Flowers from Afghanistan

by Suzy Parish

  “Do I know? You’ve made so many loaves and given them away. I’ve told you for years you should start your own business, but you don’t believe me when I say you’re a great baker.”

  “That’s because you’re my husband. You have to say that kind of thing.” Sophie’s mouth turned up in a tease.

  I missed that teasing girl. I growled. “No, I don’t, Soph. I’m telling the truth. Why are you all covered in flour? Is one of our neighbors sick, and you’re making them that cheesy bread I love?”

  “No one’s sick. I was a vendor at the Baker Street Farmer’s Market last week. I rented a table, got a banner made. I kept it a secret from you until I knew how they’d sell.”

  “What? That’s great!”

  “It was fun. I wish you could’ve been here.” Her voice caught.

  “Did you take pictures?”

  “No. It was just me doing the setup and takedown, and I didn’t want to bother some stranger to take a picture for me.”

  “Where did they have it?”

  “Downtown, on the square. The church has a vacant lot, and they put straw down. There are hundreds of vendors. I met many of them, and they’re nice. There were organic produce and things from local farmers.” She disappeared from the screen, her voice faded in the background. “Hang on a minute. I’ll show you.” She reappeared with a small glass candle holder. She held it up like a prize, and inside was a golden candle. “It’s homemade. There are bee-keepers with local honey and candles made from beeswax.”

  I wasn’t interested in candles, but I’d watch Sophie all day long. She was my home. “You’re making cinnamon rolls?” My mouth watered. When we were newlyweds, she’d sneak out of bed early and have a hot tray of them ready when I woke up on my day off, which, being a rookie cop, could have been any day of the week except Saturday and Sunday. A smile crept across my face. “I miss your cinnamon rolls.”

  She turned the laptop camera down so I could see a silver cookie sheet covered in pinwheel shapes with cinnamon swirls in them. They were puffing up, rising. My stomach gurgled.

  “If this picks up like I hope, you can have as many as you like. I’ll be baking rolls every day.” She turned the camera back on herself. This time she was running the mixer, dumping in more flour until it billowed out of the bowl. It was impossible to talk until she turned the thing off. She held up a hand to mean wait one minute. She ran the mixer for a bit and shut it down. “Sorry, but once I get into production mode, I have to keep going otherwise things get backed up, and I waste electricity heating an empty oven.”

  “That’s OK, I’m having fun watching you mix stuff. How did the rolls sell?”

  Sophie spread her arms wide. Flour drifted off her fingers to the floor, but she was too animated to notice. “I sold out. I only brought 10 loaves with me, and they were gone within twenty minutes. The rolls didn’t sell as fast, but they went, too. And the cinnamon rolls went in the first ten minutes.” She set the mixed dough on the top of the stove to rise.

  I knew the routine. I’d watched her do it a million times. Usually, I was there because I was hoping to eat at the end of her baking. This time I looked on because I wanted to be near her.

  She rinsed the bowl, prepping it for another batch.

  “I didn’t clear anything last time. All my profits went for the table rental and the banner. But I’ll double my inventory and see how it goes tomorrow. If it sells as well as last week, I’ll turn a small profit.”

  “That’s great Soph. I’ve wanted you to do this for a long time.”

  She picked up a recipe card, frowned over it, and pulled a package of dried cranberries from the pantry. “Maybe it took you going away for me to have the time to think about it and put it into motion.”

  I tried to get the thought of hot cinnamon rolls out of my mind. I glanced at the old roll on my desk. It wouldn’t do. “Hm. Maybe. Or maybe it’s time you did something for yourself, a business that is all Sophie’s. When I come home, I’ll build whatever kind of bread display racks you need.”

  “Oh, babe, that would be awesome. I do think they’ll sell better on one of those slanted wooden racks, so people can see them. They look dull sitting flat on a table with just a tablecloth.”

  I got my pad of paper out and sketched a display rack for Sophie’s bread. I drew a little sign at the top. It read, “Sophie’s Southern Breads.” I held the pad of paper up to the camera, adjusting it so she could see what I’d drawn.

