Mike stopped abruptly in the middle of the church and turned to face Danielle. “Danielle, please let me have the baby. I should be the one holding her at her mother’s funeral. It’s okay if she cries.”
Danielle looked as if she didn’t know what to say, her glistening eyes widening at this spontaneous moment. Bob, the other pallbearers, and Father Hernandez looked back, frowning and halting the procession.
Mike held out his arms. “Don’t worry, Danielle. I’m her father.”
“Here, take her.” Danielle, shaken, offered him Emily.
“Thanks.” Mike reached for the baby, cradled her against his suit and tie, and looked into her bottomless blue eyes, his heart swelling, full and complete. He felt as if he were finally doing right by her and Chloe, the three of them together as family, for one last time.
A murmur of approval rippled through the congregation, and a wave of loud sniffling. Emily burst into tears, but Mike had expected as much. He held her close, faced front, and the procession started moving again. Her crying reverberated in the lofty church, a heartbreaking sound against the organ.
“It’s okay, honey,” Mike whispered into her soft ear. He held Emily close, even as she began to scream louder, squirming and twisting her head. He kept walking down the aisle, and the heels of his dress shoes clicked on the marble floor. Father Hernandez swung the censer as he processed, his white-and-gold robes swaying back and forth.
Suddenly Emily stiffened, arched her back, and launched herself out of Mike’s arms, heading for the marble floor.
“No!” Mike shouted in horror. It startled him so badly that he lost his balance and began to fall backward.
Danielle screamed. The congregation leapt to its feet. Father Hernandez whirled around, his robes swirling. The organ music stopped. Everyone gasped.
Emily was about to hit the floor when Bob stepped backward, reached out, and grabbed her by the coat. “I got her!” he shouted, collecting the bawling baby.
“Thank God!” Danielle rushed to Emily. People craned their necks or jumped to their feet, saying, “He dropped her!” “What happened?” “Is the baby okay?”
Father Hernandez peered down at Mike, his hooded eyes wide. “Son, are you all right?”
Mike looked up at Christ on the Cross, then closed his eyes, in hell.
Chapter Twenty-three
Mike hadn’t wanted to relive the funeral, but they’d gotten the story out of him as soon as he got back to the 556th that night. Chatty, Oldstein, Phat Phil, and Joe Segundo were sitting on racks and supply boxes in their tent, which was as messy as a frat house with stinky socks, free weights, paperbacks, and old DVDs. An illegal space heater cast a warm, orange glow on their grizzled faces, all of which looked at Mike in disbelief.
“You did what?” Chatty asked, shaking his head. He had on his garbage-bag Batman cape, and for some reason, had taken to wearing night-vision goggles pushed up on his scrub cap like designer sunglasses. It would be pure Chatty to wear what the Army considered a sensitive item in the least Army way possible. “Scholl’s, you’re telling me you dropped your baby?”
“Mike, are you serious?” Oldstein chimed in, incredulous. His forehead wrinkled deeply under his watchcap, and he blinked behind his wire-rimmed glasses, which were on the thick side, making his sharp brown eyes look smaller. Phat Phil exchanged glances with Joe Segundo, and they both stopped eating their Snickers bars.
“What can I say?” Mike swallowed, hard. He felt empty, raw, and exhausted. “She’s strong, for a baby. I didn’t know. She just popped out of my arms.” He groped for words to describe what had happened. He had replayed the scene so many times. “It was like she launched herself, like a rocket.”
Joe Segundo frowned. “So what happened?”
“She was fine, thank God.”
Chatty kept shaking his head. “Wait, wait, wait. What? I don’t understand. Scholl’s, you can’t tell a story to save your life. How could she be fine if you dropped her on the floor?”
“She didn’t hit the ground. It was a marble floor. If she hit the ground, she could’ve fractured her skull.” The very thought made Mike sick to his stomach. “My brother-in-law caught her.”
Everyone exchanged glances for a minute, and Chatty rose, hitching up his ACU pants, his cape wrinkled. “Hold on, Scholl’s. Are you telling us that you dropped your baby at your wife’s funeral? And your brother-in-law caught her? Like a football?”
