Touching Stars (10 page)

She waited, and when he didn’t go on, she prodded him gently. “And it was harder to tell than you thought?”

“You know some of what happened from the news, I’m sure. We learned the military was planning a thrust in the south to clear out the Taliban. The rumor was that some of the Taliban leaders were holed up northeast of Kandahar, in Zabul province. I wanted to see what I could find, to initiate a dialogue with some of the less radical adherents to help viewers understand the stakes. I was warned not to go on my own, but I was sure I knew what I was doing. I had an armed guard. I had my translator, who had been with me through other tight spots, my cameraman.”

This part of the story was not unfamiliar. Eric’s translator had arranged an interview, but only if he left his guard behind. Safety had been guaranteed for Eric and his cameraman, Howard Short, a tough African-American father of one who had agreed to film the interview as a personal favor to Eric. Instead, they had been bound and thrown into the back of a truck and taken to the small village of Dai Chopan.

Gayle could imagine what questions her ex-husband asked himself every night. “Eric, your instincts have proved to be excellent any number of times.”

“Not this time. The whole world knows we were delivered into the hands of our captors by my translator. But not everybody knows Adib was as much my friend as Howard. I’d called in favors to get his family into safer housing, paid for his baby son’s flight to Germany to have a cleft palate repaired. We’d had so many good conversations about the differences in the way our countries saw the world. He knew I was reporting the situation in his country, not cheering anybody from the sidelines.”

“And he betrayed you?”

“I still don’t know why. Either he was more desperate or more furious than I’d suspected. Some of his wife’s family were killed in a coalition bombing in Jalalabad, and I know that deeply affected him. But I didn’t see even a glimmer of regret in his eyes when he as much as signed our death warrants. We were a sacrifice, and he didn’t have any more feeling about delivering Howard and me to those men on that road out of Kandahar than if we had been lambs or goats.”

“Then you think they really intended to kill you? That it wasn’t some form of theater? Maybe Adib thought you would be safe, but that a point would be made before they let you go.”

“You’re trying to put a good spin on it, Gayle, but there isn’t one. I’ll never know what Adib thought. He and his family vanished. But our captors? Oh, they were going to kill us. That was never in doubt from the first moment we saw them.
When
was the only question.”

Deep inside, she had thought so, too, but now her stomach knotted at the confirmation.

Eric rested his palm against his forehead, as if willing the memory away. “Howard was the one who saw our chance and made sure we took it. On our second night at the house in Dai Chopan, they decided to move us again under cover of darkness. I had picked up just enough Pashto on my own to figure that out. We were both exhausted, dehydrated. It’s amazing how quickly you can decline without food or water. But we knew we had to make a break or die. The men who’d been left in charge were old, and not as fast on their feet as they should have been. They’d untied our legs so we could walk out to the truck under cover of an old Soviet assault rifle. I’d been working at the rope around my wrists all day, and it was loose enough that I was waiting to slip it off.

“As they were putting him in the truck, Howard managed to kick the weapon out of the hands of our guard. Then he head-butted him in the stomach. My guard went to help, and I managed to get the rope off my hands and grab the first guard’s weapon. I used it like a club. Howard and I were able to get into the truck before reinforcements arrived and take off.”

“I know the rest,” she said. “They came after you, and you drove off a mountain pass.” Howard Short had died in the resulting crash.

“We were out of our element. They knew those roads, and we didn’t. They were gaining on us and firing at the same time. I took a curve too fast or they blew out my tire. I don’t know. All I can remember is launching myself out of the cab as the truck started to flip, but Howard wasn’t so lucky. I fell and slid for what seemed like minutes, banging myself up pretty badly. I stopped just inches away from going over the mountainside into forever.”

“And nobody came after you?”

“There was no reason to. Our pursuers knew we were as good as dead the moment we went off the road. Only somehow I didn’t die. I ended up on a ledge, maybe eighteen inches wide, with a straight drop-off below me. At first I was grateful. You don’t know what grateful is until you’re inches and seconds from death. Then, when I saw where I had ended up and realized that any movement I made would launch me over the side, I wished I hadn’t been so lucky. I realized I was going to die there. No one would ever find me, and eventually I’d fall asleep or get a cramp I couldn’t control, or I’d just—”

She put her hand on his arm. “But that’s not what happened.”

He was silent for a long time. “No,” he said at last. “There’d been mortar fire in the area. You know the rest. The next evening, just before dark, a group of British soldiers were looking for mortar firing stakes and saw the tracks of our truck. They got out to investigate, and I still had the presence of mind to call to them. I couldn’t tell who they were, but by then, even if they’d been Taliban anxious to shoot me, that would have been all right, too.”