  She smiled, put down her oven mitts, and propped up on the kitchen stool with hands on either side of her face. Her nose had a smudge of flour on it.

  I didn’t always feel like we had to talk. I liked that. Funny it took me going away eight thousand miles to learn how to enjoy our marriage.

  A sharp beep cut through the silence. I twitched, turned toward the door, and listened. Sophie jumped at the same time. For a second, I thought it was the early warning system at camp, but I relaxed when Sophie pulled on her oven mitts. It was the oven timer.

  She pulled a hot tray of rolls out and set them on top of a cooling rack. She shoved another tray of risen dough into the oven and gently closed the door. Set the timer. “I have to mix another batch Mac, so we won’t be able to talk for a minute or two.” She smiled a floury smile and flipped her mixer on. There were smudges on her cheeks.

  Man, what I’d have given to be there to wipe those smudges off.

  My cell phone vibrated. A text came through. My room whirled, and I braced my hand against my desk when I recognized the name.

  Sophie turned off her mixer and peered at me as if she were trying to read the name on my phone, too. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I stuffed the phone in the pocket of my cargo shorts.

  The oven beeped, and Sophie ignored it. Slowly, she took off the mitts, placed her hands on the counter as if to support herself. “Is it someone there, serving in Afghanistan with you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about Travis and the guy who had his locks changed. I’m talking about you and me, Mac. Have you found someone else?”

  “It’s, no. It’s not someone here.”

  “Then it is someone? Who, Mac?”

  I had tangled myself up in words again. I didn’t know how to untangle myself, so I just told the truth. “Dispatcher from HPD. You don’t know her, Soph. It was before I left, long before I left. I told her I never wanted to talk to her again. This is the first text I’ve received since I got here. You have to believe me.”

  “Mac, talk to me.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “What does that dispatcher have to do with you?”

  “We’d been texting each other off and on.”

  “Texting?”

  “Yeah, and—”

  “And what?”

  “You were busy with Little Mac and so tired when I’d come home from work—”

  “I was exhausted from caring for our son. Our son!”

  “She was having marital problems. She needed someone to listen to her, but it never went any further than that. It’s over now, Soph. Over. I haven’t spoken to her since—”

  “Since when?”

  “Since Little Mac died.”

  In the background, I heard Phoenix barking. It sounded so homey. My background noises were explosions and heavy machinery grinding down shell-pocked streets. “I needed you, Sophie, and you weren’t there.”

  “I was on-call myself, twenty-four seven, with a colicky toddler.”

  “I played with him when I got home from work. Don’t make it out like you were the only one who loved him. We played cars.” My voice cracked. I pictured those cars sitting on a shelf at our house on Wells, collecting dust.

  “Sure, you played with him, but when did you help with potty training? Where were you? On the phone with that woman? You took what was mine and gave it to someone else?”

  “What about me, Soph? I’d come home from pulling bodies fr
om car wrecks, and you were too busy to listen.”

  “You didn’t talk. You retreated to that stupid combat game. Do you know how I longed for you to get us a sitter so we could go on a date and do nothing but talk? Do you think I only wanted my life to revolve around kiddie shows and nap times? I wanted to have a friend and lover again, and you were never around.”

  “I was there,” I said.

  “Emotionally you checked out. You were too busy killing the enemy on that dumb computer screen.”

  A loud metallic beep of an alarm went off somewhere. It sounded like it came from camp. Was it the early warning system?

  Sophie gripped the counter. The color drained from her face. I threw my door open and surveyed the hallway, heart pounding. All was quiet.

  Sophie ran to her oven and yanked the door open. Thick black smoke from burned bread rolled out in a wave. She gagged and choked, pulled on oven mitts and removed the smoking pan of blackened bread. The shrill beep of her smoke alarm raked the air.

  “Sophie, you have to believe me. It’s over,” I said.

  She moved to the counter with the hot pan. “I have to turn off this smoke alarm. I can’t hear you‒”

  An explosion violently shook my tent. The impact rattled my shelves, rumbled through my computer chair and threw me to the floor. Books and DVDs fell. The towel on the makeshift clothesline beside me fluttered as if in a breeze, but there was no wind.

