The Art of You

Eastern Afghanistan – Summer 2010

“I’m sure you’re planning to re-up again, but we miss you.” Bianca’s soft voice floated across the line. “All of us do.” She had three brothers, but I might as well have been her fourth with how much she worried about me.

“And when was the last time you gave Constantine this speech? He’s coming up on his eighth year soon.” Dodge and deflect, because how could I tell her the only way I’d ever leave the military outside of retirement was in a box? She’d think there was something wrong with my head. I mean, maybe there was?

“Last week,” she said with a light laugh. “He had the same response. Swerved free and clear of the conversation like you just did.”

I leaned back in the desk chair, eyeing the most recent photo Bianca had sent me with her letter. It was of her and her little sister at a bookstore. Bianca was not only a prolific writer, she was an avid reader. “How’s Isabella doing? Keeping out of trouble?”

“Izzy’s a typical seventeen-year-old.”

I frowned. “And that means?”

“Rebellious. And before you ask me to elaborate like Constantine did, believe me, you don’t want to know. You’ll hijack a jet and fly here to lecture her.”

Enough said. Wouldn’t stop me from worrying about Isabella, though.

“I’ve got it covered, don’t worry. Alessandro, too, now that he’s back in town. We’ll keep her in line.”

“From the sounds of it, you’re both failing.” I straightened in my chair when a new email on my AOL account popped up. A message from my father. “I should probably get going.”

“Yeah, of course. Well, thanks for checking in. Want me to tell Izzy anything for you?”

“Yeah, tell her if she doesn’t straighten out, both Constantine and I will wind up in trouble for going AWOL when we come home to talk some sense into her.”

“Copy that. Talk soon. Be safe.”

“No, you be safe. I’ll be dangerous.” That was probably from a movie. Or maybe a book. I read a lot, too.

I ended the call, then let the mouse hover over the email, not quite prepared to open it up. My father only reached out when he needed a favor. He was a senator now, and I knew he had his political sights on something even bigger, but why’d bigger always seem to come with a cost?

Just do it. Get this over with. I clicked open the email after my pathetic pep talk.

Hey son, I didn’t know how to tell you this when we last talked, so I’m doing it now. Your mom is keeping something from you. She doesn’t want you to know while you’re deployed, but I don’t think that’s the right move, so I’m telling you.

The cancer came back. Stage 4. The doctor said she has four to six months left.

Before you sign your papers, I thought you should know that.

Call me when you have a chance.

I reread my father’s email, gripping the arms of my chair, my vision going blurry. Shock kept the tears at bay, but I barely had time to reach for the wastebasket before I threw up my dinner.

“We finally got the orders. We’re spinning up now. Get your . . .”

I lifted my head from the trash to look at my team leader staring at me from the doorway. “Bad sushi.”

“We don’t have sushi on base.” Matt lifted his hands up onto the doorframe, bracing against it as if trying to hold himself back from storming in. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine.” I set down the trash basket.

“So, what you’re saying is you’re the opposite of okay?” He lifted a brow, calling my bluff. Quite easy to do with the stench of vomit in the room.

Eight long days, and even longer nights, of waiting for our marching orders to go after a Taliban leader, and now of all times they came down. This can’t be happening. I faced my desk and closed my laptop. “We’re rolling out right now?” I spun around in the chair and stood.

“Yeah, as of five minutes ago, and we need you. We’re already down a man since Golf Team borrowed our EOD guy, and ISR detected a cache of weapons and explosives scattered all over the place at the target location.”

I tried to slide back into operator mode and focus, but my father’s words pounded into my skull. The reason for me to stand down tonight and not re-enlist was just emailed to me three minutes ago.

“Listen, we have that new guy now,” Matt went on when I’d yet to answer. “He hasn’t spun up with us yet, but from what I’ve heard, he’s damn good. I think he should fill in for you as our lead sniper. Devon was first in his class, like you. He can be on the long gun on overwatch tonight instead. But I still can’t do this without you, and if we don’t move in tonight, we lose our HVT.”

I hung my head, my stomach squeezing, on the verge of being sick again. “I’m not sure my, uh, head will⁠—”

“It’ll be where it needs to be.” He was leaving me no option. He had Command up his ass, and they had all of Congress up theirs, so I didn’t blame him.

“Yeah, okay, just give me a second.”

“To remember you’re an elite operator? One of the Navy’s best?” Matt lowered his arms to his sides, crossed into the room, and slapped a hand over my shoulder. “Don’t forget it. Got it?”

“Roger that.” I closed my eyes, waiting for him to leave. The second he was gone, I clawed at my hair and took a knee. Memories scraped through my mind of the last time Mom was sick. I’d just completed Hell Week at BUD/S when the call came from my father. My parents were divorced, but like today, my mother always tried to protect me from any kind of pain, while my father was the one to rip the Band-Aid off and cut me with the truth.

I took another minute or two to pull myself together, splashed some water on my face and rinsed out my mouth, then found the team prepping for the mission.

New Guy was doing a weapons check, and he was the first to look at me when I entered the room. I went over to him, ignoring the stares of the rest of Echo Team, knowing they could read my fucked-up state from a mile away. As for Devon, we’d barely spoken two words since he’d joined us on base, so he wouldn’t realize I was off.

“Sorry, Ashford,” New Guy apologized. “I’m not trying to replace you, I⁠—”

“It’s fine. Most of us just go by first names here.” I did my best to breathe. To try and let go of the battle warring inside me about my mom. Shake it off for tonight, at least. “You want me to call you Devon or by your last name?”

“Anything is preferable to New Guy.” He flashed me a smile.

“Fair enough.” I took a knee by the gear as Matt came over to us.

“We’ll be flying to the Y tonight. No choice with the terrain around the target.” Matt lifted his hand to silence my protests before I could even start. “I know, I know.”

“The troop chief took a helo to the valley to patrol ahead of time,” New Guy—shit, Devon—tacked on.

The fact Matt trusted him over someone else on the team to be on overwatch meant I ought to put my faith in him, too.

“If we’ve got squirters, we’ll know about it,” Matt said. “We learned from what went wrong last month. It’s why we do the AARs.”

Before I could speak up, Alfie, Echo Three, joined us, stroking his auburn beard. “You, uh, good?”

My first impulse was to tell one of my closest friends on the team that I was far from it, but I caught Matt’s head shake, a quiet order to keep my mouth shut.

I dragged a palm along my jawline and looked around the room, knowing one wrong move from me downrange could get someone on Echo killed. So, I did what I knew was my responsibility to do. I defied the chain of command and broke my silence. “Actually . . .” I avoided eye contact with our team leader. “Just found out my mom’s cancer is back, and I don’t think she’s going to survive this time.” My gaze bounced back and forth between Alfie and the others as I admitted, “So no, I’m not even close to being good.”