Chapter 20
Evan Granger; November 22, 2016; Somewhere in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan
Women, don't get a tattoo. That butterfly looks great on your breast when you're twenty or thirty, but when you get to seventy, it stretches into a condor.
BILLY ELMER, attributed,
The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes
"L INE UP FOR MAIL."
The call comes through on the Forward Operating Base's loudspeaker. I grin and hop down from the Humvee I’ve been unpacking.
"Hey Commander Granger. Where have you been hiding?"
Ah hell. I'd know that breathy voice anywhere. It belongs to the biggest Frog Hog on the whole base.
I turn around and give Lt. Commander Pixley what I hope is a polite smile. “Lt. Commander Pixley. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? Just got back from a two-month long forward ops in the Pech Valley. I'm glad to be somewhere I can get clean and eat some real food," I wince at the insincerity I hear in my tone of voice.
"Well if you are hungry for anything besides food you know where to find me,” she murmurs, leaning forward so that I get an eyeful of her sizable…err... assets. I clear my throat and manage to tear my eyes away from her breasts. Feeling like a jerk for looking when I know I shouldn’t be.
I touch my cover and give her a little salute. My voice is a little huskier than it should be. “Yes, Ma’am. I surely do. I might just come on by tonight and satisfy that craving.”
She flashes me a grin and sashays away with a body that a stripper would be proud of and all I can think is, “Cahira would fill out that uniform even better.”
I left the States almost five months ago, and Cahira still consumes my every free thought. I keep my head in the game when I'm on an Ops, but when I finally get a chance to hit the sack all I can see is Cahira. Cahira in that red dress, Cahira spread out on that poster bed, Cahira in my shower, and Cahira rising out of the water like my very own Venus. Then there is her laugh, her smile, her compassion, her generosity. All the quirky things that made me fall in love with her. The smell of lemons and jasmine, how Cahira would give money to every homeless person, she met, how she hated Dr. Pepper, loved anything red, her favorite foods are raspberries and chocolate, and that she can dance like a siren but suffers from verbal vomit.
Inevitably, my mind flashes to the moment I left her broken and sobbing on the floor. Bile rises in my gut, my self-loathing making me crazy miserable. When I think about the way I acted, I feel ashamed. For the first time in my life, I acted entirely without honor.
It's not a good feeling to know that I treated a lady like a common whore. Hell, I think I even called her a whore. Mocked her for giving me something precious. I know I called her a bitch and swore at her. I have never cursed at a woman, let alone at a woman that I had just asked to be my wife. Then I compounded it all by not listening to anything she had to say. I took Amy and my dad's word over the word of the woman that I wanted to marry. I know that Amy and my dad have absolutely no moral compass. I know that Cahira values friendship and integrity above all else. I still chose not to listen. What the fuck did I do?
When I think about how I left Cahira there on the floor, begging and sobbing for me to listen, I want to vomit. I know she must hate me now. I'll never get her back.
I’m a damn fool.
Fuck. I run a hand through my hair and four-day stubble. I need a shower and clean clothes ASAP. Then I have to check in with the Pill Pusher and get looked over. Rocks and shoals need to be followed by everyone. If I duck out my men will know about it, and then they won't be checked out either. After that, it's straight to the DFAC for some grub that's never been canned, dehydrated or reconstituted. Thank God. No more Dicks of Death in a can.
I leave in a week and will be home in ten days. I have six months of leave saved up. So for all intents and purposes, I'm getting out in 10 days. My command scheduled my End of the World Party for right after the first of the year. My men and I are going to celebrate on our own the week after.
“Commander Granger, Sir, you have a big stack of mail here for you."
I stop dead in my tracks. I have not received any mail since David died. I turn around and accept the bundle of letters from the eager looking Seaman. He pushes his birth control glasses down his nose and peers at a manila envelope.
"Umm, sir, there is also a manila envelope for you here that looks like it might be for you. From a Chief Mc. Donald. Except it has your rank as Lt. and not Lt Commander. Is that anyone you know Sir?
