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  “I’m sorry for your loss, Sergeant.”

  “Thanks.” He stands up, straightens the lower edge of his uniform jacket, and places his hat carefully on his head. As he does so, I can see the emotion draining from his eyes. By the time I stand up, he’s buttoned-up and hard-eyed once more. “We’ll find them, Reagan. I promise.” He hands me a business card with his name and rank and a phone number. “We’ll be in touch, and don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.”

  I can only nod and hold on to the back of the couch as the two men make their way out.

  Bradford pauses with one foot on the second step and glances back at me. “I don’t know if you’re the praying kind or not, Miss Barrett, but…pray for those boys.”

  “I will.”

  “I will, too.” He touches the rim of his hat in an old-fashioned gesture. “Good-bye, Mrs. Barrett.”

  I wave, my throat closing. I lean against the back of the couch and watch them drive away. When all I can see is dust, I let myself sink to the floor.

  I sob. Choke, gasp.

  I place both palms on my belly, which is just beginning to grow round. And I scream.

  For me.

  For my baby.

  For my husband.

  CHAPTER 3

  DEREK

  Afghanistan, 2007

  It’s hard to swallow. They gave us water sometime yesterday, and a single piece of moldy pita bread the day before. Rice the day before that. Some gruel. No medical attention for either of us. I’m okay. I mean, my shoulder’s fucked up, of course, but I was able to make some mud out of my piss and the dirt on the floor to cake onto the wound. It stopped the bleeding, mostly. I did the best I could for Tom. His wound is too big to do much for, though. His vest stopped the first couple of rounds, and he would’ve been fine, but the impact knocked him backward, exposed his belly, and he took three rounds to his gut.

  Nobody ever tells you how long it can take to die from stomach wounds. Not just days, but weeks. My boy Tom is holding on, though. Stubborn fucker. I give him most of the food they give us. I want him to make it. He’s got a wife at home. I got no one except for Mom and Dad and my little sister, Hannah, back in Iowa. They’ll miss me. But that’s not the same as leaving a wife at home. Leaving a widow.

  Tom’s in and out of consciousness. Honestly, the times when he’s out are blessings. He’s quiet then. When he’s awake, he’s groaning, trying not to scream as the stomach acid burns the open wound. He keeps clutching that letter. Unopened, unread. Saving it, I think. I’m worried if he waits too long to read it….

  The door of the hut opens, bright sunlight outside making a silhouette of the form in the doorway. I tense, wait, watch. He doesn’t speak, just leans in, grabs me by the shirtfront, and jerks me forward, up to my feet. I struggle to keep my balance, not bothering to protest. He pulls me out the door, jabs the barrel of his AK against my spine, barks a command I take to mean “walk,” or “go.” I move forward, blinking against the light. I try to make out my surroundings. Low huts, mountains in the distance, rocks, some larger buildings, glassless windows and open doorways. Other older, fallen-in buildings. Some that have clearly been destroyed by rocket or air strike. I don’t see any people on the streets, so this is either a Taliban base of some kind, or a town on lockdown, the residents terrified of leaving their homes. Sometimes the two are the same thing.

  I’m marched about three hundred yards from the hut where Barrett and I are being held, shoved through a doorway, stumble on rubble and bits of broken wood. The ceiling is so low I almost have to duck. It’s dark, a single boarded-up window shedding light, a clear plastic bottle hanging from a hole in the roof acting as a makeshift light bulb. There’s a battered couch on one wall, on which sit four men with rifles between their knees. Three wear turbans; one is bareheaded. There is a chair in the center of the room, facing a video camera mounted on a tripod. I can’t help digging my feet in as I realize what’s about to happen. The butt of the rifle hits my wounded shoulder, sending a lance of agony through me, eroding my ability to resist. So far we’ve just been shut in that hut and starved. Something tells me the fun’s about to begin.

  A hand grabs my arm, spins me, and shoves me into the chair. A space of ten seconds, and then the rifle butt crashes against my cheekbone, cracking it, splitting the skin. A fist against my wounded shoulder again. A fist to the stomach.

