Don’t give up. We just need a chance to all be together. I’m working on a plan. What are you doing for Thanksgiving?
From: Avery Adams
Subject: Re: Hey Hey
Date: June 15, 2005 09:03:15 AM EST +01:00
To: Dani McNalley
WHOA.
Can’t believe that it’s been a month since you sent your last e-mail, D. My apologies. As Hannah can probably attest, the Army is a real bitch and I’m barely keeping my head above water. But I do have some good news.:-)
I met a guy.
I KNOW, I KNOW. SHOCKER.
But seriously, this guy is the real deal.
His name’s Noah Candross. He’s thirty, so a little older than us, which you know I love. You know that Special Ops job I told you about a few months back? Well, it’s a long story, but he basically cornered me in a tool shed and told me that he was taking me on a date. How’s that for assertive, right? (I’m begging him to give Locke some lessons in that whole making-a-move thing . . . but alas.)
Anyway, for our first date, he picked me up on his motorcycle and we took a long drive through the hills during the sunset. We stopped and had wine at this little café far outside of town, talked for hours. You know. The basics. I attached a picture of us, so you can see that he’s gorgeous. It’s insanity.
He’s taking me to Napa Valley next weekend. NAPA VALLEY.
I’m smitten. EEEEK!!!:-):-):-):-)
How’s Boston treating you? And work? Sometimes I feel like keeping up with you is like a game of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Hannah said something about you going to Paris soon? You’re so badass.
Any guys up there I should know about?:-)
LOVE YOU. (Duh.)
Avery
15
Summer 2005 // Fort Bragg, North Carolina
It would just be three days, Tim,” Hannah said into her cell phone. “Fly up Wednesday, fly back Friday. Dani said she’d pay for our tickets and we can stay at her place. It’s totally free.”
Hannah felt anxiety crawl up the back of her neck. Logistics were the last thing she wanted to talk about in the few short minutes they had to speak. And yet, when else were they going to figure out their plans? Thanksgiving was just a few months away. Christmas would be here before they knew it. And then it would be 2006, the year they were both scheduled to deploy.
Her unit had already begun the predeployment protocol—cleaning equipment, writing supply packing lists, setting up home-front meetings for the wives her soldiers would leave behind. Training had ramped up. They’d received orders to pack their trunks. In less than two months, everything Hannah needed for a year would be put on the back of a cargo ship and sent to the Middle East. At the moment, she was standing in a bare building in a far corner of Fort Bragg, waiting her turn to start Soldier Readiness Processing. March still felt so far away, but every day, it sped closer.
“I think my parents really wanted to spend Thanksgiving with us since I’ll be gone next Thanksgiving,” Tim replied. He sounded tired, like he was rubbing his eyes. “But we can figure it out. I know you want to see Dani before you go.”
A week ago, they were supposed to have two overlapping days at home in Fort Bragg—the first time they’d been in their house together since they’d exchanged vows more than a year earlier. After a cycle in the laundry room, all of their uniforms exploded into the bedroom until it looked like the inside of an Army surplus store, the items mixed up and unidentifiable. They shared the same nameplate and rank, and they’d spent an hour sorting through their items, ensuring they ended up with the right things in their separate trunks. So all that laundry duty plebe year really did have a purpose, Hannah had thought dismally as she held up each T-shirt, inspecting it for size. She was a small. He was a medium.
Their first night at home, Hannah had burned a chicken. Saving the evening, Tim defrosted and seared two filets mignons in butter, roasted a head of broccoli, and opened a bottle of wine at their dining room table, an oval-shaped hand-me-down that Tim’s parents had forced them to take after the wedding. It felt strange to eat at a table so big, Hannah thought, just the two of them. But they’d relished the chance to play house and had spent the evening talking about their favorite childhood television shows, the books they were reading, the vacations they wanted to take after their deployments were over. They’d grown expert at avoiding the massive gray animal that had taken up residence in every room—an elephant named March.
And then his phone rang, cutting the dinner short.
