Come Back To Me (11 page)

“No biggee.” Alice had listened to Tess’s fears about letting Beau go and hoped her responses had been appropriate. She never really trusted herself in intimate situations—not that she let herself get tangled up in them often. The last time that a woman had confided in Alice, it had been her mother.
I knew, but I was never strong enough to help you.
Alice bristled at the memory.

Tess stood before Beau’s closet, running her hands along his shirts, bringing the sleeves up to her nose, inhaling what scent remained of him. Airing out her fears about letting Beau go had brought with it an unexpected respite.  Tess had yet to admit to Alice that she’d kissed Louie.
Baby steps
, she thought,
baby steps
. Maybe Alice had been right. Maybe she needed to let go, for the baby’s sake. Loneliness spread like a disease through her body, until it encompassed her.

 One by one, Tess slipped his shirts from their hangers, folded them, and set them in careful piles on the bed. She’d decided to pack them up and put them in the basement, where they wouldn’t be a constant reminder, a constant hope, of what was surely not going to come.

Tess sat amongst the piles of clothes. In her lap lay the leather box his pocket watch had come in. She’d found it tucked behind a cashmere sweater in the back of the closet. Tess felt as if she were watching someone else’s hands go through the motions of storing away pieces of their life. She laid her hand on her belly. “This is Daddy’s stuff,” she said. A tear slipped down her cheek. “He’ll always be with us, but his things need to leave for a while. We’ll be okay.”

She remembered the party she’d thrown for Beau the night before he’d left, when she’d given him the pocket watch. She’d watched Beau and Kevin from across the room, a pang of jealousy ripping through her chest.
Great,
she’d thought,
now I’m acting like one of those insecure wives that need all the attention on her
. Beau was leaving, and if he wanted to spend time with his friends, he had a right to. She’d be just fine.

She’d escaped to the dining room, hovering over the hors d’oeuvres she could barely stomach looking at. The weight of a familiar hand on her shoulder brought a smile to her lips. She closed her eyes and, without turning around, put her hand on top of his.

“Dance with me,” he whispered.

Their bodies moved as one to the edge of the make-shift dance floor where they swayed to their own beat, slowly, lovingly.

“Marry me?” Beau said softly into her ear.

“My husband might not like that,” she joked.

“Would you marry me again, Tess?” Beau asked seriously.

“I’d marry you every day until the day I die,” she answered.

Tess had led him to a quiet corner by the window. She reached up to the top of Beau’s bookshelves, littered with his photography books, Stephen King novels, and war stories.

 She pressed something cold into Beau’s palm. “You promised me. Now you have to keep the promise.”

Beau opened his thick palm to find a gold pocket watch. Inscribed on the back were four simple words in a fine cursive script,
Come back to me
. He pulled Tess close and whispered, “Always.”

“Right,” she said sarcastically
. Four and a half months. Goddamn it
. Tess pushed herself off the bed and packed Beau’s belongings in three large suitcases. With his belongings packed neatly away and the closet bare, she lowered herself to the floor and stared into the cold, empty space. “Oh, Beau,” she whispered.

Tess took a long, deep breath as she stood over the phone. She dialed Carol’s number from memory.

“Carol? Hi. I’m sorry.”

Chapter Thirteen

The children climbed on hands and knees to scale the enormous dune. Suha panted, her breathing labored. Beau helped her up the hill, one hand supporting her elbow. They trudged up the hill until finally the camp came into view, stuck in the middle of the desert like a giraffe in an ant farm.

Edham gasped with delight. Samira’s eyes welled with tears, and Suha gave Beau a look as though she might drop to her knees and pray. Abdul Hadi held his palms out, silencing the group. He eyed the camp. Four small buildings, two army vehicles, and a line strung with clothing. If it weren’t for his knowledge of who was housed there, he’d have thought it to be abandoned. Abdul Hadi watched for many minutes, then lowered his hands. They moved tentatively toward the camp.

As they neared the first of the buildings, two men came into view, ushering three women into a building. Sand and dust plumed around their feet.

Samira gasped, grabbing the boys’ arms.

Abdul Hadi halted the group.