  A long and thorough working-over, leaving me bloody and breathless with pain. Then, absurdly, they clean me up. Wipe the blood from my face, give me a sip of brackish water and a piece of bread. The bareheaded man shoulders his rifle and moves behind the camera, turns it on, focuses it on me.

  “Name,” he growls.

  “Corporal Derek Allen West. United States Marine Corps.” I rattle off my serial number and fall silent.

  I tense, brace, expecting a full interrogation or more blows, but instead I’m merely led back to the hut, accompanied by two of the men. They shove me inside, follow behind, and grab Barrett by the arms, dragging him to his feet.

  I lunge after them, cursing at them. He can’t handle much more. If they beat him, he won’t survive. I’m stopped by a rifle butt to the forehead, dropping me in my tracks. I see stars, head throbbing, but I scramble to my feet, blinking blood away, reaching for Tom.

  Something cold and round touches my forehead, and a hand grips my shoulder blade, shoves me backward. “Shut up,” a voice growls in thickly accented English, “or we kill. Not you. Kill him.”

  I go still, wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, and see that they have Barrett on his knees in the dirt outside the hut, an AK pointed at the back of his head.

  Barrett is barely able to stay upright on his own, but he blinks and peers at me. Sweat beads on his forehead, drips down his pale face. “Stand…down,” he says, panting for breath.

  I sink to my haunches, then to my ass.

  They haul him away.

  I wait where I sit, bleeding from the skull, aching all over. Time is hard to measure, but it feels like twenty minutes before they drag Tom back to me. He’s unconscious, his face a wreck. His stomach leaks bright red blood. They toss him at me, a heavy, bloody weight crashing against me. I take his weight, roll him onto his back. His shirt is dark and wet, caked with days-old dirt and dried blood, sticking to him. He moans, coughs.

  Blinks his eyes open, finds me. “Letter?”

  I stick my hand in his BDU pants pocket, find the crumpled, folded envelope. “Here it is. You gonna open it yet or what?”

  He grunts, winces, and lets out a long moan. Breathes as deeply as he can, then licks his lips. “Read it.”

  “Sure thing, buddy.” I sit cross-legged beside him and unfold the envelope.

  I leave bloody fingerprint stains on the dirty white envelope, slide a finger under the flap. I wipe my hands on my pants in a futile attempt to get them cleaner than they are. My hands shake. I withdraw two pieces of thrice-folded paper. Yellow legal pad paper with blue lines. Neat, looping, feminine handwriting.

  “‘Thomas, my love,’” I read. Clear my throat and glance at him. “You’d better fuckin’ appreciate this shit, man.”

  “Shut up and read.” A hint of a smirk ghosts across his lips. “Been…saving this letter since we got back from…from leave. She gave it to me just before—gah, it hurts, man—just before I got on the plane. Been waiting.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “’Cause I always knew. I knew I wasn’t making it home this time. Always had a feeling.”

  “That’s stupid.” I refuse to look at him. “You’re making it home. We both are. The boys are coming for us. You know they are. All these fuckers are dead — they just don’t know it yet. You just gotta hold on.”

  “Don’t be a dumbass, D. You know better. Just read me my—my goddamn letter.” He closes his eyes, breathes in slowly. Lets it out. “Just read it. Please.”

  “‘Thomas, my love,’” I read again. “You’re lying next to me, sleeping. There’s so much I wish I
could say to you, but I know time is short. You ship out tomorrow. Again….’”

  I read the letter to him slowly, scanning ahead. He keeps his eyes closed, listening. Soaking in each word. Fuck me. The raw love that bleeds through the words of that letter burns into me. The love makes my stomach twist, makes my eyes sting. It’s so sweet and fucking romantic it’s sick. And here the guy’s dying. It should be me. He should get to go home to the girl. Not die here on the floor of some fucking hut in goddamn Afghanistan. And for what? What are we accomplishing here? I don’t even know. I signed up to fight. To accomplish something. To serve my country. I signed up because I didn’t know what else to do with my life. I signed up because a recruiter came to my high school in his dress uniform and looked so cool it made me want to be like him. Seemed like a better life than building houses with my dad in Bumfuck, Iowa. Yet here I am, a POW in Bumfuck, Afghanistan, with a dying buddy lying in the dirt next to me. And I can’t remember why I’m here. What I was supposed to be fighting for.

