Ever After (17 page)

F
OURTEEN

J
ustin saw it.

As clearly as he saw the protestors fall in the hail of bullets, he saw the change in Emily’s mother. It was in her eyes. The widely read, famous journalist Lauren Gibbs hadn’t been to Iraq before. In Afghanistan, according to Emily, the few times she’d witnessed anything like the soldiers and the kids, the events had seemed staged to her. But today was different. It had been spontaneous — there was no way she couldn’t see that truth. And in the time it took for their eyes to meet, he knew what was happening.

Justin sucked in air, trying to catch his breath, very aware of the danger around him. He hovered over a group of kids, most of them crying or whimpering. “It’s okay.” He soothed his hand along the shoulders of two of them. “It’s okay.” He looked over his shoulder, but Lauren Gibbs was gone. Even in the midst of the chaos, he couldn’t help but smile. God was answering their prayers. His and Emily’s and Emily’s father’s. Probably even the prayers of Lauren Gibbs, herself. Emily said her mother had asked God for wisdom. At the same time, she didn’t believe her mother was open to God’s answers. Not really, anyway.

But Emily, at least she’s praying
, Justin wrote in a recent email to her.
Wherever people are praying, there’s always hope. Don’t forget that.

Another round of gunfire rang out across the street, and the children pressed in more closely to him and the other soldiers. Justin was torn by what to do next. The kids needed protecting, certainly. As long as he and the guys from his company stayed, they could keep the kids from running into the streets and getting killed.

But from the gunfire echoing all around them, there was a battle raging in the building. What if the guys needed help? One more soldier could make the difference in taking the insurgents out. He looked at the terrified faces of the kids, felt the way they clung to him, tugging on his shirt, begging him with their eyes not to leave. Not to ever leave.

He had no choice, of course. He would stay with the kids. But still his eyes found the building and he uttered a constant prayer for the safety of the soldiers.

“Help.” One of the boys looked up at him, pleading with him in Arabic. The child couldn’t have been more than five years old. He held out his arms to Justin. “Please.”

The sound of bullets, the screams, the wailing coming from the men that were the kids’ fathers — all of it was more than this little boy could take.

Justin picked the child up and swung him on his hip. He pressed the boy’s head to his shoulder and motioned to the other soldiers. They needed to get the kids behind the convoy of military vehicles. “Make a wall!”

His buddy Joe Greenwald nodded at the others down the line. “You heard him, make a wall!”

Good ol’ Joe. The two had served side by side during their first tour and now they were rarely apart. Joe shared his faith and his passion. They bunked next to each other, and now that they were back in the theater of action again, they were as close as brothers. Already he’d shown Joe his scrapbook from Emily, and Joe had whistled long and low.

“Lucky guy, Baker.”

“I know.” He ran his finger over the picture of the two of them on the front cover. “Lucky and blessed, all at once.”

Joe was stationed at Fort Lewis too. He looked a little harder at her face. “Isn’t she the girl we saw in the hall that day?”

That first day, when Emily started working at the base, Joe had been the one walking with him in the hall. She smiled at both of them, and when she was gone, Justin had elbowed his buddy. “Bet she’s the new girl in my office.”

“Bet you’re not that lucky.”

A few weeks later, Joe shipped out for Iraq, anxious to get back to the action. They hadn’t met up again until Justin arrived at the end of September. That day when Justin showed him Emily’s scrapbook, he pointed at the picture. “It’s her, isn’t it?” He gave Justin a playful shove. “You
dog.
You were right. She wound up working with you, didn’t she?”

Justin let his eyes linger on her photo. “Yeah, she certainly did.”

Joe didn’t have a girl. He was a big guy with an even bigger heart, but he was too shy for most girls. “Know why I like hanging out with you?” he’d ask Justin every now and then.

“Why?”

“Cause — ” Joe smiled — “you have a reason to get back home. That makes you the safest soldier out here.”

Now Justin watched Joe come alongside him, helping him get the guys in line. Joe positioned himself at the other side of the group of kids and directed the soldiers near him until the entire company had done what Justin ordered. In a few seconds, they placed themselves between the building and the horde of frightened children.

The little boy in his arms snuggled close against his shoulder. Was his father one of those who lay dead? Justin hoped not. He held the child for almost an hour, until the U.S. soldiers spilled out of the building carrying four covered bodies on four makeshift stretchers. A small American flag lay across the first one.

Justin looked away. Another one down. He prayed it wasn’t one of the men from his company. He clung to the child in his arms and waited while a few of the soldiers crossed the street and reported on the situation. The snipers had been insurgents, of course. Members of a new terrorist cell. Like cancer, the cells took root wherever they could, and these few had been operating in the abandoned building, probably no more than a few days.

The good news: all three terrorists were taken down. But not before an American lost his life. The soldiers gave them the name of the casualty, and Justin felt the slightest sense of relief. He was from the East Coast, a soldier from another company. But even so, he was a life lost, someone’s son and someone’s friend. Some-one’s high school love. He was here for the same reason they were all here, because it was the most right thing he could think to do with his life.

Joe circled the guys around the kids and nodded at Justin. “Pray for us, will you?”

Justin bowed his head, and around him, several of the Iraqi children did the same thing. His throat was tight, but he found his voice anyway. “Father, we are sad and broken by what’s happened here today, by the loss of life for freedom’s sake.” Justin opened his eyes enough to see a little boy watching him. His eyes were wide and he was still shaking. Justin gave him a look that said it was okay, he was in good hands. “Lord, give us strength. Help us look to You, who went to the cross for freedom’s sake. You know all about sacrifice, God. Thank You for our fallen comrade …” He hesitated, steeling himself against his emotions. “Thank You for his sacrifice.”

