Things were not what I expected. At the base, we played a lot of poker, watched old episodes of The Big Bang Theory and played football when the sun wasn’t too hot. Iraq is too warm in summer and mercilessly cold in winter. Every now and then, I got to Skype with Faye and my family. Connor would tell me about his day in school and mom would talk to me about how her day was. She never talked to me about her job though, just about home, just a mom of the world like she said, but I didn’t care. I could’ve heard her stories about how the washing machine was broken and dad tried to fix it by breaking it more all day long. It made me feel like I was there with them.
Faye told me about her new job selling paintings at Leo’ Gallery while we talked through Skype. Leo Conant paid her decently and let her offer her own original paintings on the shelves in exchanged for a small twenty percent commission.
Days went by without caring to ask. The longer I stayed there, the more I became someone I never thought I would. I had killed people, I had seen pain in ways you cannot begin to imagine and I was responsible for it. After nine months in the base, Faye started noticing I was not the woman who left. I wasn’t the girl she felt in love with. Things were changing slowly, but the change was there nonetheless.
However, she was patient, she understood I couldn’t speak about the things I kept seeing every day. About how someone whom I talked to one day were dead the next. She never pushed me, never forced me. Until something happened.
One night, I was laying on my bed when John came close and showed me the picture of his wife.
“When I go back home for a couple of months, I’m gonna squeeze the living crap out of her.”
I looked at the picture and then replied “She is pretty.” I said. A blond girl with cheeks that sank when she smiled.
“What about you?” he asked “You’ve never told me if you have someone special back home.”
“Yeah, there’s a reason for that.” I said, laying my head on the pillow.
John sat on his bunk, next to mine, “Come on, man! We’ve being friends for almost a year. I have your back out there and you have mine. You know everything about my girl. Come on, tell me.”
I sighed. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” I replied trying to make him understand what I meant.
To my surprise, John shrugged and said “Please, that crap hasn’t being up since 2011. Tell me. What’s her name?”
I turned to look at him, he wasn’t leaving this one alone. Not anymore. I sat up and said “Fine. Her name is Faye Burton.”
“Burton? Like the director?”
“Yup. She’s… twenty two now. I wasn’t there for her birthday. It’s never happened before. Ever since we met I’ve always being there.”
“How long have you known each other?”
“Don’t know… about thirteen years or something. Being together for six.”
“Jesus, dude! That’s a long time.”
“Yeah, and I’m gonna make sure it’s even longer.”
John smiled at me and asked if I wanted to play cards.
The next day, we got some bad news. Kyler had been killed in Afghanistan. Bullet to the neck, bled to death. A horrible way to go. We hadn’t really spoken to him after school, but knowing someone we considered to be close, someone we had gotten through training with was now dead, it was something difficult to grasp. That night I had a deep conversation with John about death. That thing you don’t really think will happen to you, until it does.
We sat on the couch with our elbows on our thighs.
“Riley?” he was the first one to speak.
“What?”
“If I die…”
“Don’t say that. You’re not gonna die. You’re gonna go home in eight weeks and you’re gonna give Mindy a hell of a hug and some… other things.” I added joking.
He smiled, but the shadow bathing his face didn’t disappear. “Have you ever thought about what would happen to your family if you die?”
I shook my head “I don’t like thinking negative. My mom would be crushed, my brother would feel guilty and my dad… I don’t know what my dad would feel. But Faye… I know her, she won’t be able to move on after it, not because she can’t but because she won’t want to. She’ll feel too guilty.”
John nodded slowly “If I die…”
“Don’t say that man!”
“Just listen to me. Dude, pretending we’re fucking superman won’t change the fact that it could happen. We can’t be that blind”. I sighed, he was right “If I die, I want you to do something for me.”
He told me everything, as if he was writing a will hoping to not have to use it.
“What if I don’t make it and you do?”
“You want me to say something to Faye?”
“Tell her… tell her I never loved anyone else. Tell her she was the only one.”
John extended his hand and said “Deal.” I shook it and we made a pact.
A month and a half later, John was programmed to be sent home. He would be home with his wife for about a month and then needed to report back to base. But a whole month with the person you love the most is safe haven, for at least thirty days.
We were sent to patrol, it was a routine patrol at midnight. Nothing out of the ordinary. Three groups, John’s, a man named Frank, and my group. After patrolling and finding nothing strange, Frank led the way back. John and I stayed behind making sure we could protect the group walking ahead.
“When is it that you’re going home?”
He laughed, happy to be going to see his wife “Three days. Although I’m not really happy to be coming back in summer. Summers in Chicago are brutal, dude.”
I laughed and kept walking. I heard a noise and turned around to notice John was about ten feet away from me. John had been hit on the shoulder causing him to fall to the ground. I think he knew then.
“John!” I yelled about to run towards him.
As I tried to run towards him, I saw the grenade rolling towards him. He got on his hands and knees and looked up at me. I will never forget the look in his eyes; utter horror. His life fast-forwarding in front of him. He stretched out his arm. Silence, complete silence, everything happened so fast, and so slowly at the same time. For a moment nothing moved, then, everything did. John tried to call out to me. I heard him say “Ry-!” followed by the overwhelming noise of the grenade. I was five feet away from him when it exploded.
