My Soldier Too Read online

  When she walked into the room, Beth said, “We were starting to worry about you until we heard the shower.”

  “How’s your head?” Marcy asked.

  Isabella eased into a kitchen chair. “Awful, but it’s not as bad as my stomach. I don’t remember the last time I was that sick. A martini will not be on my list of things to drink any time soon.”

  “Maybe if you stick with one next time, it wouldn’t be that bad,” Marcy said.

  Isabella pinched the bridge of her nose. “I might never drink anything again. Thank you for bringing me home with you last night. I hope I didn’t embarrass you too much.”

  Beth went to the counter, took a piece of dry toast out of the toaster, and poured a cup of black coffee. “We’ve all gotten a little crazy after one too many drinks.” She placed the toast and coffee in front of Isabella. “You should try to eat something.” She sat back down. “What happened between you and Madison last night anyway? Did you talk at all?”

  “You have to ask? Wasn’t it obvious?” Isabella nibbled the toast.

  Marcy gently punched Isabella’s arm. “The only communication I saw was your hormones screaming.”

  Isabella recalled being helped to the bar stool by Madison after she started to feel faint. She remembered being angry because Madison refused to take her home and the reason she said she wouldn’t. She’d never forget what happened next. “Madison told me she might be in love with me.”

  “You’re kidding. What did you say?” Beth asked.

  “I didn’t say anything. If I had, I would’ve told her I fell in love with her the day we met. I didn’t know it for sure until last night. I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”

  Marcy rocked back in her chair. “You’re sure full of surprises this weekend. I never would’ve guessed you’d come over to our side. We’re glad to have you on the team.”

  Isabella’s head pounded and her stomach churned, but not all of it was from the lingering aftereffects of too much alcohol. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. This is all foreign to me. I don’t know the rules.”

  “There are no rules,” Beth said. “All you can do is buckle up for the ride. Falling in love with a woman is the easy part. Dealing with the fallout is what’s hard. And believe me, there’s always fallout. A lot of things, like the bonds with your family that you think are unbreakable, might fracture over this. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s the way it happens too often. What you need to do next is talk to Madison about how you feel. Get everything out on the table. Go from there.”

  “I’m sure my family isn’t going to like the idea, but they’ll come around. They love me. That’ll be enough, right?” Isabella asked.

  “I don’t know,” Beth said. “I hope so. For now, figure things out with Madison. That should be your focus. We’ll take you home so you can call her.”

  * * *

  Madison helped Bobbie and Jerome put the lunch leftovers away. She was glad Bobbie convinced her to come over. It helped to talk about what had happened with Isabella. The coming week, she was scheduled to be away for training at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. The week after, she’d be on leave at home in Boston.

  “Thanks for your advice, Bobbie,” Madison said as she closed the refrigerator door. “You’re probably right. Isabella and I need to spend some time alone without any distractions or interference.” She leaned against the kitchen counter. “Maybe she’ll agree to spend some time with me while I’m on leave the week after next when I get back from Fort Bragg.”

  Madison’s cell phone rang. She reached into her bag sitting beside the kitchen table, pulled it out, and checked the caller ID. “It’s Isabella.”

  Bobbie grabbed Jerome’s arm. “You better answer it. We’ll be in the other room.”

  “Okay.” Madison waited for one more ring, took a deep breath, and flipped her phone open. “Hello.”

  There was a long silence. “Hi, Madison. It’s me, Isabella. Do you have a minute to talk?”

  Madison sat on one of the chairs near the table. “I’m glad you called. I was planning to call you later this afternoon anyway.”

  “If this isn’t a good time, we could talk later.”

  Madison felt her knees go weak. Good thing she was sitting. “No, now is fine.”

  Isabella hesitated. “I… I don’t know where to start. I’m sorry for the way I acted last night. I hope you know it’s not a habit for me to get drunk like that. My nerves got the better of me.”