I feel the earth drop out from underneath me but somehow manage a strained reply, "Yeah, my father." I reach out and grab the envelope.
Seaman White clears his throat, and I realize he is waiting for dismissal.
Get it together Evan. Mail or no mail you are still an officer.
"That's be all Seaman," I bark out and return his salute. "And be sure those boots are shining tomorrow when I see you. No exceptions for Moon Dust."
"Sir, Yes, Sir!"
"Dismissed."
I look through the stack and see two letters from Cahira. There is even a couple of letters from Frank and Luke. I realize my hands are shaking when I look at the envelope from my dad. I head straight over to the shipping container CHU I am sharing with the commander of my Delivery Vehicle Team, Commander Harris. When I enter, Tom is sitting on his rack looking through his gear.
"Hey man, think you could give me some privacy for a while?"
Tom gives me a shit-eating grin, "I see Lt. Commander Pixley found you."
I flip him off and shake my head. "Nah man, not for that I just need five."
"You got it. I'm off to the DFAC. Give my love to your Happy Sock."
"Man, would you get the fuck out?"
He laughs and slaps me on the shoulder, and I turn my attention back to the envelope. A post-it note flutters to the ground.
Evan, I thought it was time for you to have this.-Dad.
I reach in and pull out a DVD-R with David’s handwriting scrawled across the top, “For my dumb-as-shit brother.” I laugh aloud and then get a lump in my throat. I pull my laptop open and open the disc drive, thanking God that I didn’t upgrade to the newer model that only takes thumb-drives.
The CD starts to run, and I watch as David sits down and adjusts the camera angle, the entirety of his face coming into view. The left side of his face is drooping, he has no hair, and a suture line runs along the right side of his head. I don't know if I should scream or cry, so I just sit there and listen to him speak. When David does start talking, it's with the halting speech of someone who has had a stroke or one too many TBI's. I can't recognize my brother; this is just a shell of my brother.
"So you dumb fuck, if you're watching this then I guess I must be dead. Bereft of life, pushing up the daisies and joined the bleeding choir invisible. Yes, I am an ex-David. Huh. You know that seemed a lot funnier when it was a parrot. Come on, let go of that smile you are holding back. You know you want to laugh. Probably even calling me a moron."
"Now listen because this is the important part. Evan, look at me. Really. Look. At. Me." I see my baby brother take off his shirt and I want to cry. "I'm eighteen years old, and I look like Gollum. I have lost over 80 pounds in the last three months, I have no hair, and I can count every bone in my rib cage. I'm a teenager, and I have no sex drive. Shit, I probably can't even get-it-up. I am in love with the most amazing girl I have ever met. Her name is Mary Cahira O'Hara. And I can't even make love to the girl I LOVE!" He pounds his chest, "Pathetic. Huh?'
David looks down for a second, and I see him take a deep breath, his words more measured and his tone grave.
"I don't want your pity, Evan. Don't you dare pity me! I swear to God I will come back down there and haunt your damn ass. I have lived a good life. Do I wish it were longer than it was? Yeah, of course, I do. I want the chance to go to college, make love to a woman, and raise a family.It's not going to happen. I know that, and I have accepted that. The only reason I fought this long was for you and Mary. I can’t fight anymore, I'm so damn tired. I’m ready to leave this existence and find comfort in heaven."
David takes a deep breath in and sighs, running a frail hand over his sutures. "Evan, I'm in pain all the time. On a good day, it's horrible, and on a bad day, it's excruciating. Sometimes I go for hours, and the pain is all I can think about because the morphine only helps so much. It doesn't relieve the pressure in my head or make the dizziness go away. Plus, I need more and more morphine to function at all. I can't sleep more than thirty or forty minutes at a time."
