“Being a good doctor, first and foremost, means saving the life of your patient. That’s what you’re there for. That’s your job. You’re not their mother, their spouse or their social worker.”
He was right. Those who were able to keep their job in perspective probably never ended up emotionally frustrated like her.
“There must have been times when Laura—when the rest of you—got angry with what you saw here.”
“Of course. We’re human. But we can’t do it all, and we sure as hell can’t fix all the evil in the world. I’ll tell you something though. The work we do here helps show the Afghan people, as well as our enemies, that we’re trying to do good. Politics and religion aside, we’re trying to help. And I damned well have to believe that the arc of justice and humanity eventually bend in our favor.”
“Laura had that figured out, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
But I need more than that, Pam thought. I need more than the immediate reward of saving someone or patching them up. And I certainly need more than some philosophical belief that my good work will somehow, in the end, make the world a better place.
“But you’re not Laura,” he continued. His tone wasn’t judgmental. “Can I ask why you went into emergency medicine?”
Pam had asked herself this hundreds, maybe even thousands of times. “The adrenaline rush, the immediacy. And because I’m good at making order out of chaos.”
The colonel gave her a conspiratorial smile. “Now you’re talking. That’s exactly what the army does and the staff at this hospital. We make order out of chaos.”
“But it isn’t enough. Not for me.”
“You see,” he said in an authoritative tone, like a professor lecturing a student. From anyone else, she would have resented it. “Your problem is you can’t let go. You can’t move on.”
Was she that easy to figure out? Maybe he’d simply sized her up as Laura’s opposite, because Laura had certainly proven in her life that she could let go. That she could move on. It had been a common theme with her.
Mike removed his feet from his desk and scooted his chair closer to Pam, his air of authority replaced by something more pleading. “I want you to do something for me.”
Whatever it was, Pam instantly trusted this man, just as she knew her sister had. “What is it?”
“I want you to go spend a couple of days at the NATO hospital at our base in Kandahar.”
“Why?”
The colonel frowned at her for an instant, probably used to giving orders without them being questioned, she supposed.
“It’s mostly used now to treat the Afghan population, though it’s still the trauma center for our casualties in the field. It will give you a better idea of some of the work that we’re doing here. A broader perspective.” More gently, he said, “It might help answer some of the questions you have about practicing medicine right now.”
Mike stood, not waiting for her reply. “There’s a chopper leaving for Kandahar at oh-six-hundred tomorrow.”
A chopper? Pam’s mouth went dry.
“I’d like you to be on it,” he said, looking at her as if throwing down a challenge.
Pam stood, equal in height. She had the urge to salute. “I’ll be on it, Colonel.”
* * *
Trish had so many questions for Camille she hardly knew where to begin. If she was going to write a book based on Laura’s experiences here—and that was a big if—there were only about a thousand questions she’d need answers to.
“Did you read Laura’s journal before you sent it to Pam?” Might as well start with the most obvious.
“No,” Camille answered, and Trish believed her.
“Not even tempted just a little bit?”
“We all have similar experiences here. I imagine she wrote about some of the specific things she witnessed here, the things she did, things she was frustrated or pleased about. If I’d read her journal, it would have been like reading my own.”
They were sitting in the dining hall drinking coffee that Trish imagined was strong enough to peel paint. “Jeez, I think this coffee is your biggest enemy, not the Taliban.”
Camille laughed at her joke. “You’re not the first to suggest that.”
“Do you keep a journal?” Trish asked.
Camille tapped on her temple. “Nah. It’s all up here.”
“Would you ever write a book someday about your experiences here? Lots of soldiers do.”
“I doubt it. Why?”
“I think Laura might have wanted to. Did she say anything to you about it?”
“No. But it wouldn’t surprise me. She was always scribbling something down. Took a lot of photos too. I jokingly asked her about it once, but she just made a joke back and didn’t really answer.”
Camille’s mouth moved silently, and she narrowed her eyes. “Are you thinking about doing something like that with her journal?”
Trish drank her coffee as a stalling tactic. “Maybe. I don’t know yet. I don’t want to do it if she would have been opposed.”
Camille’s face was stern as she concentrated. “I don’t think she’d mind,” she finally said.
“You two were close, weren’t you?” Trish wasn’t sure she wanted the full truth.
“Yes. But only to a certain degree. There was a line that I don’t think anyone was allowed to cross with her.”
“Can I ask you something personal?”
Camille smiled at her teasingly. “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”
Trish felt herself color a little. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s refreshing.”
“The army’s not very conducive to relationships, is it? I mean, you’re single, aren’t you?”
“I’m single by choice, but lots of people here have someone back home.”
“But what I mean is, being in the army, it makes it a lot harder, doesn’t it?” What she couldn’t come right out and ask—mostly because Camille had no way of knowing—was whether it was Laura or her way of life that had prevented her from committing to Trish. Or anyone else, as far as she could tell.
“Sure, but you can do it if you really want to.”
