Talk about stress

This morning inside her little living room, mayor Vicki pads around in slippers and sweats, riding out another crisis. A neighbor's son wandered off, and Vicki wants to light a fire under the military police, but she's on hold. Chayse, who is 10, is banging around upstairs. Gavin, who is 7, watches a cartoon, lying in front of the television in mismatched pajamas. Vicki steps over him to get the door. Someone needs to borrow a stepladder.

In a minute, Vicki will start calling other wives, letting them know when their husbands are coming home from Iraq. She's been making calls for a week now. So far, her husband, David, hasn't shown up on the list.

Since David's been gone, Vicki's plugged every free hour into volunteer projects. Aside from the boys, working part-time and being the mayor of her housing unit -- which means a lot of mediating disputes over parking and shoveling snow -- Vicki's also head of her Family Readiness Group, or FRG, looking out for 40-some women whose husbands have been deployed since last October.

Being alone cuts both ways for Army wives. They have to learn to be independent, but their independence changes them and can make it hard to go back to what they were before. It's toughest for the really young ones. They discover they want to work, go to school. Some want out of their marriages.

Over the last year, Vicki's seen a steady stream of teary faces at her door. They call when they're depressed or overwhelmed or angry. They need day care. They need counseling. They're having e-mail fights with their husband. There are so many ways, with all the stress and distance, that people can get crosswise with each other.

Vicki's been married 13 years. She met David at a club. She was with a friend and in no mood to be hit on, but he got her to dance, and at the end of the night, after trying not to, she gave him her number. He was already a soldier, but he wasn't the way she thought a soldier would be. He listened. He respected her. He took her white-water rafting on their second date. He became her best friend.

It's weird to think back that far. When they just had each other. She wanted to go to nursing school. He wanted to get his degree. But life unfolded the way life does. The Army seemed like a stable way to raise a family. Then came the war. Now there's the boys, the car payments and the fear that floats like a cold wind underneath the day's tasks -- the FRG, the parent-teacher conferences, the trips to the PX.

What if he gets killed?

It's been her job to make the calls, spread the word about injuries or casualties within the battalion. For a while it was happening so often, she couldn't keep it together. She'd dial the commander's wife or her sister-in-law first to get the weeping out of her system. Then she'd make the calls. She wanted to sound strong for the wives on the other end of the line. They had their own anxieties; they didn't need to hear hers in her voice.

She was deep into this new life when David came home on leave. She couldn't just disengage, get unbusy. The FRG women kept calling. She kept thinking: He's going away again.

He was different too. More keyed up, jumpy. It has got to be expected after months of getting shot at.

At the airport when he went back, the boys came undone. Gavin grabbed his legs and wouldn't let go. He still wakes up at night. He keeps trying to get David to promise over e-mail not to go back.

Sometimes, driving David's big gray Dodge to work through Midtown, Vicki catches her face in the mirror. She looks tired and a little sad. What's the word? Weary?

She goes over her last phone conversation with David. A fight over nothing. She went out with friends. He saw the pictures on MySpace.com. She's lost weight; she looked like she was having fun. He felt left out. His anxiety annoyed her; then she felt guilty. It's hard to be mad at your husband in Iraq.

Part of her wants out of the Army. She wants to empty her brain of all the scenarios: The knock at the door. Telling the boys their father is going away again. All the things that could happen to him. But that's probably not realistic.

And there are things she likes. She's met a lot of friends and has been a lot of places.

"The military's what you make of it," she always tells the girls in the FRG.

She wonders what it will be like in the house when David comes back. Will she take her own advice? Take it easy. Don't make him talk if he doesn't want to. Give the kids time to get used to it. If you think there's a problem, there probably is. Don't wait. Go to counseling.

One of her friends' husbands has been home for a week. It just felt exactly the same, she said. Like he'd never left. Vicki prays it will be that way for her and David, that they'll just slip back into normal.

The other day she saw a woman shopping with her kids and her husband at the commissary and felt a stab of jealousy. All those little grocery store decisions -- which type of steaks to buy, what to make for dinner -- have their own little weight. She's tired of deciding things. She wants David back. She wants him with her at the grocery store. She wants him pushing the cart, while she checks off the list. She doesn't mind being independent, but she's tired of being alone.

Find Julia O'Malley online at adn.com/contact/jomalley or call 257-4591.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

SUNDAY: Cari Collins has five girls, two rabbits and a dog, but you can feel something's missing.

YESTERDAY: Lauren Bretz doesn't worry about her husband, Nat, in Iraq; she prays for him.

TODAY: For Vicki Bell, the million little everyday decisions are the loneliest.

WEDNESDAY: Colleen Mihalic had had enough. What could she do to get her husband home?