MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26

Sarah was late to her own group session. She scurried down the hallway, her footsteps slapping the linoleum flooring and echoing off the walls in a syncopated beat to the shouts of young men and the thud of the basketball. She opened the door too hard, slamming it against the wall accidentally. They were all there; McCrea and Stillman bookending the group, Fergusson hunched over her cup of coffee, McNabb stuffing an iPod into her too-tight jeans, Will Ellis smiling at nothing. Sarah felt like pitching her notebook and pen and shrieking at them all to go home. She wasn’t reaching these people. She wasn’t helping them. She’d never been any closer to a war zone than downtown Newark. What in the name of little green apples did she think she could accomplish here?

Fergusson looked up at her, her face pale with fatigue. Studied her for a moment that must have been shorter than it felt. Then she rose from her rickety metal chair, smiling. “Sarah. Thank goodness. We were getting worried.” She crossed the floor and touched Sarah on the arm, once, giving her a squeeze that seemed to say, I know, and it’s all right. “Let me get you something. Coffee? Somebody’s made hot cider in the Crockpot. Probably fresh from Greuling’s Orchards.” She looked at Sarah again, more closely, and for a second, Sarah wanted to lean against the priest, to feel someone taking care of her for a change, and then she snapped herself like a sheet and thought, Oh, no, you don’t. I’ve got your number now. Fergusson was a caretaker. That explained the way she only really became engaged when she was bucking up Will or settling down McCrea.

“Thank you, Clare, that would be nice.” She let Fergusson fetch her the hot cider while she sat down, surreptitiously rolling her shoulders to get the last of the tension out, smiling at the others. When Fergusson handed her the paper cup, she let her eyes open just a bit wider than usual, showing her vulnerability and her gratitude. A little manipulative, maybe, but if she could use the moment to crack open Fergusson’s closed book, it would be worth it.

“We’ve talked about homecoming,” Sarah said. “We’ve talked about work, and about personal relationships.” She took a sip of the cider. Heavenly. “But all that is background. Reconnoitering the terrain. Tonight, we’re going to begin to dig deeper. The real issues, and the real work, are inside each of you. Tonight, we’re going to talk about why you decided to attend this group, and what you hope to get out of counseling.”

Tally McNabb glanced at McCrea, who bent over to rub a nonexistent speck from his hiking boots. Trip Stillman shifted in his seat. Clare Fergusson pinched her ring between two fingers and stared at it. Will Ellis looked up toward the sound-tiled ceiling.

Sarah let the silence lengthen. “Anyone?” More shifting, more looking at the floor or knees or coffee cups. “Somebody has to be first.”

“I came here because I want to know how to leave what happened in-country behind.”

They all stared at Tally McNabb. Her chin was tucked down, and she wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes, but she went on. “I did some things I shouldn’t have. Stuff I thought would stay there.” She pressed her mouth into a hard line. Sarah waited, one beat, two, for her to go on.

Finally, Fergusson leaned way forward so she could look up into Tally’s face. “But it didn’t.”

Tally shook her head, sending her straight, blunt hair jerking left, right, left. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.” She lifted her eyes and looked around the circle. “Everything seemed so clear-cut over there. Now I’m home, and I can’t get a fix on anything anymore. My relationship with my husband’s totally screwed up. My job is—” She dropped her head again. “My boss told me today he wants to send me back. As part of the construction team.”

“What?” McCrea stared.

“You’re kidding!” Stillman rocked back in his chair.

“Oh, no,” Fergusson said.

“It’s not like being on frontline duty. I’d be financial administrator for the ongoing projects. Probably get to spend ninety percent of my time behind a desk in the Green Zone.”

There was an awful silence. Everyone, including Sarah, knew there was no such thing as “behind the lines” in Iraq.

“How do you feel about this?” Sarah asked.

Through the thick cotton of her hooded sweatshirt, Tally rubbed the spot where her arm was tattooed. “How do I feel?” She looked at Sarah. “Like I’ve been locked in a box.”

“Do you feel like you’d like to discuss your options with the group?” Sarah kept her voice low and level.

“No. I don’t have any options.”

“You can always find something positive about any situation,” Will Ellis said.

“Oh, for God’s sake. Why don’t you just grow up and drop the damn pep talks already?” Tally shoved her face toward Will. “At least I can admit my life’s in the toilet.”

“What?” Will glared at her. “What do you want me to say? That I lost my goddamn legs? That I’m never going to walk again, I’ve got no goddamn prospects, and I’m going to wind up spending the rest of my life with my parents taking care of me? That make you happy?”

Trip Stillman shook his head. “There’s no reason you can’t—”

“And what’s your problem?” Will turned on the older man. “I haven’t heard anything out of you other than it’s been a pain cycling in and out of country for three-month rotations.”

Stillman sat up straight and angled his body so that he somehow seemed to be wearing an invisible white coat. “I, um, believe I’m showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“From what?” Eric McCrea said. “You didn’t get the DVDs you wanted in your air-conditioned lounge? You guys live like four-stars in those combat support hospitals. What the hell kind of stress could you have?”

“I wasn’t in a CSH. I was at a Forward Response Station, and the only AC we had was in the operating rooms.”

“Oh, cry me a fucking river. You wanna know what stress is? Try guarding a bunch of insurgents who’d just as soon kill you as look at you. Trying to get intel out of these fuckers, knowing they’ve got information that will kill Americans locked up in their heads, but for God’s sake, you gotta respect their rights and their religion and their culture. Then a bunch of fucking pictures that never should have been taken get out into the damn media—from another fucking prison entirely!—and suddenly everybody looks at you like you’ve been putting electrodes on Achmed’s balls.”

“Were you?” Fergusson asked.

“What?”

“Were you torturing prisoners?”

“No! Jesus! Whaddaya think I am?”

“I think you’re a good cop. I’m also thinking maybe a good cop who gets coerced or convinced to do bad things is going to wind up feeling pretty awful about it, later on.”

Sarah cut in before Fergusson could take over as therapist. “Hold it.” She made a time-out gesture. “Just hold it. Group therapy means we’re working together to find out what we need to know. We offer observations in positive ways. We don’t gang up and attack each other.” She looked around the circle, taking her time, making eye contact with each one of them. “I repeat. We’re going to talk about why you decided to get into the group.” She zeroed in on Fergusson. “Clare, we’re starting with you.”