The men approached, guns drawn, speaking in fast and adamant Arabic.

 Abdul Hadi raised his arms in surrender, Samira and Suha huddled the children behind them, Suha, calm, in control, Samira shaking with fear, her eyes shifting from the men to Beau and back again. Beau stood sentinel in front of the women and children, nerves afire.

The words Beau could translate were “order” and “war”. Abdul Hadi motioned toward the women, his eyes lowered, his hand extended as if he were offering the women to them. Beau took a protective step backward, closer to Suha and Samira. One man laughed, the other moved toward Beau, gun ready. He looked Beau up and down, walking first to his left, then to his right. He lowered his gun to his side and smiled.

 Beau’s heart pounded against his ribs. For the first time in months, he realized that the fear that had filled every pore on his body had not been fear at all, only a sample of fear to come. He shifted his eyes to Abdul Hadi.

The gunman laughed, mocking him.

Beau lifted his arm, the muscles in his neck bulging with rage. Abdul Hadi rushed to his side.

“Easy,” he said, lowering Beau’s arm. “Their job is to keep us safe. You are a stranger. Let it be.”

Beau lowered his arm but not his defenses.

The other gunman lowered his gun, eying the women as if they were cargo. He spoke directly to Suha, who kept her eyes trained on the ground, one arm around Edham, the other across Samira’s back. She pleaded with him. The man spoke again, then Suha lifted her eyes, a look of relief momentarily flashed across her face. She turned to Samira and spoke quickly in Arabic. Samira hissed a question in reply, pulling Zeid and Athra closer to her chest. Suha nodded and reached for Samira’s hand.

The exchange took only seconds, but to Beau, it felt like an eternity he could not circumvent.

“We are safe here,” Suha advised Beau. “They are soldiers, yes, but soldiers of the underground.”

“How do you know?” Beau made no effort to hide his skepticism.

“I know,” Suha responded.

The men tossed their guns across their backs on the dark, tattered tethers that held them. They took the bulging packs from the women and led them around an ominous wall of sandbags—a blatant reminder of the ever-present danger—to the safety of the inner camp. To their right, a child’s shirt and a single pair of pants hung still from a thick piece of rope strung between two buildings. The taller of the two dwellings was a hodge-podge of cheap, mismatched wood and tin. Bent and mangled wire lined the tin roofline.

Beau’s eyes shot from side to side, an uneasy feeling trailed along his nerves. He kept pace next to Samira, watching the strangers with distrust.

They were led inside the building where three women and several children sat on the blankets on the dirt floor. The women did not smile when they glanced up. Their faces were gaunt, their eyes haunted, shadowed, and sunken. They turned back toward each other and began speaking in hushed tones.

The air inside the building was cooler than the direct heat of the sun. Without a breeze, however, the heat still slowly tugged at their energy.

Athra wiggled to be set free from Samira’s arms. Another young girl of about five years old approached Samira, her eyes wide and hopeful.

In Arabic, she said, “I had a little sister once. I play with her?”

Samira looked to Suha, who nodded.

She set Athra on the ground. The girl took her hand and led her to one of the blankets. Athra looked over her shoulder at her mother and smiled.

Beau wondered how many shared moments Athra had experienced with other little girls in her three short, tumultuous years of life.

“You will remain here.” The soldier spoke in practiced English. He repeated the same sentence in Arabic, in a tone that was more authoritative than welcoming. The two soldiers left the building.

Beau unclenched his fists. “What’s going on?” he asked Abdul Hadi.

“They will help us.”

Beau had his doubts.

Samira and Suha joined the group of women in the center of the room. They introduced themselves and the children in whispers. Zeid and Athra remained by their mother’s side. Zeid’s eyes darted around the group, as if he were determining the threat in the room.

“This is their job. They are not here to make us feel good, just to keep safety,” Abdul Hadi said. “We will remain here until they come to get us.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Beau didn’t like the ominous aura of the camp. The other women did not appear to be relishing their safety.

“The underground.”

“But we’re in the middle of the desert. We stand out like a sore thumb. We can be attacked at any moment.”

