To Love and Heal (The Power of Love Series)

by Rose, Tamra

  As her stomach pulled with a bottomless ache, Anna was grateful for the interruption of her ringing cell phone. And seeing Tina's number pop up meant there were sure to be some crazy antics to help divert her thoughts even more.

  "Hey there−"

  "Anna," Tina interjected hurriedly. "Put the TV on if you're not already watching it – channel four!"

  "What's going on?"

  " Hurry!" As Tina's screech sailed into the air at full decibel, Merlin pinned his ears back and jumped off Anna's lap.

  "Okay, okay," she said as she clicked the remote. "What's so important that I have to watch…"

  Her question was visually answered as the screen came into focus. Slightly stunned to see Caleb's face – and overwhelmed with the flood of emotions and memories that it triggered – Anna fell back onto the couch as the broadcast picked up a reporter in mid-sentence.

  " … and Caleb Brown, a former Marine captain, is trying to spread awareness about stray dogs who befriend soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the roadblocks these soldiers encounter when they try to bring the dogs back to the United States."

  As if on cue, Haley's head popped into view, eliciting background laughter as she stole a quick lick off of Caleb's cheek.

  The reporter joined the laughter before he turned to face the camera again. "Not only do these dogs provide comfort and companionship in an extremely stressful war environment, in some cases they have actually saved soldiers' lives. In fact, that's exactly what Haley did when she chased off a suicide bomber who was approaching Caleb's quarters in the middle of the night. Can you elaborate on that incredible story?" the reporter asked as he thrust the microphone in front of Caleb.

  Instead of looking directly into the camera, Caleb glanced down at Haley and then back to the reporter. "Well, one thing I know for certain is that there's a good chance I wouldn't even be here today if it weren't for Haley. It was in the middle of the night and we were all asleep in the barracks. Dogs aren't allowed in our living quarters, but Haley was always hanging around our base and the truth is we would sneak her in when we could. She heard someone approach outside and starting barking, which alerted us to the fact that something was wrong. We immediately armed ourselves and apparently the sound of Haley's barking was enough of a deterrent for the bomber to turn around and run in the other direction. I was one of the first to reach the door and head out in pursuit, and Haley jumped out past me and went after him. Within seconds the bomb went off, but by this point he had covered enough ground so that the barracks were cleared from direct impact."

  "But Haley herself was injured," the reporter added grimly.

  "Yes," Caleb replied, reaching down to pat her affectionately on the head as she sat at his feet. "She was bleeding heavily from shrapnel wounds and we would have lost her if the base doctors hadn't performed emergency surgery."

  "She looks great now," the reporter observed as Haley's wagging tail accelerated and thumped against the floor. "So talk a little now about your effort to bring Haley back home with you when your tour of duty ended."

  "Well, to sum it up, I tried every means possible to arrange for her to fly back with me, but I was repeatedly told it wasn't allowed, and eventually I ran out of time and had to leave without her."

  "And yet, here she is with you now. What finally happened to make that possible?"

  Anna took a deep breath, clutching the couch arm for support even though she was firmly planted in the seat cushion and clearly going nowhere. Caleb looked directly into the camera, his eyes seemingly searching for a reply. He had to have known that this question was coming, Anna thought, and yet it almost appeared as though he were caught off-guard and unprepared to answer.

  "There was someone who knew how important Haley was to me – how I had to leave her behind even though she helped save my life. She got in touch with Representative Lawton, who helped get the ball rolling and one day …" Caleb paused for several moments, his voice choked with emotion when he resumed. "One day out of the clear blue sky, I was doing some work in the yard and she came running over to me with a big red bow around her neck."

  "That must have been quite a surprise!"

  Caleb visibly struggled to keep his composure, glancing up at the ceiling before hardening his resolve and again facing the camera. "I can honestly say it was the happiest day of my life. I was not only reunited with this incredibly special dog who I thought I'd never see again … but it reminded me that there are some pretty amazing people in this world, too."

  "And the message that you want to get out today is that more needs to be done to help bring some of these dogs back – is that right?"

  "Exactly. Even if they don't save lives by running off a suicide bomber like Haley did, they help save lives back home with soldiers who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. There are veterans who have been prescribed one medication after another to try to keep PSTD at bay, but they make more progress in one month of dog therapy then they do in years of drug therapy."

  "Dog therapy – I like that term. So why do you think that is?"

  "The dogs help calm them and many times they can sense when a flashback or panic attack is coming on. They'll nudge the soldiers or pull on their clothes when this happens, and it can help pull them back into the present. It's a special bond that helps ground returning soldiers who are still being affected by their time in Afghanistan and Iraq."

  The reporter turned to face the camera. "It looks like that's all we have time for, but I think Caleb has done a great job of explaining the importance of these dogs both for soldiers still in Afghanistan and Iraq … and once they return home. One of the major roadblocks to bringing these dogs home is the high cost – about four-thousand dollars per dog. In order to significantly reduce this expense, Caleb is in the process of organizing a group that will work in conjunction with airlines and local veterinary services to help make his and Haley's happy ending one that will be possible for many more soldiers and dogs."

