Summer of Two Wishes (3 page)

When a soldier is held captive by enemy forces for nearly three years, he thinks a lot about death. In the beginning, during those excruciatingly long and uncertain days, he thinks,
I can’t die this way
. He thinks of his wife and his family, of how frantic they must be that he’s been lost. He thinks of his buddies, who are looking for him. He thinks of his future, of the things he wants to do with his life, of the kids he hasn’t had, and he thinks,
I can’t die this way. I can’t die this way.

He remembers his training—
survive, evade, resist, escape
. He uses whatever means he can to assess his situation, to remain calm, to give up nothing, no matter how much it hurts.

But when the soldier begins to understand that no one is looking for him, that they must believe he is dead because they’d never leave him behind, he prays for death.
Please, God, let me die
. He might even refuse to eat in the hope that he will die, but he will discover that hunger is a powerful beast, and eventually, he will eat.

At some point after that, the soldier begins to believe that he
must
live, that God must have a reason for this hell on earth, that there must be a higher purpose. Why else would he still be alive? Why would the enemy hold him day in and day out, moving him from one hovel to the next? There has to be a reason, and if he just hangs on, he’ll discover it.

He eats; he tries to build his strength when and where he can. He is constantly looking for an opportunity to escape. It is his only hope.

He hangs by a thread connecting him to the memory of who he is, and to his wife, his one and only love, the one thing in this hell that keeps the desire to live burning in him. He thinks about her often: what she is wearing, her smile, how her gold hair swings around her shoulders. He thinks about what she is doing, and imagines her unconsciously fluttering her fingers in that way she does when she’s engrossed in something. He thinks about the intimate moments, how her skin glistens, soft and fragrant, and how her body feels when she wraps her legs around him and her fingers scrape down his back.

He dreams of her through endless days and nights spent on an earthen floor, shivering in bitter cold or sweltering in brutal heat, chained like a dog. There are times, when he is lying on the woven mat staring out the bleak window at a bleaker sky, that he imagines touching her hair and thinks he can feel it on his fingers. He can smell her scent. He can hear her voice whispering in his ear.

And he thinks,
I can’t die this way
.

The reunion with Macy and his family was happening so fast, too fast—the next thing Finn knew, he was in a room, waiting to meet more television and print reporters. He didn’t give a damn about the press or military brass or anything else but being with Macy. She was sitting beside him, her hand in his, the warmth of it penetrating the fog around him. Finn wanted nothing more than to make love to her, right now, to connect with her in a way he desperately needed to connect…

But he was trapped by ceremony and duty and expectations that felt overwhelming, making him feel heavy and fatigued and numb.

The army had tried to prepare Finn for his homecoming, but he was not prepared for all the emotions that had begun to stew in him like a bowl of bad
shorwa
. He was glad to see his family, of course he was, but they all watched him so closely, like they thought he might disappear if they blinked. And his mother hadn’t stopped crying.

Finn needed a little bit of space to decompress. He needed time alone with Macy, just an hour or two. Just enough time to find his bearings, to put his face in her hair again, to feel her body next to his.

So far, all they’d done was parade him in front of the press corps where Finn had answered a few questions precisely as he’d been told to answer them.
I am so glad to be home. My first meal is going to be a steak. I was lucky to escape and find the Coalition forces
.

Now he waited in this room, feeling like he was going to crawl out of his skin, surrounded by people who couldn’t possibly comprehend all he’d been through. They were laughing and smiling and talking of home, of people he couldn’t remember, of a town that seemed a universe away from where he was. But when Finn tried to ask about his ranch and his horses, no one really answered him. They asked questions about what had happened to him in Afghanistan.

That was not something Finn wanted to discuss. That was not something he
could
discuss. He’d been in hell for three years and he’d escaped, and once he’d understood he was truly free, he did not want to look back or think of Afghanistan ever again.

