The Baby Connection

“The doctor says that with my fibromyalgia, the treatment will be difícil. I will be more sick for longer times and some medicines will not work so well.”

“We’ll do what we have to do to get you better.”

“Of course. I have to live to be an old woman if I am to finally be a grandmother.” Her mother winked, making a joke she had no idea was no longer funny at all.

What if her mother died?

Ice froze Mel’s heart in her chest.

She had to be strong for her mother. She had to hope for the best. It’s what Irena would do. But Mel was too realistic to deny the terrible possibility. If the worst happened, if her mother’s life was cut short, then Mel would make every day that remained as happy and joyful as possible.

The answer was obvious. Mel would keep the baby. It would turn her life upside down, ruin her plans, but así es la vida. That’s how life is. She would make the most of it. Man plans, God laughs. Professor Stockton had foretold her future the night she’d met Noah.

Noah. What about him? Should she tell Noah about the baby?

Would he even want to know? He didn’t want children, he’d told her that first night. She would raise the child on her own, so what was her obligation to him? Her head was already spinning with too many questions.

Noah Stone would have to wait.

Five months later, near Balad, Iraq

“SO, NO BULLSHIT, YOU’RE seriously going to quote me about my girl in your article?” Sergeant Reggie “Horn Dog” Fuller turned from his shotgun seat in the Humvee to talk to Noah, sitting behind him.

“Of course. It’s a great quote.” Fuller was squad leader and Noah had convinced him to allow Noah to jump onto the patrol from Forward Operating Base River Watch, east of Balad, along the Al-Dhiluya peninsula, promising the quote, which would appease Fuller’s girl who was angry at him for reenlisting.

Fuller had discretion to patrol as he saw fit, but his commanding officer, Captain Gerald Carver—the officer Noah answered to—would not be pleased if he learned about it. Carver was totally by the book. Fully squared away, with combat experience in Afghanistan, he was primed for advancement, eventually to become a general, and would want no blot on his command.

Carver made it no secret he considered reporters deadweight best kept in the dark and tucked to the rear—the polar opposite of Noah’s purpose. Noah liked the guy. He was smart, worked hard, stood up for his officers and the enlisted men trusted him. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty—he had once fixed an engine rather than wait for the mechanic to arrive.

Not clearing this reporter-carry with his CO would be a minor infraction for Fuller, who might get “smoked”—given some humiliating duty, such as filling sand bags in front of the chow hall—so Fuller wasn’t that concerned.

The patrol consisted of three vehicles—two HMVs and a small troop carrier. Noah rode in the lead Hummer, keeping his eyes open for the turnoff he wanted. What he hadn’t told Fuller was that he intended to be dropped off for an interview with the Iraqi captain, Sajad Fariq.

Regulations forbade embedded reporters from traveling on their own, but the elite Iraqi unit Noah wanted to meet with was being trained by Carver’s men and the area was virtually secure.

There were rumblings of an insurgent assault being planned farther north, and Noah wanted to talk with Fariq, who spoke decent English. If he could manage it, Noah hoped to ride north with the Iraqis. He’d be off his embed and Carver would ream his ass later, but it was easier to get forgiveness than permission, in Noah’s experience.

The deal was he needed a big story. His editor, Hank Walker, was demanding more blood, guts and glory and Noah was determined to get it. The stories he’d been writing were rich with characters and insights about U.S. troops here, Iraqi troops and the future of Iraq. They were some of his best work, important human stories, he believed, but if he wanted to keep writing them, he had to satisfy Hank’s bloodlust.

“So why did you volunteer for patrol?” Noah asked the driver, Bo Dusfresne, a trucker from Georgia.

“’Cause I’m sick of sittin’ on my ass,” he said, scratching at his head beneath the ghutrah, the white Arab scarf he wore do-rag style. “I’d rather be making a goddamn motocross track for the Hajjis to practice RPG runs on than sit around the base, stewin’ in my own tang.”

Noah brushed his boonie back on his head. The canvas cap with a soft brim was far more comfortable than the helmet he’d had to wear on his first embed, early in the war. He shook out the ends of his ghutrah, which kept sun and mosquitoes off his neck, to generate a tiny breeze. Fuller had insisted Noah wear body armor, which made Noah feel like roast in a pot.