  Anna stared numbly at the television as the station switched to a commercial. Still looking straight ahead, she felt around on the couch cushion for the remote control. One click later, her eyes were glued to a blank screen as she struggled to comprehend what she had just witnessed. To say that Caleb was clearly in a better place now was an understatement. The last time she had seen him, he had collapsed on the floor of her hospital room in the midst of an emotional breakdown, no longer able to cope with the images and memories of a war that had followed him back from Afghanistan. And now, three months later, he was in front of a television camera and speaking openly about a subject matter that he previously never would have allowed to escape from his lips. It was all for a good cause – in Anna's opinion, one of the best – but she couldn't help but have conflicting feelings about what she had just observed. Caleb was healing – the one thing that she had wanted most for him all along – and for that, she was grateful beyond words. But the other half of the equation … the equally pointed reality that was now tearing her heart in two … was that she no longer factored into Caleb's life. Not even enough to merit a mention of her name. Instead, she was merely "someone".

  As Merlin hopped back on her lap, she stroked his silky fur, finally breaking a smile when he tapped her hand with his paw after she had paused for a moment.

  "Okay, okay, I'll keep going," she said affectionately. "Boy, you're greedy."

  As she drew comfort in his presence while he nestled deeper into her lap with a contented purr, it dawned on her that maybe it was never meant to be more than what it was. She had brought Caleb and Haley together again, and in doing so, not only were two lives – one human, one canine – infinitely better off, but it would also have a trickle-down effect now that Caleb was making it his mission to help reunite more soldiers and dogs.

  And yet as tears rolled down her cheeks, she realized that despite this inner declaration, there was a part of her that still held on to hope that he would come back to her, that perhaps he just needed a little mor
e time to feel that he was completely whole again … but it was a hope that was hanging by the thinnest of threads.

  Caleb thanked the reporter once the cameras were off and then let out a deep sigh, relieved that the interview was over. He was grateful for the chance to spread awareness about the dogs left behind in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he couldn't deny that he would probably feel more comfortable having a root canal without Novocain than talking at a camera under the glare of blindingly harsh lights.

  As he and Haley left the broadcast station and headed out to his truck, he couldn't help but feel as though he had just passed a major milestone in his post-war life. Just months ago, he appeared to be outwardly moving freely through life, but inwardly he was paralyzed, a self-imposed death sentence that he nevertheless couldn't escape, no matter how hard he tried. And now, he was feeling stronger and more in his own body with each day, the veil of depersonalization slowly but surely lifting away. And the war that he previously couldn't talk about … the war that had almost become a living and breathing entity that continued to suck the life out of him? Now he was on camera reaching perhaps tens of thousands of people and having that very conversation without his stomach knotting up or his lungs clamping shut.

  He waited for Haley to hop over to her seat before hoisting himself into the truck, shutting the door behind but not yet starting the ignition. After securing Haley in her seat, he leaned back and closed his eyes as thoughts and emotions tumbled inside him. Yes, he had made plenty of progress, but he wasn't going to kid himself that he was "cured". In fact, he would never go back to being the same person that he was before the war. So much had happened, and on such a large scale, that he could never quite look at the world the same again. But at least he was functioning now – and not with one foot still on the Afghanistan battlefield, ready to pull him back at the slightest sensory trigger or haunting memory stuck on replay. Therapy – both one-on-one with Dr. Blake and group sessions with other veterans suffering from PTSD – had done much to help desensitize him to the previously crippling images and memories. Particularly effective were Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing sessions with Dr. Blake, in which she would wave two fingers back and forth as he followed with his eyes while recalling the distressing images that continued to plague him.

  She had explained to him how traumatic experiences could overload the brain's coping mechanisms, and instead of being processed normally, they became stored in an isolated memory network where they felt as real in the present as when the traumatic event actually happened. EMDR helped process these "stuck" memories, relegating them to the past so that the negative response was neutralized when they were recalled in the present. It was considered a controversial therapy despite its endorsement by organizations such the Veterans Administration, the Red Cross and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but Caleb couldn't care less about the naysayers. In a million years, he never thought he would be sitting in front of a psychologist and darting his eyes back and forth like a squirrel honing in on a dangling peanut, but what the heck – it was working, and that's all that mattered.

  As Haley tapped the car seat arm with her paw, Caleb turned and smiled at her obvious ploy for affection. He could never look at Haley without also thinking about Anna – then again, when was he not thinking about her? But it was only now in the privacy of his truck that he could allow himself to think about the possible repercussions if Anna had watched the interview. He knew she typically checked the news online while working on her computer, but he also couldn't rule out that word about the interview would somehow get back to her. As his chest tightened, Caleb realized this was one emotional subject matter that he couldn't distance himself from since it was still very much in the present. He had wanted so badly to reveal her name during the interview and to give her the recognition she so deserved for reuniting him with Haley, but doing so was the one thing that could have completely derailed his composure, and it would have been a slippery slope to disaster once that happened. It was the ultimate irony … if it weren't for Anna, he never would have come so far, yet she was the one person he could not openly give credit to.

