Operation Oleander (9780547534213) Read online

  His voice lowers.

  “I’m just saying they have a point. This charity thing—okay, we did it. Some good—maybe—came from it. But look what’s happened. Two soldiers died. Your dad’s wounded. It isn’t just about orphaned kids over there. It’s about American soldiers, too. What about them? What about your dad? What if this is our fault?”

  Our fault.

  My head spins, crazy, like some roller-coaster ride that flips you upside down halfway through.

  “Don’t you mean my fault?”

  “Jess—”

  “Just go.”

  Sam nods. “I didn’t come to fight. There’s a candlelight service tonight. My church. I wanted you to come with us.”

  I’ve been to Sam’s church before. Church of the Nativity. It’s Catholic, and it’s nothing like the plain old meeting space for the Bible church we sometimes attend. But inside the stucco walls with the wooden beams, the crucifix, which I won’t let myself stare at, I have always been comforted.

  Lots of people from the post will go. The whole of Clementine will be drawn together tonight. Maybe Meriwether and her dad will go.

  “Maybe,” I say, barely above a whisper. I won’t commit.

  “I’ll wait for you outside the church,” Sam says. He lays the poster from the sliding glass doors on the tabletop, the pieces of tape folded back, neatly.

  With army precision.

  Twelve

  SAM’S WAITING by the door like he said he would be, even though I’m almost late. Mrs. Johnson insisted on driving me, and then she got stuck in traffic. Sam hands me a candle that sits inside a plastic holder to catch any wax that falls. So we don’t burn our fingers. I inhale, but the candle doesn’t have a scent, not beeswax or perfume. Not even plastic. It’s odorless.

  Inside the church even the little children are quiet. That’s what impresses me when we first walk in. Then it’s the coolness of the sanctuary on my skin, and I think of that word. Sanctuary. A place of safety, a refuge.

  The lights are low enough so everyone has to slow down. Our eyes adjust from the brightness outside. The crucifix hangs in front, and the scenes along the wall are carved in relief. Once, Sam walked me through the Stations of the Cross. I don’t remember all the steps. But closest to us is the figure of Christ carrying his own cross. He staggers under the weight.

  Sam genuflects and enters a pew near the back that’s not yet full. I don’t bend my knees, but I lower my eyes as I follow him. In the row in front of us are other students from school. They don’t look back.

  I turn my head looking for Meriwether or her dad, but I don’t see them.

  Almost every pew is filled, and people stand along the back in neat rows. Father Killen leads everyone in prayer, and Sam points me to the preselected list of hymns and prayers on the back of the paper flyer.

  An usher lights the candle of the first person in every row. Then each person shares it with the next person. When the time comes, I tip the wick of my candle into the elderly woman’s to my right. Her freckled hand shakes, and I hold my breath, afraid the flame will go out. But the wick catches. Shielding the candle from the draft of my own movement, I turn to my left and pass the light to Sam. Soon the only light in the sanctuary comes from flickering candles. Pure light, and then voices fill the room in song.

  This isn’t a regular mass, but Father Killen speaks of coming together, of remembrance, mystery, pain. Of healing. Of prayer. Mostly, though, we are singing. “Amazing Grace” I know. But also “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Peace Is Flowing Like a River.”

  When it’s over, I find myself separated from Sam as we walk out. I’m going through the door, and suddenly, I’m standing next to Father Killen as he greets everyone leaving through the main entrance.

  I shake his hand like the person before me did. I expect his hand to be cold, but it’s warm.

  “You’re a friend of Sam’s?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say, surprised that he knows. “I’m Jess.” I want to ask how he knew.

  “We’re praying for your father,” he says.

  Thank you comes to my lips but not out of my mouth. Instead I say, “I don’t know how to pray.” I say it so low, I’m not sure I’ve spoken the words. Father Killen hears me somehow. Maybe priests have extra-strong hearing so they can listen to things people don’t even voice.