Over the Kevlar, he wore a khaki T-shirt, then his pocketed vest, stuffed with a mini tape recorder and his digital camera, along with spare media cards and batteries for both. He worked mostly old-school—pencil and small pad.

The Humvee stank of sweat and hot metal. The humidity was high this close to the Tigris. Flies were few, but mosquitoes buzzed at dawn and dusk. The dust wasn’t bad here and haboobs—gigantic wind storms—were rare. The one he’d experienced had been strange. It was as if dust had instantly coated every nook and cranny, human or object, inside the CHU—Containerized Housing Unit—that served as barracks.

The road beside them was lined with short palm trees. They passed a small orchard of pomegranate trees.

“Somethin’ at my eleven,” Specialist Chuy Gomez barked from where he stood in the gunner position beside Noah. A sharpshooter, Gomez hailed from East L.A. and claimed he’d honed his skills in drive-bys. Half his blood-curdling stories were total bull, designed to distract the guys from their poker hands, but they were convincing as hell. Shee-it. You crackers believe any evil thing a Mexican says.

“Can’t you tell goat herders from a hunter-killer RPG team?” Private First Class Emile Daggett growled. “You been in the sun too damn long, Spic.”

“Be glad I have crystal clear vision, Hick. If I hadn’t eyeballed that trip wire on that dud IED, you’d be missing the family jewels at least, cholo.”

“Who you calling cholo? There are no cho-los in the Upper Peninsula.” Daggett talked nonstop about the bait shop he intended to buy and run when he returned to his small town in northern Michigan.

“There will be if I buy that worm shack you keep talkin’ ’bout. Serious investment opportunity, amigo. Get me one of those hot Upper Peninsula shorties. Oye, cabrón, that’s the life.”

“Shut the hell up,” Daggett said. The two men, who’d named each other Spic and Hick, kept up running insults, but had each other’s backs.

The goat farmers, now visible, wore the traditional taloub—a long tunic, loose pants and head wrap. They whistled and called to their animals, urging them across the narrow irrigation ditch at the side of the road. The pastoral sound of “baas” and bells seemed proof the country was striving for normalcy. If only the government could keep the uneasy peace.

Noah snapped a photo of an Iraqi on a horse, sagging in the saddle, looking as dispirited as the town council in Balad after mortar fire had destroyed the new police building.

He checked the image. Not bad, but not brilliant. Mel would have managed a far more striking shot, he was certain. She’d been in his thoughts a lot in the months since they’d slept together. Too much, really.

“So what’s that picture for?” Fuller asked. “Some symbolic shit about tired old Iraq riding its broke-back nag into the sunset?”

Noah shrugged.

“You gotta be bored as shit watching us sweep sand into the sea.”

Noah scribbled notes: Soldiers pissed and bored and bitter. Missions seem pointless…sweeping sand into the sea, according to Fuller.

The buildings and mosques of Balad rose in the distance. He picked up the tinny murmur of a prayer playing over loudspeakers.

“Hear the prayers?” Chuy said to Noah. “Five times a day, hombre, right? So we’re driving down this street in Balad… Real narrow and twisty, sniper spots every-damn-where, and the prayer blares out. After, comes this eerie silence.” He paused, milking the moment for drama.

“Yeah?” Noah said, unobtrusively clicking on his tape recorder.

“Yo, so, they all s’posed to be in their houses or mosques, prayin’ like crazy. So anybody still runnin’ the street is up to no good, right?”

“Right.”

“I’m up in the gun, scalp pricklin’, adrenaline so high I’m not even blinkin’—you can’t blink when your blood’s hitting that hard—watching for movement, any change, a clue to something coming down. So I see this kid at my three o’clock. He’s holding something. A candy bar? An orange? Or maybe a detonator to an IED we’re about to drive over.”

“Sounds terrifying.”

“Nah, man. ’S cool. Just a day in the neighborhood in East L.A.” He laughed, but Noah could tell this situation had been bad.

“Then what?”

“The kid runs in front of us, across the road. Seconds later, boom. Direct hit on the troop carrier behind us. Driver got shrapnel, a first-class flight to the States, champagne all the way, and a Purple Heart. We all envied his ass.”