“Yes.” Mike felt so ashamed, heartsick. He had avoided Emily for the rest of his leave, and she cried every time she saw him. He worried Emily would never warm up to him, much less love him.
“That’s the funniest thing I ever heard!” Chatty erupted in laughter. “You fumbled your own daughter!” Phil, Joe, and Oldstein looked at each other, then they burst into laughter, too.
Mike blinked, astonished. He felt jarred that they could laugh at such a thing. His only daughter could have been killed, at his wife’s funeral.
“Oh, no, no, no! You’re killing me! It’s too funny!” Chatty threw himself backwards onto his rack, laughing and kicking his feet. “She launched herself like a rocket? A rocket?”
Phat Phil guffawed. “A baby rocket!”
Oldstein shouted, “No, a missile! A baby missile! A shoulder-to-air baby missile!”
Mike didn’t know how to react, then he realized he was back in Helmand, at the end of a never-ending war. He’d had reentry issues going home, and now he was having reentry issues coming back. He remembered that the only way the 556th survived was through gallows humor, and they all laughed at their darkest moments, including him. He also knew that they were only trying to distract him, bringing him out of his misery, the only way they knew how. He started to smile because Chatty looked so funny, rolling back and forth in hysterics, then Mike started laughing, and soon the tent was filled with the sound of insanely sad laughter.
“Scholl’s, catch!” Chatty tore off his goggles and threw them at Mike, who dodged them.
“Yeah, catch, Scholl’s!” Phat Phil joined in, laughing and throwing the Snickers bar. “Can’t you catch, butterfingers? Get it? Butterfingers!”
“Scholl’s, go long!” Joe hurled a paperback.
Mike ducked and raising his arms to shield himself from the things they started throwing, and he felt good for the first time in forever, the laughter momentarily releasing his pain, dispelling his shame, guilt, and grief. They’d cured him, if only for now, as they threw everything they could at him, and when Mike was on the ground, they buried him under their clothes, books, boots, blankets, and a lamp, then jumped onto the top of the pile with the abandon of much younger men.
Leaving Mike underneath, laughing and feeling that he belonged here, at war. Because he was finally, and for only a brief moment, at peace.
But that night, Mike tossed and turned in his rack. His sleep cycle was completely flipped. His thoughts were full of Emily and Chloe. Their tent was frigid and drafty, and the space heater illuminated the others, sleeping. He heard a snuffle from Oldstein, and Phat Phil turned over, making his rack squeak. No sound came from Chatty, and Mike didn’t know if he was sleeping. Typically he slept the least of the docs, always the first one running to the OR, a heavy burden even for a superhero.
Mike gathered his blanket around him, stuck his stocking feet in his boots, and made his way across the cluttered tent, stepping over the junk they’d left on the floor like sloppy frat boys. He went outside, where the cold air hit him full in the face and neck. He trundled to one of the beach chairs in front of the tent, which was usually the first thing they set up at camp, to make it homey.
He sat down and looked into the darkness, past the tents for the nurses, the Tactical Operations Center, and the soldiers who guarded them. He could see the soldier at post by the red tip of his cigarette, and beyond him lay the desert southwest of Kandahar, on the road to Lashkar Gah, near the Pakistan border. The night was still, the sky broken neither by ordnance nor stars, and clouds obscured the hor
izon, obliterating the division between heaven and earth. He found himself looking up, wondering if Chloe’s soul was there, somewhere.
“Hey,” said a voice, and Mike turned to see Chatty, in his blanket, cape, and boxers, his night goggles still on his scrub cap.
“Did I wake you?”
“Nah.” Chatty clumped over, eased into the chair, and crossed his legs, revealing a hairy calf. He sighed, wreathing them both in chalky breath. “I wonder how long this is gonna last.”
“The quiet?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe they went south.” Mike knew the Taliban didn’t like fighting in the cold, preferring to hide in Pakistan, in the lawless Federated Tribal Areas.
“I know, but I hate it.” Chatty shook his head.
“Me, too.” Mike also knew that Army communications being what they were, the FST hadn’t been told when or if the brigade would strike, and nobody knew when or if the enemy would attack. It was a life lived on tenterhooks, and the docs took it into consideration when they analyzed vitals, because nobody’s blood pressure was normal, ever.