  And Tom? He’s got something to live for, a woman who loves him like hell, waiting for him to come home. Except he won’t.

  “Read it…again.”

  “Play it again, Sam.” I do a really bad fake James Cagney or whoever it was in that movie.

  Tom laughs, which makes him cough and wince. “Idiot. That’s…not the quote. It goes…‘Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’” He blinks his eyes, licks his lips. “Reagan hates that movie. Her grandma…used to make her watch it with her every weekend when she was a little girl. Over and over. She made me—she made me watch it once. On leave, between Iraq and here. She watched it three times in a row with me.”

  “I don’t even know which movie that is, honestly,” I admit.

  “Casablanca.” He turns his head to look at me with one eye open. “Now read the fucking letter.”

  So I read it again.

  And again.

  Eventually, he passes out.

  He wakes up when the glow of light through the cracks of the door is golden, indicating evening. “Read the letter, Derek.”

  God, Tom. You know why I remember every single moment? Because for most of our ten years together, you’ve been deployed. Three tours in Iraq, about to ship out for your third in Afghanistan. I miss you, Tom. Every day, I miss you. Even when you’re home, I miss you, because I know you’re always about to leave again.

  I read the letter to him again. Each time I read it, I feel guilty. Because I’m not reading him the whole thing. I can’t bring myself to read the news at the end. I skipped ahead the first time I read it to him, and skipped from I don’t think I could handle it if that happened to you to Please come home to me, Tom. I omit the reference to the baby, omit the to US.

  I just can’t tell him. Not now. He’s unconscious more and more.

  He makes me read the letter over and over, until it’s all I do during his waking hours. Read the letter. Read the letter.

  Eventually, after four days have passed, I can recite it word for word without looking at the paper. I stare at the words on the page—which is now brown and stained with dirt and blood and, yes, tears—and pretend I’m reading it. He knows it by heart, too. He mouths the words along with me.

  We say the ending together: “I love you so, so much, Tom. More than I’ll ever be able to say. You’ll be fine. You’ll come back to me.”

  And then Tom will pause every time, and whisper, “I love you, too, Ree.”

  * * *

  A week later. He’s almost gone. He’ll wake up for an hour or two here and there. Gasp for breath. Groan. Now all he can do is mutter “letter….” It’s all he has the strength for.

  I read it, and I skip the news. I lie to him. I don’t tell him he’s a daddy.

  I’m a coward. He deserves to know, but I just…can’t tell him. I fall asleep, cursing myself for being a coward, for being a sick fuck. But I never tell him. Because it’ll be too hard. He’ll fight. He’ll try to hold on, but…deep down, I know he’s not gonna make it. He’s gonna die any day now.

  They leave us alone. Feed us every once in a while, just enough to keep us from starving. Tom has been refusing food lately. Telling me to eat it, that he doesn’t need it anymore. So I eat it, because….

  Because I still want to live. I still have hope that the guys will come for us. That they’ll show up in the Hueys and SuperCobras with guns blazing and take us home. Save Tom.

  And then he’ll kick my ass for lying to him about his baby.

  But as the second week fades into the third, his wound going septic and stinking, my own getting infected and nasty, I just know the day will come when he won’t wake up and ask for the letter.

  Shitshitshit. I don’t want him to die. I’d die instead of him, if I could.

  Take his place at death’s door.

  Instead, I read the letter, and skip the last few words.

  * * *

  “Der…Derek.” A whisper from the darkness.

  I blink awake. “Yeah, buddy.”

  I feel his fingers digging in the dirt. “Going…now.”

