It was just a routine patrol--five army vehicles taking a turn around the southern part of the city. Ambrose was at the wheel of the last Humvee, Paulie in the passenger seat beside him. Grant was driving the vehicle in front of Ambrose, Jesse riding shotgun, Beans in the turret--the last two vehicles in the small convoy of five.
Just out for a routine patrol. Out for an hour, back to base. Up and down the crumbling, embattled streets of Baghdad along the assigned route. Paulie was singing the song he'd made up about Oz. “Iraq may not have munchkins, but it sure as hell has sand. I haven't got my girlfriend, but I've still got my hand . . .”
Suddenly, a group of kids were running along the side of the road, shrieking and running their fingers across their throats. Little boys and girls of various ages, shoeless, limbs slim and brown, clothing leached of color in the simmering heat. Running, yelling. At least six of them.
“What are they doing?” Ambrose grunted, confused. “Are they doing what I think they're doing? Do you think they hate us that much? They want our throats slashed? They're just kids!”
“I don't think that's what they're doing.” Paulie turned, watching the kids fall back as the convoy passed. “I think they were warning us.” He had stopped singing, and his face was still, contemplative.
Ambrose checked his rearview mirror. The kids had stopped running and stood in the road unmoving. They grew smaller as the convoy continued down the road, but they remained in the street, watching. Ambrose turned his attention back to the road in front of them. Except for the convoy, it was completely empty, abandoned. Not a single soul in sight. They would turn the corner on the next street, circle around the block, and head back to base.
“Brosey . . . do you feel that?”
Paul's face was tipped as if he was hearing something in the distance, something Ambrose couldn't hear, something he definitely couldn't feel. It reminded Ambrose of the way Paulie had looked when they made their clandestine visit to the memorial of Flight 93, when he'd asked the very same question. It had been almost too still that night at the memorial, as if the world had bowed its head for a moment of silence and never lifted it up again. It was too still now. The hair rose on Ambrose's neck.
And then Hell shoved a gnarled hand up through the hard packed road and unleashed fire and flying shards of metal beneath the wheels of the Humvee in front of Ambrose and Paulie, the Humvee that carried Grant, Jesse and Beans--three boys, three friends, three soldiers from Hannah Lake, Pennsylvania. And that was the last thing Ambrose Young remembered, the very last piece of Before.
When the phone rang early Monday morning, the Taylor family looked at each other with bleary eyes. Fern had stayed up all night writing and was looking forward to crawling back into bed after she ate her Cheerios. Joshua and Rachel had plans to head to Loch Haven College for a symposium for the next couple of days and wanted to get an early start. Fern couldn't wait to have the house to herself for a few days.
“It's only six-thirty! I wonder who that is?” Rachel said, puzzled.
As the local pastor, calls at odd hours weren't unusual–but the odd hours tended to be from midnight to three am. People were usually too tired at six-thirty in the morning to get in trouble or bother their pastor.
Fern jumped up and grabbed the receiver and chirped a cheerful hello, her curiosity getting the best of her.
An official-sounding voice asked for Pastor Taylor and Fern handed her father the phone with a shrug. “They want Pastor Taylor,” she said.
“This is Joshua Taylor. How can I help you?” Fern's father said briskly, standing up and moving to the side so that he didn't have to stretch the curly cord across the table. The Taylor's hadn't invested in anything as sophisticated as a cordless phone.
He listened for all of ten seconds before he sat down again.
“Oh. Oh, dear God.” He groaned and closed his eyes like a child trying to hide.
Rachel and Fern looked at each other in alarm, breakfast forgotten.
“All of them? How?”
Another silence.
“I see. Yes. Yes. I'll be ready.”
Joshua Taylor stood once more and walked to the wall unit, hanging up the ancient phone with a finality that made Fern's heart quake in her chest. When he turned toward the table, Joshua Taylor's face was sickly grey and his eyes bleak.
“That was a man named Peter Gary. He's an army chaplain assigned to casualty assistance. Connor O'Toole, Paul Kimball, Grant Nielson and Jesse Jordan were killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq yesterday.”
“Oh, no! Oh Joshua,” Rachel's voice was shrill and she covered her mouth, as if to push the words back in, but they reverberated throughout the kitchen.
“They're dead?” Fern cried in disbelief.
“Yes, Fern. They are.” Joshua looked at his only daughter and his hand shook as he reached for her, wanting to touch her, wanting to console her, wanting to fall to his knees and pray for the parents who had lost their sons. Parents he was going to have to notify in less than an hour’s time.
“They contacted me because I am the local clergy. They want me to go with the officers assigned to the team to tell the families. They will have a vehicle here in half an hour to pick me up. I have to change,” he said helplessly, looking down at his jeans and favorite T-shirt that asked “What Would Jesus Do?”
“But they were scheduled to come home next month! I just saw Jamie Kimball in the store yesterday. She's been counting down the days!” Fern said, as if the news couldn't possibly be true for that reason. “And Marley! Marley's been planning her wedding. She and Jesse are getting married!”
“They're gone, Fernie.”
The tears had started to fall, the initial shock turning into teary devastation. Pastor Taylor's eyes swam with grief, Rachel was weeping quietly, but Fern sat in stunned silence, unable to feel anything but sheer disbelief. She looked up suddenly, horrified as a new question exploded into her mind.
“Dad? What about Ambrose Young?”
“I didn't ask, Fern. I didn't think. They didn't mention Ambrose. He must be okay.”