Noah stayed silent, taking in the real story Chuy was telling. He’d had the lives of the men in his HMV and those in the vehicles behind in his hands. He could never have shot the kid because he possibly held a detonator, but that explosion could have killed a dozen of his comrades and it would be on Chuy—at least in his mind. That was a catch-22 that would be tough to endure, day after day, patrol after patrol. It was no wonder post-traumatic stress disorder rates were so high among Iraq vets. Friend and foe were impossible to tell apart, making civilian casualties common, but no less horrifying.

Bo hit a bump in the road and swore as the tobacco he constantly chewed missed the window and dribbled down the inside of his door.

They passed the low mud-brick wall with a chunk blasted away that Noah had been watching for. The turnoff was close. He leaned forward to talk to Fuller. “Half mile up, there’s a road going west. I need you to drop me there. I want to walk up to talk with Captain Fariq.”

“Say what?” Fuller shifted to glare at Noah. “This is not a bus line. You don’t ring the bell at your stop. You go on patrol, you stay on patrol, Stone.”

“It’s Fariq. You know him. You work with his men. Drop me off and I’ll meet you at the turnoff on your way back.”

Fuller stared at him, unmoved.

“Look, I need this interview or my editor will yank me home. It’s the dirt road up ahead. There’s a sign pointing to Al-Talad. The area’s secure.”

Fuller turned and stared out the mud-spattered windshield. “No such thing as secure in this godforsaken land. Give a reporter an inch and he takes out a convoy,” he muttered, but Noah picked up assent in his tone, so he kept his mouth shut.

When they reached the village sign, Fuller grumbled, “Halt.” Yards back, spaced for safety, the other vehicles slowed, too.

Up the road, Noah could see corrugated-steel structures and smaller buildings, some military vehicles and a few Iraqi soldiers.

“Looks hinky to me,” Chuy said.

“Everything’s hinky to you,” Noah said, opening his door. “I got this.”

“Do not exit the vehicle, Stone!” Fuller barked. “Take us there, Dusfresne. You get twenty minutes, Stone, then we haul you into this truck. You got that?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Got it.” Damn. Depending on what Fariq said about him hitching a ride, he’d have some fast talking to do with Fuller, for sure.

Bo turned onto the dirt road.

As they drew nearer to the buildings, the Iraqis seemed to stiffen, weapons half raised, as if expecting a confrontation. Noah’s scalp prickled. Chuy was right. This did feel hinky. The soldiers around him in the truck tensed, shifted positions, readying their weapons.

There was a sudden thud, as if a boulder had slammed into the driver’s side of the vehicle, followed by pops and pings from bullets hitting the front grill. The windshield cracked.

Then an explosion rocked them. Noah’s eardrums felt as if they’d burst. Smoke and dust filled the air. Around him, men were shouting, but it sounded like he was underwater in mud.

Noah fumbled with the door handle, but it wouldn’t give. He was moving through a nightmare’s quicksand, stunned and slow.

The door flew open and Daggett yanked him to the ground. A few feet out, Fuller was giving hand signals to the other men. He turned back to Daggett and yelled, “Get Stone under cover. Go, go—”

Abruptly, Fuller froze. A hole appeared in his forehead, his jaw sagged and he dropped to the ground. Before Noah or Emile could react, another blast struck—a direct hit on the HMV, now empty, behind them. A wave of heat and sound plowed him down. Hot knives seemed to slice his shoulders, belly and legs. He heard an ungodly scream. Just before everything went black, he realized the scream had come from him.

WHEN NOAH CAME TO, HIS body burned with pain and every breath was a stab of agony. He lay on his side, tasting dirt and swallowing blood. His ears rang and his mind kept flickering like a lightbulb about to blow. He tested his body for mobility. His right leg and left arm seemed to be broken. Any movement made him nearly pass out. His ribs were at least cracked and every breath was torture.

He was being shouted at, but with his ears ringing, he couldn’t detect the language. A rifle jabbed him in the chest. An Iraqi soldier above him wanted Noah up.

Adrenaline was all that got Noah to his knees, despite his injuries. He saw Emile Daggett, also kneeling, bleeding from the head and mouth, one eye swollen shut, a rifle trained at his temple.

The two Iraqis arranged themselves in front of Noah and Emile, clearly readying to execute them. Dully, Noah wondered why his life wasn’t passing before his eyes. Instead, he thought, This is a great story, but you’ll be too dead to write it.

