Just then, Tim emerged onto the porch with two steaming mugs of coffee. Passing one to Hannah, he stretched and yawned.
“How many people our age do you think wake up this early?” he asked.
Tim took a seat in the rocking chair next to hers and began rubbing her neck slowly with his warm hand. Hannah involuntarily closed her eyes. His touch was like a drug.
“I guess we get more out of life than they do,” he said.
“Maybe. But they get more sleep than we do.”
Tim sipped coffee, then said, “Eh. Sleep’s overrated. I’ll sleep when I die.”
Hannah bristled. She didn’t like hearing that word. Not when they were counting down the days. Her flight back to Afghanistan left in less than a week. Tim left for Iraq a few weeks after that. It would be late 2007 before they were together again.
“What?” Tim asked, feeling her tense up. “Die?”
“Yes. Don’t say it.”
Tim laughed. “Okay,” he said. “I won’t roll the die, or discuss your hair dye, or remember Princess Di. There are so many conversations we’ll miss out on now. But whatever you need.”
Hannah punched him in the arm. “Don’t be an ass,” she laughed.
“But I’m so good at it.” Tim looked up at the sky. “I think it’s supposed to storm today,” he said.
Indeed, the sun hadn’t yet come up, or if it had, it was covered by a mass of dark gray clouds. In the distance, a roll of thunder pealed loudly. Hannah’s sister used to tell her during intense thunderstorms that it was just God bowling. Thunder was the roll of the ball, the lightning a signal that he’d hit a strike. Apparently, God always hit a strike.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Hannah said ironically. “What in the world will we do all day?”
HOURS LATER, THEIR bodies feeling light and connected by invisible strands of energy, Hannah shook her head and slid the cross charm on her necklace from side to side. They dressed, ate lunch, and then watched a cheesy movie on the Hallmark Channel before scrounging through the kitchen to put together dinner.
Tim had found an old game of Scrabble in a closet, and opening a bottle of wine, they sat near the windows overlooking the rain and the ocean, smiling at each other and placing individual letters in a row.
“No.” Hannah pointed at the word Tim had just played on the board. “Quid is not a word.” Taking a sip of wine from her glass, she remarked, “Squid, maybe. Not quid.”
“It’s a word,” argued Tim. “I’m telling you.”
“Use it in a sentence.”
“Easy . . .” Tim squinted his eyes and a little wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows, like it always did when he was thinking hard. “I bet you a hundred quid that quid is a word.”
“Look it up,” said Hannah. “You think you’re so smart.”
And he did, running a finger down the page of the dictionary they’d found on the shelf next to a stack of John Grisham books. Tim sat back, smiling, as he read out the definition.
“It says here, ‘Quid: One pound sterling. Or, a lump of tobacco for chewing.’” He replaced the tiles where they were meant to go. “Triple word score. That’s forty-two points.”
“This is the worst game ever invented,” Hannah said. “You’re destroying me.”
“You’re not too far behind,” he lied. “Just, a couple . . . hundred points.”
Hannah set down her glass and looked out the window. “I wish it weren’t raining. I feel like we deserve perfect weather, every single day we get together. Don’t you think?”
Tim inspected her face, put his glass down on the table, and then stood up and took his shirt off.
“What are you doing?” laughed Hannah. “You’re not done beating me.”
“Come with me,” he said, offering her his hand.
“Out there? It’s pouring!”
“We can do this the hard way or the easy way,” said Tim as the dimple appeared in his right cheek.
Hannah crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. Her husband—it still felt so funny to say that, to think it!—her husband was crazy. And accordingly, he grabbed her waist, hoisted her over his shoulder, and carried her out the door into the rain.
“Tim! Put me down!”
He did, and in moments, they were both soaked through, the water piling up on their eyelashes. He grabbed her hand, and together they ran down to the shoreline.
“Take off your clothes!” Tim shouted as he pulled off his own.
