Operation Oleander (9780547534213) Read online

  “Critics of grass-roots efforts like Operation Oleander, particularly those that have a military face to them, say they are risking the safety of aid workers and undermining the very causes they purportedly are trying to help.”

  My eyes blur. The article goes on to quote some charitable leaders who fear “any connection with U.S. soldiers, no matter how benign, not only creates unnecessary risk to the soldiers but leads to significantly increased chances that their intended aid recipients will be targeted by insurgents. The July 5 attack on the orphanage appears to be an example of such targeting. In the aftermath of the attack, Operation Oleander is regrouping and determining how best to assist charitable efforts in Afghanistan. For now, Operation Oleander founder Jess Westmark advises that the larger, more established international relief organizations are probably the most advised vehicles for assisting humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan. In the meantime, People and Places salutes Jess Westmark and Sam Butler, Commander Butler’s son, for their efforts.” Misguided efforts, that’s what Ms. Sanchez-Ryan emphasizes. And she has to point out that Sam is the commander’s son.

  “There’s more.” Mrs. Johnson points to the front page again. Below the fold, a photo of angry protesters glares off the page. There I am, shot from behind, tearing the edge of the poster like I’m playing a game of capture the flag.

  “Can you tell it’s me?” I ask.

  “No, and thank heavens no one ratted you out, either.”

  The caption under the photo reads “Unknown counterprotester seeks to disrupt peaceful, though contentious, antiwar protest at the funeral of one of our own, Corporal Scott of Fort Spencer.” The article headline, in tall, black letters: “Angustus Church Protests Local Funeral.”

  Counterprotester? I take a deep breath.

  I refold the newspaper and press the creases, making it look unopened, unread. So much for the article highlighting the positive efforts of our operation. Now even the name Operation Oleander has a bad sound to it, like the sound of a secret military society in a dictatorship. It was just as well Commander Butler shut our fundraising down for now. After the article, no one would want to be associated with it. Or me.

  Shouldn’t Sam be calling me? Or Commander Butler? To yell at me? But they don’t. It’s too much to hope they didn’t see the article.

  It’ll be all over town, and Fort Spencer.

  “I’m going for a walk.”

  Mrs. Johnson nods. This time, she doesn’t even ask me where I’m going.

  I pull on one of Dad’s old ball caps to cover my face and head out of the house.

  At the JifMart, I buy an extra-large frozen slush drink, the kind that makes my teeth freeze. I sit outside on the curb and drink it, watching cars come and go. Wondering what to do now.

  A shadow falls over me, and I squint up, afraid someone has recognized me.

  It’s the blond girl from the PX, from the funeral. Sam told me her name.

  Aria.

  “I saw the article in the newspaper,” she says. Her toenails are painted parrot bright, and she’s carrying a bag on one hip. A carton of milk pokes out the top.

  Just my luck.

  “Oh, that. It wasn’t very good.” It was horrible. “We still don’t know if Warda’s alive. The girl on the poster.” The PX fundraising seems so long ago, and it’s only been days.

  “I remember her.”

  Sure, she remembers how I flung everything off the table and wouldn’t let her assist.

  “I was thinking about what I could do to help,” she says.

  My face goes warm. “I’m sorry I—”

  Aria touches my arm. “It wasn’t anything.”

  “The commander ordered us to stand down for now. I don’t know when—if—we’ll start again. Maybe it wasn’t doing anything. Not the right way.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s good.”

  Aria sits next to me on the curb and cradles the groceries in her arms.

  “How do you know?” I’ve asked myself that question. “We helped a couple of orphans. Then look what happened.” Everything gone in a puff of smoke.

  Aria twists a braided band around her thin wrist. “If you don’t help, you won’t know what could happen. You aren’t responsible for everything. Just what you do. It’s the starfish method.”

  Starfish? What does she mean?

  “You’ve never heard of it?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “It’s about a man who sees a little boy down on the beach before sunrise. He’s watching the boy tossing starfish that had been trapped by the tide back into the sea. The man sees starfish stretching for miles down the beach. He asks the little boy why he’s doing that when it’s clear he can’t save most of them. And the little boy says, ‘I can save this one.’ He tosses another one into the sea. And another. It’s like that.”

  I nod and shield my eyes from the bright sunlight. I bet the critics from Ms. Sanchez-Ryan’s article would find something wrong with the starfish story, too. Like maybe if you couldn’t save them all, how can you morally save only one? And how do you decide which one to save? Besides, maybe it’s your fault all those starfish needed to be rescued in the first place.

  “So, may I help?”

  “Why do you want to?” I ask. After everything—the explosion, the investigation, the newspaper article, and the protests. Why now?

  “Because I want to do something. My dad’s out there too.”

  I nod. In the distance, cars speed down the oleander-lined road. The people in them are moving on, buying milk and going to Disney World. Making plans.

  “You really want to?”

  Aria nods.

  “Okay. No promises.”

