CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Work became my life’s blood once more. Checking my cell phone and personal email was a treat I looked forward to.
Seth texted me pics from training, though we didn’t do much talking the first week. We sent text messages, briefly summarizing our days. Training was kicking his butt, and my new commitments at work, mine.
My friends rallied around me, held me up when I started sagging.
And — just like I predicted — Starlet tried to steal Seth’s shirt and sleep on it. The second night, we struck a deal. I wore the shirt to bed, and she slept curled up against my stomach. That way we both got the little taste of Seth’s love that we so badly needed.
Each morning I woke up wondering what he was doing. Each night after texting him, I also sent a silent goodnight, intuitively feeling a message sent from the heart could be received even better than a message sent via cell phone.
An email came the day before he left for Afghanistan.
Quinn,
I know I said each time I go away it’s different. This deployment is making me see how true that is.
I’ve never felt at home in one place. I’ve always felt good traveling, like I could find pieces of myself all over the globe. At some point in the last month, that changed.
Now my home is wherever you are.
(And Starlet too. Tell her I’m counting the days till I can come back and make her a deli meat feast.)
I hope you’re keeping busy and not thinking of me too much. Six months will pass quicker than you think and I’ll see you soon.
Love,
Seth
I wrote him back immediately.
Seth,
Your email just changed my day. I asked Starlet, and she misses you even more than she misses chicken, which she hasn’t had all week, so that’s really saying something. Work is busy, but it doesn’t keep my mind off you. I wonder all the time what you’re doing and if you’re thinking of home.
Guess what? Heather is pregnant! Crazy, huh? It looks like she and her sister are going to have kids pretty close to each other. I can’t believe one of my best friends is starting a family. It makes me feel so old…
I do think of you. All the time. So… sorry, not sorry.
I’m going to trust what you say about six months going by fast. Until then I’ll check my email obsessively.
Love you and miss you,
Quinn
For some reason, knowing he had arrived in Afghanistan put me at peace. He was settled, at least temporarily. I didn’t know what his day to day would be like there, and part of me didn’t want to know. If I could fully picture him in Afghanistan, then I could imagine him in danger.
When he wrote back a few days later, there was a picture attached to the email, one of the Afghanistan landscape with mountains in the distance. I studied the frame, noting its lack of human presence and wondering if that was a clue to Seth’s current mental state.
Forgetting about my decision to keep Afghanistan separate from Chicago, I set the picture as my computer’s desktop background, so that, in-between moments of work, I could see a little bit of Seth’s view.
Things are going good here, his email said. It’s a lot of work around the base. For the season, it’s actually pretty tepid. I have several friends in my unit, so that’s great. Hope you are doing well.
Now that I had a picture of his surroundings, I began to burn to know more. What was his job on the base? Did he ever go off? Was he near a town or a village? The only thing he’d told me before leaving was that he’d be staying a fair distance outside of Kabul.
I wrote him back, asking my questions, then went about the rest of my work day, forcing myself to wait till everything was wrapped to check my personal email.
At five, with anticipation making my fingers move quickly, I checked my inbox.
No new messages.
I calculated the time difference in my head. Kabul was nine and a half hours ahead of Chicago. So, if it was six p.m. where I was… that meant it was three-thirty in the morning where Seth was.
Blah. I was being ridiculous. Seth would write back when he had a chance.
Work done for the day, I headed to London’s apartment for a little pregnancy celebration with the girls. Heather already looked different, all glowy in that way pregnant women get.
Does Seth want a child? I wondered for the first time.
We’d never discussed that. We hadn’t known each other long enough to even get to the topic. I couldn’t imagine shooting off the question in an email. A better question might be, Do I want children?
I didn’t know. Hell, I didn’t know why I was even thinking about it.
Because I wanted Seth, that was why. Right then and there, he was the only thing I wanted.
Needing to let go a bit, I pushed my two-drink limit and slept on London’s couch, Starlet curled up on the rug next to me.
Saturday morning, I awoke to a bus rumbling outside the first floor window and someone banging around in the kitchen.
“Morning sleepy head,” London called cheerfully.
“Ugh.”
She came into the living room in pajamas, holding two plates. “I made pancakes. Since it’s the weekend I figured we could carb up and then crash.”
“Hell yeah,” I agreed, eagerly accepting a plate.
“I can’t believe it,” she said around a mouthful of food. “Heather and a baby.”
“Yeah, but it makes sense. She’ll be the perfect mother. It’s us who can’t wrap our heads around the concept.”
She laughed. “True. Hey, did Seth write you back yet?”
I sat up straighter and put my plate on the coffee table. “I haven’t checked, but he had to of.”
London leaned around the side of the couch to grab my purse. She tossed it to me, and I mined for my cell phone.
Excitement hummed in me while the email app loaded. Maybe Seth would have more pictures. One of him would be great. Even one of his friends he was there with would be satisfying.
But there was nothing.
“That’s odd,” I said, my voice hollow.
“What?” London turned on the TV and flipped through channels.
“He hasn’t written back.”
“Oh.” She kept her focus on the screen. “I’m sure he’ll write you later. What time is it there?”
“It’s past six at night.”
Somewhere between checking my email and finding nothing from Seth and informing London of the time in Afghanistan, a big ball had formed in my stomach. It felt like pure marble weighing me down.