“Tim!” Hannah instinctively looked around, even though she knew for a fact there was no one else on this beach. “We’re going to get struck by lightning!”
“Don’t be scared!” he shouted, running toward the water. She could see his outline through the rain—round shoulders, thin waist, and white butt—all in perfect contrast to the gray water and sky. As she hesitated, the rain began to slow, and the sun’s heavy rays began peering through the clouds from behind the house.
“I married an idiot,” Hannah said to herself and the rain. But as she was saying it, she was pulling off her clothes, tentatively at first, and then quickly.
“Come on!” shouted Tim from the choppy surf.
And soon, she reached him, their bodies touching under the surface, their mouths touching above. All she tasted was salt.
SIX DAYS LATER, they stood outside of the security line at Jacksonville International Airport, trying to say goodbye. Like he’d done so many times before, Tim held Hannah’s face in his hands and wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. He was wearing board shorts, flip-flops, and a gray T-shirt, while Hannah, on the first leg of her flight back to war, was wearing her full combat uniform. Her hair twisted in a bun, rucksack full and snug on her shoulders, she felt encumbered by the weight of it all. Of this moment. Of the future. For once, Tim didn’t try to put it in perspective.
He pulled her into his chest. “I’ll leave you a perfectly clean house. When you get home, it’ll be spic-and-span.”
“Leave Avery a key,” said Hannah, angry that she was using their last few moments together to discuss logistics. “Just in case.”
“Okay.” He squeezed tighter. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Hannah said, her voice small and choked.
“I’ll see you soon,” Tim offered. “Write me. Call me. We’ll figure it out.”
“Okay.”
And with that, Hannah forced herself to step away.
Sometimes the greatest wars we fight are in our own minds. And for the next three days, Hannah battled hard. She tried to remember why they said this would all be worth it. She prayed for strength, and whether God provided it or not, she wasn’t certain, but she arrived back at FOB Sharana, back at her CHU. Back to Ebrahim and her soldiers and the heat. This time, it took longer for her heart to catch up to her body. Without a doubt, she’d left half of it behind.
From: Hannah Nesmith
Subject: made it back
Date: September 2, 2006 03:19:02 PM GMT +01:00
To: Dani McNalley
Hi:)
I’m sorry I missed your Skype call. Internet here is spotty at best, but I have a little time now and the signal seems good so I figured I’d send you an update.
The last two weeks with Tim were . . . perfect. There’s really no other way to say it. We literally put Nicholas Sparks to shame. Every day I woke up and had to remind myself that I wasn’t dreaming. The weather sucked the last half of the trip, but we watched movies and cooked meals together and drank tons of wine. I just can’t believe how much time is going to pass before we can be together again. If I think about it, I get overwhelmed with sadness so I’m just trying not to count the days.
How did Locke’s visit go? I think of you often and hope that you’re finding friends there in London. Have you met anyone?
Much love to you, Dani. Miss you.
H
22
Fall 2006 // London, England
D
ressed in jeans, wellies, and her slick new Barbour raincoat, Dani grabbed a large black umbrella from beside the door and walked down the steps of her flat and into the gray. Despite the impending rain, Portobello Road Market had assembled itself into a beautiful stretch of life. Clanging garage doors opened to reveal storefronts. Colorful tents popped up for miles. The voices of people haggling filled the air, while the rain sprinkled the pavement. Customers shielded under umbrellas inspected tables full of antiques and curios. They perused stalls of hot bread, sniffed at fresh-cut cheese, watched as young women spilled batter in large circles at the creperies. Three German tourists loitered outside Dani’s apartment entrance, wrapped in scarves and holding a map. Humidity increased the pain in her joints, but she couldn’t stay inside. Out here, she could be anonymous. Part of the scene, not the leading actress. She could roam for miles, looking. Thinking. Hidden by the crowd.
In the last three weeks, so much had changed.