“Silent night, holy night, eh?”
“Oh, right.” Mike had almost forgotten about Christmas. He had been en route at the time, and the gift shops had been decorated at the base in Kuwait. “How was Christmas? What did you do?”
“We were at Bagram, so the usual.” Chatty looked into the distance. “Strippers and pizza.”
Mike smiled. Bagram was the nearest base, about twenty-five miles north of Kabul. The FST was entitled to chill when they were at base, but lately they’d had to assist in the hospital, called Camp Lacy, because it was shorthanded. “Was it bad?”
“Not too. I drained some mighty heinous abscesses, and I&D.”
Chatty meant irrigation and debridement, or cleaning out the wounds, trimming away the dead tissue, and packing them, without closing. Most soldiers endured multiple surgeries on the same wound, but Mike never heard a single one complain.
Chatty looked over. “So how you doing?”
“Fine.”
“That why you’re out here? Because you’re so fine?”
Mike couldn’t smile. “Okay, my practice is imploding, and my wife bled to death because she was drunk when she cut herself.”
Chatty blinked. “You need cheering up. How do you hide money from a surgeon?”
“Tape it to his children.”
“How do you hide money from a plastic surgeon?”
Mike had heard that one, too. “You can’t.”
“How do you hide money from an orthopod?”
“How?”
“Put it in a book. Did you know the one about the two podiatrists? They were arch rivals.”
Mike groaned. “Please stop.”
Chatty’s expression grew serious. “So tell me. Start with your partners, we’ll ease into it. What happened?”
Mike sighed, then told him the story.
Chatty nodded, considering it. “My judgment? Haggerty’s a jerk.”
“You can’t blame him. He saw an opportunity and he took it.”
“I do blame him. He should’ve lifted you all up, invited you all to join, especially you. You can pin fractures with your eyes closed. When you go back, find a new group.” Chatty turned to the black horizon. “Now, what happened with Chloe?”
Mike told him, not finishing until it was almost dawn and the sky had lightened to purplish, but was still opaque, like a lid on a pressure cooker. “Hell, I don’t even know when she started drinking.”
“It sounds like she started after you left, which makes sense.”
“I think she drank with Emily in the car.”
“You don’t know that. Cut her some slack.” Chatty drew his cape around him. “Give her the benefit of the doubt. You’ll make yourself crazy. You’ll start doubting everything you know.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“So don’t. You know what you know. She probably started after you left and it got the best of her. It’s the war.” Chatty threw up his hands. “She’s only human. Don’t judge her. Just love her.”
Mike felt it resonate in his chest. He eyed the horizon, beginning to show itself, and squinted against the light of a new day.
“Don’t worry, the baby will get easier. They’re not real until they talk, and once they start talking, they never stop.”
Mike smiled. Chatty had three daughters.
“You’ll be fine.” Chatty chucked him on the arm. “Come on, Scholl’s. Let’s see that studly smile.”
Mike didn’t have a chance, because there was a commotion at the Tactical Operations Center, as Joe Segundo burst from the front flap.
“Wake up, everybody!” he shouted. “There’s four in the air and more to come! It’s on!”
Chapter Twenty-four
Mike came out of the OR tent, squinting against the sun. The brigade had sustained heavy casualties in the attack last night, and the 556th had operated for thirteen hours straight. All cases were expected to return to duty, though two were injured severely enough to be transported to Landstuhl. Mike’s last patient was in recovery, The Kid With The Dragon Tattoo. The soldier had survived the fragment wounds, but his tattoo was KIA.
Mike inhaled, and the cold air carried traces of smoke and ordnance. The sky was cobalt blue, and the Registan Desert packed in frozen ridges. A dust devil whirled in the distance, a cyclone of sand spiraling upward on unseen currents. Mike looked around camp, which was calm after the chaos of last night. Chatty, Oldstein, and Phat Phil stood outside their tent, talking with two soldiers. Oddly, from their group came the sound of a child crying.
Mike walked over, and in the middle of the group stood a boy about six years old, holding a spotted puppy with a cut leg. Tears streaked down the child’s dirty face, and fabric wrapped around the dog was soaked with blood. Mike looked over at Chatty. “You gonna fix it, or am I?”
