Mondays were hard. Nick got home from his therapy session by noon, and Dani usually popped over with lunch. So when she showed up with a tray of homemade mac and cheese, he wasn’t surprised. When he opened the door, Dani held up the casserole like a peace offering. Silently, he stepped back from the door, wishing that a tray of tasty noodles could solve his problems.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. I just spent all morning talking about it.”
“You know you can tell me anything. If you ever need to vent, I’m here.”
“No. I mean, yes, I know, but no. I’m OK.”
He was far from OK, but the last thing he wanted to do was drag her into his personal hell. He didn’t want her to see the dark side of him, didn’t want her touched by the ugliness he couldn’t get out of his head. Dani was his sunshine, and he didn’t want to bring up the clouds. When she suggested an afternoon of paperwork, he nodded, grateful that she didn’t expect him to head out when he was so drained.
She pulled her work out of her bag and got busy. Completely at home in his apartment, she spread her work out at the table. They tackled it together, Dani wielding a pen, while Nick picked up a piece of wood and his carving knife. Idly he played with the piece in his hand while they worked. He’d bought some woodworking tools, his high school interest sparked by their walk in the woods. It was soothing to work near Dani, as she finished up a form. He patiently sanded hardwood at the table next to her, as she crossed things off her to-do list and asked his opinion. He admired her drive and dedication in the face of her sadness. He wished he could find that same grit and determination he’d relied on for so many years. Damn it! Where had it gone? He hadn't created anything, but he kept sanding away, hoping the repetitive action would somehow bring him someplace new.
By the end of the month, Dani took stock of her progress based on her business plan and was encouraged. She had enrolled in a Food Safety course online, signed up for an entrepreneurial class at the local College, and scoured every link on the Small Business Association’s website. Every day her resolve to devote her time and energy to this project strengthened. Nick was in large part responsible for this progress, as he had kept her from wallowing and getting distracted. Her dream was beginning to take shape.
She picked up the phone and dialed Jamie for her conference follow-up, confident and pleased with her progress.
“Hi, Dani. How is everything going?”
“Things are going great. This café project is just what I’ve needed to help me work through my grief. I still miss Aunt Helen, but I know that I’m doing something positive with her legacy and that helps. Every time I cross something off my to do list, I know she’s smiling.” Dani filled her in on the classes she was taking and her search for a location.
“I’m so glad to hear that you’re doing well with it. Do you need any help? I’m proud of what you’ve managed to tackle, but don’t be afraid to ask for help.”
“Nick, the sexy neighbor, has been helping me out quite a bit.”
“That sounds promising.”
“We are still just friends, but the time we spend together feels so right. We’ll see. But I do have something to ask you.”
“Anything. Shoot.”
“Can you be free on Saturday night for that Girl’s Night Out I mentioned?”
“Are you kidding? Of course! It’s a date. I can’t wait to hang out without a single work agenda attached.”
“I’m inviting some other girlfriends, too. My friend from the law office, Olivia and my yoga instructor, Stella. You’re going to love them.”
“Send me an email so I can pop it into my calendar, OK? I’ve got to run. My next appointment is here.”
“No problem. Take care!”
Dani sent out a quick email to Jaime, Stella, and Olivia to see if they’d be up for a new bar that had popped up on her radar while trolling Yelp for things to do with Nick. "Flipped" was described as a fun mix between relaxed dance club and small plates restaurant with an emphasis on international cuisine. Something for everyone. She made a reservation for Saturday night and sent out the invite with a triumphant click.
“There you go, Aunt Helen. Reconnect with friends: Check.” She turned to look at her aunt’s picture, still hanging on the wall. “I am going to build the life I need. I just wish you could have been here to see it.”
She swung from giddy anticipation to grief so quickly her head literally spun. She had thought it would get better with time, but each reminder of Helen still had the power to overwhelm her. She needed to get out and away from her memories. Closing her laptop, she headed across the hall to Nick’s to see if he was up for a walk in the sunshine.