He’d given his family only a terse account of his life in Afghanistan. He didn’t know about the bombing other than what he’d been told, for he didn’t remember anything but riding in the armored Scout vehicle and horsing around with Danny Ortega, singing a stupid country song. The next thing Finn remembered was waking up in a hospital with a dirty sheet over his naked body and realizing his wounds had been tended to. Danny was gone—no one had to tell Finn that, he just knew. No one—including him—should have survived that blast.

After several hours—maybe days—of lying in that room, of being questioned endlessly by a man whose English made no sense, Finn was taken to a dirt hovel and, for all he knew, left to die.

There was more, so much more that he couldn’t bring himself to tell anyone in this sterile room.

“I bet you want some good ol’ American food, huh?” his father said, his eyes a little misty. That was all Rick Lockhart had to say to the few details Finn had related, but that was his dad. He hadn’t changed a hair on his head since Finn last saw him. He wasn’t one to show his emotions, and he’d raised Finn and his brothers Brodie and Luke to be the same way. “I’m gonna get you the biggest, juiciest steak I can find. What do you think about that?” he asked Finn.

What Finn thought was that there had come a point when he’d stopped thinking about the kind of food he missed and thought of nothing but freedom. Honestly, he’d eat dirt as long as it was American dirt. “That would be great, Dad,” he said. “How are the horses?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

His father hesitated. “They’re horses. They’re fine,” he said with a shrug.

“How many calves did we have this year?”

Now his father looked at him blankly. “Didn’t count. Not many. We had a pretty good drought that didn’t break ’til fall and I ended up selling about twenty head. Brodie says you only got a few scars from the bombing.”

“Yeah, a few.” Finn guessed that the army had given his family the same song and dance they’d given him about post-traumatic stress. He’d figured it out when Brodie wouldn’t say much about home, and he’d seen the pamphlet on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder sticking out of Brodie’s bag.
Go easy; don’t say anything to set him off,
they probably warned him. That’s why they were treating him with kid gloves—they were afraid to say or do anything that might upset his apple cart.

They couldn’t be more wrong about that—he was too grateful to be free to have PTSD. There was nothing wrong with him, other than a voracious need to be with his wife. There was nothing that was going to set him off.

Except maybe Macy’s cell phone.

It seemed to buzz every five minutes. She’d glance at the number and toss it back in her bag, and then smile so warmly, so gratefully, that he would feel a little more human. She’d answered the phone only once, when they were waiting to meet the press corps. She’d let go of his hand—pried her fingers free, really—and had taken the call out in the hall. When she returned, she smiled at him, took his hand again, and said, “Everyone in Cedar Springs is anxious to know when you’re coming home.”

Just when Finn was thinking he couldn’t take the waiting any longer and was idly contemplating putting his chair through the window, Major Sanderson, Finn’s handler, suddenly bustled into the room. “All right then, the bus is en route. We’ll be on our way in half an hour,” he crisply informed them, as if he were conducting a tour. He passed around a sheet of paper to everyone. “Please review this sheet and let me know if you have any questions.” He briskly went out.

Finn glanced at the paper.
The Return: Handling the Media
.

Macy gently squeezed his hand, and Finn smiled at her. God, but she was pretty. Texas pretty. The kind of pretty that wasn’t afraid of life. A whole lot prettier than he’d remembered, in all honesty, with big blue eyes the color of a summer sky, hair the color of raw honey. Jesus, he wanted to touch her, to kiss her, to feel her beneath him.

The door swung open and Sanderson swept in again, this time carrying a clipboard. “If everyone could turn his or her attention to the paper I handed out? Let’s review…”

Every word the major said seemed to float down some long tunnel away from Finn. He was aware of only Macy beside him, of her hand in his, of the tension in her body. He didn’t know if he should be thankful he still knew her body almost as well as his own, or apprehensive that she was so tense.

“Any questions?” Sanderson asked.

“Yes,” said Rick. “When can we feed this boy?”

Everyone laughed except Finn.

“Sergeant Lockhart has a round of interviews tomorrow, a list of which you will find at the bottom of this sheet of paper. I would like to remind you all that we want to keep these interviews as positive as possible.”