  He speaks to me, not seeming to worry about the people behind me, waiting. As if we are alone on the steps.

  “Prayer is something you practice. Follow the form, and the substance will come.”

  He must see how puzzled I am, for he adds, “Just start, Jess. ‘Our heavenly father, I am . . . ’ Of course, he already knows you. If you don’t think you hear back, do it again and again. Sometimes it’s a long way from our heart to God’s ear, but it isn’t God who’s far away, it’s us, and sometimes lighting a candle is a form of prayer.”

  Around us, people jostle politely, trying to get closer.

  I nod and let the crowd move me downstream, until I find a quiet eddy and break away.

  Sam finds me near the stand of crape myrtles in the peace garden. The name is right. Even though we’re close to the entrance to the church, here the air is quiet. Even the road noise sounds muffled.

  “Did you tell Father Killen about my dad?”

  “Of course,” Sam says.

  “My dad’s not Catholic.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh,” I say. Because I don’t know what to say. Because maybe Sam has added my name to the prayer list, and I suddenly feel open and raw, like I scraped my skin.

  “Jessica,” a voice says.

  Commander Butler. I hadn’t seen him inside. He’s not in uniform here, but everyone would know he’s an officer in the military. He stands tall and straight. Even his voice is imposing.

  “Yes, sir,” I say. I want to tell him, It’s just Jess. No one who knows me calls me Jessica, because my real name is Jess. That’s what the paperwork said.

  He starts over. “I wanted to tell you in person how sorry I am your dad’s been wounded. Warren’s a tough guy. He’ll be back on his feet and into that uniform. No question.” He seems to believe what he says, the way Father Killen did.

  “Thank you. We want to get back into the fundraising, too,” I say.

  Sam inhales sharply, and I realize I’ve said something I shouldn’t have.

  “We’ve all had a shock,” Commander Butler says. “And we do have to rally around our military families.” He pauses. “I know you’ve worked really hard for the orphanage, and I wasn’t going to say anything here. But, since you mentioned it, I think under the circumstances . . .” His voice trails off. “Under the circumstances” is how adults condense all the bad things into three words that sound so plain. As if three words can contain everything that’s happened since yesterday.

  If I walk away, then he can’t say the words I know are coming. But my body won’t move.

  “I have to ask you to take a hiatus from the charity drive. Folks around here don’t want to be reminded of the orphanage at the moment. It’s like an open wound.”

  “But it isn’t the orphans’ fault.”

  Commander Butler shifts his weight from one foot to the other. The same way Sam does when someone says something he disagrees with. That’s where Sam must get it.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Sam start to shift. He knows what’s coming too.

  “I have to take into account everyone on post. I’ve been specifically asked to consider the feelings of others about the orphanage, Jess. Not just the people involved in Operation Oleander.”

  “Who?” The woman who complained we were manipulating peoples’ emotions? The man who brushed our poster from its stand as he hurried his pregnant wife away?

  “It was Mr. Scott.”

  An invisible punch hits my stomach.

  “But—” He supported the idea. Maybe he forgot how Mrs. Scott enjoyed stopping by the orphanage. “Corporal Scott cares”—I catch mysel
f—“cared about the orphanage.”

  “No one doubts that. We all do. But for now I have to ask you to stand down.”

  “Stand down?” As if I am a soldier.

  “Yes.”

  “But—”

  “Jessica, I’m commander of the post. Everyone on Fort Spencer is my responsibility. First and foremost, the welfare of my troops and fulfillment of our mission. Relations with indigenous populations—local inhabitants like those children at the orphanage—that’s a role for civilian agencies. Not combat soldiers. The rules over there are changing.”

  “You think they did something wrong.” I’m not asking a question. The words shoot out of my mouth. Images from the television report flicker across my vision. “My dad would never dishonor the military.”

  Sam’s eyes are like the owl’s again. Sad and knowing. He’d known his father felt this way, and he didn’t warn me. Did he plan that we’d run into his dad?

