Operation Oleander (9780547534213) (11 page)

“She knew.”

“I didn't tell her, and I can't ever tell her.” Meriwether's words strike me like fastballs. One after the other.

I step into the room.

“Meriwether.” I reach for her arm, and the shoulder bag, the album inside, tugs against my body.

“She called me the other day. Before.” Meriwether's voice dips suddenly quiet. All the heat is gone. The words she says sit cold like air conditioning.

Dad called us last week too. The reception that day was bad. His voice sounded tinny. But we'd watched him talk over the Internet connection. He was happy to tell us about the orphanage.

“I hung up on her,” Meriwether says. “I was so mad she'd reenlisted. She didn't have to. She didn't have to go.”

I am standing on the brink of a high ledge. I don't know how far down I will fall if I step forward over the abyss. From far below, the sound of rushing water reaches my ears.

“She called back. She left a message on the machine because I wouldn't pick up. If I hadn't been a brat, I would have picked up the phone and talked to her.”

I remember the sound of Mrs. Scott's voice on the answering machine.

“But she left you a message,” I say. If it was for me, I'd play it over and over. I'd make copies and put them in different places so I could listen to them. So I'd never lose them.

The expression on Meriwether's face is hollow. “I erased it without listening to it.”

No.

“I can't unerase the message,” she says. “I can't take it back, Jess. I can't ever listen to it again.”

Meriwether teeters, and I throw my arms around her body.

What if we hadn't done what we did? What if we hadn't started Operation Oleander? What if? What if?
The voices in my head won't stop. Is Meriwether saying the words or am I?

Together, we fall over the edge toward the rushing emptiness beneath us, and I won't let go.

I
NSIDE THE
cemetery, cars park along the winding drive, which is lined with flags. I follow people walking toward a canopied seating area. Folding chairs are planted in rows like the white grave markers all around us. If I squint, it looks like an optical illusion—white squares fanning out all the way to the far end of the fence. The heat shimmers across the grass.

The crowd moves around me like a river, and I am caught up in the flow of it. Until we make it to the canopy. There I stand on tiptoe in the back, trying to find Sam, to see Meriwether. Meanwhile, the casket has been carried in and placed on a stand. A large U.S. flag lies draped across the top, just like the footage from television showed when the military plane landed at Dover.

Then I see her. Meriwether. And her dad. They're sitting in the first row, just in front of the casket. An elderly couple sits beside them, their bodies bent from it all. From the word from Afghanistan. From waiting for the body to be flown to Dover and then again to here. From the way everything has moved around them in slow motion.

Meriwether's wearing her navy blue graduation dress, the one her mother picked out when we went shopping.

The air smells of summer grass, just mown. The groundskeepers must have cut it this morning when the grass was still wet with dew. Salt hangs in the air too, off the gulf. Now and then the breeze picks up the scent of thick, sweet lilies spilling from flower arrangements.

There should be day lilies.

A movement to the left catches my eye. Commander and Mrs. Butler have arrived, Sam behind them wearing a white shirt and a black tie. Walking stiffly, he and his parents walk to the front row, and the commander speaks to Mr. Scott and to Meriwether, and her grandparents. Then they take their seats across the aisle from them.

I'm supposed to go there and sit with Sam. But my legs won't move. If I sit there, I will witness everything up close. Grief will press against me from all sides like the humidity.

Sam sits straight in the chair, but he sees me. He doesn't wave, but he nods his head when I catch his glance.

He motions me his way.

I point to the spot where I'm standing.

What did the commander just say to Meriwether and her dad, anyway? Had Mrs. Scott wanted to go to the orphanage that morning? Or did she just go along with my dad, restless while waiting to convoy out? Or had my dad asked her?

Had Dad asked because I sent that last box of pencils?

A minister calls for the opening prayer.

