Purple Heart

  But Brody hadn’t actually blamed anyone. What had he said? Something like, “That’s what happens when insurgents put civilians in harm’s way.”

  And the last thing he’d said was something about getting back to business. Did that mean Matt was cleared? That he was being sent back to his squad?

  Matt got up, walked to the sink, and splashed cold water on his face. He knew he should be relieved. But his head ached and he had a hollow, uneasy feeling in his gut.

  He regarded himself in the mirror. His complexion was gray, his eyes hooded. The cold, impassive face that stared out at him looked like a mug shot.

  Matt turned around, took a step, then flung open a stall door and retched.

  WHEN MATT GOT BACK TO THE WARD, THERE WAS A NEW GUY in Francis’s bed. He was a small, wiry guy with ginger-colored hair and a pale complexion.

  “Hey,” he called out as Matt walked past. “Want to see something cool?”

  Matt stopped, more out of politeness than interest, and the guy picked up a plastic Dixie cup and shook it. Something rattled around inside, something hard. As Matt leaned in, he saw that it was a piece of shrapnel, roughly the size and shape of a lima bean.

  “This was inside me,” the guy said, lifting his shirt to show a bandage on his belly. “Cool, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Matt said, barely looking. He couldn’t stand this guy. Not because he was being such a little girl about his injury. Because he was in Francis’s bed. “Real cool.”

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER HIS MIND HAD FINALLY WOUND DOWN and he’d drifted into a fitful sleep, Matt woke abruptly. He sat up, trying to figure out what had roused him from his sleep. The ward was absolutely silent. And, that, he realized, was what had awoken him. There was no crying. He listened for a long time, until he understood. The person crying each night must have been Francis.

  MATT WAS WAITING OUTSIDE MEAGHAN FINNERTY’S OFFICE when she came in the next morning.

  “You told him I couldn’t remember, didn’t you?” he said. “Brody. You told him.”

  A vague look of irritation crossed her face, but she didn’t answer. She simply opened her bag and fished around for her keys. She pulled them out, opened the office, and waved Matt in.

  “You talked to him, didn’t you?” Matt said as soon as they were inside her office.

  Meaghan closed the door, then walked around her desk and sat down. But she still didn’t say anything.

  “I thought you said that what we talked about in here was private.”

  “I also told you my job was to evaluate you,” she said. Her tone was crisp.

  “So did you?” he asked.

  “Did I what?”

  “Did you evaluate me?”

  She nodded. “I told him you were ready to go back to your unit.”

  The words hit Matt like a flying brick. But he worked hard to keep his gaze steady, not to blink, not to swallow, not to give a single hint of the panic that was stealing over him. What if he wasn’t really ready?

  The one thing that had kept him going these past few days was the idea of getting back to his buddies. Now he was terrified. Afraid of leaving the calm, orderly world of the hospital. Afraid that he’d be overwhelmed by the chaos of the streets. Afraid of being afraid.

  That was what worried him most. That he wouldn’t be able to fire his gun.

  He quickly pushed the idea to a corner of his mind. He was going back to the squad. To Justin, Wolf, Figueroa, and Charlene. That was all that really mattered.

  Meaghan Finnerty folded her arms across her chest. There was an air of finality about her gesture, a signal, it seemed, that their business was finished. Still, it looked like there was something she wasn’t saying.

  Finally, she pushed her chair back and stood up. Matt stood slowly, his right leg trembling ever so slightly. Meaghan Finnerty stared into his eyes and for a moment he saw a flicker of the warmth she’d shown him in the past. Then she snapped her hand to her brow in a crisp salute. It was a startling gesture, completely at odds with army protocol for an officer, even a junior officer, to salute a private.

  Matt raised his hand to his forehead and returned the salute. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Ma’am.”

  It wasn’t until he’d pulled the door closed behind him and walked away that he understood. Meaghan Finnerty had protected him. She’d told Brody that his memory was unreliable—precisely so he wouldn’t be questioned.