  Madison closed her eyes in disappointment and rested her head against the wall behind her chair. Here we go. It was as she feared. Isabella, the straight woman, was about to apologize for leading her on… for wanting her when she should’ve been elsewhere, like with her boyfriend. In a minute, she’d hear Isabella say it was the alcohol that made her do those things that had melted Madison’s heart at the bar. She couldn’t bear to hear it. “Isabella, stop. You don’t have to apologize. What happened between us was as much my fault as it was yours. It won’t happen again. I hope we can still be friends, because I’m sorry, too.”

  The silence on the other end of the line was broken by Isabella’s sobs.

  Madison sat up straighter. A shot of pain punched her in the gut at the thought that Isabella was crying over the guilt she must feel for her lesbian misadventure. “Isabella, it’s all right. Please stop crying. You don’t ever have to see me again if that will help.”

  “God, that’s not what I want,” Isabella said through the sound of her tears.

  “Tell me what you do want, and I’ll do it.” Madison braced for the reality that she was only an experiment.

  “Madison, there’s so much I want to say to you, but I don’t want to say it over the phone. I wanted more than anything to go home with you last night.” A thick silence separated them. “But I’m glad you said no. Because if you hadn’t, and something happened between us, you’d still be wondering whether my feelings for you were real.”

  “What about Ben?”

  “I told you, nothing happened that night before you saw him at my condo. I really wish you’d believe me. We were out late with my family, and I didn’t want him to drive home after all the wine he’d had.” Isabella paused. “I did think about sleeping with him, though.”

  “Why, if you don’t love him?”

  “I was confused about my feelings for you, and I needed clarity.”

  “You should’ve at least called me so I wouldn’t have had to see him like I did.”

  “I would’ve called you if I’d gotten your message. I figured out later that Ben erased it. He suspects something’s going on between us. He obviously wanted you to be upset, and it worked. Don’t let him come between us again. I promise that I won’t.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. Did you find the clarity you were looking for?”

  “I did. I couldn’t sleep with him because all I could think about was you. He’s not who I want to be with. You are.”

  Madison pushed her fear of getting in too deep aside. “Isabella, I have to leave town tomorrow morning for a week. I’m taking a short leave at home when I come back. Would you like to stay with me for a couple of days over the weekend?” She didn’t want Isabella to think the request had to do with anything other than talking. “I have a spare bedroom. It’s small, but it’s comfortable. We could spend some time just getting to know each other better.”

  “I’d really like that,” Isabella said.

  Madison stared up at the ceiling. Isabella was a beautiful blue-green ocean that she was about to jump feet first into. She prayed there wasn’t an undertow lurking beneath the surface. “I’ll be flying back from North Carolina on Friday night. I could pick you up on my way home from the airport.”

  “If you can get a ride to the airport tomorrow, I could pick you up instead. That way you wouldn’t have to spend any of your vacation time driving me back to the North End.”

  Madison liked the idea. If, for some reason, Isabella wanted to back out
, it would be more difficult if she’d already promised to give her a ride home from the airport. She’d be forced to talk to her in person even if she got cold feet. “Okay, great. Let me give you my flight details.” She dug them out of her bag and read them off. “Meet me at the baggage claim area next Friday, okay?”

  After hanging up, Madison went into the living room. Bobbie peeked up from the magazine she was pretending to read. “You were on the phone a long time. Is everything all right?”

  Madison dropped into the chair next to the couch. Jerome never looked away from the basketball game he was watching on TV. “More than all right. Can you give me a ride to the airport tomorrow morning?” Madison knew she was grinning, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “Sure, but I thought you were taking your own car. What changed? The Army isn’t making you stay longer, is it? I hope this duty thing you have to go to doesn’t have anything to do with going back to Iraq.”

  The grin on Madison’s face faded. She didn’t want to think about the possibility of returning to Iraq. “No, I’m still coming home on Friday. Isabella’s going to pick me up. She’s going to stay with me over the weekend.”