  I take his hand. “Don’t, man. We’re going home.”

  “Liar.”

  I choke. “I’m here, Tommy.”

  “Reagan…you gotta get home. Tell her…tell her I love her.”

  “Jesus, Tom. Come on, man. You tell her.”

  “No.” He squeezed my hand. “I won’t. You know it. I know it. Bring her the letter. It’s all—all I got to give her. Tell her it—kept me going.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  He coughs, weakly. “Tell her…she’s my everything. Those words.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “Swear.”

  I squeeze his hand as hard as I can, blinking away tears I refuse to shed. “I swear. On my soul, I swear.”

  “She has to know I went out thinking…of her. I held on…wanted—I wanted to go home to her. I fought for her. She has to know.”

  “She knows. I’ll make sure.” Something wet and hot trickles down my cheek. Not a tear, because I’m a goddamn U.S. Marine, and I don’t cry. I haven’t cried since second grade.

  “Love you, brother.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Yeah.”

  A long, long pause between breaths. A moan of pain.

  “Love you back, Tom.” I make myself say it, before he goes.

  He squeezes my hand, a twitch of his fingers and barely that. A breath.

  Silence.

  Tears slip off the tip of my nose. He’s holding the letter in now-limp fingers.

  I fold the sheets of yellow paper, place them carefully in the envelope. I rip a long, wide strip off my shirt. Wrap the envelope in the length of cotton, stuff it in my cargo pocket, and button the pocket closed.

  I touch my fingers beneath Tom’s nose. Feel for his pulse. He’s gone.

  “You’re a father, Tom.” The words come out, unbidden.

  I hold his hand until they come back to feed us, see that he’s dead, and drag his body away. I fight them then, because his body has to go home. She has to have something to bury. They took our dog tags for some reason.

  They come back, later. Shout at me. Beat me. Take me to the room with the camera, but they have to hold a gun to my head to keep me still. But then I say what they tell me to say, because I still want to live. I have to now, because I made a promise.

  I hide the letter in the dirt in the corner of the hut, in case they try to take it. Eventually they take my BDUs and hose me down. Shave my head, my beard. Put me in pajamas, or whatever the fuck it is they wear. Good thing I hid the letter, because I have it still. Buried in the dirt.

  I whisper the words of the letter to myself, out loud, over and over.

  You took me to Olive Garden, and we got drunk on red wine. We made love that night in my hotel room.

  I lose track of the days. The weeks.

  The months.

  I repeat the words of the letter over and over again, every day. It’s
a reminder that there’s somewhere other than here, something out there other than Taliban and dirt and the distant mountain peaks.

  It’s a reminder of my promise.

  CHAPTER 4

  REAGAN

  Houston, Texas, 2009

  I’m sweating buckets. It’s a hundred and three degrees, and I’m chasing Henry the Eighth across the north pasture. He kicked the fence down and got out, and now I’m jogging through the prickly knee-high grass with a carrot in my hand, chasing a massive black Percheron through the blistering late August heat. I need to mow this pasture so I can move the herd. The eastern pasture is in desperate need of turnover. But between the baby, the thirty acres of hay that need baling, the dozen head of horses that need feeding, the house that’s falling apart, and the fact that I’m only one woman trying to do it all…I just haven’t had time. Hank, my nearest neighbor, is eighty years old and has his own farm to work, but he still makes time to help me. And thank god for Hank, because I’d be lost without him. His wife, Ida, watches Tommy while I work.

  Tommy. God, that boy. Not even two yet, and so much trouble. So cute. So charming. So much trouble. Walking, talking, and getting outside when your back is turned, climbing onto the dining room table, climbing over the baby gate and getting upstairs.

  He looks just like his father. Blond hair, brown eyes, devilish grin. Trouble.

  I pause. I shouldn’t have thought about Tom. My eyes sting with tears I refuse to let fall. Almost exactly two years, yet nothing. Sergeant Bradford calls me every once in a while to tell me they haven’t given up, but it’s hard for me to believe they’re still looking for him after two years.