Beyond the Point(88)

“Okay.”

And with that, Hannah forced herself to step away.

Sometimes the greatest wars we fight are in our own minds. And for the next three days, Hannah battled hard. She tried to remember why they said this would all be worth it. She prayed for strength, and whether God provided it or not, she wasn’t certain, but she arrived back at FOB Sharana, back at her CHU. Back to Ebrahim and her soldiers and the heat. This time, it took longer for her heart to catch up to her body. Without a doubt, she’d left half of it behind.

From: Hannah Nesmith <[email protected]>

Subject: made it back

Date: September 2, 2006 03:19:02 PM GMT +01:00

To: Dani McNalley <[email protected]>

Hi:)

I’m sorry I missed your Skype call. Internet here is spotty at best, but I have a little time now and the signal seems good so I figured I’d send you an update.

The last two weeks with Tim were . . . perfect. There’s really no other way to say it. We literally put Nicholas Sparks to shame. Every day I woke up and had to remind myself that I wasn’t dreaming. The weather sucked the last half of the trip, but we watched movies and cooked meals together and drank tons of wine. I just can’t believe how much time is going to pass before we can be together again. If I think about it, I get overwhelmed with sadness so I’m just trying not to count the days.

How did Locke’s visit go? I think of you often and hope that you’re finding friends there in London. Have you met anyone?

Much love to you, Dani. Miss you.

H





22


Fall 2006 // London, England

Dressed in jeans, wellies, and her slick new Barbour raincoat, Dani grabbed a large black umbrella from beside the door and walked down the steps of her flat and into the gray. Despite the impending rain, Portobello Road Market had assembled itself into a beautiful stretch of life. Clanging garage doors opened to reveal storefronts. Colorful tents popped up for miles. The voices of people haggling filled the air, while the rain sprinkled the pavement. Customers shielded under umbrellas inspected tables full of antiques and curios. They perused stalls of hot bread, sniffed at fresh-cut cheese, watched as young women spilled batter in large circles at the creperies. Three German tourists loitered outside Dani’s apartment entrance, wrapped in scarves and holding a map. Humidity increased the pain in her joints, but she couldn’t stay inside. Out here, she could be anonymous. Part of the scene, not the leading actress. She could roam for miles, looking. Thinking. Hidden by the crowd.

In the last three weeks, so much had changed.

The Gelhomme advertisements had hit the airwaves and though it was too early to measure, preliminary benchmarks indicated that the campaign would increase sales by more than 12 percent. Though she still acted suspicious of Dani’s instincts, Laura Klein had grown to rely on them more than ever. Every additional assignment found its way to Dani’s desk, and one draft was never enough. Laura required four, sometimes five drafts of the same presentation. And worst of all, in their most recent meeting with Paul Duval, Laura had presented a groundbreaking new strategy: digital marketing on the Internet, with a keen eye on a new social media platform called the Facebook.

Dani had sat at the table, dumbfounded that Laura had so blatantly stolen her idea and claimed it as her own. But aware of Jim Webb’s eyes on her every action, Dani had stayed silent. After all, what would she do? Stamp her foot and say, That was my idea? She was proud, but she wasn’t an idiot.

The next day, Laura had called her into her office.

“I saw your surprise yesterday,” her boss had said in an uncharacteristically kind tone. “When I gave them your idea for the digital push.”

“I wasn’t surprised you presented the idea. I was surprised you said it was yours.”

Laura had paused, then sighed and put her reading glasses down on her desk. “The divorce was finalized last week.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Dani.

“I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have presented your idea as my own. I think I’ve just been realizing how high the stakes are for me. For ten years, I’ve enjoyed this job, but now I need it. To support myself. My children. I think I acted out of fear. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Dani had nodded, shocked by her boss’s candor. It didn’t justify her actions—but at least it provided context.

Work wasn’t the only place her life felt unmoored. Hannah was back in Afghanistan after her two weeks of R & R, and soon, Tim would follow his wife overseas for his own fifteen-month deployment to Iraq.

We put Nicholas Sparks to shame, Hannah had written in her latest e-mail. Dani didn’t know if it was a blessing or a curse that Tim and Hannah would be deployed at the same time. On one hand, they would complete all their time apart faster that way. On the other, Dani couldn’t imagine knowing that you and the person you love were in constant danger. Hannah had more faith than any person she’d ever met.

But the hardest change of all?

That was the news Locke Coleman had dropped when he’d come to visit in the spring, and the trip to South Carolina that awaited Dani at the end of the week.

Choking on her Caesar salad in the pub that day, Dani didn’t have to feign surprise, but she’d had to strain to hide her emotion. She didn’t sob. She didn’t wail. That came later, once he and his friends had left the continent and Dani had found herself alone in her apartment shower, where the heat and the water washed away her internal pain. But at the table, she simply coughed and wiped her mouth with a napkin. Locke had gazed at her with sympathy in his eyes, as if he’d known all along how much the news would hurt.