Hurricane Katrina had made landfall in New Orleans, displacing millions of people in its path. A storm of that strength hadn’t hit the U.S. since Hugo, and the Army’s swiftest infantry unit, the 82nd Airborne Division, had been called to help in search and rescue efforts. Tim had only been home for twenty-four hours when he walked back out the door in uniform.
Now, listening to his voice over the line, Hannah remembered watching the news. Last night, video footage had shown a helicopter hovering over a house in New Orleans’s Ninth Ward. A soldier descended on a ladder, then reached out his hand to save a family stranded on a roof. The camera angle was too far away. But Hannah had sat on her sofa, alone, wondering if the man in uniform might be Tim.
“We don’t have to decide about Thanksgiving right now,” Hannah said. “We’ll figure it out.”
“When?”
“Later.”
He sighed.
“You sound tired,” said Hannah. “How are you, really?”
“Well, I’m standing downwind of the rankest floodwaters you can imagine, and thousands of people still need to be evacuated from the city. So, you know. Basically the definition of awesome.”
Hannah laughed. “Basically.”
“I miss you,” he said. “It’s hot here. But at least we’re doing something real, you know? Something that matters.”
A woman at the desk waved at Hannah to come forward. She’d grown to hate goodbyes. Especially abrupt ones. “Hey, Tim, I have to go. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Tim said. “I love you. And hey, happy birthday.”
“Thanks. I love you too,” Hannah said, feeling the tears well in her eyes. “Bye.”
“NAME?”
“Lieutenant Hannah Nesmith.”
“Date of birth?”
“Eight, thirty, eighty-two.”
“Hey,” the woman said. “That’s today.”
“Sure is.”
“Any current medication?”
“No,” Hannah said, then lowered her voice. “Actually, I’m on birth control. I don’t know the name . . .”
“Sexually active?”
“Somewhat,” Hannah joked, but the nurse stopped pumping the blood pressure monitor she’d wrapped around Hannah’s arm and waited for a direct answer. “Yes,” Hannah clarified. “I’m married.”
The nurse raised her eyebrows. “Honey, that don’t mean the answer is yes.” She released the pressure that had built and made a mark on a clipboard. “Any sexually transmitted diseases?”
“No.”
“Date of your last period?”
Hannah tried to remember. “Uh . . . I think about three weeks ago?”
The nurse handed Hannah an empty plastic cup. “We need a sample. Pregnancy screening.” She pointed to a partition behind her. “You can go behind the curtain.”
“Oh, I’m not pregnant.”
“Let’s just be sure. You’d be surprised how many women get knocked up so they don’t have to ship out. We can’t send a fetus to Fallujah, now, can we?”
The audacity with which the nurse spoke made Hannah’s neck grow hot with anger. Not once had Hannah heard of a woman intentionally getting pregnant to avoid deployment, and yet, it was a trope that constantly passed through the ranks, as if it were a mark of weakness to conceive a child.
“Afghanistan,” Hannah said, correcting her, now taking on the same short and snippy tone that the nurse h
ad used. “I’m not going to Iraq. I’m going to Afghanistan.”
“Same rules apply,” the woman said, though her tight expression had softened ever so slightly. She pulled back a curtain and pointed for Hannah to go behind a three-paneled screen situated in a half-moon in front of the cinder-block wall. Squatting, Hannah held the cup between her legs and sighed as it filled with warm urine. There was nothing like the Army to humiliate you before sending you to war.
Next, a nurse checked Hannah’s hearing and lung capacity. She moved down the hall for an eye exam. Then a male nurse wearing blue scrubs ordered her into a room, where she sat on a cold medical cot and lifted the sleeve of her gray PT shirt.
“Hepatitis A,” he announced as he jammed the first needle into the fleshy part of her upper arm. He reloaded. “Polio.” Hannah winced. “And, last but not least . . .” The needle looked like a small saber. Hannah closed her eyes.
“Typhoid.”