"I have begged mom and dad to let me get hospice, but they won't do it. They keep ordering the doctors to give me another round of chemo, another round of radiation. Mom actually accused me of being selfish when I told her I wanted to die. Evan, I'm eighteen years old tomorrow and what I want most for my birthday is…To die." He throws me a Vulcan salute and shrugs, "Well, actually what I want most if for Bones from Star Trek to find me in the hallway and wave his scanner over my head, thereby curing me of the tumor that's taking over my brain."
David steeples his fingers and taps his chin a little before continuing, "Unfortunately, warp speed is still a long way off. I'm betting Bones doesn't show up in time. In which case, I hope my second choice happened quickly. I fought the good fight, but the fucker has me beat. Not sure who to be mad at because Mary says God doesn't make people sick, he just helps people bear the weight of their sickness. Not sure if I buy that, but I'm going to go with it for now." He shoots me a fist in the air salute.
I chuckle and shake my head. I can see how worried David is about how I will react to his death.
"I'm planning on doing something selfish tonight. At 0001 I turn eighteen years old and at 0002 I am getting the fuck out of here. I'm making Mary take me out of this hospital and down to the ocean. Mary is bringing her dad's car here tonight and all of the booze she can find. I‘ve been pocketing my morphine every time I could get away with it, and I'm pretty sure I have enough to last me till I bite the big one."
David's voice cracks and I see a tear for the first time. The wave of grief that washes over me is so profound that I feel my heart skip a few beats.
"I wish I could have timed my death a little better. I've been trying to get a hold of you for months, but you must be on an Ops. Evan, I really wanted to make it to Old Silver Beach, but I'm worried I won't last that long. So I rented a hotel room on the Chesapeake Bay with the credit card you left me. I want to die in a real bed, with the girl I love holding me and listen to the sound of the ocean waves. Guess that makes me a selfish asshole, but I'm dying…So I'm hoping God will give me a free pass. I'm just hoping I don't destroy Mary. Promise me you will look her up and make sure she is OK when you get this."
"Yeah, I know you are probably pissed at hell at me right now but don't be in too much of a hurry to beat my ass. I'm betting you got a long life ahead of you. I want you to live it to the fullest. Promise you won't be bogged down in anger and hurt. Let someone in and let someone love you. You're a good guy and if Mom and Dad are too stupid to recognize that well I'm not. You were the best brother any kid could have asked for and I have always known that you had my back. Never once did you tell me that you were too busy to help me ride a bike, throw a football around, or make a sandcastle. Remember how many times we sat out on a porch and watched a thunderstorm? You were more of a father to me than dad ever was. Even though I took everything away from you, you never held it against me. I took away your mom, your life, hell, even your dad. Yet you never made me feel unwanted. I always knew you loved me. When I look back on my life, the moments we spent together were the happiest."
"I just wish you could meet Mary. I stole your mom's pearl ring out of my mom's jewelry box and gave it to Mary. She knows to give it to you when you guys finally meet. Evan, Mary is terrific. She's beautiful, funny, kind and compassionate. Plus, she is a total Sci-Fi geek. You need to marry a girl just like her when you get out of the Navy. I'm betting you are going to stay in your whole twenty years, maybe settle down and have some kids with a trophy wife twenty years younger than you. Play this again in ten years or so and see how close I get. Maybe name one of your kids after me. That would be pretty cool. Well, I guess I'm going to sign off now. Don't worry about me. I'll be joining your mom in heaven, and we can talk shit about what a complete cluster fuck dad is. Maybe send some thunderstorms your way. I love you, man."
I hear David whistling, "Always look on the Bright Side of Life," and the screen goes dead.
I lay my head in my hands and cry. Sobbing as I haven't done since David’s death. When I get control of my emotions, I look through the stack of letters from Cahira, but I can't bear to read them yet. I'm destroyed. Instead, I open the letter from Frank. It is six lines long:
Hope you are still alive over there in that damn sandbox. You broke a good woman’s heart, so you had better have a damn good explanation or a set of steel balls. Otherwise, I am going to kick your nuts so far up your throat you will be swallowing them. Oh, thought you should know that Cahira is having your children in five months or so. Yeah, that’s right, you are having twin girls named Faith and Hope. Be prepared for some groveling because Cahira has some doctor sniffing after her. –Frank
Holy Fuck.