  “Well, well, my dear, it appears as though a little gambling has finally paid off.”

  “Too soon to tell, but I sure hope so,” Madison said.

  Chapter 14

  Standing in the baggage claim area at Logan International Airport, Isabella checked the monitor that showed when the day’s Continental flights would be arriving. Madison’s flight, from Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina, had landed. Isabella scanned the baggage claim area, looking for her.

  Despite a healthy dose of nerves, Isabella couldn’t wait to see the tall, stunning, sandy-blonde soldier who had stolen her heart. There were still a million things to figure out, but for now, all that mattered was spending time with Madison. Isabella’s heart was in complete control anyway. Any practical advice that came from her head to reconsider their weekend together was swiftly dismissed.

  The excitement generated by the prospects of being in love for the first time outweighed the fears associated with the fact that the person she’d fallen for was a woman. Complicated though it was, it wasn’t any less real or exhilarating than if Madison were a man. For so long, something had been missing, but all that changed when Isabella met Madison. She continued to search the crowd for the one person she most wanted to see.

  She started to worry. The throng coming down the stairs had thinned, and there was still no sign of Madison. She studied the clusters of people around the baggage carousel, thinking maybe she had somehow missed her. Then she heard a small child off to her right say in an excited voice, “Mommy, there’s a lady soldier.” She turned and saw the little boy pull his hand from his mother’s and run toward the stairs.

  Madison was coming down them. Wearing her desert Army combat uniform, she appeared strong, confident, and as always, beautiful.

  Isabella restrained her desire to throw her arms around her and hold her tight. There were too many people watching for such a public display of affection. She waved instead, sure that anyone watching closely would have seen the wordless exchange between them that spoke volumes.

  The small boy stepped into Madison’s path with his arms outstretched. His mother was close on his heels.

  Isabella stood captivated. Up until now, her only connection to the war had been nightly news reports. Now a piece of its substance was playing out in front of her.

  Talk about a reality check. This woman with whom she’d fallen in love was a soldier in a time of war. She’d served in Iraq. For all Isabella knew, there was a possibility she could be sent back. Madison was, for all intents and purposes, owned by the United States Army. What if she let herself love Madison in the face of so many obstacles only to lose her in the end to a war? Isabella’s work with the veterans had taught her there were plenty of ways in which war could steal a person from the people they love.

  The dark-haired child with chocolate brown eyes and skin looked to be about five years old. He reached up and tugged at the bottom of Madison’s uniform blouse. “Were you in Iraq? Did you know my daddy?” The little boy’s lip quivered. “Mommy said he’s never coming home again. He stayed there with the angels.”

  Madison looked away from Isabella, who was now close enough to touch, and down at the boy. She was at a loss for what to do or say. She’d witnessed firsthand enough deaths in Iraq to know what it meant for a soldier to be with the angels instead of coming home to family.

  The boy stared at her with pleading eyes that begged to know that everything was okay, that his father was okay, wherever he was. Madison’s heart broke again, like it did every time she recalled all the soldiers she’d seen leave this world without the chance to say good-bye to loved ones. Now she was staring into the eyes of one of those left behind, a young boy begging for answers that might somehow help him feel the slightest bit of comfort.

  The boy’s mother grabbed his shoulders and pulled him away from Madison. The woman seemed angry—not at the boy for slipping away from her, but rather at the world for the unfair fate that had fallen on her. It was a subtle anger that Madison had seen other times.

  “I’m sorry my son bothered you. I’m sure you’ve got other things to do. Of course you didn’t know my husband. Iraq is a big place. You probably haven’t even been there yourself.” The woman’s voice cracked as she held back tears. Anguish was written all over her face. “We’re both still trying to learn how to cope with the loss. My son misses his father.”

  She smoothed the boy’s hair tenderly. “Come on, Phillip, we need to get going.” The mother gazed at Madison with a bottomless depth of sadness. “As I said, I’m sorry we bothered you. We’ll be on our way.”