  “I know that. Warren’s an honorable man. But there will be a review of interactions between soldiers and civilians. In hopes we can avoid something like this ever happening again.”

  “A review? How long will we have to stand down?”

  Beside me Sam is fairly tap-dancing in place, he’s so tense.

  But Commander Butler isn’t shifting anymore. His body is planted tall and rigid. “Until I give the all clear. If I do. Be patient. There may be other options. The review will be fair.”

  I stand still, my hands at my sides. If I were a soldier, I’d have to salute him back and say, “Yes, sir.”

  But I’m not.

  “Tell your dad we’re behind him,” Commander Butler says.

  “When he gets out of the coma.”

  If.

  Sam breaks. “Jess,” he says.

  But his dad doesn’t react. My words bounce off him like small pebbles pinging against armor.

  “We’ll give you a ride home,” Commander Butler says. “Mrs. Butler’s ordered an ice cream detour.”

  He means to offer me an olive branch.

  I don’t take it. “Mrs. Johnson’s waiting for me over on the next block. I’d better go. Thank you.” I make myself turn and walk away.

  “See you later, Jessica,” Commander Butler says.

  I wince.

  “Dad.” I hear Sam’s voice. “Jess. Her name’s Jess. Did we have to talk about this today?”

  I walk faster because I don’t want to hear anything else Commander Butler has to say about me or the operation. I should be glad for Sam to even question his dad.

  It doesn’t help.

  That night, after Cara goes to sleep, I wander into the living room because Mrs. Johnson’s talking back to the television.

  “Get a load of this,” she says, waving at the local news channel like an angry hockey fan. “What a bunch of hooey.”

  “What?”

  She edges up the volume. “Last week we reported on the deaths and injuries of U.S. soldiers in Kabul when a car bomb exploded outside an orphanage near the market,” says the newscaster. “Now allegations have surfaced among Afghani witnesses. They say they not only saw soldiers tossing toys and pencils to children but that at least one of the soldiers threw something right before the larger bomb exploded. One witness alleges it was a grenade. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, decades ago, bombs made to look like toys were responsible for the dismemberment and/or death of thousands of children. Other witnesses deny the soldiers did anything wrong and say they are victims in the same way the orphanage is.”

  “That’s right. Those other ‘witnesses’ are lying.” I find myself speaking to the reporter as if he can hear me. Just like Mrs. Johnson’s doing.

  Mrs. Johnson turns up the volume even more.

  I plop onto the couch.

  The news anchor continues. “Locals familiar with the orphanage say that, if nothing else, the Americans are to blame for the orphanage becoming a target. At least five children and an Afghan teacher were killed, in addition to the U.S. casualties.”

  Five children. My head swirls as I try to conjure the faces of the children at the orphanage. No word yet on Warda. Sam said he would let me know. Does he mean it? But five children. That’s the first word we’ve heard on casualties at the orphanage.

  An Afghani man speaks on camera. “This is how America works. It’s as bad as if they bombed the building themselves. We want to be paid fairly for the damage caused by the U.S.”

  Another man pipes up behind him. “The soldiers kill the children.”

  “We didn’t bomb the orphanage,” I say. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

  “Of course not, Jess,” Mrs. Johnson says. “This is what I mean. It doesn’t pay to meddle. To do something good. Foreigners don’t appreciate it.”

  My eyes sting as though from smoke. It’s horrible enough that the explosion killed Meriwether’s mother and Private Davis and injured Dad. How can anyone blame the unit? They were trying to do something good. It doesn’t make any sense.

  The camera cuts back to the announcer at the news desk. She’s wearing a pink blouse and lipstick the shade of cotton candy. She peers into the camera as if she’s selling cosmetics, not hard-hitting news.

  “We’re waiting for information from the general on the ground. So far, ‘no comment’ is all we’ve been told. On background, we’ve been advised that they’ll wait for an investigation to review what happened. But, off the record, U.S. officials categorically deny any wrongdoing. The investigation is intended to clear up what happened.”