Tom finds me the next morning passed out on my rack with an empty bottle of Jack Daniels and a splitting headache.
"Evan, Man you doing OK? I swear to God I wasn't trying to pry but when I came in the DVD of your brother was playing. I'm sorry. I thought he died a long time ago. You just get that in the mail yesterday?"
"Yeah." My head is going to explode. ”Will you keep it down you rat bastard?”
"I take it that's why you just drank half a bottle of my bourbon?"
"Yeah, that and I just found out the woman whose heart I broke is carrying my twin girls. Oh, and she happens to be the same woman my brother was in love with when he died."
"Wait. What? You are going to be a father? Did you say twin girls? As in more than one?” He guffaws and slaps me on the back. ”Congratulations. Man you know the Universe is getting revenge for all the skirts you chased… Wait, what do you mean your brother was in love with her? Are you still drunk?”
I spill the completely sorry story and wait for Tom to pick his jaw up off the floor.
"Man you fucked up."
"Yeah, got that. Thanks. Tell me something I don't know. I destroyed a woman that is everything beautiful and good. Now she's pregnant with my daughters after I mocked her for giving me her virginity. I can't even imagine how much she hates me." I show Tom a photo of Cahira, and he lets out a slow whistle and shakes his head.
"I can't believe you got a woman that looks like that to fall in love with your sorry ass then you go and fuck it up. What the hell are you going to do? Get acquainted with your knees because you are going to have to do some serious begging. Pregnant or not, a woman like that is going to have a lot of men sniffing around her."
"My buddy just wrote me a letter telling me some doctor is after her."
"Damn… Well, what does she have to say? Did she write to you since you left Las Vegas?"
"I've got two letters from her that I just received. One postmarked almost six months ago. The other one is from three months ago. Haven't read them yet. Jesus, she probably thinks I couldn't even be bothered to write her back. You know we were outside the wire almost the whole six months. We've managed a couple of days here and there at a FOB, but that's it." I bury my face in my hands and feel despair well up. "Tom, I said some vile things. Mocked her for giving something so precious. It's hopeless. What if she won't let me see my daughters?"
"You mean you haven't had the balls to read the letters yet?"
I rub my chest with the heel of my hand and hang my head before answering, "Yeah. That's a pretty accurate assessment."
"You better grow a set. You plan to try to win your woman back then you have to know where you stand. No time like the present. Think of this as the most important mission you will ever go on. You already got all the intel you need on the background. Now you need current intel on the lay of the land. Who are all of the enemy combatants? Are barriers going to prevent you from getting your woman back? Plot it out, plan it out and come up with a strategy. If she is worth it, then do not give up. Just make sure you include some serious groveling in your approach." He shoots me a wink.
"OK, I'll read the damn letters," I reach out my hand for the stack even though I'd rather roll around buck naked on a bed of cacti.
I take the oldest letter out and start reading. I swear to God I can smell lemon and jasmine when I open the envelope. Cahira’s handwriting fills the front and back of two pages of ivory stationery. My heart rips in two as I start to read Cahira’s letter. Her pain and anger pour forth and I know I have destroyed the love Cahira had for me. What I don't know is if I can somehow make her fall in love with me again.
Evan,
You left me broken and sobbing on a hotel room floor just seven days ago,. The same hotel room where I gave you my heart, my body, and my innocence. You took everything and then made me feel like a cheap whore for giving it to you. I don't understand how you could have turned so quickly from love to hate.
The vile things you said to me have sliced a path to my heart and left it in tatters. I let you into my heart. I fucking let you in, and you destroyed me. I knelt on that carpet, gasping for air, sobbing and begging you not to walk away. Asking you to listen to Me., But you refused to listen to a thing I said..
I LOVED YOU.