  And she was sending him back to his squad. She’d decided that he was ready. She’d never told him what she thought about Ali’s death. But she must have determined that he was, as she’d once put it, not a danger to himself, his fellow soldiers, or the Iraqi people.

  “WELL, PRIVATE, DID YOU ENJOY YOUR STAY HERE?” KWONG said, scribbling something in Matt’s chart.

  Matt tried to remember how many times he’d seen Kwong since he’d arrived at the hospital.

  “Looks like everything is in order,” Kwong said. “Except for the minibar tab. You’ll have to settle that on your way out.”

  Matt gave him a weak, obligatory smile.

  “I’m going to send you back with some meds,” Kwong said, scratching something on a prescription pad.

  “What for?” Matt said.

  “Headaches. They might come back, especially if you’re exposed to loud noise or bright sunlight.”

  Matt wondered for a minute if this was a joke. Machine gunfire, explosions, and the roar of heavy vehicles. That was all you heard in the field—as you stood out under a harsh, unforgiving sun. But Kwong wasn’t joking. He was looking squarely at Matt with concern etched on his face.

  “And keep an eye on that right leg,” he said. “It’s nothing major, but it could slow you down out there.”

  Matt’s mouth fell open slightly.

  “You thought I didn’t notice, didn’t you?” Kwong was smiling, but he didn’t look happy exactly. He hung the clipboard on the foot of the bed, then handed Matt the prescription. “Take care of yourself out there, Private. I don’t want to see you back here.”

  “HERE,” NURSE MCCRAE SAID LATER WHEN SHE CAME BY TO write up Matt’s discharge report. She was holding out a satellite phone. “You get to call home again. To tell them you’re going back.”

  Matt looked at the clock; it was almost midnight at home. He punched in all the international dialing codes, then waited.

  His sister picked up. “Matty?” she said. “Is that you? Hey. I got my learner’s permit.”

  “Wow.” Matt’s voice was flat, distracted. “Great.”

  “You don’t sound that excited,” she said. In the background, Gym Class Heroes were singing about taking their clothes off.

  “Turn that down, will you?” he said. “Yeah, I’m excited, I guess. I just feel sorry for all those other drivers out there.”

  “Very funny,” Lizzy said. “So can I use your car? You said, once I got my learner’s—”

  He stopped her before she could repeat the entire speech. “Yeah,” he said. “But only if you take Mom out with you.”

  “Social suicide.” When Lizzy was annoyed with him, she didn’t use verbs or full sentences, for that matter.

  “All right,” he said. “Take Brandon. But tell him I’ll kill him if, you know, if anything happens—”

  “Thankyouthankyouthank—”

  “—to you.”

  There was a pause. “Jeez, Matt,” Lizzy said. “When did you turn into, like, a Hallmark card?”

  “I don’t know.” He tried to think of something sarcastic to say back to her, but nothing, it seemed, was funny.

  “You okay?” Lizzy said. “Mom says you have, like, a concussion.”

  “Yeah, something like that. But I’m fine,” he said. “Tell Mom…tell Mom I’m going back to my unit.”

  “Oh.” It was quiet on the other end. “Be careful, Matty.”

  There was a crackle in the line, followed by a swift series of computerized beeps. Call waiting. Probably Brandon.

  “And Lizzy, tell Mom to make su
re everyone uses the side door from now on,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Use the side door. Tell everyone to use the side door.”

  “Why?”

  “You want my car or not? Just do what I said, okay?”

  The line bristled with static again. Time to go. Time to let his little sister get back to her life. Matt coughed.

  “Love you, Lizard,” he said.

  “I love you, too, Matty.”

  The line beeped, then went silent, as if the digital tether that had linked his hospital room in Saddam’s old palace to Lizzy’s bedroom back home had suddenly snapped.

  HE BROUGHT THE PHONE TO NURSE MCCRAE AND ASKED FOR paper and an envelope. Then he went back to his bed and wrote to Caroline.

  Dear Caroline,

  Thanks for the baby wipes. It seems like sissy stuff to use them, but they help. They really do.

