Carly (22 page)

Haskell had told them a few days before that the brass had decided that the two Iraqi tanks had been lost since they’d been
seen only by their supply squad, and the Iraqis hadn’t fired on anyone. They’d just disappeared. And for some reason Carly’s
nightmares had slacked off since her terrifying experience. She would have thought that a night spent in the desert with deadly
enemy tanks lurking nearby would have doubled, tripled her fear. Did the waning of the nightmares mean her fears were ebbing?
Or was this just a brief time-out?

Suddenly a siren sounded, droning over the constant swishing sound of the sandstorm. Haskell shouted, “Get on your NBC gear!”

Carly pushed the spark plug into place and jumped down. Her nuclear biological chemical gear was on the ground nearby. She
pulled the mask over her head and then tugged on the pants, jacket, boots, and gloves. All around her, the guys rushed to
do the same. When she was finished, she looked around. They looked back at her through their masks like outer-space monsters
from a 1950s film.

The rubberized outfit shut off any air to her skin, which was its job, but this immediately caused Carly to break into a sweat.
It was January, but it still hit a sweaty eighty or ninety degrees every day though the nights could drop to freezing.

Suddenly, memories of the gas chamber test during basic training gagged Carly. Desperately, she tamped down the urge to rip
her mask off.
I have to keep it on. This might not be a drill
. Hussein might have really launched a missile armed with toxic chemicals. She tried to slow her rapid breathing, control
her throat.

If she didn’t get a grip, she could easily hyperventilate and pass out. And wouldn’t her sergeant love that? Carly would never
hear the end of it. Relentless, the sensation of being strangled from inside was fighting its way to the top of her consciousness.
If it took over, she didn’t think she could keep it together.

Carly closed her eyes.
God, help me out again. If I take my mask off and this is for real, I’ll die. Help me out just as you did on the desert that
night, making the lost tanks miss us in the dark
.

Minutes passed. “Okay,” Haskell ordered through his mask, “go on with your work until we get the all-clear.”

The sergeant’s order struck Carly as ridiculous. She looked down at the large, clumsy rubber gloves she wore. Work? How? She
waved her hands at Haskell. “I can’t pick up a spark plug with these on.” Her voice came out muffled, and the effort to speak
spiked her panic. “What should I do instead?” she gasped. The rest of the platoon nodded in agreement and also held up their
hands. Haskell looked disgusted. His phone rang and he jogged to it.

Bowie came up beside her. She turned to him, his nearness welcome. Her pulse and breathing were still escalating. Her heart
felt as if it were bouncing off her breastbone. She began hiccoughing inside the restrictive mask. How long would this go
on? Would she have to wear the mask for the rest of the day? How long before the poison gases dissipated in the strong desert
wind?

A second siren sounded. “All clear!” Haskell shouted, his gas mask already under his arm. “It was just a test. Keep your gear
with you at all times from now on. Intelligence suggests that we might have the real thing at any time.”

Carly wrenched off her mask, gasping for air. Anytime? Did he have to add that?

A strong hand gripped her shoulder. “You okay?”

She turned to Bowie and tried to smile. “I didn’t like the gas chamber in basic.”
Make that: I freaked out
.

“Well, who did?” Bowie tugged off his gloves and bent to pull off his boots.

“I’ll be fine.”
As long as these are just drills
. Would she panic, completely lose control, if it were the real thing?

“You want to go to church on Sunday?” Bowie asked in a low voice as he pulled off the second boot.

Carly stared at him. Where had that come from?

“I haven’t been since we got here, but I think it might be a good idea.” He glanced up.

Carly slowly nodded. “Yeah, I’ll go with you.” Had this chemical warfare drill done the same number on Bowie?
God, I need you. This is all too scary and too real for me to handle alone
. And wasn’t that what Chloe always told her? She heard her great-grandmother’s voice saying, “We can’t do this life without
God, honey.”

“Yes,” Carly said. “Bowie, remind me. I’d like to go and take communion.”