“A
round
of interviews?” Macy asked uncertainly.

“Yes. We’ll start with
Good Morning America,
and then the
Today
show. After that, we have a
Nightline
taping, and then
Dateline.”
Major Sanderson smiled. “We have to keep all the networks happy. There is some talk of an interview with CNN and Larry King, but the details have not been worked out.”

Finn blanched. What about his life? His ranch, his horses, his dogs? When did he get back to
that?

“Wait,” Macy said, holding up a slender hand. A diamond tennis bracelet twinkled on her wrist. “You said he was going home after the press briefing. You said he was going home right away.”

“We have just a few more press obligations. The current administration puts a high value on our openness with the media. I know you’re all anxious to get Sergeant Lockhart home just as soon as possible, but we need to spend a day or two here. Trust me, if we handle it here, chances are you won’t be swarmed in Texas. All right then, everyone, if you are ready? The bus is outside, if you will follow Corporal James,” he said, indicating a soldier over his right shoulder.

“All of us?” Jillian asked, looking at Macy. “Finn, too?”

“Yes, Sergeant Lockhart, too.”

That was the best news Finn had heard all day. He stood up. His mom did, too, and linked her arm through his, pulling him away from Macy. Finn glanced back at Macy and saw anxiety in her eyes. He wondered if this is what Dr. Albright, the shrink who’d talked to him in Germany, had meant when she’d said things would seem strange at first, because Finn was starting to feel like something was a little off. Maybe he was just tired. It had been a long flight home, a long time with the press. He just wanted this day to end, to get out of here and try to get back some of the time he’d lost with Macy.

On the bus, Emma produced a bottle of champagne and some plastic cups. Strange, Finn thought as they toasted his survival, he would have killed for a sip of champagne only a month ago. Now, he didn’t want it. He smiled as they toasted him and sipped from the cup. Macy, he noticed, was clutching her cup. She was smiling and laughing along with everyone else, but there was something not quite right in her eyes.

At the hotel, they all stood awkwardly in the lobby for a few minutes until Brodie announced he would get them all a dinner reservation somewhere. Corporal James offered to assist and the two of them went off to speak with the concierge. The rest of them stood looking expectantly at Finn until Macy put her hand in his. “Well! If everyone will excuse us, Finn and I have a lot of catching up to do.”

Finn’s mother pressed her lips together.

“Come on, Finn,” Macy said with a bright smile as she tugged his hand. “Let’s go.”

Finn grinned at the rest of them. “Later,” he said with a wink. This was the moment he’d been waiting for, the moment he would be reunited with his wife.

They rode up the elevator to the fifteenth floor. Macy marched down the corridor, pulling him along. She opened the door to room 1513; Finn held the door open so she could enter first, then locked the door behind them.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Finn put his palm against her cheek. “I would have sworn you couldn’t be any prettier than you were in my mind, but damn it if you’re not.”

Her lashes flickered. “God, Finn…” She put her hands on him, sliding them over his arms, his torso, her gaze following her hands.

Every stroke of her hands brought Finn a little more back to life. This is what he’d lived for. “Listen,” he said softly, and reached for her hair, stroking it, letting it slide through his fingers, “there is so much to say and I don’t know where to begin. This must seem as surreal to you as it does to me, and I’m sure they probably gave you the speech about not knowing what to expect. I don’t either, baby. I just know that I’m home, and I’ve missed you more than I can ever put into words. I’ve been gone a whole lot longer than I ever thought I’d be, but I’m still the same old Finn, and I still love you more than life.”

Macy gazed up at him with wide blue eyes. She slipped her arm around his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”

She felt so good, so right in his arms. He caressed her face, pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. For so long, he’d woken up believing every morning was his last. But then the woman in the
chadari
veil would appear with his breakfast of flat bread, and he’d figure they wouldn’t feed a dead man, and he’d start another day of waiting to see if he would stay alive.