  The months since he had last seen Anna flashed through his mind, and even he could barely fathom how much had happened in such a relatively short time. Not only did he have a challenging new job, but after staying with his brother and sister-in-law for two months, he had found himself an apartment just outside Boston. It was small and there was no backyard for Haley to run around in, but he saw it more as a transitional move while he continued to get back on his feet. He closed his eyes, recalling the easy comfort of domestic tranquility that he had experienced on more than one occasion with Anna. Both of them playing with Haley outdoors, dinner by a backyard fire, heck – there was even a time or two when they were conversing easily in the living room and Anna forbade him to move from his chair because Merlin had turned his lap into a cat bed. He shook his head slightly and smiled sadly at the recollection, his thoughts then jumping to the last time they were together. So much of that day was still a blur in his mind, but only because it was a blur when it was actually taking place. He had discovered he was a father and that the unborn baby had died all within the span of an hour, culminating in a paralyzing breakdown that marked the last time he had seen Anna. The heaviness of those revelations all at once nearly knocked the breath out of him, but it was a pain that was still raw, and he needed to let himself feel it. He had always told himself that he couldn't be with Anna again unless he was whole, and for her own sake, he had kept to that promise. There was one more thing that he needed to do before he could say that he had truly faced all of his demons from the war, which was the only way he would ever be at peace. And since this one would be by far the most difficult, he could only hope he had it in him to do what had previously been unthinkable.

  FIFTEEN

  Caleb stared hard at the doorbell as he stood before the front door of a neat ranch house in a small Western Pennsylvania town. He couldn't turn around now, he told himself, yet mere seconds seemed like hours as he summoned up the courage to announce his presence. Taking a deep breath, he finally pushed the doorbell button, knowing that closure was needed no matter how difficult it might be.

  "Come on in," a young woman said moments later as she opened the door, one arm firmly securing a toddler against her side.

  "Thank you for agreeing to see me, Mrs. Doyle," Caleb said as he entered the house.

  "Susan," she offered with a smile. "And this is Christine," she added as she brushed her fingers through her daughter's wispy blonde hair. "I was just about to put her down for a nap."

  The little girl giggled as she peered up at Caleb with hauntingly familiar blue eyes.

  "She's beautiful," Caleb said. "She has her father's eyes."

  "She definitely does," Susan agreed, pride mixed with sadness in her voice. "Let me just go put her in her room and I'll be right back."

  A couple of minutes later, Susan was back in the living room. "Have a seat," she said as she pointed to a large plaid-print couch. Caleb did as instructed, and Susan sat down several feet to his side. With freckles, a short brown ponytail and dressed in jeans and a flower-print blouse, she physically matched her twenty-five years of age but gave off an air of someone a decade older. Perhaps it was all she had been through, Caleb surmised – a thought that only added to the difficulty of saying what needed to be said.

  "So you said on the phone that you wanted to talk to me about the day that Dwayne died," Susan said, immediately steering the conversation to a painful yet necessary destination.

  "Yes," Caleb replied, followed by an awkward silence. It was as if he had had this conversation with Susan in his head since that fateful day on the Afghanistan battlefield, and now that it was actually happening, the surrealness was holding his words hostage. A few deep breaths and an inner admonition to continue, and his voice returned. "I'm not sure what you were told about how Dwayne died."

  There was a momentary flash of pain in Sus
an's green eyes, but her voice remained calm. "They said he died during a rescue mission – that he was shot while saving others." She paused, looking at the floor for several moments, then back up at Caleb. "I took that to mean there was gunfire during the rescue and Dwayne was shot while trying to help wounded soldiers back to the helicopter. He told me about the nature of his job, so I always knew the dangers involved. And yet I still … I never expected to get that knock on the door just weeks after he left."

  As Susan's voice wavered slightly, Caleb's heart dropped and he knew she deserved to know the truth about that fateful day. "Dwayne did die helping to save someone," he began, choking on the next three words. "He saved me."

  Shock registered on Susan's face, followed by calm acceptance as she slowly nodded her head. "How did it happen?" she finally asked.

  "We were on a rescue mission, like you were told. There were two wounded pilots from a downed Apache, and still enemy fire in the area. We got them on board and Dwayne and I were about to climb back into the chopper when Taliban soldiers came over the hilltop and started firing at us. I told Dwayne to get inside and shot off a round to hold them off, but a bullet struck my helmet and I fell back and …"

  Susan reached over and squeezed his hand, helping to pull him back to the present. "It's okay," she quietly. "I know how hard this is to talk about."

  "He thought I had been wounded and jumped back out and covered me with his own body," Caleb continued, the disbelief in his voice over Dwayne's selfless act as real now as when it actually happened. "He was shot moments later – bullets that were meant for me."

  Susan was silent for several moments as she digested his words. "No, Caleb – bullets shot randomly at anyone they perceived to be the enemy. You can't blame yourself for Dwayne's death – that's the last thing he would have wanted." She released her grip on his hand and rose from the couch. "There's something I want to read to you. I'll be right back."