Just hours before, the network had finally called to report that Eric was missing. She had been agonizing over what to tell her sons when the second call had come to say that he had been rescued.

“I never let myself believe you were dead,” she said now. “I couldn’t, because then the boys would believe it. And I knew when I told them you were missing, they would need to hope for the best while they feared the worst.”

“I spent my time on that mountain just trying to prepare for the inevitable. Oh, and trying to figure out how to climb straight up the side of a cliff with no handholds. And listening.”

“For someone who might rescue you?”

“No. At first, just for sounds from the wreckage below. But there weren’t any. Howard must have been killed instantly. We used to talk about our kids. He knew his about as well as I know mine. He wanted to get a job in the States after Afghanistan, somewhere close to Chicago, where his daughter lived. I don’t know if he would have, though. He liked being right in the middle of things.”

He turned his head to look at her. “Later I listened to the dogs. There must have been a pack of them somewhere out there. I heard them all through the night. Howling, snarling, fighting. Now I hear them in my nightmares. They’re the sound of Afghanistan to me.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, Eric. No wonder you can’t sleep.”

“I was afraid to sleep. You can imagine. I tried to think of all the good things in my life. Of all the blessings I’d had. As a way to prepare. I didn’t want to die filled with hatred and despair. I’d brought the situation on myself, but never out of evil intent. I sought that interview because I was trying to do my job. I went in good faith, because I hoped that interview, and the next one and the next one, might be parts of the whole story of the conflict there. And how can we, as a nation, make decisions if we don’t have the whole story?”

She could hear his words slowing, his voice trailing off. The pills were beginning to work. Gayle was glad.

“You’ve always been good at what you do,” she said quietly. “The very best.”

“Not anymore. Maybe I’m…just too old now. My reflexes aren’t as good, my judgment…”

“You were under so much pressure. Not every decision could be a perfect decision. You erred on the side of friendship and trust. If you were going to make a mistake, that was the one to make.”

“Look at all the young men in television news now. Look at the young women. So many of them reporting…from trouble spots.”

“You’re forty-two. You’re not exactly doddering.”

“No, but I’m…afraid.” Eric closed his eyes. Gayle could feel him relaxing under her fingertips. “Maybe…I’ve lost my nerve.”

“Eric, I have a friend, Kendra Taylor, who writes for the
Washington Post.
You’ve probably met her. You should talk to her. She understands post-traumatic stress disorder. She had some personal experience with it. Talking might help you.”

“That’s what they call it. Post-traumatic…Or maybe it’s just…good sense. Time to quit.”

She waited, but as she did, she heard his breathing slow.

Finally she whispered his name. There was no response.

She hoped the pills really could keep bad dreams away.

She stood, then, on impulse, pulled the top sheet higher and over his shoulders, resting her hand not on bare skin but on the barrier of high thread-count cotton. For just a moment she wondered what it would be like if they had never divorced and she could slide into bed beside him, throw her arm over his waist and comfort him through the night.

But they had divorced. Even a tragedy like the one Eric had so personally experienced could not change a decision that had altered their lives forever.

S
ome bridges are masterpieces of design, such monuments to architectural and engineering skills that the bodies of water they span evaporate in significance. Others are blemishes that diminish the majesty of the waters tumbling to the sea beneath them.

Gayle had always thought that the bridges of Shenandoah County, bridges that stretched across the North Fork of the Shenandoah, across Toms Brook and the many streams and creeks that nourished the river, were graceful and picturesque. The low water bridges seemed to ride the current. They were narrow concrete paths with no railings, meant to be navigated slowly, as befitted the dignity of the Shenandoah. The suspension bridges that often accompanied them could only be traveled by foot. They swung high above the water, as slim as scaffolding enfolded by wire spiderwebs. They existed for emergencies and the exploits of adolescents. If a low water bridge flooded, residents could cross on the suspension bridges…if they dared.

One week after the graduation party, Gayle crossed the low water bridge nearest the inn in her red Toyota Tacoma, with Dillon and his friend Caleb Mowrey squeezed in beside her. She parked a hundred yards upriver from the foundation of the old house that would be the focus of archaeology camp and watched as Travis walked across the suspension bridge just beyond the dirt road that divided their properties. The boys immediately headed for the riverbank to scout for snakes.

“Hey there! You look like you’ve done that before,” she called.

Travis smiled down at her and playfully rattled the scaffolding. The bridge swung gracefully over the water.

Once he was on the ground, she greeted him with a glass of lemonade, fresh from a Thermos. “I’d just made this when you called.”