Suddenly, shots chinked nearby, zinging off metal, pocking the dirt. Another Iraqi ran up to the two guarding Noah and Emile and yelled something. Agitated, the soldiers dragged Emile and Noah to their feet and shoved them forward. Noah’s leg gave out, so he got dragged along the ground into a machine shop, then to a small room filled with tarp-covered crates and what looked like engine parts. The space stank of wet earth, motor oil, blood and something foul.

Emile turned to speak and got slugged by a rifle butt. He dropped to the ground, unconscious, possibly dead. When Noah looked up, he saw the stock of a machine gun coming for his head. Once more, he dropped into blackness.

THE NEXT TIME NOAH WAS conscious, the dimness of the light leaking through the seams in the steel walls told him hours had passed. His mouth was coated with dust and he was desperate for water. His pain had localized to his injured parts, including his skull, where he fingered a baseball-size lump. Emile was out, but breathing.

Going under with a concussion was bad news, so he fought to stay awake, but failed. When he came to again, he heard machine-gun and rifle fire and an occasional mortar landing nearby. He wet Emile’s lips from a bucket of foul-smelling water that had appeared while Noah was unconscious. Emile groaned.

Hours passed. Noah faded in and out. At one point, he heard men talking overhead. He thought he recognized Fariq and tried to say his name, but his mouth was too dry, his voice too faint.

He tried to find a way out. There was something about the crates he needed to check. He felt for his camera, thinking he should take pictures, if he could stay awake long enough and clear his vision…?.

He woke in different parts of the cramped room, forgetting what he’d been trying to do. At one point, a guard came in and caught him writing in his notepad. This time, when the blow struck and the blackness came, Noah expected never to see light again.

CHAPTER THREE

Phoenix, Arizona

AT 3:00 A.M., MEL woke to wet sheets and a sharp pain. Instantly, she knew. Her baby was coming. Her water had broken and she was having contractions. Game on. A few weeks early, but safe, gracias a Dios. Endometriosis could lead to premature birth, but at her last appointment, the doctor had told her the baby was developed enough to be born anytime and likely not need neonatal care.

Okay. This is it. Here we go. Excitement poured through her. Adrenaline, too, waking her up, putting every cell of her being on alert. She was a little scared, her heart pounding, but she stayed in charge, her tasks scrolling through her mind: Call the doctor. Wake Mamá. Dress. Pack a quick bag. Drive to the hospital. She pushed to her feet and got started.

The doctor told her to meet him at the hospital, so she went to wake her mother. She hated to rob Irena of vital sleep, but her mother would have her head if Mel left without her. “Mamá, it’s time.”

Irena threw back the covers. “Lista!” she said, bounding out of bed. Ready. Mel’s heart ached at how hard her mother tried to hide her pain from Mel.

Irena was still weak from a second surgery, required because her fibromyalgia flare-ups had delayed chemotherapy. Mel had moved home to be more useful to her and had been helping out more at Bright Blossoms.

Mel carried her mother’s condition constantly with her—a drumbeat in her head, a throb in her heart. What if she didn’t recover? What if she got worse? What if she died?

At least Irena would see her grandchild. Mel knew that and it filled her with relief. No matter what happened, she’d have given her mother this gift.

“Are you excited, mi’ ja?” her mother said, a happy light overriding the gray exhaustion that ruled her features. Just the sight of Mel’s growing belly had seemed to cheer her and daily Mel had been grateful for that.

“Very,” she said, going close to hug her mother, taking in the comfort, the warmth, the love that meant so much to her. “Gracias a Dios I am here to see this day,” Irena whispered, her voice urgent, her eyes gleaming with tears. It was rare for her to admit this possibility and it hit Mel hard.

She bit her lip and swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Of course you are here. You’ll be here for years and years.” She pressed her cheek against her mother’s, praying that what she’d said would prove true.

“Get dressed while I pack.”

Then, in her room, throwing toiletries into a bag, it hit: What about Noah? She’d put off calling him, not wanting to deal with his shock and possible outrage over her carelessness with birth control. Plus, she hadn’t heard from him since that first month. He’d clearly moved on. She should, too.

Oh, Noah. Her heart surged with longing for him, as it had over and over again during her pregnancy. It was weak and stupid, but at night, she’d often fantasized him with her, spooning in bed, his warm hand cupping her swollen belly, cozy in their cocoon.