The small tube of toxins released into her upper arm. The only way to fight a contaminated world was to contaminate yourself, too, Hannah thought dismally. He rubbed a cotton swab over the area he’d attacked and then taped a cotton ball over the wound.
“Drink plenty of water. And don’t worry about your arm. It’ll only be sore for a few days.”
IN A SMALL office on the other side of post, an elderly man wearing a black cardigan sweater and a “Vietnam Vet” hat welcomed Hannah inside. She could tell, walking into his office, that this man wasn’t in any hurry. With a single outstretched hand, he directed her to take a seat in front of his desk, and the calm with which he ambled to his own chair forced Hannah to take a deep breath. He pulled a large folder from beneath the desk and set it before them carefully.
“All right, Lieutenant Nesmith,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Now for the important stuff. This here is called a D—D—nine—three.” He spoke slowly, as if Hannah needed to absorb each letter and digit individually. “Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Any children?”
Hannah shook her head. “No.”
“Okay.” He paused. “Sometime in the next few weeks, you’ll need to fill out the name and address of your spouse . . . skip this line for dependents, and then down below, list your parents and any other family members that you would like to be notified in the event that you become a casualty.”
He took his glasses off his face and watched her look over the blank form. Hannah swallowed and nodded.
“You’ll need to keep a copy of this form in your possession. So pack one in your trunk and give a copy to someone at home—preferably a spouse or relative.” He paused again, looking to Hannah for some kind of recognition or understanding. “Am I going too fast?”
“Nope,” Hannah said. She felt herself detaching from the room. Detaching from the possibilities. The sooner he could breeze through the paperwork, the better.
“Good. Last few forms here and we’ll get you on your way. This here is your S—G—L—V form eight—two—eight—six. Life insurance. You’ll need to list your assets. Anything of value or debt. Your car, mortgage, any outstanding loans. That kind of thing. And this here? This is a power of attorney. You’ll need to have this one notarized.”
Hannah listened dutifully as he flipped through the rest of the paperwork, but her mind wandered. In contrast to the chaos of her life, the SRP documents all seemed so organized. As if paperwork had power over tragedy. As if all this preparation would help if the worst really happened.
She wasn’t exactly sure what she’d expected life to feel like as an adult, but she hadn’t expected this. She was married but hadn’t seen her husband in months. She had friends, but they were spread out all over the country, or worse, they lived down the street but might as well have been light-years away. Avery had disappeared—again—like she always did when she started dating someone new. It would have been annoying if it weren’t entirely predictable.
Hannah had assumed that after the trial, Avery would change the way she related to men. Of course, she’d never blamed Avery for what John Collins had done. He deserved what he’d received, and then some. But he was one in a long line of Avery’s poor dating decisions, and Hannah worried that the streak wasn’t over.
Instead of changing her patterns with men, Avery’s relationship roller coaster had only grown more extreme. The highs got higher. The lows got lower. She and this new guy—Noah Candross—had only known each other for a few short months, and already, he’d basically moved into Avery’s house. Hannah grew annoyed when her text messages to Avery went unanswered, even though she could see Noah’s motorcycle parked outside of her house at night. And despite the fact that he seemed to always be around, Hannah had only met him once. They’d met at Noah’s favorite vegetarian restaurant, because apparently he didn’t eat meat—and though the things he said were nice enough, he kept looking around the restaurant, as if someone more interesting were going to arrive any minute. Meanwhile, Avery had never looked more in love, gripping his arm. Hannah had smiled and tried to act happy for her friend, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something about that guy was off. Hannah wanted to like him—after all, she remembered all too well how it felt when your best friend hated your boyfriend.
Ever since the summer after their sophomore year at West Point, Avery had held Tim at arm’s length.
Tim had mailed Hannah a handwritten letter explaining the whole thing: How he’d made a mistake, allowing a flirtation to build with another girl. They’d kissed, he admitted. But as soon as it was over, he’d regretted every second. The letter was full of remorse and shame and scattered with round blots where his tears had fallen on the page. Hannah had read it in her bunk at Airborne School and cried, wondering what to do. She still loved him so much.
