Captured(10)

“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 f*ck 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.

I shake the thoughts out of my head. “Henry! Come on, boy. It’s too hot out here for this. Come and get the f*cking carrot.” I gesture with the vegetable at the horse, who stands six feet away, shaking his mane and stomping one foot to keep the flies away. “Easy, boy…easy now. That’s it…just let me—” I hold the carrot out, the halter and lead rope in my other hand, inching toward him.

I’d just leave him out here, but there’s even more fence down on this fence line, enough that he could get out completely if he were to find the gaps. Too much fence. Too much space. It’s all too much for me. But it’s land that’s been in Tom’s family for over a hundred years, and, aside from Tommy, it’s all I have left of him. I can’t sell it. And I don’t know where I’d go if I did, or what I’d do.

So I do my best to hold on to the land, take care of the horses, plant the hay and the cotton, harvest it, bale it, sell it. But it’s too much, and I can’t do it all, and I sure can’t afford to hire anyone to help. The barn is falling apart. The fence is falling down. The house is falling apart.

Everything is falling apart.

I’m falling apart.

Henry the Eighth whickers and dances backward as soon as I get within touching distance, bobbing his head and turning away. I reach for him, but he trots away again.

We repeat this for another twenty minutes, until I finally snap.

I curse, a sobbed sound of desperation, and throw the carrot to the ground, drop the halter, and fall to my knees. I breathe through it, keep it together, and then stand up slowly. “Fine, you *. Stay out here, then.”

I wipe the sweat off my forehead and scratch the grass-tickled skin of my bare leg, and then I turn away and start walking. And, of course, I hear Henry behind me, huge hooves stomping. He nudges my shoulder and whickers again. I stop, and he puts his chin on my shoulder. That’s Henry for you — * one minute, wanting affection the next. I turn and put my face against his hot, thick neck, wrap my arm around his shoulder. He stands there, lets me hold him. I let myself cry for a minute, holding onto a troublesome horse I’ve spent the last hour chasing. After a few minutes, I push it all back down and wipe my eyes.