All those years she refused to believe Laura—the grown-up Laura—could want something other than the little house with the white picket fence. A life with her.
“I wish,” Trish said, a catch in her throat, “that I’d been enough for Laura.” As soon as she said it, she knew it was a lie. It was Trish who didn’t want the army lifestyle, every bit as much as Laura didn’t want the homebody lifestyle.
Camille looked at her kindly. “It’s never simple, is it?”
“No. Did she ever talk about me?”
“She mentioned you a few times. I got the impression you were always the one she let get away. You know, her one regret. We all have one. Just because things didn’t work between you two doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of love there.”
She didn’t know why Camille’s words gave her such solace, just that they did. “Yes. There was a lot of love. But now I understand it was a selfish love on my part.” Oh, how she’d been so full of self-righteousness in those days. How sure she’d been that her way was the right way.
Camille quirked her head at her.
Trish laughed suddenly. “Are you sure you even want to hear all this?”
“Of course I do. In war, there’s not a lot of time to sit and figure things out with people over a long period of time. You get to know people—and their stories—quickly. Laura was like a sister to me over here.”
“You see, I loved her in a such a way that I wanted her to fit her life around what I wanted. I wanted her to have the same dream for us that I had. But she wasn’t wired like that, and I tried to force it anyway. That’s what I mean by a selfish kind of love. I think I need to learn to love people as they really are.”
“Hmm, that’s funny, because selfish was how she described herself when it came to you. Said she was too selfish to give w
hat she needed to give you.”
“I guess we were both selfish.”
“Being selfish is part of human nature,” Camille said. “And so is wanting love.”
Trish looked around the spacious dining hall, big enough to seat several hundred soldiers at once. It wasn’t the only dining hall on base, but it was the biggest. It was mostly empty this time of day—midafternoon.
Trish took a deep breath. She wanted to understand exactly what Laura had chosen over her. And why. “Camille, will you explain to me what you and the others like you, like Laura, love so much about…” Trish gestured around her. “All of this? About being here and doing what you’re doing?”
Camille smiled, set her empty cup down. “Sure, but I think we’d better get a second cup of coffee.”
* * *
With her index finger, Pam traced Laura’s name in the concrete wall. It’d been hastily engraved, then painted red, like the other fourteen names in the same part of the stone, all of them soldiers from the base who’d been killed in action so far this year. Dozens of other names represented past years. Next year’s was blank, and Pam wondered how many names would end up there.
Trish stood beside her and traced Laura’s name too after a moment. “When her name’s on a veterans wall in D.C. someday, we’ll go see it together,” she promised.
“That’s all we have left of her,” Pam said glumly. “Just her name engraved in walls.”
“No, it isn’t,” Trish said sternly. “She’s much more than a name chiseled in concrete. We both know that. It’s up to us to keep her spirit alive. In our work, in our memories.”
“And in loving each other?” Pam intentionally sharpened her tone.
“Loving each other and taking care of each other is probably the best way we can honor Laura.”
Will it be honoring her when I fuck you? Pam said to herself, the ferocity of her sudden anger surprising her. Hey, Laura, big sister, check this out. I’m going to fuck your ex-girlfriend one of these days. Fuck her until she comes she like she’s never come before. Fuck her until she pulls my hair and screams my name and begs me for more. Is that honoring you enough? Huh?
“Hey,” Trish said sharply, snapping her back to the present. “What’s wrong? You look like you want to kill somebody.”
“Nothing.” Pam turned and began marching back to their hut. She could feel Trish hot on her heels.
“Dammit,” Trish said, breathless from trying to keep up with her. “What the hell is going on? Talk to me.”
Pam shut the flimsy plywood door and dropped on to her cot. Her heart pounded. For a moment, she dropped her head into her hands, but she remained dry-eyed.
“Sweetie, please?” Trish sat down beside her but didn’t touch her.
Pam refused to talk about her anger. It wouldn’t help. “The colonel at the hospital has asked me to go to Kandahar to check out a hospital. It was started by the military but it’s mostly for Afghan civilians now. The military doctors have begun mentoring Afghan doctors. Eventually it’ll be their hospital. At least, that’s the plan.”
“Why does he want you to go?”
“I don’t know, really. He didn’t say, just that it might help me.”
“You talked to him about your career struggles?”
“Yes.”
Trish exhaled loudly, a sign of nerves. “Okay. That’s good, right?”
“Maybe. I hope so.”
Panic edged into Trish’s voice. “He’s not trying to get you to stay here, is he?”
“No, nothing like that.” Pam tried to soothe her with a smile. “Besides, I’m not interested in staying here. I told you that.”
Trish exhaled again, slumping her shoulders. “Good. Thank God. So how does this work? When do you go and for how long?”
“I’ll be gone two, three days, max. I leave in the morning.” Pam knew her next words would send Trish through the roof, such as it was. “By helicopter.”
“What?” Trish leapt off the bed, began pacing furiously. “No, no, no. You can’t be serious. Not by helicopter.”
