Veil of Silence

by K'Anne Meinel

  “Who had you been going to?”

  “Well, when the army stonewalled me, I did try to go through official channels. I went to your commanding officer. That was Colonel Brenson, right?”

  Marsha nodded, remembering that sharp old bird. She hadn’t seen him since she got back. She wondered what had happened to him in the five years she’d been gone. She waited for Heather to continue.

  “He gave me a lot of information. What I should or shouldn’t say to the news media if they asked.”

  “Did they ask?” Marsha was curious now how her disappearance had been related to the public, much less to her wife.

  Heather nodded. “At first they were on the front lawn, but the police got them to back off to the sidewalk. We couldn’t go out for weeks because of it.”

  “Did you say anything to them?”

  “No, the casualty assistance officer—his name was Sergeant Wiggins—he told me not to grant any on camera interviews while they believed you were being held captive.”

  “So they thought even then I was being held captive?”

  Heather shrugged. “They spoke in such nonspecific ways that I don’t know what they believed. I think they wanted me to draw my own conclusions so that they could deny them later. They asked that I not impede any investigation. I think the only reason they did anything at all was because I was making a nuisance of myself by asking where you were and what was going on. It took a while to even find out that your helicopter had gone down.” Her eyes were pleading for Marsha to understand.

  Marsha reached out to stop Heather’s insistent playing with the fronds on her jeans and to hold her hand, encouraging her to go on.

  “He pointed out that I could give interviews, that I was free to talk to the media any time I wanted. He also pointed that with that kind of freedom there was a heavy burden of responsibility.”

  Something about how Heather was reciting this story bothered Marsha. “Did you feel threatened by that?”

  She nodded as she looked into Marsha’s amazing chocolate brown eyes. “Yes, exactly like that. He was giving me the official word according to their standard operating procedure, but it was also a warning. He’d say things like ‘their main concern was your welfare. If I discussed personal things, our marriage, our child, etc., this could be information that whoever had you might wish to have revealed to them.’ They hinted your captors could use it against you if they got hold of it.”

  Marsha was getting angry. She told herself not to react yet as she needed to hear everything Heather had to say. She hadn’t liked how the army treated her or her wife thus far, and she was going to give Captain McKellan an earful tomorrow. “What about your parents or mine?” She frowned, realizing she should call her own and let them know she was alive.

  “I believe Sergeant Wiggins visited them as well to impart how important it was to not to say anything that could be used against you.”

  “Did anyone say anything?”

  Heather nodded. “Your parents did after they felt they weren’t getting enough information or cooperation. They created a big hoopla about things. They didn’t request the help of an experienced public affairs officer as Wiggins had recommended, and the media twisted things. The media wanted to know what secret mission you were on, who was on the chopper with you, everything.” She swallowed as she looked down to the hand that was holding hers. It was then she realized that the ring that Marsha always wore, to signify their everlasting love, was missing. There wasn’t even a tan mark to show it had been there. Unconsciously, her fingers started caressing Marsha’s hand and zoned in on the spot where her wedding ring had been and rubbed.

  “Well, my parents aren’t known for their silence,” Marsha answered, not to excuse them, but to admit in a sarcastic way that she was sure it was a time bomb.

  “Well, that’s another story,” Heather warned. She continued with her story. “He kept telling me I could grant interviews, but that there would be repercussions. After I refused time and time again to grant any interviews, they went to your parents. I saw the circus that became. They gave any and all interviews when asked. Asking, begging really, for your return. Showing pictures of Hayley. It was awful. The more I refused, the more they persisted.”

  Marsha could imagine. She’d seen the feeding frenzy the media often enacted at the expense of those they intended to interview over the years. She now wondered if anyone was reporting her return? She’d have to ask Captain McKellan about that.

  “They even told the media about the in vitro fertilization and that Hayley was your daughter. They implied I was just raising her for you.”

  “They did what?” Marsha was incensed and started to rise from the couch.

  Heather held onto her hand, tugging her back to the couch. “Relax, there is nothing you can do about it now.”

  “How dare they?” she asked, her eyes blazing.

  Heather found the look strangely arousing. She swallowed. She had to get this all out and there was more…and worse. “They wanted to know who the father was.”

  “My parents?”

  Heather nodded and then added, “And the media.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told all of them it was none of their business. I’m as much Hayley’s mom as you are.”

  Marsha smiled, imagining her feisty wife telling them exactly that. “Yes, you are.”

  Heather smiled in return. It hadn’t been a pleasant time. “Your parents seemed to think that the more attention they drew to your case, the more interviews they gave, the sooner you would come home.”

  “Well, that worked out well, didn’t it?” she asked sarcastically. She knew her parents hadn’t been happy about her being a lesbian, much less having a child ‘out of wedlock.’ Pointing out that she was married to Heather didn’t seem to change that opinion.

  Heather chuckled at her wife’s sarcasm. She leaned up with her free hand to caress her cheek. “Easy slugger, there’s more.”