That is right, LOVED as in the past tense. Not love. I don't love you anymore. I hate you. With every fiber of my being. If I never see you again, it will be too soon. Someday I will find someone that loves me the way I loved you. Someone who doesn't only love when it's easy. Someone who will fight for my love when things get hard. I wish I could say that when that day arrives, I will have the courage to let him in and trust him to take better care of my heart than you did. However, I doubt it because a heart can only take so much.
I promised myself I wouldn't let you know how much you hurt me and I did anyway. I'm such a damn fool.
I wanted to write and tell you about David's death. Not for your benefit but because David would want that. This is for David. Not you. I want to make that clear.
You should know that when David died, I spent over a year going in and out of hospitals for depression. I was just a girl when I met David. Sixteen years old. In love with being in love. I was scared to death that I was going to die and reaching for every experience I could. David was sweet and kind. Funny and so beautiful. I loved him. Not the raging inferno I felt for you but the slow burn of a first love. I wanted him to be my first everything. But as you know that didn't happen. He was too sick.
I watched the pounds fall away, David’s face start to droop, and his voice falter. He was still so beautiful to me that sometimes my heart hurt just looking at him. When David asked me to help him die, I wanted to refuse his request. I wanted to walk away because I was petrified. But I did what I would have wanted someone to do for me.
I picked David up the right after midnight on his 18th birthday, and we drove two hours to the Chesapeake Bay. In St. Mary's we rented a room at a little bed and breakfast I don't think the innkeeper really wanted to rent us a room, but our bald heads swayed him. David was so weak that I had to help him walk the rest of the way to our room.
We put our luggage by the door, and then David laid down on the bed. Asked me to open the balcony doors and kept them open. It was a little before sunrise. The cold December wind was blowing through the cattails on the dunes below our window. Seagulls called to each other, and the waves beat a path to the shore. It had been a full moon, and there was a high tide that morning. The rhythm of the waves lulled us into a kind of peacefulness.
I could see the fear melt away from David. He told me he felt your presence with him for the first time in months. We watched the sunrise together. The colors that morning were a kaleidoscope of vibrant oranges, reds, and yellows. David said it seemed like God was calling him home. He asked me to pour him a glass of the whiskey from the decanter I stole from my father's office the day before. I did what he asked and handed him the glass. Then David reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of pills. He threw them all in his mouth and drank them down with more whiskey.
I covered us with the down comforter at the foot of the bed, and we lay there for a while. Listening to the waves and the sounds of Mother Nature. There were no machines, no IV's, no hospital gowns. David told me where to find your mother's ring and asked me to return it to you when the moment was right. David explained that I'd know when that was.
Told me that he only had two regrets. The first, not having you present for his death. The second that David never got to make love to me the way we both wanted. Instead, he asked me to wait until I found someone that loved me as much as he did.
I guess I got that wrong.
I kissed David softly and told him I would do what he asked. I told him how much I loved him. Then I laid my head back on his chest, and he fell asleep with my arms around him. I forced myself to listen as his heart slowed down and then stopped. I laid there and did nothing because nothing was what David wanted.
I'd never seen anyone die before. It surprised me how quickly David's body stopped looking like David. I walked down to the ocean afterward and contemplated walking into the waves. But I couldn't kill myself when David had wanted to live so badly. It felt like a betrayal. Instead, I laid down on the dune and sobbed. The pain washed over me like the waves on that shore. I stumbled back inside and called your dad. Told him where we were and what had just happened. Of course, he was furious. He threatened me.
I was so scared that I left. I took my suitcases, and I left poor David all alone in that bed. I can never forgive myself for leaving him there. That's it. The whole sordid story. Feel free to hate me; I do not care. However, David wanted you to know, and I owed it to him. Please understand I did this for his sake. Not yours
-Mary Cahira O'Hara
I just sit there like a damn fool, wondering how the hell Cahira ever managed to survive such an ordeal. How did a sixteen-year-old girl manage to find the courage to give Evan the death he wanted? I hand Tom the letter, and there is a heavy silence as he reads it. Then a low whistle.