He coughed and his voice grew stronger. “Be with his family, and let them know that their soldier … didn’t die in vain.”

“In Christ’s name,” Joe said, his voice strong. “Amen.”

The kids lifted their heads and looked around, not sure what to do next.

A gust of wind and sand blew across the empty lot. Justin shielded his face and held the boy in his arms a little tighter. The child and his friends would never fall to the bullets of the terrorists who had taken up residence across the street. Not if he had anything to do with it. He set the little boy back on the ground and pictured Lauren, the change in her eyes. If he’d seen right, she would never be the same after what she witnessed today on the streets of Baghdad.

None of them would be.

That night they turned in to their barracks earlier than usual. They weren’t in tents anymore, but old buildings. This was one the U.S. military had taken over just outside the city. Justin pulled out the scrapbook. He stretched out on his cot and positioned his light overhead so he could see better.

“Her again?” Joe was already lying on his bed, his hands beneath his head. He grinned at Justin. “I mean, not that I blame you.”

“Yeah.” Justin opened the cover and stared at the first page. “You spend enough time out there, and life back home starts to feel like a dream, like it never even happened.”

“It happened, alright.” Joe gestured toward the scrapbook. “Pictures don’t lie, Baker.”

Justin sighed. “I know.” He kept the book open and reached for the printout of Emily’s latest letter. He kept a stack of them inside the makeshift nightstand that stood between his bed and Joe’s. “Neither do emails.”

“At least you got someone writing to you.” Joe smiled. He didn’t feel sorry for himself, Justin could tell. Being around the guys, around the other soldiers in the company, had changed Joe actually. Made him funnier, more social.

“There’s a girl waiting for you too.” Justin felt his mood lifting. He tossed his friend an easy grin.

“I know, I know. I just haven’t met her yet.”

“Exactly.”

They were quiet for a while, and Justin fiddled with the paper in his hand. He wanted to read it again, but not until he looked at their pictures, not until he let himself hang around the sunny halls of yesterday. He turned the page and studied himself, the way he looked sitting on the steps of the teen center, talking smack with the guys.

Had Emily found time to visit them? If she had, she hadn’t said so. But from the sound of it, Buster was in good shape. She spoiled him every time she had an afternoon off. Justin felt the note in his hand, and again he resisted the urge to read it. Notes from Emily had to be savored, like everything else about her.

“Oh, Baker, come on.” Joe turned onto his side and propped his head in his hand. “Go ahead and read it. You’re killing me with the suspense.”

“What?” Justin gave him a teasing look. “I thought my emails from Emily bored you.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Not much else going on for entertainment.” He motioned with his hand. “Get on with it, already.”

Justin laughed and moved the scrapbook aside. He liked nights like this, when he and Joe bantered back and forth. It helped wipe out memories from the day — especially days like that one, when the violence had come so close it was unnerving. He and Emily wrote to each other about once a week, since it took almost that long for the letters to come through. Like the other soldiers, he had only limited access to the computer, and so they’d earmarked Mondays as the day to check for letters from each other.

As he’d done with several of her previous emails, Justin opened this one and began reading it out loud. “ ‘Hey, Justin, it’s me …’ ”

“As if it could be anyone else.” Joe rolled over onto his back again and grinned at the ceiling. “Go on.”

“I was trying.” Justin kicked his buddy’s cot. He could feel his smile growing, and it felt great. A reminder that he was still alive, no matter how much death happened around him.

“Okay, okay.”

Justin looked back at the paper.“ ‘I visited Buster again today. Your family is sort of feeling like the one I always wanted to have. Hope you don’t mind, but you know — you being so generous and all — I didn’t think you would.’ ” Justin chuckled and shook his head. He loved when her letters had this humorous tone. It was better than the times when he could practically hear her crying between the lines of her emails.

“Don’t skip parts.”

“I’m not.” He found his place. “ ‘Anyway, Buster’s missing you bad. I thought you should know. He’s still sleeping with your sweatshirt, but now — I guess he sort of associates me with you. Because, I’m serious, he looks at me for half a second and then he looks right past me. As if he expects you to walk around the corner. Only it doesn’t stop there. I hook him up to his leash and we start walking, and about every few steps he stops and cranes his neck around my ankles and stares — just stares at the empty place behind me.’ ”

Justin laughed out loud. “I wish I could see that.”

“Me too.” Joe smiled. He kept his eyes on the ceiling as if he was picturing everything Emily had described.

Outside the wind had picked up. It howled through the cracks in the doorjamb. Justin held up the paper and started in again. “ ‘Anyway, I admit it. I think your dog’s a little loony. But he’s growing on me. Lately I’ve been bringing him chicken scraps from the cafeteria. I’m pretty sure by the time you get back, he’ll be looking around your ankles trying to find me! Ha! Just kidding. The dog would sit at the window waiting all day for you if he didn’t get hungry once in a while.’ ”

She painted a funny picture, but it touched him at the same time. Buster mattered to him, and she knew it. She was spending time with the dog for him, because the time he’d missed with the dog grated on him. And she was taking it upon herself to right that wrong the only way she knew how. By being Buster’s friend.

“Is that it?” Joe looked disappointed.

“There’s a little more.” He took a quick breath.“ ‘Anyway, you said you wanted scores, so here goes. We won both games last week, 5 – 1 and 3 – 2. I know, someone on defense must be slipping if we allowed two goals. But you’ll smile at this. I scored two of the three goals and had another assist. The coach says giving me a scholarship was the best decision he ever made. I figure you’d have to agree. Imagine if I’d gone to San Diego State, like I thought about doing? Well, Justin …’ ” He skimmed the next few lines. “ ‘Missing you like crazy. Love you, Emily.’ ”