  The black-haired woman nodded. She knew she was getting worked up and it wasn’t good for her. It also wasn’t good for the baby, who protested by kicking her. She used her own free hand to rub.

  “Is the baby kicking?” Heather asked, looking where Marsha was rubbing.

  “Yeah, I think we have a soccer player here,” she admitted ruefully.

  Heather smiled at the word ‘we.’ “May I feel?”

  Marsha was surprised. Heather had fully participated in her pregnancy with Hayley. She would never have asked before. She pulled their entwined hands up to where she was rubbing and placed Heather’s under her own.

  The smile on Heather’s face was beautiful. Marsha caught her breath in wonderment. Heather could feel the foot under her hand, pressing hard! This baby was ready to come out and she agreed, probably a soccer player. The smile dissipated as the baby, sensing her mother’s enjoyment at the touch, calmed and went back to sleep. “Well, I better finish telling you all this,” she grinned at the onerous task she still had.

  “Officially you were listed as a missing person. They said you hadn’t gone into combat. I doubted that for a while, but they said there were four other people missing.”

  “There were six of us in total,” Marsha corrected her automatically, but her mind was starting to form a little niggle of something. Somehow, something that Heather had said was bothering her.

  “Oh, they told me four others and you.”

  “Did they give you the names?”

  Heather shook her head. “I don’t recall asking.”

  Marsha was disappointed. Still, she would ask Captain McKellan to look into the army’s official version of her disappearance and who was listed as missing. She didn’t know everyone’s names. She didn’t remember if she had ever known, but she was sure after her reappearance that they would be listed as dead.

  “They listed you as missing, not dead, so I couldn’t claim any death benefits, but I didn’t want any. I just wanted you home!”

  “Well, if you h
ad gotten the death benefits you’d have over four hundred thousand in a lump sum to raise Hayley,” she informed her wife.

  “That’s not what they told me!” she said, outraged. “He told me maybe forty thousand.”

  “Well, I would have had to be declared dead,” she pointed out and watched as her wife realized the truth of that. She laughed.

  “I’m so glad you aren’t dead,” the blonde told her wife, her hand going from Marsha’s stomach to caress the side of her face. She looked shocked when Marsha flinched.

  “Sorry,” she said, immediately contrite at her wife’s reaction. “My God, what did they do to you?”

  “You saw the video.”

  “That still doesn’t tell me anything.” She knew it would have been edited and chopped up, and probably not very professionally. After the screen went blank the first time, the rest showed Marsha in various small blocks of testimony and it didn’t make sense.

  “No, I’ll tell you some of it, but I can’t, not now,” she promised. She looked down, ashamed at her reaction.

  Heather pulled Marsha’s chin up. “You tell me in your time. I’ll wait.”

  “Haven’t you waited enough?”

  “You just got back. We have things to deal with.” Her hand touched Marsha’s bulging stomach again, knowing she wouldn’t pull away at that.

  Marsha smiled at her feisty wife’s response. “What else?” she hinted broadly for her to continue.

  “At one point, he wanted to know if I wanted to try and have you declared dead.”

  “Did you?”

  She shook her head immediately. “No, not ever. I thought I could wait out the seven years. Then it would be their decision and not mine.”

  “It would have bought you both a lot of things you could use,” she pointed out.

  “It would have been so…final,” she admitted. She looked very sad. “I held out hope. You don’t know how my heart leapt into my throat when they came to the door to tell me you were alive. I thought….”

  “That they were coming to tell you I was dead?” She watched as the tears formed in Heather’s blue eyes, those cornflower blue eyes that had so entranced her, the eyes she had thought about so many times while in the cave or the tent. Even when Zabi–she pushed thoughts of that man away.

  Slowly Heather nodded, not liking this conversation and the bad feelings it brought up. “I held out so much hope, but this last year….”

  “You dated? Did you give up?” she finished for her.

  She shook her head. “I was just so lonely,” she confessed.

  “Hayley was no substitute for someone in your arms,” she acknowledged. Then she asked the question she was dreading the answer to. “Did you…” she couldn’t finish.

  Heather immediately shook her head. “No, never. I felt I was betraying you even dating.”

  Marsha was relieved. “It’s not like I didn’t…” she rubbed her stomach and her head jerked towards the children’s bedroom where her two children with Zabi were sleeping.

  “It’s not like you had much of a choice from what I heard on that disk.”

  “True,” she admitted. She blinked back self-pitying tears. She swallowed, cleared her throat and said, “Well, I’m sure I was covered under the Missing Service Personnel Act.”

  Heather nodded. “Yes, that’s what Sergeant Wiggins said. I was to continue to receive your checks. I didn’t question the amount as I didn’t know they’d promoted you, but we needed the money.”

  That told Marsha a lot more than Heather intended. She could see that money was tight around here with her wife driving the same car all these years and the amount of macaroni and cheese in the cupboard.

  “They didn’t say I was a deserter or anything, did they?” she asked, wondering at some of the angles Captain McKellan would look at.

  “No, why would they? You were headed home.” Heather wondered if she had missed something, an important piece of information.