  I think my ma already told you, but I got hurt a while ago. Nothing bad, though. I just banged up my head a little. And now I’m leaving the hospital to go back to the guys.

  This is a strange place. You think there are rules and there’s right and wrong and you think officers are all assholes who only want to make your life miserable. And then you find out that everybody has a different idea of what’s right and wrong. And that a lot of people act like they want to know what’s going on but that they really don’t—because then they might have to do something about it. Like I said, it’s strange.

  I miss the guys and I wonder what it will be like when I get back out there. I just hope that being in here didn’t make me go soft or anything. Apparently the army thinks my brain is okay enough for me to go back out and shoot a gun again. I hope they’re right.

  He crossed out the last line. Then he reread the letter—and crumpled it into a ball and threw it in the trash. Caroline wouldn’t have any idea what he was talking about. He wasn’t sure he really knew what he was talking about.

  He wanted to tell her about Francis—about how what happened with his squad leader had made him crazy. And he wanted to tell her about Meaghan Finnerty—about how she was still sort of a mystery to him. He wanted to tell her how the army makes everybody walk this line between talking about things and not talking about them. And how confusing it all was. His thoughts ran laps around themselves. Until finally they landed on something simple.

  He started a new letter to Caroline.

  Dear Caroline,

  How was the bio quiz?

  THE WIPE BOARD AT THE NURSES’ STATION SAID FATHER Brennan was holding confessions in the linen closet again, so Matt decided to stop by and get a blessing before he left.

  The door was ajar and he saw the priest kneeling on the floor, his baseball cap in his hands. Matt didn’t say a word; he simply got down on his knees next to the priest.

  It was like being an altar boy again. There was something very simple and real about kneeling to pray—nothing like the hasty “Dear Gods” he muttered in the middle of a firefight. And so Matt closed his eyes and waited. Waited to feel better, to feel the calm, the comfort that used to descend on him when he was an altar boy. He’d never told anyone, but he believed, really believed, that what he felt in that moment was grace.

  No words of prayer came to him. But that was fine. And he didn’t feel the grace he’d hoped for, but after a while, after a few minutes of kneeling there, his eyes closed, the frantic hospital sound track faded to a hush, and something shifted in him. He couldn’t say what it was, but he felt lighter somehow when he finally opened his eyes and stood.

  The priest stood, too, stiffly. He lifted his hand above Matt and made the sign of the cross over him, then touched his purple stole to Matt’s forehead.

  Matt reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out the small box that held his medal. He handed it, without a word, to the priest. He hadn’t planned on this, but it felt right.

  Father Brennan accepted it, simply, and without question. “I’ll hold on to this for you, son,” he said. “Until you’re ready.”

  THE CHATTER OF CRICKETS. THAT WAS ONE OF THE THINGS Matt had forgotten about life back in Sadr City. How sometimes, in the middle of the night, when all the shelling and shooting had stopped, crickets would pipe up, relaying information back and forth to each other in an eerie, high-pitched frequency all their own.

  He’d also forgotten the dust. How it got into everything, how it settled in between each strand of hair on your head, how it got between your teeth. And the smell. The constant smell of burning garbage, the sickly stench of raw sewage. And, of course, the heat, how it seared your throat when you took a deep breath.

  But then there was the comfortable weight of Itchy’s warm, purring body at the foot of his cot. And the sound of Figueroa’s snoring, the rhythmic in-and-out that allowed Matt to pretend all was well with the world. And the birdsong at daylight, a sign that somehow they’d all made it through another night.

  Their base camp looked pretty much the same. At some point during the time Matt was gone, the guys had spray-painted a bedsheet with the words Camp Benson and hung it over the door, naming the barracks after their first squad leader. And Wolf’s mom had sent a dartboard with plastic suction-cup darts, which the guys had been shooting at a poster of Saddam. But other than that, things were strangely the same.