The Gelhomme advertisements had hit the airwaves and though it was too early to measure, preliminary benchmarks indicated that the campaign would increase sales by more than 12 percent. Though she still acted suspicious of Dani’s instincts, Laura Klein had grown to rely on them more than ever. Every additional assignment found its way to Dani’s desk, and one draft was never enough. Laura required four, sometimes five drafts of the same presentation. And worst of all, in their most recent meeting with Paul Duval, Laura had presented a groundbreaking new strategy: digital marketing on the Internet, with a keen eye on a new social media platform called the Facebook.
Dani had sat at the table, dumbfounded that Laura had so blatantly stolen her idea and claimed it as her own. But aware of Jim Webb’s eyes on her every action, Dani had stayed silent. After all, what would she do? Stamp her foot and say, That was my idea? She was proud, but she wasn’t an idiot.
The next day, Laura had called her into her office.
“I saw your surprise yesterday,” her boss had said in an uncharacteristically kind tone. “When I gave them your idea for the digital push.”
“I wasn’t surprised you presented the idea. I was surprised you said it was yours.”
Laura had paused, then sighed and put her reading glasses down on her desk. “The divorce was finalized last week.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Dani.
“I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have presented your idea as my own. I think I’ve just been realizing how high the stakes are for me. For ten years, I’ve enjoyed this job, but now I need it. To support myself. My children. I think I acted out of fear. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Dani had nodded, shocked by her boss’s candor. It didn’t justify her actions—but at least it provided context.
Work wasn’t the only place her life felt unmoored. Hannah was back in Afghanistan after her two weeks of R & R, and soon, Tim would follow his wife overseas for his own fifteen-month deployment to Iraq.
We put Nicholas Sparks to shame, Hannah had written in her latest e-mail. Dani didn’t know if it was a blessing or a curse that Tim and Hannah would be deployed at the same time. On one hand, they would complete all their time apart faster that way. On the other, Dani couldn’t imagine knowing that you and the person you love were in constant danger. Hannah had more faith than any person she’d ever met.
But the hardest change of all?
That was the news Locke Coleman had dropped when he’d come to visit in the spring, and the trip to South Carolina that awaited Dani at the end of the week.
Choking on her Caesar salad in the pub that day, Dani didn’t have to feign surprise, but she’d had to strain to hide her emotion. She didn’t sob. She didn’t wail. That came later, once he and his friends had left the continent and Dani had found herself alone in her apartment shower, where the heat and the water washed away her internal pain. But at the table, she simply coughed and wiped her mouth with a napkin. Locke had gazed at her with sympathy in his eyes, as if he’d known all along how much the news would hurt.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” he’d said. “I thought in person would be best.”
“You could have just called.”
The rest of his trip had passed in awkwardness, until Dani had hugged him at the airport, promising that she’d do what he’d asked and book her ticket.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” she’d said, aching. “I’m happy for you guys.”
Now, walking among the chaos of the market, Dani allowed herself to feel everything she’d been avoiding. Sadness and anger, of course. But the emotion that seemed to rise without warning was an all-pervasive fear—that somehow, somewhere, she’d made a terribly wrong turn.
THE WEEKEND OF Locke and Amanda’s wedding, a United Airlines flight attendant brought Dani an extra hot towel to her seat in first class. The flight from London passed in a haze of mediocre movies and fitful sleep. In Atlanta, she burned a two-hour layover with a venti Starbucks vanilla latte that tasted like heaven but made her body feel like hell. During the final flight to Charleston, pain crept from her hip into her back. It was her own fault, she knew. Airplane seats offered little relief for her joints, and if she veered from doctor’s orders and drank caffeine and dairy, all bets were off.
At first, things weren’t as hard as she’d anticipated. Locke had been kind enough to include her in all the wedding weekend activities: a brunch on Friday morning, the rehearsal Friday night. They’d even asked her to read scripture at the wedding.