Friday at noon, Nick sat on his couch breathing deeply, trying to get calm again. He had gotten home from his counseling session nearly an hour before and still couldn’t quite settle his rough edges. His counselor had poked at some pretty difficult memories and had made him re-process what had happened in Iraq. Those were memories and emotions that Nick had buried deep for a reason. He knew that pulling them back into the light was part of the strategy. It was supposed to help him process those emotions in a safe place, so they would eventually lose their ability to cripple him.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten any more comfortable revisiting that time of his life in the last few weeks. It still put him right on the edge of an attack. He found himself staring at the door, as if he could will Dani to come and knock. He didn’t want her to see him like this, didn’t want to need her, but the fact remained. Dani was a ray of sunshine pushing away the lingering clouds. Usually she was right there when he got back from his sessions. His appointment had gotten bumped to Friday, because his therapist, Alex, had to go present at a conference. He hadn’t gotten a chance to mention it to Dani. So now he was stuck, going over and over all the things he’d talked about with Alex. Mentally exhausted, Nick leaned his head back on his couch and closed his eyes trying to will away the images lurking there. Instead of finding peace, he found himself asleep and right back in the nightmare of war.
His company was out escorting an inspector from USAID, checking on the progress of updates being made at the electrical plant at the dam in Samarra. Chatter had been quiet, and the inspector had been visiting similar sites all week. They loaded up the convoy. His Lieutenant, who was supposed to lead the group out, had come down with a nasty stomach bug and Nick confined him to quarters. Nick led the convoy himself through the local neighborhoods and up the river, which had not been part of the original plan. After six years of working his way up the chain of command he rarely had to participate in the field any longer. But he pitched in for the sake of the mission, and this was his reward.
When they pulled up at the dam, the scene looked normal. Nick and half the company went inside with the inspector and toured the facility. It was clear where the new machinery was being installed and the workers, communicating through an interpreter, were able to explain in detail what they were working on and how it fit into the overall function of the plant. Nick felt encouraged by the fact that progress was being made on the infrastructure and that the workers were invested in the process. The inspector smiled and took notes in his journal as the tour ended, when one of the exterior guards crackled a warning over the COM.
A group of insurgents had heard about the inspections, and they were angry. They were angry about the war. They were angry about the threat to their local power, both literal and figurative. They were angry about perceived threats to their religion. They were angry young men that had never known a different life.
The ambush was set just outside the fence surrounding the electrical power station, along the road leading away from the plant. The remote location of the plant upstream at the dam, outside of the town limits and surrounded on three sides by water, restricted Nick's options for avoiding the insurgents and returning safely to base. He could feel his mind cycling through every possibility. The rebels had gotten close enough to the plant entrance to be a threat, but too far to pick off with the weaponry they’d brought along. Conflict was inevitable. Nick barked out orders, scrambling his troops, assessing the situation and making the call to engage. His gut told him he had to engage them. There was no other option.
Nick knew he was dreaming, but as hard as he fought, he couldn’t pull himself out of it. He couldn’t change the course of the events about to unfold.
With his adrenaline pumping, and his senses keenly focused on the task at hand, Nick led his men into a protective shield around the civilians traveling with them and emerged from the building trying to gain their vehicles. If they could reach the armored Humvees, they would have a chance to get past the roadblock by plowing through the main gate and taking the back road down the river, following the train tracks south and crossing the river further down, to circle back to Baghdad.
Every detail was burned in his brain, the sun, the heat, the sand, the murky water just a few yards distant, the helmets of his men as they ran in front of him. His eyes scanned the yard, taking in the various positions of insurgents, and he called out orders accordingly. For all his training and preparedness, there were just too many of them. When his troops began to sprint for the vehicles, weapons drawn, the firefight began.