Fern shuddered with relief and immediately felt remorse that his life was more important to her than the others. But at least Ambrose was alive. At least Ambrose was okay.
Half an hour later, a black Ford Taurus pulled up to the Taylor residence. Three officers in full uniform stepped from the inauspicious vehicle and walked up the walk. Joshua Taylor was in a suit and tie, freshly showered and pressed into his most respectful attire, and he opened the door to the three men. Rachel and Fern hovered in the kitchen, listening to the surreal conversation in the next room.
One man, whom Fern assumed was the chaplain who had called her father, briefed the pastor on the procedure, giving him the information that he knew, asking advice on whom to inform first, on who might have family that they would need to gather from distances, who would need the most support. Fifteen minutes later the four men, including Pastor Taylor, drove off.
Jamie Kimball was the first to receive the news that her son Paul was dead. Then Grant Nielson's family was delivered the news that their twenty-year-old son, their big brother, the kid with good grades and perfect attendance would be coming home in a casket. Jesse Jordan's estranged parents were notified and then had the unenviable task of escorting the officers to the home of their little grandson and telling Marley Davis there would be no wedding in the fall. Luisa O'Toole ran from her house shrieking when the non-commissioned officer who spoke fluent Spanish extended his heartfelt condolences. Seamus O'Toole wept and clung to Pastor Taylor.
The news spread through the town like wildfire–early morning joggers and dog walkers saw the black car with the uniformed men inside and gossip and speculation tumbled out of mouths and into ears before the truth made its way on slower legs through the devastated town. Elliott Young was at the bakery when early word reached him that Paul Kimball and Grant Nielson were dead and that the black car was still parked outside the O'Toole's home. He hid in the bakery's freezer for half an hour, praying for his son's life, praying the uniformed men wouldn't find him . . . surely if they couldn't find him then they couldn't tell him his son was dead too.
But they did find him. Mr. Morgan, the grocery store owner, opened the freezer to tell him the officers were there. Elliott Young shook from cold and terror as he received the news. And he collapsed into the arms of Joshua Taylor when he heard his son was alive. Alive, but gravely injured. He had been flown to Ramstein Airbase in Germany where he would stay until he was stable enough to bring back to the US. If he lived that long.
The roles of a pastor and his family in a community are to love and serve first. That was Pastor Joshua's philosophy. So that's what he did. And Rachel and Fern did their utmost to do the same. The whole township was in a state of shock and mourning, leveled by the loss. It was a state of emergency and there was no relief in sight. There would be no federal funds to rebuild. It was death. It was permanent. So there was a lot to do.
The bodies of the four boys were flown home to their families. Funeral services were organized and held, four days in a row, four days of unimaginable grief. The surrounding counties pitched in and raised several thousand dollars for a memorial. The boys wouldn't be buried in the town cemetery, but on a little hill overlooking the high school. Luisa O'Toole had protested initially, wanting to have her son buried in some remote border town in Mexico where her parents were buried. But for once, Seamus O'Toole stood up to his fiery spouse and insisted that his son be buried in the country he had died serving, in the town that mourned his loss, with the friends who had lost their lives beside him.
Ambrose Young was flown to Walter Reed Medical Center and Elliott Young closed his bakery to be with him, only to have the townsfolk pitch in and reopen it, keeping it running for him while he was away. Everyone knew Elliott couldn't afford to lose the business or the income.
Ambrose's name graced the marquee again. Only this time it simply said “Pray for Ambrose.” And they did, as he had surgery after surgery to repair his damaged face. Rumors circulated that he was horribly disfigured. Some said he was blind. Some claimed he could no longer speak. He would never wrestle again. What a waste. What a tragedy.
But eventually the plea for prayers was taken down, the flags in the windows were removed and life in Hannah Lake resumed. The townsfolk were battered. Their hearts were broken. Luisa O'Toole boycotted the bakery because she claimed it was Ambrose's fault her son was dead. It was his fault they were all dead. She spat whenever someone said his name. People tsked and hemmed. But some secretly agreed with her. Deep down they wondered why he hadn't just stayed home. Why hadn't they all stayed home?
Elliott Young returned to work eventually, after taking out a second mortgage on his home and selling everything he owned of any value. But he still had his son, unlike the others, and he didn't complain about the financial hardship. Ambrose's mother and Elliott took turns at Ambrose's side and six months after he'd been flown out of Iraq, Ambrose came home to Hannah Lake.
For weeks, talk was thick and curiosity ran rampant. There was talk of a parade or a ceremony of some sort to celebrate Ambrose's homecoming. But Elliott made excuses and apologies. Ambrose didn't feel up to a celebration of any kind. People accepted that, albeit reluctantly. And they waited a little longer before they started asking again. More months went by. Nobody saw him. Rumors started up again about his injuries and some asked the question, if he was truly that disfigured what kind of life could he really have? Some people wondered if it wouldn't have been better if he had just died with his friends. Coach Sheen and Bailey tried to see him many times but were turned away . . . many times.
Fern grieved for the boy she had always loved. She wondered how it would feel to be beautiful and have it taken away. How much harder would it be than never knowing what it felt like in the first place? Angie often remarked that Bailey's illness was merciful in one regard: it happened slowly through early childhood, robbing the child of his independence before he'd really gained it. So different from those who are paralyzed in an accident and confined to a wheelchair as adults, knowing full well what they have lost, what independence felt like.
Ambrose knew what it felt like to be whole, to be perfect, to be Hercules. How cruel to suddenly fall from such heights. Life had given Ambrose another face and Fern wondered if he would ever be able to accept it.