"Man, you are Charlie foxtrot. She hates your guts. Are you going to read the last one?"
"I don't think I can survive another letter like that," I groan in despair.
"Give me the damn letter, and I'll read it to you."
I hand him the letter and bury my head in my hands as he begins to read.
Dear Evan,
I found out last week that I am pregnant with your children. That is right. There is more than one. We are having twins. I don't know the sex of the babies yet. I remember us talking about whether or not I wanted children and I said, "I hope to have them." My oncologist believed I thought I might be me infertile due to my chemotherapy exposure. I wasn't even sure if I could ever be a mother. I guess the answer is a resounding, "Yes."
I am afraid that you might think I was trying to trap you into something. I was taking birth control pills during our time together. I didn't plan for this to happen. However, this is something I longed for, and I've always wanted to be a mother. I guess that makes me old-fashioned. I wanted to raise my children in a family as loving as my own. Now I will settle for the father of my children trying not to detest me. Maybe even learn to be a friend again. I will try if you will.
I'm not willing to be your emotional punching bag. Shit. I'm sorry. I promised myself I wouldn't lash out. You just hurt me so badly. I know I said I hated you but I don't. I don't hate you, and I have even forgiven you. But I can't forget and I will never trust you with my heart again.
I want us to be friends because we will have two children to raise together. I was hoping you would let me name the babies if they are girls and you can name them if the babies are boys? Their last names will be O' Hara unless you sign the affidavit of parentage. I am not going to bend on that so don't bother to try.
My mom and dad are already planning to move to Frederick to help me with the babies. I gave them five acres of land, and they are building an A Frame house on it, so they will be nearby to help. My dad's retirement will be final by the time you come home. I'm planning on changing to a part-time status at work after my maternity leave. Just enough to keep my health insurance status.
I'm willing to let you be part of the birth of our twins if you want to be. There is a studio apartment over the garage of my house that you can stay in the first couple of weeks after our girls are born if you want to be close. I want them to know they have two parents that conceived them in love. It isn't their fault we don't feel the same way now.
Evan, I'm begging you to walk away from us and sign away your parental rights if you still feel the same level of malevolence for me that you did when you left. I don't expect you to learn to love me again. I know that I will never be able to love you again in any romantic capacity. But we need to be able to like each other.
Your partner in parenthood? - Cahira
There is a long pause when Tom finishes reading the letter, and he finally clears his throat and speaks up. "I can't believe she forgave you after everything you did to her. Cahira is quite a woman, Evan, extending an olive branch to you. Offering to let you be part of the birth process and letting you stay in the studio apartment. Man, this woman is a class act. As far as she knows, you still hate her guts. She is too good for the likes of your sorry ass."
"Yeah, tell me something I don't know. Tom… She is all fire and sunshine. Being around her is like being around a sunrise. She fucking glows with goodness, warmth, and beauty. I don't know how I could have been so stupid. Now I have to watch another man step in and take my place. Touch her and God knows what else. Just the thought of her giving herself to another man makes me see red.
Hell, I don't blame Cahira for wondering how I would feel about being a father. I feel conflicted right now. I want to be there for my girls, but I'm scared I will fuck things up as my dad did."
"I'd say you already fucked things up. You want to win Cahira back?" I nod. "Then you are going to have to be patient and grovel. When you see her again make sure that you don't give her any reason to see your jealousy. It's not going to go over well after everything you said to her in Vegas. Keep your shit together, admit you were wrong, and tell her how sorry you are. You are going to have to win back her trust a little at a time. Be patient. I know you are going to want to be a part of your daughters' lives. Tell her that. Twins are going to be a lot of work. Take her up on her offer to stay on the property. Let her see you're serious about being a father to Faith and Hope. She has already forgiven you, and I am willing to bet that she still loves you- at least a little bit. Build on that foundation."
"Thanks for the advice."
Tom claps me on the back. "No problem. I'm an expert on women. Just ask any of my four ex-wives."
I groan, "I'm doomed."