  We walk together to Madrid Street, where I turn off for home. Aria’s starfish story keeps running in my head. When I get home, I get on the computer and look up charities that work in Afghanistan.

  Mr. Johnson calls before supper. Mrs. Johnson stands in the kitchen stirring spaghetti sauce while she talks to him. Cara’s drawing on her paper at the table. Sitting across from her, I plug in my earbuds and tune them all out. I’m trying to write a letter to Meriwether on the computer. But the words aren’t coming.

  Mrs. Johnson taps me on the shoulder. She motions for me to take out my earbuds.

  “What?”

  “Frank wants to talk to you,” she says.

  I frown. “Mr. Johnson?”

  “Yes, come on, take the phone.” She stretches out the cord to hand me the phone with one hand while she holds a spoon in the sauce with the other.

  Puzzled, I pick up and say hello.

  “Hi, Jess.” I almost expect him to ask how much I’ve grown since they deployed, but he doesn’t. He’s Dad’s friend, and the kind of soldier who doesn’t spend a lot of time chatting with dependents, especially children. His usual greeting on coming over to watch a game with Dad or to chuck a few hot dogs or brats on the grill is “Hi” and “How much taller are you?” Sometimes he’ll say, “Mostly I let Libby do the talking.” And if she’s in earshot, she rolls her eyes.

  “I talked to your mom yesterday,” he says. “I was hoping to talk to your dad. Your mom put the receiver up to his ear, and I talked at him for a few minutes. First time I’ve ever been able to do that without him cutting me off. I don’t know if he understood or heard me, but I thought it would be good, you know, for him to hear voices from his unit out here. Those of us who were with him.”

  Those not dead.

  “There’s something I want to send you,” Frank said.

  “I—I don’t want anything from Afghanistan,” I say. Just word on Warda. Mr. Johnson’s so quiet on the other end of the line that I think we’ve been cut off.

  “I think you might change your mind,” he finally says. “When you see. On the day of the explosion—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Around me, the room gets very white, like being inside an explosion.

  Mrs. Johnson hovers at the edge of my vision, f
olding and unfolding a dishcloth.

  “You need to,” he says. “Your dad was proud of us—he was proud of you. Is proud. He had us all doing our duty over here. The orphanage was separate, extra. But you could tell it was—it is—special to him. To all of us.”

  The way he says it, it sounds as if there’s more bad news. “Is Warda okay?” Maybe this is why he called. To tell me she died too.

  “I’m trying to get word,” Mr. Johnson says. “Nothing yet. We’ll let you know. Why don’t you put the missus back on the phone?”

  “Here, Mrs. Johnson.” I hold up the phone.

  Mr. Johnson’s call gives me a sliver of hope, and yet, when I hand the phone over to Mrs. Johnson, it’s as if I’m left without having talked to him at all.

  The computer screen flashes at me. Like a warning message. The letter to Meriwether refuses to be written. Not even when I could tell her that Caden asked about her.

  I ride my bicycle past Meriwether’s house. The drapes are still drawn. No car sits in the driveway. Nothing out front. The house sits vacant like something abandoned. How funny that houses seem to know they’re empty.

  Maybe they’re visiting relatives. Maybe they spent a night out of town. Maybe Mr. Scott took Meriwether to Disney. Or Universal Studios. Something to cheer them both, even a little.

  Along the bike path that lines the main road, a row of oleander separates us from the cars. I head for the beach. There, I park my bike and walk along the edge of the shore.

  Meriwether was right in a way. Naming a charity after a poisonous plant was a little odd, maybe. Yet it still makes sense to me in a way another name wouldn’t. Oleander roots and grows from Afghanistan to Apalachicola—beautiful, delicate, but also with a dark side, one not to be trusted. Just like people. Or some beliefs. Yet it also thrives in the harshest heat when more tender plants wilt and timid colors fade in the harsh sun.

  If Warda survives, oleander is the appropriate symbol for the operation. But could I make it take root again in damaged soil? After the explosion and death and injury there and here, how is Operation Oleander supposed to respond?

  How am I? Is it really as simple as Aria says?

  One starfish?

  Is Warda that one starfish?

  Twenty

  ON MONDAY a brown-wrapped package arrives. As if it brings bad news, Mrs. Johnson drops it on the kitchen table, where I’m helping Cara mold putty animals.

  “This is for you,” she says.

  The return address says Afghanistan. I can tell without touching the box. “It’s from Mr. Johnson.”

  Mrs. Johnson sniffs. “But it’s addressed to you. He said he was mailing something to you.” With that, she pivots on her espadrille heel, not an easy move, and unloads a meal’s worth of plastic containers and foil-covered packages from a paper bag. Takeout again.

  The package feels lightweight, but the contents shuffle from one end to the other when I shake it. I rip the end where the package had been stapled and then taped over to keep the ends of the metal staples from catching. Inside, clusters of photographs are banded together, a wrinkled note on top.

  I unfold the note. It reads,

  See? These are the things that Operation Oleander did for the orphanage. A lot was destroyed in the bombing. But they can rebuild. They are rebuilding.

