by Mari Beck
“I’m Brian McGuill. I’m not a veteran. My son was.” The man wearing the bright blue polo and dockers was looking down at his feet in an attempt to hide the tears welling up in his eyes. “He, he killed himself about 6 months ago. I’d prefer not to say how. But ever since he came back something just wasn’t quite right. We didn’t notice it at first. He didn’t have any scars, you see. Not like he lost a leg. . .” He nodded in the direction of the young man with the prosthetic. “Or got wounded. In fact, he got some medals for saving a couple of his buddies. He did pretty well when he came home. Found a job he liked. He even got married a year ago. Our daughter-in-law is due with our first grandchild any day now. Everything was fine. I talked to him that night. We were going to go golfing that weekend. He hugged me and he told me that he loved me and that he’d see me for tee time. Then he went home. . .” The man paused as tears streamed down his face. “And he… he killed himself. Dani found him, that’s our daughter-in-law. Everything was fine . . . but it wasn’t and I want to know why. So that’s why I’m here. I want to know the truth, what happens to people over there so I’ll know what to tell my grandson when he asks me what happened to his dad. That’s why I’m here.” Brian McGuill hung his head and the man next him put a hand on his shoulder and told his story and his reason for being there. So it went around the circle as some men, not all, shared their names, where or when they’d served and what their secret, addiction or hurt was until they got around to Riley. That’s when he realized that they were all staring at him and he found himself staring back. But he had nothing to say until one of the men sitting on the opposite side of the circle looked at him closely and spoke.
“Hey, aren’t you that guy from the tv? You know the one that rescued that little girl and that other soldier?” Riley looked desperately at Louis, who didn’t seem the least bit worried. He sat calmly with his hands on his lap watching everything unfold. Riley was beginning to panic.
“Yeah, you’re that guy aren’t you?” Another man called out and the group began to buzz as it dawned on them who he was and before Louis had a chance to calm everyone down Riley had left the circle and was gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Letter
Brenda checked into a motel just a few blocks from downtown Broken Bow. It was a quaint little place that reminded her of a bed and breakfast Shane took her to for one of their first anniversaries. She paid in cash and tried not to hesitate as she signed her name as Renae Messersmith. To some extent, she’d been shocked at how quickly she’d been able to lie to the older gentleman about who she was. She’d been sweating bullets and he hadn’t even paused to wonder if she was really who she said she was. It scared her. But then lying had become easier in the last year. It hadn’t started that way but that’s where it had taken her. It had been a disappointing meeting with Mr. Samson over at the farmhouse. She hadn’t expected to see the house in such disrepair. She hadn’t expected to see Shane’s name carved into the wall of his old bedroom upstairs. Brenda sat on the bed and looked around. This was to be her home for the next few weeks and she wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about that. She thought about unpacking and putting everything into the small dresser drawers but in reality all she really wanted to do was lay on the bed. Brenda was tired. Was 5pm too early to go to bed? It was 6 back home. She stood up to go to the bathroom when she heard something drop onto the carpet. It was the manilla envelope holding the map to the property that she’d brought with her to meet with Mr. Samson. As she bent to pick it up another set of papers fell out. She sighed. Picking them up she realized that it wasn’t the map but one of Shane’s old emails, folded up and saved. Brenda’s hands trembled as she unfolded the pages. It was from one of his first deployments, before the trouble, before the affair, before the picture on the road outside of Baghdad.
Dear Bren,
I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since the last time I wrote. I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you exactly why I haven’t written, but I’m sure you wouldn’t get the information in this e-mail even if I put it in. Classified and all as it is. . . Needless to say that it’s been a tough few weeks. I’ve spent more than one sleepless night, thinking about the things I’ve seen over here. There are images burned into my memory that just don’t go away. A lot of good people have died fighting over here. A few of them were friends. It has been really hard to deal with lately. I don’t want to worry you, but I need to talk about it a little. I miss you an awful lot these days and wish that I could just sit with you on our front porch back home and forget this place. I’ve been trying to understand why the locals just don’t seem to have any fight in them. It would make our job a little easier if they resisted more. But they’re afraid. I guess I don’t blame them but I don’t understand it. It’s their country and their towns that are getting overrun. Some of the stories I’ve heard just make me want to knock some sense into them. Especially when it involves the kids. There’s a lot of heartbreak. We have a few local guys who joined us two months back and really seem to know what they’re doing. Their main job so far is to run interference for us. I have to admire their spirit and their balls. A couple of times, one or two of them have stepped right in front of our guys at the first sign of sniper fire. They’re ready to take a bullet for guys they can barely talk to if it means we’ll help them get it done. Sometimes it works out for them and sometimes it doesn’t. We lost a few of them recently and it was hard. I’m not ashamed to say that I’m proud to serve