  Sophie dropped the pan of burnt bread to the floor. “Mac!”

  19

  I scrambled to my feet and rushed into the hallway, only to come face to face with Travis, colliding with him.

  Travis jammed his helmet on his head. He was dressed in black-and-green checkered pajama pants, a T-shirt, and boots. He already had his vest on over his shirt. The pajama pants would’ve been comical any other time. “They’re firing mortars. Get your kit on,” Travis said.

  I dashed into my room, threw my vest on over my polo shirt, and grabbed my helmet and weapon. Sophie’s face appeared on the laptop across the room. Her eyes were wide with fear. Why hadn’t I shut that laptop down? “They’re firing at us,” I yelled above the chaos.

  “E-mail me so I know you’re safe,” Sophie said.

  “I will.” I slammed the laptop closed and joined the rest of the guys outside. Travis, Glenn, Thorstad, and I ran to the T-wall outside our tent.

  Mortars shook the ground. Overhead, screams of jets ripped the air, and the deep vibrations of helicopter blades rattled through my head as choppers passed near.

  I checked my gear, cinched my helmet down tighter, and felt over my pouches, checking for extra magazines. I was as prepared as I could be. I took stock of the guys around me.

  Glenn leaned back against the T-wall, smoking another of his cigars. The end glowed blood red in the dusk. “If I’m going out, I’m going out savoring the flavor of my best cigar.” He looked as if he was having just another night out with the guys. I guess he’d done this so often it had become routine. His deliberate calm was infuriating.

  I breathed deep to try and control my pounding heart. I walked a few feet farther down the T-wall, closer to Travis to cool down. My finger rested on the trigger guard. I automatically fell back into officer mode. All my senses were heightened, and the slightest twitch of my guys got my attention.

  Travis wiped off his sunglasses with his shirttail and jammed them back on top of his head. Even at night, he kept them perched on his skull. Must have been a security blanket for him.

  “We’re not in Brentwood, Tennessee, anymore,” I said.

  Travis nodded, not amused. Dark splotches circled below his eyes. He’d slept better in a war zone before his wife announced she was leaving him.

  I wondered if I’d soon join his ranks. Focus on the situation at hand. My safety and the safety of the guys around me depended on my concentration. There’d be time later to try and heal my marriage. I hoped.

  “The last thing we want is for them to blow a hole in our perimeter,” Travis said. He checked his gear as he spoke.

  I could see him silently taking inventory, making sure he had extra magazines.

  Thorstad chewed a wad of gum frantically. His hair tufted up in the front like a little boy awakened from a nap. He swigged from a power drink bottle, noticed me watching. “Want some?”

  “No, thanks,” I said at first but thought better of it. I needed to stay hydrated to keep alert, and no telling how long we’d be along this wall. I made a mental note to make sure I carried water with me the next time this happened. “Hey, I changed my mind. I’ll have a drink if you don’t mind sharing.”

  Thorstad handed the bottle over, and I took a long draught of lemon lime, cooling my throat. “Thanks.” IEDs went off frequently outside the walls, but mortars were being fired directly into the compound. They shook the ground and rattled everything. Luckily for me, so far their aim had not been great.

  Travis leaned toward me so I could hear him better over the screech of jets. “Once they start the rocket attack, they’ll try and make a ground attack also. If they breach our fence line, the perimeter could be compromised, so keep an eye out.”

  I nodded.

  My head pounded with the sound of each mortar. It seemed we stood there for hours. Finally, the attack ceased.

  “Stand down,” Thorstad called from ahead of me.

  Things quieted fast. Quick Response Vehicles made their way around camp to make sure things were secure. It didn’t appear we had taken on much damage, only shook up the camp and stirred up a lot of dust and smoke. The enemy’s aim wasn’t precise with mortars.