“What passage?” Dani had asked when the happy couple had cornered her at the brunch. Amanda looked positively radiant, dressed in a baby-blue strapless dress.
“Surprise us,” Amanda had answered.
Late Friday night, alone in her hotel room, Dani picked up her cell phone and tried Avery. After Locke’s visit to London, they’d been playing a never-ending game of phone tag. The time difference had made catching up nearly impossible, and so Dani had finally decided to drop the bomb in a two-word text message. Locke’s engaged. Avery had called her back immediately. But that was weeks ago. Since then, they’d gone back to their normal routine of missed calls and unreturned messages, and all of Dani’s attempts to add a stop at Fort Bragg to her itinerary had come up empty. The phone rang three times, and then Dani heard Avery’s serious outgoing voicemail message.
“This is First Lieutenant Avery Adams. Please leave a message. If this is an emergency, please call the Fort Bragg . . .”
This is an emergency, Dani seethed as she ended the call. Staring at the BlackBerry in her hand, she dialed a different number—one of the few she remembered by heart.
“Bennett residence,” said a familiar voice, “Wendy speaking.”
“Wendy. It’s Dani.”
“Dani! How are you?” she said. “What time is it there?”
“Well, I’m actually not in London. I’m in South Carolina.”
“South Carolina? Why?”
“It’s kind of a long story,” said Dani. “Do you have a minute? And a Bible? I think I might need some help.”
THE NEXT DAY, the wedding quartet began with Vivaldi at six P.M. sharp. Dani had slept in that morning, then walked the streets of Charleston alone. A technician filed and painted her nails in the afternoon, and once the sun had set into the Atlantic, she emerged from the hotel dressed in a black silk gown that draped gracefully across one shoulder, ready to join a group of guests in a shuttle to the chapel. Dani was grateful that she’d splurged on the thousand-dollar dress, with its modest slit up the left side. There was no price too high for feeling beautiful at the wedding of someone you loved, especially when that person was marrying someone else. A thousand wasn’t too much, Dani decided, especially because she’d saved on the shoes—a pair of simple snakeskin flats with pointed toes. Amanda’s father was a retired army colonel who now served as athletic director at the Citadel, and the crowd of guests looked fit for a royal ball—ladies shimmered in long jewel-lustered gowns; men tugged on their ties, tuxes, and tails. When she crossed the
church to ascend the podium for the reading, Dani hoped no one could tell she was wearing flats underneath the designer dress. With her hip in this much pain, she couldn’t have risked wearing heels.
“A reading from the Old Testament.”
The congregation of more than three hundred sat in their seats, silent, a diverse crowd of black and white, military and civilian. They stared up at Dani with expectation as Locke and Amanda stood hand in hand at the altar, waiting. Wendy had helped Dani pick out her selections, the first for fun, the second for sentiment.
“Deuteronomy chapter twenty-four, verse five,” Dani began slowly. “‘If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.’”
When she looked up from the Bible with a smirk, Locke’s groomsmen, many of whom were his football teammates from West Point, began laughing and clapping. One of them shouted hooah. Amanda laughed and shook her head, looking supremely happy that she’d chosen Dani for this job. All of the gathered guests snickered as they realized what she’d read was a joke.
“Now, seriously,” Dani said. “A reading from the New Testament.” She flipped the pages toward the back half of the Bible. “A reading from First John. ‘Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God . . . The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. . . .
“‘Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends’—Locke and Amanda—‘if God loved you in this way, you also must love one another . . . There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear. . . .
“‘We love because He first loved us.’”
She paused and looked at Locke, whose face was still and serious. In his dress blues, dark jacket and blue pants with gold stripes on the side, Locke looked devastatingly handsome, just as he had the day she’d met him, on the back of that truck at Camp Buckner. So handsome, in fact, Dani found it difficult to look him in the eye. But she did anyway, wiping a tear from her cheek, knowing that this was the most loving thing she could do for a friend.
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