Pregnancy hormones, no doubt, but embarrassing as hell.

And now? Now that the baby was here? She had to tell him. The man hated secrets. She owed him this truth.

She reached for her cell phone, where she had his number, but a contraction gripped her. Pain ripped through her insides, twisting her organs, taking over her brain and body, making her gasp. She grabbed the bureau, panting, fighting to remember the Lamaze technique. “Ow, ow, ow,” was the best she could manage. How many minutes had gone by since the last contraction?

She didn’t remember. There was no time for a phone chat, that was certain, so she settled for a text: Got pregnant that weekend. Baby coming. No need for anything. This is what I want. No regrets.

She took a deep breath and hit Send. For better or worse, Noah would know. Putting her phone in her bag, Mel set off to have her baby.

Two days after the attack

Landstuhl, Germany

NOAH OPENED HIS EYES and jolted upward. Pain stabbed his chest and his hand hit a metal bar. He saw he was in a hospital bed. Alive. Safe. At least that. He checked himself out, moving as little as he could to minimize the pain.

His chest was taped, he had casts on his left arm and right leg and stitches pulled at the skin at his shoulders and his thigh. He touched a thick bandage around his head. Okay. Got it. That was all the activity he could stand, so he closed his eyes and drifted off.

After that, he slipped in and out of awareness for a while, hearing voices, beeps, clicks, the whisk of curtains, feeling his body being shifted, getting jolts of pain, the stab of injections, hearing groans, seeing lights go bright, then dim.

Eventually, he was alert enough to understand that he was in the medical center at the Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, where military personnel and some civilians were cared for when injured overseas.

The neurologist explained that Noah had suffered a traumatic brain injury. His language center had been damaged, so speech and attention span would be compromised, but they were hopeful he would recover. They were hopeful. Okay. He’d hold on to hopeful. He was so foggy he could barely form a thought, let alone ask many questions.

Not long after that, he awoke to find an officer in a dress uniform at the end of his bed, hands crossed at his crotch, chest loaded with medals.

“I’m Brigadier General Wade Nelson,” the man said, “here to extend the Army’s best wishes for your recovery. What happened over there was regrettable.”

“What about…the men?” Noah croaked out, fighting the gaps in his brain for words. “Daggett was…hurt. Others…?” Every thought was a battle.

“Private Daggett is recovering in this facility,” Nelson said. “Sergeant Fuller, killed in action, yourself and PFC Daggett were the only casualties incurred during the incident in question.”

Noah nodded, relieved no more men had been hurt.

Nelson then rattled off a military description of what had occurred. Noah concentrated as best he could, fighting to understand, though words kept dropping through holes in the sieve his brain had become.

In essence, Nelson told him that Fuller had acted against orders by allowing a civilian to join the patrol, that Noah had forced a detour to an unsecured area, where Fuller’s men initiated unprovoked combat resulting in Fuller’s death and the capture of Noah and Emile by the Iraqi soldiers who believed themselves under attack by U.S. troops.

Noah and Daggett had been “secured” some time later. There would be an investigation…disciplinary actions taken…and serious consequences.

“It was…me…” he managed to say. “I’m at fault.”

“We are well aware of that fact,” the brigadier general said, his mouth a grim line. He moved to the side of the bed and looked down at Noah, his eyes dark with anger. “Your irresponsible actions have jeopardized our status with the Iraqi military, its government and its people, Mr. Stone.” The words hit like hammer blows, pounding straight through Noah’s mental fog. He would remember each one, he knew.

“On behalf of the U.S. Army and the American people, I urge you, in any reporting you may do, to respect the men who risked their lives to save yours and be utterly clear about your culpability in what transpired on that ill-advised patrol.”

My duty…is to…the truth. The words slowly lined up in his brain, but refused to become speech. The most he could manage was, “The men…were…brave.” That was one truth he knew.

The remainder of Nelson’s words became a meaningless jumble. After he was gone, Noah tried to recall the attack. All he got were flashing images: Chuy and Emile hassling each other…Bo spitting tobacco…goats in the road…spiderwebs of cracked glass in the HMV’s windshield….

Why couldn’t he remember? He tried not to panic. The neurologist had warned him that he’d likely experience something called retrograde amnesia and be unable to recall anything around the time of the trauma, at least for a while, though it sometimes became a permanent loss.