The inspector and his interpreter were both wearing full protective gear thankfully, but the heavy armor and helmets made their movements slow and clumsy. The interpreter fell, and when Nick bent to help him up, a bullet whistled over his helmet. Shoving the civilian to his feet and forward, Nick glanced over his shoulder and saw that the bullet intended for him had struck down a young soldier, Private First Class Carling, who had just transferred to the unit. He’d been hit at a downward angle, shattering his kneecap, shot by a sniper positioned atop the wall. Nick turned back and hauled the man up onto his shoulder and continued running for the trucks.
Handing the injured soldier to Henderson, his medic inside, he turned to assess the progress of the rest of the group and saw that another soldier had been hit about 20 yards from the trucks, lying motionless on the ground. Nick recognized the man. Specialist Finn was a seasoned soldier, with a wife and two kids waiting for him at home. Not about to leave a man behind, Nick tapped Sergeant Banks next to him, gestured silently his intent, and they moved in tandem to pick up the fallen soldier.
They drew heavy fire, and Nick felt the searing burn of a bullet graze his lower abdomen just above his hip on his right side. His scar burned just as vividly as the day it had happened. Ignoring the pain, he pushed onward, and reached Finn. A quick assessment indicated that his soldier was still breathing, but that he was seriously injured. While Banks provided cover, Nick hauled Finn on his back all the way back to the Humvees.
With everyone loaded, he gave the command to pull out and begin firing on the makeshift blockade as they barreled towards it, hoping to clear out as many insurgents and also detonate any IEDs that might have been planted there. Confident that his men were carrying out his orders, he called out over the net to ensure that Henderson was attending to Specialist Finn. He prayed to a God he wasn’t sure was listening that they would make it back to base in time to save him.
The chatter over the net was almost incoherent, and what Nick could make out was unsettling. Henderson was applying pressure to the pulsing wound on the soldier’s upper arm but there was a lot of blood. When she pulled the emergency release on Finn’s vest to get a better look at the injury, she could see that the bullet had gone straight through and lodged into his side.
“There’s no way to apply a tourniquet. He’s losing a lot of blood.” Finn was looking real pale, and the medic’s worry bled into her trembling voice.
“It’s not good, Sir,” she yelled over the static on the net.
“Just do what you can, Whiskey.” Nick yelled into the hand mic. He wanted it to sound encouraging, but it came out as an order. His adrenaline high, Nick could feel his heart racing and the cold sweat on his forehead. In his dream he could feel the searing desert sun roasting the Humvee.
The Humvees made it through the blockade, but had to take the long way around to get back to base. They had immediately taken Finn and Carling to the hospital, and Nick went with them. Finn had lapsed into unconsciousness from blood loss, and the surgeons looked at the arterial damage caused by the insurgent’s bullet and shook their heads. It was too severe, and Finn was too weak. They tried to stabilize him with blood transfusions and IV’s, so they could prep him for an amputation, but he was too far gone. He died there, on the table, with a team of doctors and nurses working desperately to save him. Nick could tell the instant they walked through the double doors that Finn was gone. His heart sank. No matter how many times he had this dream, the end was the same. He was never fast enough to save Finn.
Sitting there in triage, with the dead man's blood on his vest and his own slowly seeping through a bandage, Nick raged internally. How could they not have saved him? How would he tell Maggie, whom he’d last seen sitting at a picnic table at a summer barbecue on base, that her beloved husband had been shot down by the very people he was trying to help? That the people who would benefit from their mission had turned around and attacked them? Had specifically targeted the people who were trying to rebuild their country?
For the first time in his military career, he felt useless and disheartened. He could understand getting shot at for coming in and trying to rout the insurgents. He couldn’t understand getting shot at for trying to provide functional reliable electricity and water sources, schools and hospitals, for a population in need. It didn’t make sense to him. How could he try and make sense of it for her?
Nick felt the familiar swirls of futility, remorse, guilt, anger, and pain spiraling through the dream. He was drowning, the pressure of all those emotions making it hard for him to breathe. He struggled to surface from sleep. A cool touch on his forehead, made him shiver. He was burning up. That touch shifted to his cheeks and then his shoulders, shaking him, trying to pull him up from the depths.