  Investigation.

  I shiver. That’s what Commander Butler said. Will they want to talk to Dad when he regains consciousness? To me?

  Crazy. The accusations are just crazy. Part of me wants to go straight back down to the PX and pull out the display again. Write in big letters on oversize poster board about the good that Operation Oleander has done. The milk goat, the school supplies. I’d tape it high on the front of the building, where everyone would see that Dad and the others had been doing good things for the children of Afghanistan. And they were attacked for doing it.

  But I watch the scenes again on the screen. I think about foreign troops driving up in a Humvee toward the orphanage for girls. Down windy, dusty streets where people peer out from screenless windows, afraid. Where they watch from shadows to see what is happening. Who’s there? Is it the Taliban? Someone to rob them or take their sons?

  And a Humvee of soldiers carrying guns and what must look like military supplies in boxes sealed over so you can’t see what’s inside stops outside the orphanage. The soldiers get out.

  Hidden faces watch them. They are the enemy. Their planes have bombed villages by accident. Killed people unintentionally. That is war.

  I press my fingers against my eyes. When I open them again, tiny black dots soar across my vision.

  My bones ache, I am so tired.

  Maybe they’re right. Maybe things are too confused right now to be able to tell whether we’re doing something good or not. I don’t know what to do.

  “I’m going to bed,” I say.

  “Sounds good. I don’t know why I tuned in to this, anyway. But I can’t go to sleep now. I’m going to watch something light. Want to stay up?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Well, good night.” Mrs. Johnson’s voice sounds disappointed, as if she is lonely too.

  I lie in bed with the door cracked open so I can see into the hallway. Light from the television screen flashes against the darkness, a little the way fireworks do, casting light onto a night sky. When I close my eyes and try to talk to God the way Father Killen suggested, I can still see the white fragments in the dark hallway like shooting stars.

  Thirteen

  I DREAM OF fireworks. Explosions and candlelight flicker through my brain. I roll over and turn on my flashlight. Across the room, Cara’s sprawled out across her toddler bed, as if she fell asleep doing jumping jacks in bed. The fingers of one of her hands curl around her toy dolphin.<
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  Inching open the bottom drawer in my nightstand, I find all the photos I’ve taken with my camera since we moved to post. I huddle over them and scan them with my flashlight. Meriwether and me in oversize sunglasses in front of wiggly mirrors at the amusement park. Swimming off the coast, where she managed to get a photo of the two of us in facemasks and snorkels, grinning despite the gear. In Tarpon Springs, at the oceanography club, where Meriwether stuffed sponges inside her swim top.

  The other photos include Sam and us at the post pool. Sam standing on his sailboat like a pirate. Finally, there’s one of Meriwether and her parents sitting together under the fairy lights in the Scotts’ backyard last summer after we finished installing them. Close-ups of day lilies. Hemerocallis. “Beauty for a day” in Greek.

  Maybe if I put together an album for Meriwether, she’ll remember the good times we had. If she and her dad really do move away, she might want to look at it sometimes. Maybe she’ll remember we’re friends.

  With all the photos next to me in bed, sorted into two stacks, I close my eyes again and try to sleep.

  “Rise and shine.”

  Morning. Mrs. Johnson is trying to imitate reveille. Not at all like Dad does it, with a real horn.

  She knocks—at least she does that before she peers around the partially open bedroom door.

  “We’re going out. So rise and shine.”

  Cara wakes up and grins like a jack-in-the-box. Her hair is a mess—strands of it stick straight up right where the cowlick swirls at the crown of her head. She’s still wearing the Cinderella pajamas. But she springs out of bed, ready to go.

  “Where to?” I ask. I imagine the PX, and I’m not ready to go back there.

  “Shopping.”

  “The PX?”

  “No. Off post.”

  “What if my mom calls?” My voice is tight, taut as Sam’s sailboat rope when the wind pushes the mainsail.

  “She’ll leave a message. If it’s important, we can call back.”