with these local guys. They’ve stuck it out and taken the heat from their own people. They’ve sacrificed too. It’s also been tough for them when it comes to some of the younger guys in our unit. You know how it is. I guess we were all like that once. They think they’re superman or something. Maybe I’ve seen enough to know that I don’t want to be the guy in the cape. These boys act like they're playing some video game they can just turn off at the end of the day. They’re always talking crap about the local guys and the SOB’s shooting back at us when they’re in camp. Away from camp they’re scared shitless, just like everybody else. That’s why us older and “wiser” guys don’t say anything. It wouldn’t do any good anyway. They’re young and they’re stupid. It might be all they get to be. So let them. It’s hard enough for them. Sometimes I wish I were 18 again. Maybe this would seem more like an adventure to me. Could be that if I were younger, things wouldn’t hurt so much after a long day in the desert. Wouldn’t that be nice! Wow. I sound like an old man, don’t I? I probably look it. I noticed I had a couple more gray hairs when I was shaving this morning. May come back to you looking like a grandpa. You’ll just have to settle for being my trophy wife, I guess. Bren, I really look forward to the leave I’m getting soon. I want to go home to you and the boys. I need to go home, especially after they asked me if I’d consider staying on a few months longer than my tour. They think I’m good with the younger soldiers. The word “father-figure” was thrown around. Am I old enough for that? Seems to me that 37 isn’t that old, but maybe they listen to me cause I talk like their dads? I guess, I’ve told a couple of them to get their shit together and maybe I’ve talked a few of them off the “ledge” when it got really bad. But I wasn’t trying to be anyone special. The only dad I want to be is Callan’s and Taylor’s. That whole conversation with my CO just made me want to get the hell out of here even more. After I take the leave and come back I’ll have six months left. I’m counting the days. I can’t wait to see you, Bren. Please don’t go and cut your hair or do something weird to yourself before I get home cause I’ve spent the last 10 months thinking about you and the way you looked the day I deployed. I want to find you just like I left you. . .except for all the crying. I don’t want to see you crying when I get back. I want to see you smile for me. It sure would make my day.Well, baby, I got to get off the computer. There’s some kid waiting to email his girlfriend back home and I’m already over the time limit by 10 minutes. He knows I could kick his ass, which is why he hasn’t said anything. But, I should let him have
a chance to “call” home. I don’t know when I’ll be able to write again. Hopefully, I’ll be on my way home before you have to worry about it. I love you, Bren, with all my heart. Kiss and hug the boys for me tonight and read Taylor that book I always read to him when it’s my night. It’s the crazy one about the pigeon. When I can’t sleep, I recite that book to myself to keep from thinking about other stuff. It works (most of the time). I’m doing it again tonight and I’d like to think that when I do it and you’re reading it to him, it’ll be like it’s me there with all of you. Don’t forget to make the voices. Tell Callan I’ll call soon. Okay. Now, I have to go. I love you, baby, and I’m holding you in my dreams.
Love you all,
Shane
Brenda gently folded up the pages, held them to her heart, and cried herself to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Favor
Brenda knew that getting the farmhouse fixed up was going to take time and money. She had made the decision to take up the project one night when she couldn’t sleep at the motel a week after she’d arrived. She needed to keep her mind occupied and her hands busy. She had the time, at least for now since she’d taken an extended leave of absence from her job and there was some money from the insurance the Army had given her after Shane’s death along with some in savings that she could access. Brenda was determined to do it first because it was in a sense Shane’s childhood home but secondly because she couldn’t go home until she figured things out. However, until she could find someone to survey the property and help her clean it up she was stuck watching bad cable tv and eating out of the vending machine. She was still hesitant about going out to restaurants or other public places even with her drastic change in appearance. Brenda couldn’t trust that Meagan McGuinnis wouldn’t be mounting a dirty campaign against her that would ruin her life and hurt those she loved. She included Jon Procter on the list of those people she cared for even if she couldn’t really say she loved him or had ever loved him. It was true that she had engaged in an extramarital affair and that it had become not only emotional but physical. She might want to reframe it all she wanted during the sleepless hours she had endured especially now that she had so much time on her hands, but in the end she had to call a spade a spade. Jon was right,she couldn’t say that she had never felt anything for him during their time together. She felt a lot that’s why they were together. She wanted connection, she wanted affection, she wanted all of those things that she had told herself Shane couldn’t or wouldn’t give her not even after so many years of marriage. Jon gave those things willingly and she took them willingly. No one forced her to do it. So what was different? Your husband is dead. Yes. There was that. Shouldn’t it be easier then? Here she was free from the man that couldn’t give her what she wanted and free to be with the man that could. So what was the problem? Guilt? Yes. There was that too. But there was something more, something she couldn’t put her finger on. It made her restless, sleepless and yes God forgive her- desperate.