Sometimes “instincts” are mistaken for emotional rationalizing that gets way out of hand, and sometimes you have to trust them.
In this case, I didn’t know what to do. Something wasn’t right.
“What’s wrong?”
I started to see London staring at me.
“He’ll write you back,” she said.
I gulped. “Yeah.”
Her eyes fell into slits. “Is there some reason he might not?”
I slowly shook my head. “No. When he left, we were on good terms.” I remembered the look on Seth’s face right before he climbed out of my car. “He didn’t want to leave.”
“He didn’t want to leave you.”
I would have blushed at her words if I wasn’t so worried.
I carried my phone on me all day, checking it every five minutes to see if Seth had responded. A dull hollowness formed around me, following me to the park to walk Starlet and to the mall with Rory and London.
By the time I went to bed, he still hadn’t written back.
When I woke up Sunday morning, there was nothing in my inbox. By Sunday night, real fear took over. I laid awake in bed all night.
On Monday morning, I knew for sure something had gone wrong.
I ran my fingers through my hair as I paced around the kitchen. What if he’d gotten injured? Or killed? My breathing sped up and sweat formed on my palms. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t let myself think like that. I needed to take a serious chill pill and stop letting my fears guide me.
What would the army do if something happened to Seth? They would contact his immediate family, of course. And that would probably be that. Would they make a public announcement? We hadn’t discussed this. His dad would know, his mom would know, but I would be left in the dark. I didn’t know how to get in touch with Seth’s family. If he had been injured, would his army friends here in Chicago know? Phil perhaps?
I quickly logged onto Facebook and checked Seth’s page. The last thing posted, a picture of Starlet looking up at him from my couch, had gone up before he left for training. I clicked on Phil’s face. We weren’t friends, but he had a public profile. The last thing on his page were some pictures from a few days ago, a zip lining trip. I wrote Phil a quick message, explained what had happened and asked him if he had heard anything from or about Seth.
With my hands shaking, I leaned against the kitchen counter. I needed to leave for work in the next hour, but I couldn’t do it. Not if Seth’s safety was in question.
Luckily, it was going to be a slow week. I texted the staff, letting them know they had the day off and told Stephanie to reschedule my meetings. The office would be closed until tomorrow. Hopefully, by then I would have everything figured out.
I checked Facebook again, fed Starlet and let her out… then checked Facebook again.
Nothing.
I was at a loss as to what to do next, so I got busy vacuuming the whole house, my phone on vibrate in my back pocket in case a message came in.
Phil wrote back an hour later. No, he said, he hadn’t heard from Seth. And was everything all right?
The next avenue seemed the most obvious. Finally, I would get a real answer. Assuming the army was willing to give it. Their protocol was probably to only release information about soldiers to immediate families. So, if something vile had befallen Seth, it was possible I might not get a straight answer. But maybe I could find out if something out of the ordinary had happened.
A new mission set before me, I rushed into the kitchen, looked up the number and then called the recruiting center where I’d dropped Seth off. A friendly sounding woman answered.
“I’m looking for information about my boyfriend,” I said, rushing to explain but still be clear and concise. “His name is Seth Allman, and he’s deployed in Afghanistan. I just dropped him off there with you the other week. We’ve been emailing back and forth but he’s not responding anymore, and I was just wondering if you can give me some information. I need to make sure he’s all right. Is there some reason he may not be getting internet at his base anymore?”
“Let’s see,” the woman said. “I’m not authorized to release any information about—”
“I understand,” I cut her off. “Can you tell me about the internet situation? Could something have happened to cut it off?”
“That’s not something that—”
“I just want to know that he’s all right,” I snapped, then took a breath and reeled it in. Careful, careful. I needed to be careful. “I need to know that he’s not… in a hospital somewhere.”
She hesitated for a moment. “All right. One minute.”
A long moment passed. The woman breathed into the line, presumably as she looked up Seth’s information on the computer.
“Seth Allman,” she finally said.
“Yes. That’s right.”
“He was deployed in Afghanistan four years ago.”
“Yes.”
“And in Mexico one year ago.”
“Okay.” I didn’t know about that one.
“But that was the last time he was called to duty.”
Shock stabbed through my body, making me stumble over my words. “No, that’s… no, that’s not right. He’s in Afghanistan now. He just went there.”
I took in a sharp breath and sat down at the kitchen table. My blood pressure was rising. If I lost my temper, I also lost any chance of getting information out of the army.
“No, that’s incorrect,” the woman replied. “I’m looking at the computer right now. Seth Allman.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead in frustration. “Could something have happened? Like, maybe there’s something wrong with his file? I dropped him off there myself!”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“All right...”
She didn’t believe me.
“Tall, brown hair and blue eyes. Did you see him? Can you ask around? Something must be wrong with your computer systems! They must—”
“I remember him,” she said suddenly.
“Yes! You do?”
“Yes, he wasn’t on his way to a deployment though.”
“Wait… what do you mean? Are you sure?”
“I’m the only full-time employee here, ma’am. I’m sure. It was a Friday, correct?”
Something hitched in my chest. “Yes,” I croaked.
“The young man came in, and we talked, got caught up. He recognized me from last year. Then he asked to use the bathroom.”
My throat was so swollen that I could barely speak. “And then?”
“And then he left.”