“You cannot take him back,” Avery had insisted after they’d returned to school that fall. She’d read the note, and Hannah had to pull it out of her hands, for fear that Avery might rip it apart. “If he loved you as much as he’s claiming, he never would have done this. It has to be over. You can’t let people mess with you, Hannah.”
Those months of junior year watching Tim from afar were some of the worst of Hannah’s life. And while grudges seemed to give Avery something powerful to hold on to, they only weighed Hannah down.
Now, staring at all the forms assembled in front of her, Hannah wondered if their friendship would survive this deployment. They were so different. And if they couldn’t make it work living on the same street, how would they do it living on separate continents?
“So that’s that,” the man in front of her said. He tapped all of the papers into a neat stack and slid them into a black folder with her name on it. “Do you have any questions? I’ve got all the time in the world.”
From the look of the wrinkles on his face, the nearly imperceptible shake in his hands, Hannah wasn’t sure that was true.
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Seems pretty straightforward.”
“Nothing is straightforward about war,” he said, though not condescendingly. “Oh!” He snapped his fingers. “Last thing. Do you need assistance writing a legal will?”
“Actually, no,” Hannah said. She remembered writing a will as a Firstie at West Point. A strange final assignment that she’d updated after the wedding. “I already have one.”
“Then you, my dear, are all through.” He stood and shook her hand firmly, passing her the black folder. “By the way. I noticed your necklace.”
Hannah reached for the silver cross and wrapped her palm around it tight. It felt smaller, somehow, under the gaze of his eyes. “Yes, sir.”
“You’re lucky to have it,” he said sagely. “Not the necklace. The faith.” He smiled, took his seat, and put his glasses back on his face.
PULLING INTO HER driveway that evening, Hannah grabbed all of her gear out of her car and hauled it toward the front door—purse, PT bag, two empty plastic water bottles, accumulated over the last few days. It was always sad to
come home to an empty house, lights off and eerily quiet. She’d started turning on the television as soon as she got home, just to have the sound of other people’s voices to keep her company. But tonight felt particularly lonely. Last year, she’d been at Sapper School on her birthday, and Sergeant Moretti had led the entire mess hall in singing. He’d even procured a grocery store cupcake that he’d marked with a sloppy 22, in blue icing.
Tonight, Hannah’s plans included eating the rubbery leftover salmon that she’d overcooked the night before, drinking a glass of wine, and tucking in early. After all, she had to be back at work at 0600 for PT in the morning. Her sister, Emily, had sent a bouquet of tulips to work. A card from Wendy Bennett had arrived in the mail the day before, stuffed with a $50 gift card to J.Crew—and her parents had sent exactly what she’d asked for: a small digital camera that she could take with her to Afghanistan. Other than Tim’s phone call from New Orleans, she hadn’t received anything from him in the mail. But that was okay. She couldn’t expect him to send her a present for her birthday when he was busy saving lives.
Opening the door, she shuffled into the dark and put her bags on the ground. Flipping the light switch Hannah looked up toward the kitchen and gasped. A mass of people, standing beneath a silver banner, shouted, “Surprise!”
The crowd of familiar faces made Hannah laugh, even though they’d scared her half to death. Avery stood front and center, holding a cake. There were a few couples from church, all hooting and clapping. One of Tim’s friends from West Point, Erik Jenkins, stood on the stairs with his pregnant wife, Michelle, who was holding a laptop computer face-out toward Hannah. On the screen, she saw Tim, alight with glee. The picture blurred as he laughed, leaning back in a chair.
“What in the world!” Hannah said. “You scared the crap out of me!”
“Are you surprised?” Avery asked.
“I nearly peed my pants! Was this your idea?”
Avery shook her head and pointed toward the computer screen.
“Happy birthday, babe,” Tim said. The image was grainy and imperfect, his voice choppy from a bad connection, but she could still see the deep dimple imprinted in his right cheek. “I love you so much. We all do.”
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