She opened her eyes halfway, enough to look around and see where she was. Noticing her cheek was wet, she reached up and wiped off the single trail of saliva running from her mouth to the burgundy couch cushion where she had fallen asleep. Claire sat up on the couch, stretched, and peered around her quaint living room. Decoration supplies were dispersed in piles all over the house. A "Welcome Home" sign made by her two young daughters was left unfinished on the otherwise clear kitchen counter along with a 24-pack of Crayola markers.

It was 2:45, almost time to get the girls from the bus stop. Claire stood to her feet and shuffled  over to the window, running her naked feet along the navy blue rug. The wind was giving the trees whiplash, their tops violently bending in an unnatural way, and the clouds looked like they were quickly bruising as they moved swiftly across the sky; the storm was about twenty minutes away. Claire took a deep, tranquil breath in and exhaled a wide, satisfying smile. She remembered what she’d been doing before her eyes got heavy and she laid down. She remembered the reason for the “Welcome Home” sign and the excessive bags of decorations: the man that gave her her two angels was due to arrive home in two days. Michael called her days before from the base camp telephone and declared his estimated time of arrival. Claire had been setting up the decorations way in advance; she could not do much else except imagine his healthy, safe body in her arms after a long fourteen months.

Still in her pajamas, she got in the dark grey minivan and went to pick up the girls. By now the rain was coming down as if it hadn’t rained in years and the wipers were intensely whipping from side to side. Seven-year-old Jane and five-year-old Hannah opened the side door and climbed in.
“Mom, guess what we did in school today,” exclaimed Hannah, taking off her dripping hood.
“What?” answered Claire, smiling at her in the rearview mirror.
“We made picture frames with Ms. Laney and, and we got to decorate them how we wanted. I made mine green and brown and black just like the colors on daddy’s clothes. Look, look! I’m gonna put a picture of me and daddy in it and give it to him when he comes home.”
Hannah handed her mother a rectangular foam cutout frame. The colors she described were in blotchy, zig-zag patterns. Claire made an exaggerated gasping sound as if she were looking at a priceless piece of famous art. She turned around in the drivers seat and praised Hannah for having made such a masterpiece. Hannah giggled in excitement as Claire turned the car around and headed home.
They pulled into their puddle of a driveway and scurried inside their dry house. Jane and Hannah ran upstairs with their matching Disney-princess backpacks, still gabbing away about their day at school. The second Claire pushed the slightly lopsided green front door shut, the phone rang. She walked over and answered with a timid, “hello?” There was a pause and then:
“Hi ma’am, this is Major Louis Ronson. I am calling with some unfortunate news,” spoke the voice on the other end.
Claire’s heart sunk deep in her chest; she was not sure she could feel it beating anymore. Instantly, she felt paralyzed, as if her body were in rigor mortis. Assuming the worst, all her mouth could expel was a whispered “yes?”
“Ma’am, your husband, Michael, uhm... Well, he has received a direct threat from a leading member of the enemy army. It is protocol to retrieve all immediate family and bring them to a safe, isolated location,” said the Major.
This caught Claire off guard. After processing what he had said, Claire screamed into the phone:
“But Michael’s okay, right?!”
“Yes ma’am. He is now in an isolated location that I cannot disclose over the phone.”
Claire managed to find her breath and agreed to leave her house immediately to follow the Major’s direct orders. She hung up the phone, blinked a few times to make sure she wasn't dreaming and ran to tell her uniformed children to pack their bags, tripping over a now useless pile of decorations in the process.
                          . . .
They hopped out of the Army’s helicopter onto an immense platform that was painted as one giant red target. With an arm around each girl, Claire followed the soldier directing them inside the aircraft carrier. The three of them entered the quiet inside, took a few relieving breaths and looked at each other. All three let out an exhausted laugh as they looked at each other's windblown brown hair all disheveled on their heads. Those were the first smiles they had shown since the previous day when they left.
The soldier directed them through a few narrow corridors, down three flights of stairs, and stopped them as he punched a classified code into a door panel. It opened three-fourths of the way, just enough for Claire to peer in and see a man sitting at the end of a table with his chin on his fist, staring off into space with an intense look that encompassed his whole body. His eyes were immediately averted from his daydream and met Claire's stare. Michael, with a massive smile on his face, stood up suddenly, sending his chair crashing into the wall behind him. Claire's feet began to move unconsciously towards him as she broke into a sprint with their two daughters galloping an squealing with happiness behind her. So close to his open arms, Claire's feet stumbled and she started to feel her body falling to the ground. Claire tried but she could not catch herself. She hit the ground with a thud.

Her eyes opened and her body quickly joulted into a sitting position. Claire vigorously looked around the room to see where she was. Her fingers ran through the navy blue carpet as she sat puzzled on the floor next to the burgundy couch. She looked at the clock… 2:45. Completely disoriented, Claire crawled up and sat back on the couch where she had fallen asleep an hour earlier. She pondered there a few silent minutes processing the vivid and farcical dream she’d just experienced... until the doorbell rang. Claire stumbled to her feet and shuffled over to the lopsided green door, passing a pile of decorations on the way. She pulled it open to find two men in Army uniforms standing on her drenched doorstep. They asked her her name in which she responded “Claire Stenson.” The men looked at each and took off their caps.