  “This is what they do: drop three or four mortars on us, and that’s it,” Travis said. “Just enough to make everybody crazy. I’m going back to bed.” I could tell Travis was nearing the end of his tether. He dragged himself across the gravel to the wooden door of our tent and slammed it as he entered.

  I jumped when the door bounced against the doorframe. I still felt as though I was wired to an electrical outlet.

  Glenn’s chuckle sounded from behind me. “I’ve got your back, Little Mac, don’t worry.”

  I whirled around and faced him. “Don’t ever call me that again.” My scalp tingled. As amped as I was from the attack, I had no patience. And I was still stinging from Sophie’s accusation. “I don’t need any games tonight,” I said.

  “First time under fire, Little Mac? How’s it feel to be a real soldier?”

  “Don’t.”

  “What’s the matter? Nickname sting?” That was all he got out of his mouth.

  The pain of the last few months coiled itself into my fist, and I slammed it into the side of his face. My knuckles raked his jaw, and the cigar went pinwheeling into the dark, showering sparks behind. Satisfaction filled my gut. Glenn rolled to the side and dropped slowly to the gravel with a grunt.

  Regret hit, not because I had any great compassion for Glenn at the moment, but because fighting in camp was a one-way ticket home. Stupid. Stupid. I’d traveled all the way to Afghanistan and could ruin it by losing my temper. I heard nothing but my own sharp breaths. In my peripheral was gray fog. I looked around to determine if anyone had seen us but since the Quick Reactionary Force cleared the area, everyone else was back at the tents.

  Glenn sat, rubbed his jaw, and started to make another comment until he saw the steel in my eyes. “Whoa, friend. Settle down. No harm meant.” He scrambled up off the ground, brushed his pants off, and felt around in the loose gravel for his cigar. He finally located the dying ember and picked it up to inspect it. “Still in one piece,” he said under his breath with relief. He brushed the dirt off the end of the cigar, moved around the wall to our bench, and slid onto the seat. He turned on his cigar lighter and soon the cigar was glowing again. “McCann, get over here.”

  I walked over and leaned stiffly against the wall next to our bench. My temples throbbed with anger.

  “That was a pretty good punch. I bet you were a force to be reckoned with on the streets bac
k home,” Glenn said.

  “I’ve had my share of fights.” I rubbed my knuckles, which tightened with pain. Moonlight glinted off Glenn’s face, and to my satisfaction, revealed a swollen bottom lip. He balanced the cigar gingerly in his mouth.

  I took a deep breath. Slowly the burn left my face. Exhaustion replaced anger.

  Every minute or so a long trail of smoke curled lazily skyward from Glenn’s cigar.

  I finally took a seat next to him. I wound down from adrenaline.

  Glenn studied the ash growing along the end of his cigar. “What was that all about?”

  “You have another one of those cigars?” I ignored his question.

  Glenn fished around in his pocket and pulled out a cigar tube and unscrewed the top.

  “Where’s your cutter?” I asked.

  He dropped the cutter in my hand and watched me as if I were his apprentice. I cut the cigar and returned the blade to Glenn.

  “Now, let me see you toast it properly,” Glenn said.

  His attitude frustrated me, but I grabbed the butane lighter from his outstretched palm. I clicked it on and started to apply the flame, but Glenn moved my hand.

  “The flame should never touch the cigar.”

  “Sorry, King of Procurement.”

  “Rotate the cigar and lightly toast it. That’s right.”

  I was rewarded with a glow, like a pile of fall leaves when they burn until all that’s left are twinkling embers.

  “Draw the smoke into your mouth and hold it there. Don’t inhale it the way you did last time. It’s not a cigarette,” Glenn said. “The whole point of a good cigar is to enjoy it slowly so you get the full flavor.” His voice had lost the edge it usually carried. When he spoke to me, it was more as if he was talking to a little brother than a subordinate.

  I drew the smoke carefully into my mouth, and when I released it, a smooth stream of smoke curled into Kandahar. It rose above Camp Paradise. I followed the trail with my eyes. I felt myself rise with it, above all the turmoil, pain, and loss.

  Glenn studied me. “Will you answer my question?”