Commander Butler speaks next. “Today we honor a brave soldier who epitomized duty and sacrifice. She never shirked that duty, and she found time and a passion for serving others. Not just as a soldier but as a daughter, a wife, and a mother.” He pauses, and when I open my eyes, he is looking down at his paper.

“Corporal Scott also wanted to help others. On the day she was killed, she was going to be carrying out a special mission, along with others from Fort Spencer. But that morning was a mission of mercy, of compassion. She didn't stop to ask what was in it for her. She didn't do it for duty or honor or even for country. She and Private Davis and Master Sergeant Westmark—they each one traveled those dangerous streets of Kabul that morning for a reason larger than the United States Army they served. They undertook that risk to serve others less fortunate than we are. For those who are the most innocent among us, children caught in a war they do not understand and from which they cannot protect themselves. They did it for reasons we don't often talk about in uniform. They did it for love.”

The heavy air trapped under the tent presses against my skin. The commander talks about the orphanage, about my dad and Mrs. Scott. I didn't think he'd mention my dad, or that he would describe what happened with the words he used. “Sacrifice” and “compassion” and “love.” I see the marketplace in my head and try to find hope and promise in those burned-out images, in the smoke from the Humvee.

“On that day,” the commander says, “the forces that signify the worst of human nature came to the fore and snuffed out the lives of Corporal Scott and Private Davis. But those forces cannot destroy the life force behind what led Corporal Scott to the orphanage that day. So today we honor her and her commitment, a commitment that we must also honor by preserving her memory, by carrying on her mission. And by living that life of example for her daughter—Meriwether—so she will remember her mother through her actions. Who she was. What she stood for.”

The commander's words echo in my ears.
Commitment.
Carrying on her mission. What she stood for.
Doesn't that also mean Operation Oleander, not only her role as a

soldier? Does the commander mean those words for me?

In the silent spaces between Commander Butler's words, I hear a sob. Not from Meriwether but from her grandmother.

Then I hear something else. A rustling. A murmur. Coming from behind us.

A girl has moved to stand next to me. It's the blond girl from the PX, the one who tried to help me. She tugs on my arm.

“You have to look,” she says. “Now.”

I turn. A group of people are marching toward the canopy. At first I think they are mourners, late arrivals.

But they're carrying signs and banners.

“Who are they?” the girl whispers.

Others in the back rows crane their necks to see what's happening. People seated in front of them, unaware of what's coming, turn and shush them.

The commander continues, but I can't hear him anymore.

Protesters.

A man says, “I can't believe they're here. Come on.” He motions to some of the soldiers standing in the back row. They fan out in a line, close together, not talking.

The oncoming group splinters as if to flank our position. Men and women, even little kids, carry signs.

A little blond boy's sign reads
GOD HATES YOU!
Another one says
THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS
. A woman waves a placard:
GOD IS GLAD CORPORAL SCOTT IS DEAD. SHE DIED BECAUSE OF YOUR SINS. YOU ARE ALL GOING TO HELL.

I breathe in, but the air around the canopy has become something solid.

The soldiers lock hands, creating a perimeter to keep the demonstrators back from the graveside. They don't move to meet the marchers, but they're waiting. A silent, steady line.

“Where are the police?” I ask the woman in front of me. “Can't they do something?”

“They won't interfere,” she says. “Unless there's violence. It's a public place. Those Angustus Church members are crazy. A cult. They have no decency. But they get their First Amendment rights to protest the war.”

People can disagree about the war, I know that. I've seen protestors wave flags and march down the street. But demonstrators can call out about God being glad Corporal Scott is dead? At her
funeral?
Who are these people? How can they believe what they're saying?

Others under the canopy begin to realize what's happening. What if these people had come and it was my dad's funeral?

“I'm afraid,” the girl says. “What if they attack?”

“You know Sam, right?” I ask the girl.

“Yes.”

“Go stand next to him. Nothing can bother you there. His dad's the commander,” I say.

The girl touches my arm. “You come too?”