When I woke up, I was lying in a hospital bed, with a wound on the right side of my neck where a splinter had hit me and my right eardrum had been tore. John had been dead for five days. For all I knew, his body had already been sent home.
After facing John’s dead, I became aware of my own mortality, I accepted that death could come at any moment. So when it was my turn to go home, I refused to go back to Lenberg until my service was up. Instead I stayed with my uncle in New York.
Faye was angry at the beginning, she wanted to see me, she had being waiting for me to go back and now, I wasn’t. But she couldn’t really say anything other than that. She couldn’t relate to whatever it was that was happening to me and everything she tried to do was to stay there for me, but I couldn’t be so selfish. Not anymore.
After a year and a half of Skyping and emails, I sent her an email that read “Please, stop waiting for me. I’m sorry.” She didn’t reply, but I knew she’d read it because she didn’t call again, she didn’t write and I didn’t hear from her again.
About two years into my service, I was going through my emails at the base’s computer when I saw the name Burton and stopped dry. It wasn’t Faye’s. Strangely enough, it was from Barbara Burton. I spoke to the Burtons as often as I spoke to my own family, about twice a month, otherwise, only emails. Long emails about how things were going. But after I ended things with Faye, they kept their distance for their daughter’s sake.
But the email wasn’t long. It was short and concise. I read it once, twice, and when I couldn’t keep denying the truth I closed. the tap and turned off the screen, stood up and went outside to get some air. I sat on the dusty floor with my back against the wall and started signing.
“Wise men say, only fools rush in. But I can’t help falling in love with you.”
As my voice grew thicker and singing became harder and harder, tears began to stream down my eyes.
“Take my hand. Take my whole life, too.“
Erick Burton died at eight fifteen PM from a heart attack on July 23th, after he had decided to smoke a cigarette after dinner. Faye and Mrs. Burton left him alone on the third floor of the house. When Mrs. Burton came to tell him it was time for bed… she found him.
He had been dead for nearly two weeks by the time I got the email. They buried him two days later. A man who was more of a father to me than my own father had died while I was overseas. And I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
I sent Faye a box with a few things I had taken. Pictures of her father and I, a few things he gave me to remember him by. I guessed they would need them more than me. I also sent a letter telling her how sorry I was and how I would have given anything to be there with them. I was even thinking about breaking my rule of not coming home until my service was up. But Faye never replied. I didn’t even find out if she’d gotten the box. I also sent Mrs. Burton an email that she replied to three days later thanking me for my good wishes and hoping I would be coming back soon. I did explain to her that the reason I hadn’t come back was because of the things I was carrying with me, and that I didn’t want my life in the military to interfere with it. Once my service was done I could put that part of my life behind me and move on. But of course. It wasn’t that easy.
Four months before my service was finally up, four months before I could say goodbye to the fear latent in the air, the idea of not seeing my family and loved ones again, that’s when the ambushed happened.
I was commanding a group of six soldiers, and above me, the Colonel was coming a group of seven. We were sent to kill someone. And we made mistakes that I won’t go into detail explaining. It doesn’t change anything.
Luke, Cole, Cody, Sergio, Aaron, Thomas, Manuel, Bradly, Sandie, Big Tom, Sam. Those are the names of the men and woman who died that day.
It happened too fast. One moment we were taking cover waiting for the order, the next I heard the explosion, and the screams. So much blood. “Riley, take the shot!” he yelled, “Riley! Take the shot! Riley!”
I woke up gasping for air. It took me a moment to realize where I was and to understand that I wasn’t in danger anymore. I was on a plane, on my way home. The plane started descending and I could see Lenberg’s orange lights through the small window. I asked the stewardess to get me a glass of water to which she responded “Yes, ma’am”. She didn’t look much younger than me, but then again, I was wearing my uniform and had my hair tucked in a bun. She came back a few seconds later and handed me the glass of water. She also asked me to straighten up my seat as we were preparing for landing. I thanked her. I pulled out the small pill jar and shook it until a white pill fell onto my palm. I swallowed it and leaned my head back to wait for the plane to land. I opened my eyes and looked at my arm sling. The pain it brought had become familiar. The doctors said it was normal and it would last a few more weeks. He also offered to reconstruct my eardrum but I refused. I can’t hear anything through my left ear.
As I got off the plane, the crew nodded at me in a respectful way and saluted me. I saluted back without so much as thinking about it. I should clarify, it was a commercial flight.
I got off the plane, went into the airport’s bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. “Wear that uniform with pride,” they said. I closed my eyes and heard the screams. I had my back against the wall, the blood, the smoke, the pain. I opened up my eyes feeling the headache coming back. I didn’t take another pill thinking that once the first one had kicked in, it would be pointless.
I picked up my luggage and grabbed a cab. I looked out the window as the cab driver talked, he asked how the trip was, if I was back for good, and how his family was.
When we finally parked in front of my house, I asked “How much is it?”
He shook his hand disregarding my question “This one is on me. I can’t charge a soldier coming home.”
I smiled, opened the door and said “Thanks. It’s great seeing you, Mike.”