  Madison couldn’t let them leave without doing something that would bring them some comfort. “It’s okay. You’re not bothering me.” She knelt down in front of the boy so that she was eye-level with him. She placed her gear bag on the floor and laid the bouquet of flowers she carried on top of the bag. “What was your dad’s name, and what unit did he serve in?”

  The little boy squared his shoulders and stood up straighter before answering, “Sgt. Phillip Baxter of the 380th Airborne Field Artillery Unit, 82nd Airborne.”

  Madison reached down and touched the outside of the deep pocket on the right leg of her trousers. She could feel the ring she always carried inside the pocket of her uniform. Touching it brought back the memory of that soldier—the one she’d never forget for as long as she lived. While she worked hard to keep the memory at bay, in this moment she let it wash over her. It was as vivid as if it happened yesterday.

  The sun had set over the outskirts of Fallujah. Even in the dark of night, the temperature and humidity inside the surgical tent were unbearable. The heat exacerbated the putrid smell of blood and sweat. Madison closed her eyes and tried to imagine the smell of fresh spring flowers instead. It didn’t work.

  She was serving in the multi-service base hospital at Camp Fallujah alongside fellow soldiers and marines. The hospital’s key role was to stabilize seriously wounded soldiers before they were moved to hospitals in Baghdad and then onto Germany, or the States, if necessary. In the early days of the insurgency, after the fall of Baghdad, the surgical unit routinely found itself in situations where triage of injured soldiers was a necessity.

  The unit was divided into four stations. The two busiest consisted of the one for soldiers with non-life-threatening injuries who could wait for treatment. The other was for those needing immediate care. The third station was for soldiers still alive but with little to no hope for survival. Soldiers who passed away, referred to as angels, were sent to the fourth station where their bodies would be cleaned and prepared for transport back home.

  On this particular night, a call came in that a group of soldiers from the Army’s Seventh Cavalry Regiment had been tasked with locating a group of insurgents known to be hiding in a cluster of houses within the city. As the soldiers ne
ared the city in the dark of night, an improvised explosive device was detonated by an insurgent hiding in a nearby ditch. The ensuing battle killed the insurgents, but not before the soldiers had taken several casualties of their own.

  Seven men were down and needed immediate transport to the base hospital’s surgical unit. Two died in transit, three had non-life-threatening injuries, and two were grievously injured. The surgical unit staff kicked into high gear. Maj. Jim Barns, Capt. Madison Brown, and a small staff of medics coalesced around one of the two soldiers in dire need of immediate care.

  The soldier, Lt. Scott Stevens, was losing blood faster than they could get it into him. Madison could feel the warm sickening wetness of it fill her boots and saturate her uniform as it fell and pooled on the floor. Amazingly, he was still conscious, despite his injuries and the drugs they administered to him. He grabbed Madison’s wrist with a bloody hand and whispered, “I don’t want to go. Don’t let me die.” She could see a fear in his eyes that was indescribable. In defiance of that fear, his tight grip on her wrist revealed that he was determined to fight with every last breath.

  A medic pulled the soldier’s hand away from Madison so she could continue to work. Dr. Barns ordered that he be given an anesthetic to calm him down and that he be prepared for surgery immediately. Once they had him opened up on the surgical table, it was clear there was too much damage to his vital organs to be able to put him back together before he died. Nevertheless, they tried their best. All they could really do was keep him as comfortable as possible until he passed from the ranks of the living into the army of angels who had gone before him.

  After all the soldiers were cared for and the surgical unit was properly cleaned, things fell silent. It was two o’clock in the morning. Exhausted after having been awake for over twenty-one hours, Madison was filled with a despair that would never let her sleep. She went to where Lt. Scott Stevens lay dying and sat down by his bedside. Ever the fighter, he struggled to open his eyes.