“In a minute,” I say. But as soon as I say the words, I know I'm lying.

Because I'm not going in that direction.

The minister has started a final prayer. His baritone voice is deep and carries over the hum. He's projecting louder than before, as if he knows he has to compete, not with jets overhead but with the Angustans.

Everyone seated stands.

I nudge the girl forward. “Go on.”

She nods and slips through the lines of mourners in front of us. She moves like a piece of music on the air.

I step out from under the canopy, into the glare. Facing the oncoming marchers, who look like soldiers, my knees shake, but I won't retreat.

Instead, I run toward and then under the interlocked arms of the soldiers who are between the gravesite and the protesters. I raise my arm as if I am carrying a battle flag of my own into hand-to-hand combat.

But I have nothing to wave back and forth in the air that's stronger than their signs. Nothing that's stronger than their anger.

T
HE PROTESTER
closest to me is a blond teenage boy.

“You're not too young to burn in hell,” he says. “You're a sinner.” He thrusts his sign into the air and waves it back and forth, taunting me. The picture on the front is a grainy photo of Corporal Scott, the way it would look if someone had cut her photo out of the newspaper and enlarged it. In the photo, she's wearing her uniform. Her hair is smooth and close cut, and she's smiling. But her teeth are blotted out, as if the boy has covered over them with a black marker.

I blink in the light. Anger oozes out of my skin like sweat. How can they do this?

TODAY, SATAN GETS A NEW SOUL
the poster reads in uneven letters. It's written in childlike print, where the letters don't all fit right but squish together at the end.

I jump and reach for the poster. When I grab a corner, it rips in my hand. Just a piece of it.

The boy steps back, laughing. He holds the sign up higher. Even though it's torn, he displays it like a badge of honor.

Around me protesters are calling out Corporal Scott's name as a sinner. Mr. Scott must hear them. And Meriwether. I want to protect her the way I would Cara. Or Warda.

The protesters have to be stopped.

I jump into the air again, stretch toward the poster. Toward the black glare of anger.

“Jess!”

I hear my name, but the short blond hair of the boy in front of me is all I see. I smell his breath in the air. It's sweet—not what I expected. It should be sour and putrid, the way evil is supposed to smell.

I reach for the poster, but it slips between my fingers this time without tearing. I stumble, empty-handed, trying to catch my balance.

“That's right,” the boy says. “You can't overcome the power of God.”

“You don't represent the power of God.” I'm sure Father Killen would agree.

“God judges the good and the evil. Today he has judged Corporal Scott and Private Davis and condemned them.” The words tumble out of his mouth like Scripture he has memorized the words to, but not the meaning.

I stretch out my hands, not for the poster this time.

I reach for the boy.

That's when someone grabs my arms and pulls me back before I can make contact.

The boy laughs.

“Jess, it's what they want.” It's Sam's voice in my ear. Somehow he found me.

I twist out of his grasp. He pulls my arm, and we're moving upstream, back toward the canopy.

“How can they do this? To Meriwether—to all of us?”

“I don't know, Jess. But we don't want to make it worse.”

“How could it be worse?”

“The press,” Sam says. He points to a van that's parked on the perimeter road. A satellite dish sprouts out of the top like a strange vegetable.

“Good. Let the reporters tell the world about these horrible people.”

“They'll tell the world you attacked them,” Sam says.

I wrench free of Sam's grasp, but I continue walking back toward the funeral. I hate that he's right. I shield my face from someone holding a camera. Turn away from a woman with a microphone.

My head hurts. What if Dad sees me on television from Germany? Will he think I did the right thing? Do I?

The minister has finished.

Behind us, the soldiers still stand shoulder to shoulder. The cult members jeer at them, but they don't react. Just like the wall of protection they've created, like a breakwater.

“Why don't they make the protesters stop?” I ask Sam.

“Discipline,” Sam says, as if that's a good thing.