  The guys had been really happy to see him. Wolf was the first one to spot him as his Humvee pulled up. “Dude,” he called out. “You look like you just went three rounds on Jerry Springer.”

  Matt climbed out of the Humvee and went to give Wolf a hug.

  “Whoa there, dog,” Wolf said. “You know I have intimacy issues.” Then he grabbed Matt around the neck and gave him a big, noisy fake kiss. “I hope that doesn’t make you feel dirty,” he said, grabbing Matt’s duffel bag and hoisting it over his shoulder. “C’mon in,” he said. “We’ve got an ice-cold Bud waiting for you.”

  When Matt walked in, the guys were sitting around watching Rambo: First Blood Part II on Justin’s DVD player. They were just at the part where the exploding arrows blow up the Vietnamese soldiers; it was one of the best scenes, but everybody jumped up to welcome him back.

  Figueroa came running at him like a linebacker and picked him up off his feet. All the other guys gathered around and smacked him on the back, the chest—any part they could get a hold of. Justin smacked his butt and Matt took a fake swipe at him as Figueroa set him back down on the ground.

  “Oooh, I like that,” Justin said. “You’re sexy when you’re angry.”

  Even Charlene fussed over him, giving him one of those hugs where you technically hug the other person while barely touching them. When they pulled away from each other, she studied the bruises on his face. “I have one word for you, dude,” she said. “Concealer.”

  “What happened while I was gone?” Matt had said later as they all sat around, eating Wisconsin Chocolate Cow Pies, salami, and Fruity Pebbles straight from the box—all part of a going-away care package Pete had given him. He’d also thrown in some Stay Alert Gum, some Febreze, and an Operation Iraqi Freedom Christmas Ornament, packed with Kotex pads to protect it.

  “Did you guys win the war or something? It’s so quiet.”

  “Didn’t you hear?” Charlene said. “There’s a cease-fire in our sector. Thirty days. We have eighteen to go.”

  “You shitting me?” Matt said.

  “That is the authentic truth,” Justin said.

  “Dog, that was the word of the day last week,” said Wolf. “What’s today’s word?”

  Justin sort of grimaced. “Kundalini.”

  The place erupted. Figueroa laughed so hard, he spit out his soda.

  Wolf put his arm around Justin. “Nah, dude, that’s your mother’s favorite sexual position.”

  “No, Wolfman,” Justin came right back at him. “That’s what your girlfriend and I were doing last night!”

  They’d goofed around most of the day—playing cards, catching up on their sleep, and writing home—since Bravo Company
was handling street patrols while their group got a little break during the cease-fire. No one had really talked too much about Matt getting hurt, and he wondered if they even knew what happened in the alley. Or did they know about what Matt had done and just decided not to talk about it?

  Now they were all asleep, all except for the new guy, Mitchell, a thick-necked kid from Georgia, who was standing guard outside the barracks door. And Matt lay in bed with Itchy curled up at his feet wondering if this cease-fire would hold, if maybe it meant the war was going to be over soon, if he wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not he’d be able to fire his gun when the time came.

  “HEY, DUDE, YOU WANT TO PLAY HALO?” MATT SAID THE next morning when he saw Justin heating up a ham-and-egg MRE omelet on the engine of the truck.

  The two of them had spent hours, probably days, playing Halo, with Matt driving the Mongoose and Justin manning the gun. Sometimes, they teamed up against Wolf and Figueroa, but mainly it was just the two of them. Playing Halo was one of the things Matt had missed most when he was in the hospital. That, and just hanging out with Justin. But since Matt had gotten back, things seemed different somehow. Matt wasn’t sure, maybe he was being paranoid, but he felt like Justin was avoiding being alone with him.

  Justin picked up the foil-wrapped packet and flipped it over. “Nah, dude,” he said. “I’m not that into Halo anymore.”

  “Oh.” Matt took a step back. He looked off toward the horizon, trying to think of something to say, some way to ease back into the way things used to be between them, some way to talk about what happened.

  Justin grabbed the MRE off the engine. “Later,” was all he said as he walked away.