Chatty frowned. “Colonel Mustard says we’re not allowed.”
Mike sighed. Colonel Mustard was Chatty’s name for Lieutenant Colonel Colin Davy, the Deputy Commander of Clinical Services. Mike turned to the soldier, named Jacobs, whose eyes were bloodshot after fighting all night. “Jacobs, what’s the deal?”
“I don’t like it, either, but I got orders.” Jacobs shrugged, his cheeks dotted with acne. The soldier behind him, Tipton, looked grim. “Davy says you can’t do anything for the dog. It’s against regs.”
Chatty scoffed. “Jacobs, kindly tell Field Marshal Numbnuts he’s not the boss of me. This is my FST, and I don’t take orders from him or anybody else.”
“Aw, come on, Jacobs.” Mike knew the Army didn’t advertise it, but FSTs and Combat Support Hospitals routinely provided medical care to host nationals, coalition forces, Afghan army and police, even enemy detainees, because the Afghan hospitals were horrendous. “We’re supposed to help the host nationals.”
“I feel you, but Davy says the dog is not a host national.”
“We’re helping the kid, not the dog.” Mike’s heart went out to the boy, who gazed up at him, big dark eyes fringed with long eyelashes.
“Sorry.” Jacobs shook his head. “The kid shouldn’t even be here. I was taking him out of camp, but he saw the Red Cross and ran in.”
“Where’s his parents? How’d he even get here?”
“His village isn’t far, due north, where it gets scrubby.” Jacobs waved beyond the camp perimeter, marked with Humvees. “His grandfather brought him. He’s one of the elders. We checked him out.”
“Where’s your terp?” Mike meant the brigade’s interpreter. The boy could have spoken Pashtun, Dari, or Urdu, or any dialect thereof. The FST had English and Spanish, though Mike’s Latin was useless everywhere.
“He’s with the detainees. We got two. The grandfather’s waiting.” Jacobs nodded toward the gate, and Mike craned his head to see a frail old man in a shalwar kameez, or a white turban, and a brown patu, a shawl the men wore over their long traditional smocks, leading a donkey
on a rope.
“If the grandfather’s an elder, doesn’t he have pull?”
Chatty scoffed, impatient. “We’re spending more time talking about it than it would take to fix. The dog’s gonna die.”
Phat Phil looked over, squinting. “We’re not vets.”
Oldstein snorted. “I taught at Johns Hopkins. I can duct-tape a puppy.”
“And I’m Batman,” Chatty added, and they all smiled.
Mike crouched and held out his hand, and the boy took a step forward, which touched him. “Aha! I see the problem, don’t you, Dr. Chatty?”
“Yes, I do, Dr. Scholl’s,” Chatty answered, playing along. “What is it?”
“This child is injured.” Mike pointed to the boy’s pants, covered with the dog’s blood. “That’s major blood loss, don’t you agree?”
“Agree, Major Blood Loss. Have you met my colleagues, Major Pain In The Ass and Major Faux Pas?” Chatty turned to Jacobs. “Soldier, we have to treat this host national. Please inform Colonel Mustard. He’s in the conservatory, with a pipe.”
Jacobs rolled his eyes. “Doc, that’s dog blood, and you know it.”
“Wrong. Dog blood is a lighter red, more cerise, less vermillion.”
“Let me have your puppy, buddy.” Mike held out his arms, but the boy took another step closer. “Does he want me to pick him up?”
“Obviously, Scholl’s. Just don’t drop him.” Chatty chuckled, and the others joined in.
“Here we go, honey.” Mike scooped up the boy and puppy, and they rose and walked toward the OR tent. The boy felt surprisingly light, and his timid gaze shifted toward Mike, then away. “Don’t be afraid. We’re gonna take care of your doggie.”
“Wait. Oh, hell, no.” Chatty glanced over his shoulder, then stopped. The grandfather was walking into camp with the donkey, motioning to the little boy, and the guards were talking to him.
Mike halted. “Looks like he didn’t expect us to take the boy. He probably thought we’d just take the puppy.”