“My timing’s impeccable. I could hear you squeezing the lemons from my house.” He took a long swallow.

She sipped a glass of her own and watched him. He was a serious man, but not an intense one. She liked his laid-back wisdom, his calm demeanor, and the occasional eruptions of wit. She couldn’t think of anyone more suited to providing this camp for the county’s middle schoolers, and she and the parents of her sons’ friends knew how lucky they were.

“So, are we going to take the tour?” she asked.

“I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable with my choice of site. We’re going to be looking for the farm trash pit. I know from the historical record that it was in use right up until the last resident. It should provide some interesting information and early twentieth-century artifacts without us stumbling on features that are too sensitive to let the kids anywhere near. It’s close to the river, so it’s been disturbed by the occasional flood, and it’s probably never going to be on anybody’s list of sites that need a professional dig.”

“How will you know where to start?”

“Along with some legal documents from the courthouse, I have a primitive sketch of the homestead that somebody gave my father. Using that, I did a walkover and came back with my metal detector. It’s a shoo-in.”

He took her on a brief tour, pointing out the places where they would start the dig. Gayle could see that the kids would be well out of the way of her guests.

They settled on a grassy slope that would eventually lead them to the peak of Three Top Mountain—although neither wanted to make the climb.

“It’s amazing how quickly nature erases any signs of habitation, isn’t it? There’s nothing here but trees,” Gayle said. “Pretty much everything was cleared away when your father knocked down the house, but whatever was left is gone now.”

“There’s a lot of history on this spot. Farm history. Civil War history. Maybe a few flints and arrowheads buried deep. All of it just waiting to be uncovered.”

“You sound like you have some insider information.”

“I always do my research. There are some unusual stories connected with this site. With luck, this is going to be a successful dig.”

“You’re the man to organize it.”

“I’m not sure how I got into this, exactly.” Travis leaned back and pulled up a stalk of rye grass to nibble, the perfect picture of indolent summer in cutoffs and a faded green T-shirt.

Gayle leaned back, too, and looked up at a sky dark with clouds that, like their predecessors, probably wouldn’t part with rain. “Wasn’t archaeology camp your own idea?”

“Well, yeah. It was. But why did anybody take me up on it?”

“Because it’s the most exciting thing going around here for middle schoolers?”

“Might be.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“About this time every year, something goes wrong. It’s inevitable, sort of a benchmark. Every summer I think I’ve got it all figured out, that I can beat the pattern, and whoosh…Catastrophe.”

Gayle sat up and looked for the boys. She was relieved to see they hadn’t graduated to anything more exciting than skimming stones farther downriver. Caleb’s dog, Rusty, was following at their heels. She settled back on her elbows.

“Okay, spill it. What’s the catastrophe this year?”

“Well, last year at this time, the Commonwealth of Virginia decided what I had on my property was a bona fide campground, and therefore I had to follow all the bona fide rules. And I won’t bore you with those.”

“I run a B and B. Bona fide. I can imagine. Apparently you straightened that out?”

“With the help of an attorney.”

“Ouch.”

“The summer before that, I had to have a new septic field dug. Right before camp began.”

“I don’t suppose they found anything interesting? An old burial mound? The remains of a village?”

“Enough rocks to build a small house. Which the excavator kindly deposited in a heap while I was away—right where the kids were going to pitch their tents. So the first day we had a hands-on lesson in the fine art of building a stacked stone wall.”

“And you told them this had something to do with archaeology?”

“It’s amazing what little human critters will accept from an authority figure.”

She laughed. “That’s the past. So what’s the present?”

“My caterer is eloping to Montana.”

“You have a caterer?”

“Mary Johnston, over near Edinboro. She caters out of her home. Nothing big or fancy. She’s done it since we started.”

“How does that work?”

“Well, the first week, when the kids go home at night, she only does lunch. I tried making them bring their own, but half the time they’d forget. Memory is pretty selective at that age.”

“From what I can tell, it revolves completely around the opposite sex.”

“The start of a lifelong pattern. Anyway, Mary just brings salads, stuff for sandwiches. The kids like a selection, and they do a lot of the work themselves. Then the first Friday night, she brings stuff for a cookout. We always build a fire and have a wienie roast. But the second week, when the kids camp on my land, she shops and does the advance prep work for all the meals, finishing with the final campfire. Only now she won’t be here to do it.”

“I can see why you don’t want to do all that shopping and preparation alone.”

“It’s not possible. And the counselors aren’t experienced enough to be trusted with it. So now I have to find somebody fast. I’ve checked a couple of leads, but no go so far. Obviously I can crown this the official problem of the summer.”