  Shrugging, Marsha tried to brush it off. “Just wondering what they did while I was gone.”

  “As far as I know you were listed as missing. You couldn’t have deserted. Is that what they are saying?” She was curious as to what the hours of interrogation were about.

  “Not that I know of,” she answered truthfully, but now she wondered.

  “Maybe they think you were a prisoner of war?” She was shooting blanks in her attempts to get information out of her wife. Marsha was too good at not saying anything. She’d also had five years of being beaten for talking out of turn.

  “I don’t think Afghanistan or its various tribes would recognize the Geneva Convention or its articles.” Her many beatings would attest to that.

  “True.”

  “Do you think they would have let you go once the war ended?”

  Marsha shook her head immediately. “No, I was there to breed sons. The proof of that is Amir. If this child had been another son, there is no way he would have released me unless he killed me.”

  Heather was horrified at the thought. She stared, shocked, at her wife’s admission. “So, are you considered repatriated?”

  Marsha wondered that too. It wasn’t like they had followed any procedure she had heard of. Another question for Captain McKellan. “I don’t know,” she admitted as she wondered.

  They went over a few more things and Marsha learned how her parents had tried to take Hayley from her wife. First, with bribes like the swing set and second, with an actual lawsuit over custody.

  “Sergeant Wiggins actually helped with that. Good thing you are a stickler for paperwork or they would have had me. I couldn’t afford the attorneys they hired. I worried each time Hayley went to their house that she wouldn’t come back. Apparently, their attorney insisted that they return her so it wouldn’t look like a kidnapping.” She shook her head. “They kept trying to brainwash her,” she admitted, feeling like a failure for not preventing some of it.

  “Brainwash her how?” Marsha was very angry about her parents. They had known how much this child had meant to the two of them.

  “Just that you were her mom, her real mom. That I was just your girlfriend. They wouldn’t say wife. It was very confusing for Hayley. I made up excuses so they couldn’t see her as often…Hayley has been very busy for a little girl.”

  “Actually busy, or did you have to lie?”

  “I did a bit of both so they couldn’t accuse me of keeping her from them. She has had more after school activities than most children her age,” she admitted.

  “I’m sorry, babe. They shouldn’t have made your life a living hell like that.”

  “I’m just so glad you are home,” she started to cry as they met in the middle and just held each other. Marsha started to kiss away Heather’s tears as she would have in days of old. The meeting of their lips was a comfort to both of them.

  As they both wound down from the emotional upheaval, Marsha finally asked, “What are we going to do about this?” she indicated her big belly. She also meant the other two children.

  “What else can we do but accept and enjoy it?” Heather answered sensibly. “We wanted more children, eventually. I didn’t expect this,’ she admitted, “but I have you back and this will be our child,” she rubbed the belly for good luck. “I know we have a way to go, but we’ll figure it out.”

  “Oh, baby, we will,” she promised.

  That night they ended up spooning in their bed, a big relief to both of them. Being able to touch each other was of great comfort and did a lot more to heal the rift that had inevitably come between them. Talking that afternoon and evening had cleared the air on a lot of things each had been wondering and worrying about.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Marsha explained what she knew to Captain McKellan on the ride to the base. It was a relatively short ride and they ended up sitting in his convertible so they wouldn’t be overheard. She asked some very astute questions. McKellan was glad that she did as it gave him some ammunition for the panel that had been co
nvened to question Captain Gagliano. He looked at this Italian-American. She was made of stern stuff and those idiots that were doubting her story had a lot to explain.

  “How are you doing?” he asked. His wife had made sure he would ask, but he looked her over, her obvious pregnancy did not look comfortable on her.

  “I’m hanging in here. I’d like the questions to be over, but I want some answers myself,” she indicated the conversation they had just had. “I’m actually looking forward to this afternoon’s doctor appointment.”

  “Do you want to know the sex?” he grinned. The guys always wanted to know, from his experience.

  “Actually, I don’t. I like the surprise,” she admitted. “My daughter says it should be a boy to even things out.”

  He shared a laugh. It couldn’t be easy to suddenly have three, almost four children in a household, and he wondered how the captain’s wife was coping. From the little Marsha had just told him of what they had discussed the previous night, she was a keeper. “Well, we better get in there,” he indicated the building where the interview was being conducted.

  Today, they didn’t have everyone from the previous day and there were two new faces. They weren’t introduced, but one of them was a colonel by his insignia. The other was wearing civilian clothing and this bothered Captain McKellan.

  As they started in again, repeating the same questions, he brushed them aside to ask, “Why wasn’t Captain Gagliano repatriated according to the regulations set out by the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency?”

  Several people looked uncomfortable at this question and Lance McKellan further made them twitch in their seats by outlining what the regulations were for those who seemed not to know.

  “Her debriefing after escaping from captivity should have entailed psychologists who specialize in the effects of captivity. Operation Yellow Ribbon should have been enacted, which would have provided her with psychological support and assistance during those debriefings and the decompression process.”