Ivy Manor, January 2, 1991

Leigh and Nate rode in the front seat and Grandma Chloe, pale and weak, in the back. She’d just been released from the hospital
after her strenuous bout with pneumonia. She would be on antibiotics for another week and required careful nursing. Her own
eyelids drooping, Leigh was exhausted from spending most nights sleeping in the chair beside her grandmother’s bed. Chloe
had begged her to go home, but Leigh hadn’t felt right about it. Chloe had been dangerously ill, and Leigh wouldn’t let her
slip away without a family member there. A spasm of fear jerked through Leigh as she tried to appear unconcerned.

“Chloe, Michael is really looking forward to seeing you at home again,” Nate said as he turned onto the road to Ivy Manor.

“I love that little boy.”

Her grandmother’s breathless voice tightened Leigh’s nerves another notch. “Me, too.”

Nate moved his right hand over until it covered Leigh’s resting on the seat. She turned her palm up and gripped his comforting
hand. She’d miss him so when she left for Saudi Arabia later that month. “Mother is supposed to meet us at home,” she said.

“Bette has been looking tired,” Chloe said.

Leigh nodded. Her mother had looked more than tired. Bette looked distressed and preoccupied. Could it be that man she’d brought
to Christmas dinner? Was he pressuring her mother into a relationship she didn’t feel ready for? Leigh smiled to herself.
No matter how handsome Dan Greenfield was, he’d find out her mother was never easily persuaded.

Ivy Manor loomed da> of Leigh. The January clouds parted and sunlight flowed over the old house. It needed a new coat of white
paint. Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Someday the house would be her responsibility. It had stood for nearly three centuries
and been owned that long by her family, something very few American families could say. Love for Ivy Manor and for the woman
who was synonymous with it expanded inside her heart.
I love you, Grandma Chloe. And you’re going to get better
.

Bette was waiting at the back door for them, along with Rose and Michael. “Mother,” Bette said as Nate carried Chloe inside,
“are you sure they should have released you from the hospital?”

Leigh noticed that her mother’s hair wasn’t styled as it usually was. It was a mess. What was that all about?

“I was sick of the food and dreary room,” Chloe said in the breathless voice that spoke of lingering lung congestion.

“Well, that don’t surprise me or anybody else,” Rose replied. “I got a pot of homemade chicken dumpling soup on the stove
for you.”

“I feel better already.” Chloe sniffed the air. “And I bet Michael would love those dumplings, too.”

“Hi, Grandma Chloe, I’m glad you got to come home.” Little Michael patted her forearm as he ran to keep up with his father
as he carried her through the dining room.

Soon they were all upstairs in Chloe’s faded bedroom, still the way it had been the day Roarke had died. Nate settled Chloe
onto her bed. After switching on the multicolored Tiffany bedside lamp, Bette and Leigh lifted away her coat and scarf and
helped her lie down. “I’m sorry, children. I think I’ll need to rest a few minutes before I come down for lunch.”

“I can bring it up on a tray,” Rose offered.

“No, I’d like to see if I can come down and sit with the family for a meal.”

“You ring that bell. I don’t want you walking those steps without someone with you,” Rose ordered.

Chloe replied with a nod.

“Can I lay down with Grandma Chloe?” Michael asked.

“Yes, please,” Chloe said, touching his shoulder.

“Just for a moment,” Leigh said. “When she tells you it’s time to leave, you go to your room or come downstairs. Promise?”
Michael nodded earnestly.

Rose smoothed Chloe’s pillow and checked her forehead for fever, then followed the rest of them out of the room.

Downstairs they all gravitated to the kitchen, warm and fragrant with chicken soup. Nate and Leigh sat at the table. “Mother
looks really weak,” Bette said, wringing her hands. “I’ve never seen her this frail.”

“I’m sorry I’ve got to go back to New York today,” Nate said, “but I have to be on duty tonight.”

“Me, too,” Leigh added, watching her mother’s hands with apprehension. “I’ve got to clear my desk before I go to Saudi on
the thirteenth. And Michael starts school again in three days.”

Bette stared at them, her hands frozen. “We can’t leave Mother alone.”

Leigh looked at Bette. “I thought you were staying,” she balked. “I thought that’s why you came today.”

“I can’t.” Bette wrung her hands almost frantically. “I have to be back to Virginia today, this afternoon before three.”