Gayle sifted through the names of people who might help Travis, but the answer was already clear to her. “I don’t suppose you’d consider using me?”

“Think it through first.” He didn’t sound surprised.

She nudged him with an elbow. “This was no ordinary whining, was it? It was whining with a purpose.”

“I wasn’t going to ask outright. I know how much you have on your plate. But if it appeals to you…”

She sat up and checked on the boys again. When, she wondered, did a mother stop checking? How old did her sons have to be before she stopped worrying that they were heading for imminent disaster?

Travis sat up, too. “
Does
it appeal to you?”

“I’ve got two sons, plus Leon, involved in the camp, my son’s girlfriend, my sons’ friends, and the dig is on land that officially belongs to me. I’m such an obvious choice.”

“Do you have time?”

She did a mental inventory of a normal day. The inn was doing a steady business, but she could only depend on it being fully booked on weekends. On the plus side, the hardest part of even a busy day was over by eleven, about the time she would need to bring food to the dig. On the minus side, she had been so busy with end of the school year activities that she had only scheduled a limited number of job interviews for additional helpers. She had hired one new employee, an older woman. But if she could find a second staffer to take on more of the administrative chores, her time could be freed up to cater for Travis.

And with Eric’s room out of commission during her busiest season, she could really use the money Travis had set aside in his budget.

She gave a tentative nod, but he had a warning.

“I hate to say this, but the last day of camp happens to be on a certain person’s birthday.”

She was flattered Travis had remembered, although she had baked a cake on his for the past three years, so it wasn’t a real surprise. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Seems to me it’s going to be an important one.”

“Hey, since when are you keeping track? It’s just a birthday, even if there’s a zero in it.” She hoped they were finished discussing a birthday she really didn’t want to celebrate. “I think I can do this. When do you have to know for sure?”

“A couple of days?”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea what kind of food kids like and how to make it in quantity. You were at the graduation party.” She was warming up now. “And Noah can be my assistant. His nose is out of joint because he can’t be a counselor this year, but this way he can be over here helping and making some money. He needs a summer job, and this beats mowing lawns in town.”

“You know I’d rather have you than anybody else. We work like a team.”

That was no exaggeration. In fact, sometimes, late at night, she worried that Travis would fall in love and marry again. When another woman came on the scene, friendship between a man and a woman was harder to maintain. And Gayle counted on Travis.

“So is that your only problem?” she asked. “Everything else is shaping up?”

“Thanks to Dillon.”

“Okay, don’t you think it’s time to let me in on that secret?”

Travis turned and gave her one of the rare grins that erased the serious middle-aged teacher and colored in the charm of youth. “What secret?”

“Dillon’s been gone almost every morning this past week. He’s spending a lot of time at your house doing something. He comes back every day just glowing. I’m guessing he’s not washing artifacts.”

“I’ll give you a hint. There are a couple of kids involved, including Caleb.”

“Well, that doesn’t help much.”

“He’s the one who wants to keep it a surprise. Let him.”

“Whatever you’re doing, it’s a big help, Travis. You’re building his confidence…and getting him out of the house. His relationship with his father has never been easy.”

“It’s not getting better?”

In her mind she ran through a summary of the past week, of Eric’s quick temper, which Dillon could so easily set off, of Dillon’s attempts to get attention and their frequently disastrous outcomes.

She shook her head. “Not yet. Eric’s not a patient man, and since he came back from Afghanistan, he’s angry and edgy.”

“You know that makes sense, right?”

“Sure, and I know he’s trying.”

“There has to be a lot he grapples with daily. From what the news reported, it was more or less an accident coalition troops found him.”

She thought about what Eric had revealed the night of graduation. He had been extraordinarily lucky. She said thank-you prayers each dawn that he had come back alive. She asked for patience and understanding, too, but none of this was easy to explain to Dillon. And day by day she watched him wilt under the full force of his father’s impatience.

“How’s it going with the other boys?” Travis asked.

“Noah stays away from him as much as he can. Jared seems uneasy about something. Maybe he’s just not sure what to say to Eric after everything.”

“I’m sure that’s part of it.”

Gayle heard more than a simple reassurance. She angled her body so she could see Travis better. “Do you know something about this?”

“Nothing specific.”

“He confided something, didn’t he?”

“Not as much as he might need to.”

She was glad her son had a man he could talk to, but she was sorry he hadn’t chosen to talk to her.

“Don’t look like that,” Travis said.

“Like what?”

“Gayle, you’ve got to remember you were married to Eric. The boys know you have your own baggage to carry in and out of that relationship. Sometimes they need a neutral party.”

She rested her hand on his for a moment. “We’re all lucky you’re willing to listen to them.”