  I stop reading Mr. Johnson’s note and thumb through the stack of photos.

  Here are some of the children. One of the girls, the one on the left, was killed.

  I stare at the girl for a long time before moving on.

  Under the photos, there are some cards for you and the others.

  On the back, someone printed our names in English and penned a short note of thanks. Rough, childlike scrawls—signatures?—appear underneath.

  And, Jess, I did get some news from the orphanage director. I didn’t want to go back there myself—you understand. Couldn’t. After what happened, that area’s off-limits for soldiers. But the director sent something from Warda in the little blue pouch. It’s for you. You’ll be able to tell what it is. Warda knows about your dad, too. I told the orphanage director that he’s alive and to make sure she knows that.

  I sit back, close my eyes.

  Warda’s alive. If only I’d been able to tell Ms. Sanchez-Ryan. Maybe the article could have ended on a positive note. Maybe it would have made a difference in how she wrote the article.

  I read on.

  Warda had run down into the cellar looking for some vegetable peelings for the goat. That crazy goat—can you believe it?

  Operation Oleander’s goat saved Warda. Even though the operation drew the enemy to the orphanage.

  I recognize Warda right away, by her eyes.

  A small blue cloth bag slides onto the table from the box. I unknot the strings and pull open the gathers, careful not to break the cords. A creamy, smooth stone nestles inside. The way the stone was formed, a seam runs along the edge as if it had folded over onto itself and hardened that way. A flower captured forever in the moment just before blooming—that’s what it looks like.

  Not just any bud, either. An oleander bud. Does Warda understand Operation Oleander? Does she know why I picked the oleander as the symbol for our efforts? Is that why she sent along the stone shaped like a bud?

  I close my fingers over the stone, pretend the bud is a seed. A seed in the dark soil of my fist.

  The last package of photos is wrapped in a note and held by a rubber band. Bold, uneven words lope across the unlined page, as if Mr. Johnson’s sentences were running uphill and trying to catch their breath as he wrote.

  These photos are the ones from Mrs. Scott’s camera, the last ones she took. They survived the explosion. The camera was blown clear acros the courtyard.

  Mrs. Scott’s photos. What she saw in the last minutes of her life through the viewfinder of her camera.

  His letter goes on:

  I was going to mail them to Mr. Scott along with the rest of Mrs. Scott’s belongings. Word came he didn’t want us to return the camera. So we’ve given it to the orphanage. But we weren’t sure what to do with the photos and the memory card. We didn’t want to destroy them. We thought of your dad, but he’s in Germany and soon to be stateside. That leaves you, Miss Jess, because there is no one else who would appreciate more what these photos mean. So we turn them over to the custody of Operation Oleander.

  Sincerely,

  Frank Johnson

  With shaking fingers, I slip off the rubber band. The first photo shows several of the girls playing with a ball. Another one was taken outside the orphanage doors, in the courtyard. That’s where the bomb exploded a few minutes or so later. Had the army looked at these photos as part of the investigation into what happened? Or were these duplicates and, somewhere, Mrs. Scott’s photos had become part of the official record?

  The last photo is of Warda by herself. She’s standing alone near the doorway, her hand on the wall. Oleander bushes grow on one side. Warda stares right into the photo, as if Mrs. Scott—Corporal Scott—had gotten her to look into her eyes and the camera lens wasn’t even separating them. That’s how intense the look is. How close.

  I clutch the photo to my chest.

  Almost as if they’d both known. Impossible.

  Mr. Johnson was partly wrong, though. There is someone else who will appreciate these photos as much as me. Maybe more.

  Meriwether.

  “Mrs. Johnson, we have to get copies of these photos made. Today.”

  “Hold on. What are you talking about?”

  “Mr. Johnson sent photos and letters from the orphanage.”

  Mrs. Johnson shakes her head. “That Frank, he’s a sentimental one. Never know it to look at him.”

  “You don’t understand. The best news. Warda’s still alive.” I hold up the photograph of Warda that Mr. Johnson had sent, one of the ones taken by Mrs. Scott.

  Mrs. Johnson squints at the photo. “That’s the girl in the photos at the fundraiser?”

  “Y
es, she was there the first day my dad and the others took supplies.”

  The stone I keep hidden away. That’s my secret.

  “Mrs. Scott took this photo,” I say. “All of these.”

  Mrs. Johnson touches the photos, as if touching them makes them more real. “I’ll be . . .”

  “We have to get copies made. Now.”

  Mrs. Johnson frowns at me. “It can wait until after lunch.”

  “Now. I want to go now. I want to get them to Meriwether.”

  Twenty-One

  AFTER WE get back with the duplicate photos, I phone Sam first, afraid Commander Butler will answer the phone and say something about the article in the Clementine Times.

  But Sam answers.

  “You won’t believe what I have.”

  “What?” he asks.

  “Photos. Photos of the orphanage that Meriwether’s mother took that day.” The day of the explosion.