She called him from a pay phone outside of the Grab N Gas on the edge of town. She’d been staying at the motel in Broken Bow for a about a week and had taken some time to think. Running away from the media coverage, the affair with Jon or the problems with her son Callan wasn’t the answer to the question burning inside of her. The truth was that whether she wanted to admit it or not what she wanted to know, what she needed to know was what really happened on that road outside of Baghdad the day Shane called her. That was the only thing that would give her peace. But she also knew that the only way to find that peace would be to find the man who witnessed Shane’s last moments on that road- Army Specialist Riley Favreau. It meant doing what she promised herself she would never do again- contacting Jon Procter and even worse-asking him for one more favor. How would he react? She had refused to acknowledge they even knew each other at the funeral, ended the affair and finally run as far from him as she could to protect herself and her boys from any more grief.
“Hello?” The sound of his voice soothed her and she couldn’t help it. She wanted to tell him where she was, apologize for everything that had happened and have him tell her that everything was going to be okay. Instead she froze unable to speak into the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Jon?” She finally managed to sputter.
“Brenda? Where are you?” He sounded worried and upset.
“Jon, I don’t have much time.”
“Do you know how worried I’ve been? You just disappeared without telling anyone!” Without telling you.
“I’m sorry. Look I need your help.” There was silence before he spoke again.
“What happened? Why wont you tell me where you are?”
“It’s complicated. Besides, we agreed that it was over.”
“No. You decided it was over. Do you have any idea what it’s been like not knowing if you were okay?”
“I’m sorry. Really I am. But I need your help. Will you help me or not?”
“Will you tell me where you are?”
“I can’t. Not just yet.”
“Brenda. How do you expect me to help you when you won’t even tell me where you are?”
“It’s not that kind of help, Jon. I need information.”
“Information? What kind of information?”
“What do you know about the soldier who was on the road with Shane?” She heard him sigh.
“I know as much as everybody else. He’s in a hospital somewhere still recovering.”
“What hospital?”
“Brenda, why do want to know?”
“I need to see him, Jon. I need to talk to him.”
“Brenda-“
“Jon, I need to know. . .”
“Know what?”
“What really happened out there that night.”
“Don’t do this to yourself. Come home. We can talk about it.”
“I want to talk to him, Jon. He’s the one who has the answers.”
“No one knows what shape he’s in Brenda. For all you know he may not even remember what happened.”
“You’re right. But until I know that’s the case I need to see it for myself.”
“What do you want me to do, Brenda?”
“I know you have contacts in the DoD, Jon. Please find him and let me know where he is.”
“Even if I could talk to someone about it the information would probably be classified.”
“Jon. ..”
“It won’t change what happened- not to Shane and not between us. You understand that right?”
“Yes.” There was a long pause before Jon spoke again.
“If I do this will you come home?” She could hear the pleading in his voice and she wanted to say yes but it would have been a lie.
“I can’t promise you anything.” That was the truth.
“Neither can I.” He said and she regretted making the call.
“I’m sorry about everything, Jon.”
“That’s the problem, Brenda. I’m not. I’m not sorry.” Another long pause.
“I have to go.”
“Don’t go, please. Look, I’ll see what I can do. But I mean it when I say it’s a long shot.”
“Does that mean you’ll try?”
“Yes, I’ll try.”
“Thank you, Jon. I’ll call back soon.” She said and hung up before he had a chance to say anything else. A storm had rolled in and the rain had begun to fall harder as she came out of the phone booth, soaking her to the bone. She stretched her thin jacket around herself and ran toward the car. Once inside she had a hard time distinguishing between the rain and the tears in her eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Going Home
“I want to talk to Dr. Nadeem.” Riley was at the nurses station. The group session made up of veterans had been too much for Riley. Hadn’t Louis seen what happened? They recognized him. How could he possibly open up to a group like that? It had been a disaster. Whatever hope for anonymity and peace he might have h
ad at the hospital was gone now.
“The doctor is doing his rounds. What did you need to see him about?”
“I just need to see him. Can you page him?”
“I suppose I could. It may take a while.” The nurse said and picked up the phone next to her.
“That’s fine. I’ll wait in my room.” Riley said and headed back in that general direction. After an hour or so a nurse came to get him and a few minutes after that he found himself back in Nadeem’s office.
“Riley,you wanted to see me.” Dr. Nadeem said sitting back in his leather chair. Riley’s throat felt dry and he found it difficult to say what had been so clear to him in his mind not more than an hour before. He swallowed hard.
“What,” he cleared his throat, “what do I need to do so I can go home?” There was a pause before Nadeem leaned forward, propped his elbows on the desk between them and smiled.
“Thank you for asking.” Nadeem replied.
“Sure.”
“It really depends on you. Do you think you’re ready to leave?” Riley sighed, why was everyone so set on him being ready? “
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“What’s your plan?”
“My plan?” Riley repeated uncertain of what Nadeem meant.
“In sessions we’ve talked about having a plan. One that you can use to keep yourself on track, especially when things get tough.”
Riley racked his brain for this plan Dr. Nadeem was talking about. He probably should have paid more attention during those group talks. Nadeem waited. Riley kept thinking.