Leigh gawked at her. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes, I have to.” Bette paced in front of them. “I’m sorry.”

“You can’t leave,” Leigh objected. “I’ve got to go. I was supposed to be in the office on the twenty-eighth.”

“I can’t stay,” Bette repeated, drawing toward the back door.

“Well, I’ll be here,” Rose said, “but I’m not family, and Miss Chloe needs family now. Losing Miss Kitty has really taken
the stuffin’ out of her. She needs family.”

“Mother, Nate and I are both working.” Leigh stood up. “I stayed with Grandmother at the hospital practically night and day.
You came for two short visits. Is Dan Greenfield keeping you so busy—”

“I can’t explain. Something’s come up.”

Leigh gazed into her mother’s pained but stubborn face.

“Leigh, I know you need to get back,” Nate said, “but your schedule is more flexible than mine. I’ll take Michael home with
me—”

“No!” Michael yelled from the doorway from the dining room. “I don’t want to go home without my mama!”

Nate rose and went to him. “It’ll be okay.”

Michael ran around his father, straight to his mother. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with you and Grandma Chloe.”
He wrapped his arms tightly around Leigh’s waist. “I don’t want you to go!”

Leigh looked to Nate. He came over and put an arm around her shoulders and a hand on Michael’s. “Calm down, son. Tell me:
what’s the matter?”

Michael clung harder to Leigh. “I don’t want to be away from my mama. I don’t want to.”

“Mother,” Leigh said to Bette, “Nate, Michael, and I need to go home together. You
have
to stay with Grandma.”

Bette looked wildly at them and then hurried toward the back door, grabbing her gray wool coat as she went. “I can’t. I just
can’t.” A sob punctuated her words.

Dumbfounded, Leigh stared as the door closed after her mother. What was going on? Bette wasn’t acting anything like her calm,
self-possessed mother.

Nate put his reassuring arm around Leigh and murmured, “You’re going to have to find out what’s upsetting her.”

“You got that right,” Rose agreed.

Saudi Arabia, January 10, 1991

After taking communion for the first time since her visit to Ivy Manor, Carly sat beside Bowie in a tent church, the
shammal
blowing as usual, ruffling and billowing the canvas. Beside them sat Lorelle and Sam. Carly felt an ease she hadn’t experienced
since she arrived in Saudi. Taking communion had fed her spirit, made her feel a part of God’s power and love in a fresh way.
She noticed a few others from her platoon, whom she’d not thought religious, were present, too. Maybe being in a combat zone
heightened everything, made every emotion—the good and the bad—sharper, deeper. Perhaps this drew many back to faith.

At the front of rows of soldiers on folding chairs, a uniformed chaplain was preaching on 2 Corinthians 4:6-9. He read:

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power
may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted,
but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.

Carly couldn’t remember ever hearing this text preached on before. She had no trouble seeing herself as a plain, earthen,
probably cracked, vessel. She’d never felt secure or whole. Never.

And after the kidnapping, these insecurities had grown. Not even taking tae kwan do and karate for seven years, or running
marathons where she put herself to the test physically, had soothed those deep, nagging fears. Did this all go back to not
knowing her father? Could that be what made her feel isolated, orphaned? She thought wryly of Alex’s concern over telling
the guy who liked her about going to counseling.
Maybe I’m the one who needs counseling
.

Bowie took her hand. She closed her eyes, letting the comfort of his strong, rough hand work its way through her. She saw
clearly that Bowie had been a gift from God. His quiet strength and confidence in her had carried her over the first few terrifying
weeks in a war zone.
Thanks for Bowie, Lord. And for Joe and Sam and Lorelle—all the friends you’ve blessed me with
.

The chaplain ended his message with verse 17: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Then he asked them to rise and open their hymnals.

The chaplain possessed a strong melodious baritone, and he led them in a hymn that sounded so familiar to Carly. As they sang
the chorus, “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe,” she remembered that Rose and her daughter had sung that hymn at Aunt Kitty’s
funeral. Carly stared down at the tattered hymnal that looked as if it had survived many wars and skirmishes. The first verse
of the hymn hit her: “I hear the Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small; Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in Me thine
all in all.”