“We’re in a safe zone. Trust in the system. We know what we do.” Abdul Hadi turned his back, done with this line of questioning. He left no room for discussion.

The night grew cold, and the two soldiers appeared with cans of beans and vegetables, two thick loaves of bread, and enormous plastic jugs of water. At the sight of the men, the children who had been there when the group had arrived quickly stacked blankets in a line on the floor along the back wall of the building, preparing bedrolls. Next they doled out chipped and stained plastic plates, while the women prepared the cold food. Edham and Zeid watched, only joining the others in their duties when a boy of Zeid’s age invited them.

The men spoke only to Abdul Hadi. Beau remained watchful, absorbing what he could of the conversation, every nerve alert to protect the women and children. When the men left, Abdul Hadi motioned for Beau to follow him away from the group.

“We leave tomorrow evening,” he said.

A new sense of unease bore into Beau’s gut. “That fast? How long have these people been here?” he motioned toward the other women and children.

“Two months. They stay.”

“Why?”

“They want refuge but refuse to leave the country.”

Beau grasped for understanding. “Stay? They can leave with us,” he said. He looked at the others. “We can’t leave them behind,” he implored.

Abdul Hadi shut him down. “They are not our business. Loyalty is strong, even when death is imminent.”

Suha waited until Beau and Abdul Hadi stopped speaking, then handed a plate to each of them. She laid her hand on Beau’s forearm and squeezed, a newfound habit she’d used when she wanted his attention.

“Do you hurt?” she asked.

Beau shook his head.

“You must rest. You have been through much,” she said.

Abdul Hadi interrupted, explaining the plan to Suha.

“We will take a vehicle to the airstrip,” he explained. “There are risks. We’ll need to insure the children mind our positions.” He shifted his gaze to Samira. “She is not strong.”

“I’ll take care of them,” Beau said.

Abdul Hadi nodded. “Insurgents can attack without warning.” He went on to explain that there had been one event where one of the soldiers helping the women out of the country had turned on them. They’d had to change every safe route they’d used. The threat remained with every rescue. Beau’s nationality might present a problem, he’d explained. He would dress in typical Iraqi garb, the untamed nature of his hair and his sun-tanned skin would help, but it was not a solid disguise. He would not use the bucket of water to scrub the dirt from his face that evening. The filth would add to his disguise.

Beau did not worry for his own life. He worried for the life of Suha, Samira, and the children of whom he had become so fond. No longer were the stakes simply making it back to Tess. Suha, Samira, Zeid, Edham, and Athra were part of him now. He would protect their lives without fear. The weight of that knowledge stirred torment within him that felt a lot like anger.

“If it is not to be, Jameel, then it was not meant to be,” Suha said to Beau.

Later that night, Beau lay awake, listening to the tender sounds of slumber filling the small building: Athra suckling her thumb, Abdul Hadi’s light snores flitting across the room from where he slept. Edham had pushed his blanket against Beau’s, his body curled against Beau’s side during his first hours of sleep, like an extra appendage. Beau worried about the trip. He did not know what to expect, but he knew that Americans were blowing up insurgents’ vehicles, and insurgents were blowing up just about everything that passed by. In his right hand he gripped the pocket watch, in his left, an empty, clenched fist. Beau wasn’t a religious man, but that evening he prayed they’d make it to Germany safely, with the group intact, and without issue over his being an American. He prayed to be reunited with Tess. He didn’t let his mind wander to what she was doing, for he didn’t want to admit that she very likely believed him dead. Time had become an unknown entity to him. He hadn’t a clue what month it was, but he felt the slow passage of time deep within his heart, an inconsolable ache.
How long have I been gone?
he wondered.
Three months? Four?
It felt like forever. He opened his fist, releasing the watch, letting it fall beside him on the thickly-ribbed blanket. He ran his hand over the familiar fabric. Tess had a pullover hoodie made of the same rough material. She’d called it her hippie jacket. With his index finger, Beau outlined the letter ‘I’, the shape of a heart, and the letter ‘u’ in his palm, hoping Tess might somehow feel it on her own skin. He closed his eyes against his fear.

Maryland