like a Kodak moment. Warmth curled around my heart, and the eagerness I’d been hoping to stir finally flickered to life.
    There. That would do it. Now I had a plan. And failure was not an option.

chapter
4
    S UNDAY MORNING I WOKE up feeling achy in all my joints. I was relieved to have a good excuse to stay home from church. A new church could be rich with potential friendships and encouraging fellowship, but it could also be a painful reminder of homesickness and the exhausting process of starting over. Tom and I had chosen a church and gone a few times before he shipped out, but there was no way I could drag myself there today. Instead, Bryan and I watched a service on television. Technology was a marvelous thing. We huddled on the couch and watched a strange congregation relayed to our living room via camera. No shaking hands to share the peace, no shoulders squished beside mine in the pew, no resonance in my throat as I sang a hymn to the heavens made stronger by united voices. Just a distant box. Yet that was a better fit for me than something more real.
    What was happening to me?
    Several times during the day, I glanced at the waiting notebook. No sense starting a new project when I was feeling sick. Besides, Bryan needed my attention. From my nest on the couch, I played endless rounds of Battleship, lost at crazy eights, and read Animalia with him—taking time to find every possible hidden picture.
    Later in the day, Bryan raced toward his room to get a new computer game to show me. His shirt stretched tight across his chest and pulled up from his jeans. Another growth spurt.
    “Hey, buddy. Come here.”
    He skidded to a stop and backtracked, then sprang onto the cushioned arm of the couch and tumbled down to the spot beside me. “Yeah?”
    “You need some new school clothes.” One of the tasks in my notebook.
    He grinned. “So can we go to the mall tomorrow? And can we see a movie and eat at Taco Bell?”
    That would entail navigating unfamiliar streets, leading Bryan in and out of busy stores, the beep of cash registers, the crush of strangers. “I have a better idea. Let’s look on the computer.”
    “But Mo-om—”
    I gave him The Look, and Bryan cut