“You, too, Riley. Listen, come by the place one of these days, okay? Louise will be thrilled to see you.”
“Sure. See you later, man.”
I got off the car and stared at the house that had being my home for twenty-one years. It looked different, but nothing had really changed. I approached the door, took a deep breath and rang the bell. I heard a voice saying “Coming!”
I tried to shake my nervousness off, looked at myself to make sure my uniform was spotless and that my personal presentation was perfect. Then, the door opened.
I removed my hat as if that would make me more me. I smiled “Hey, mom.”
She was wearing gloves, probably I interrupted her while she was washing the dishes. She hadn’t aged a year, she still had the same rounded face with thin lips and thick eye brows. “Riley?” she murmured, not able to believe it.
She started crying and threw her arms around me. I had never seen my mother cried as much as she did when she saw me. She held my face between her hands and then hugged me again, as if she was making sure it was really me.
After the first commotion, she realized I was carrying my bag, which was quite large, and offered to take it to my room for me. I rejected it. We sat on the couch and I placed my bag on the floor. She stared at my arm sling with a mother’s concerning eyes, but didn’t ask questions about what had happened.
“Do you want something? A cup of coffee?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” I said with a smile “Where are dad and Connor?”
“Connor must be in his room. Your dad is… well, he spends a lot of time at the office lately.”
I nodded “Oh, I see.”
“Let me get your brother. Since he uses those huge headphones all the time, he never answers when I call his name. Just wait here.” My mother ran upstairs. She was so excited about me being back that she yelled at Connor, “Come quickly, your sister is back.”
They came down stairs and I saw Connor for the first time in four years. He wasn’t my boy anymore. He was twenty now, three inches taller than me, and he had being working out.
“Hey, baby brother.” I said.
He came closer and hugged me, and I felt cold in that hug. We sat on the couch and the mandatory interrogation began.
“I thought you were coming back in two months.” My mother inquired.
“Yes, but I got hurt.” I said lifting my arm slightly. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing bad. I’ll be good as new in a few weeks but since my time was almost up, they decided to send me home earlier.”
The room filled with silence until my brother asked “So what?” Connor asked “You a killing machine now?” I licked my lips uncomfortable with the question.
“Connor!” my mom reprehended.
“It’s fine, mom.” I replied, but I didn’t answer the question.
The front door opened and I heard my father’s familiar footsteps walking across the main hallway.
“Steve! Come see who’s here.” My mom called out.
My father walked into the living room with tired steps and low shoulders, then he saw me. “Riley?”
I stood up and straightened up. “Sir,” I said.
My father ran to me and hugged me like he had never, in his entire life, hugged me before. Not since I was a baby at least. He squeezed me so hard my arm began to ache and he noticed. He pulled away, looked at my left arm and then at me.
“It’s nothing.” I repeated “Just got a little injury and I was so close to leaving that they decided to send me home early.”
“So you’re back for good?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He hugged me again, this time softer, and whispered “Good, that is some good news, honey.”
I thought he would cry, but he kept his manliness until the end. After I had hugged my family, the conversation ended. There wasn’t really much to talk about at nine PM that couldn’t be discussed later on and they were too polite to ask how my… experience was. I told them about how Mike had been the one to take me home. My mother said he and Louise have a baby on the way and that they looked happy. I was afraid to ask about Faye, but I did. They looked at each other and then, my mom decided to answer “Why don’t you go see her tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you, darling.”
I wasn’t sure she would, but I was back and I wasn’t leaving her ever again.
At nine thirty, I apologized and said it was a long trip and that I needed to get some rest. They understood and walked me to my bedroom. Yes, my parents walked me to my bedroom when I was a fully growned twenty six year old woman.
My bedroom was exactly the way I had left it. Every book, every video game, every magazine was in its place. But I also noticed it had being cleaned up.
I kissed mom and dad good night and closed the door. I left the bag on the floor, sat on my bed and felt the relief running through my back. I made it. So many didn’t, but I made it. And that is how that relief became guilt. I should’ve died there. I made it when so many of my friends didn’t. I was back and they were not. They would never go home to their families ever again. And there I was, sitting on a soft bed, with warm sheets, hugging my loved ones. How is that fair?
I took my uniform off until I was left in my underwear. I undid the bandage I was wearing to take care of the wounds and replace it for a new one. Looking at the huge wound in my arm was overwhelming the first few days, when the flesh appeared to be raw and swollen, but it keeps getting better. Or maybe I stopped caring. It wasn’t swollen anymore, but it wasn’t pretty to look at either. The bluish pink skin was trying its best to go back to its former self, but that would never happen. I lied to my family. It wasn’t just a silly injury. They don’t send you home for just a silly injury. I got shot once in the shoulder and they didn’t send me home.
I tried to close my fist but the harder I tried, the more pain I felt. I gave up, washed the wound with that yellowish liquid they gave me, put the bandage on and turned off the lights to get under the sheets. I was tired and drifting away, but sleep kept avoiding me. I thought once I was home my restful sleep would come back to me but that was not the case. I kept rolling from one side of the bed to the other thinking, remembering. I finally got some sleep at two AM.
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