“It’s safer than a road trip.”
Trish wasn’t listening. She was stomping around the tiny room, arms crossed tightly against her chest. She was shaking her head back and forth, like one of those dolls on a car dashboard. “No. Anything but that.”
Pam stood, went to her, placed a steadying hand on her arm. “It’ll be fine.”
Trish halted, looked her square in the eye with fury, hurt and fear. “Don’t go.”
“I want to go. It might help me in some way. It might help me understand my purpose, and it might give me some direction. God knows I need it right now. And it will let me see some of the good work our troops have done over here. Things they’ve done to make this country a better place.”
Trish was not to be mollified. “You might die for it.”
“I’m not going to die for it.”
“You don’t know that, and in any case, you’re prepared to risk your life for it, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what else to tell you, Trish, except I feel a strong need to do this.”
“You’re trying to punish yourself, aren’t you?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Trish began her furious pacing again, head down. “It’s like you’re taunting the gods, or Laura, or something, by flying in a helicopter. Are you daring the universe? Is that what you’re doing?”
“No, of course not. Now please stop this pacing and tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Fine.” Trish stopped in front of her. “You’re punishing yourself for being in love with me. For stealing Laura’s girl. And you’re punishing yourself for being the one who’s alive. It’s survivor’s guilt, and it’s guilt for loving me. And this—this flying-in-a-helicopter nonsense—it’s like you’re daring the universe to take you too.”
The words were like cold water thrown in her face. Pam sucked in her breath against the shock. She shook her head, unable to form words, unable to even consider that there might be some truth to Trish’s words.
“It’s okay,” Trish said pointedly, then softer. “It’s okay.” She began crying, quietly, standing erect, arms limp by her side.
Pam took a step toward her, engulfed her in her arms, and felt her own sobs geyser up through her chest. They held each other through their tears, their sobs, as their thoughts spun furiously, trying to break through the wall of pain.
“I never thought,” Pam said haltingly, the words stalling in her swollen throat, like hitting speed bumps on a road. “All those years I was secretly in love with you…”
“Yes?”
“All that time, loving you from afar, I never thought…”
“It would happen for real?”
Pam shook her head. “I never thought it was meant to be. Laura…she was supposed to come back for you some day, dammit.”
“I don’t think she ever was.” Trish led them to her bed, where they sat down, holding hands. Their faces were soaked with tears. “I couldn’t see that part before, or I didn’t want to believe it. But I can now.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “She was never coming back for me, Pam.”
Pam straightened, pulled away from Trish. “Right now, I hate her.”
“What? Why?”
Anguish burned in her face; her skin felt like it was on fire. “I hate her for letting you go. I hate her for making me take care of Mom by myself when she was so sick. I hate her for making me think she was such a goddamned perfect God all my life when clearly she wasn’t. I hate her for leaving everything unfinished, for not seeing things to completion.”
Trish’s eyes shone with fresh hurt. “Like me?”
“What?”
“Am I one of the jobs you have to finish for Laura?”
Pam knew she’d gone too far. She sucked in her breath as though by doing so, she could take back her words. “No, Trish, no.” She reached a hand out to touch Trish’s face, but Trish pulled away, her postur
e stiff with anger.
“I am not Laura’s hand-me-down. And I’m most certainly not a project you have to take on because Laura couldn’t finish it.” Her words were blunt, like hard punches meant to bruise. “Your duty to me, to Laura, is over, okay?”
Pam froze. No, no, that wasn’t right. That’s not how she thought of Trish. She loved Trish, was in love with Trish, and had been for years. And not because Laura couldn’t or didn’t want Trish for herself. Not because Laura had broken promises to Trish and had broken her heart. No, that’s not what this was about. This was not about cleaning up Laura’s mess, and it was not about trying to be Laura, to emulate her. Hell, she was done with that and had been for a long time. She hadn’t fully realized it until dissatisfaction with her job had begun to creep in. Yes, she’d chosen medicine largely because that’s what Laura had chosen, and yes, emergency medicine was full of the testosterone and thrill seeking that Laura had thrived on as an army doctor. But she finally understood now that it wasn’t her calling. She was not a carbon copy of her sister, and there was no longer a need to try to keep up with Laura or to compete with her.
Trish had moved to the wall, her back to Pam. She stood stock-still, but her shoulders were stooped, resigned. She looked small, defeated.
Pam went to her, slowly, and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. “Trish, honey, I love you. And not because I feel some obligation to, and not because I’m trying to be some kind of better version of Laura. You’re not the grand prize in a competition between me and Laura. Or between me and her ghost. Okay?”
Trish turned around, leaned against the plywood wall, her hands at her side. She said nothing, but her face was full of despair.
Pam stepped closer, her face inches from Trish’s. “I admit, I was confused about us at first. I felt guilty for having the chance to love you when Laura couldn’t because she’s dead. I felt like I was taking something I had no right to take.”
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