Chapter 3

It did not take long to put the party together.

Just a month later, I had enough people with free weekends to justify the expense. I admit, I had already bought items in advance, hoping Shawn would say yes. Being a comfortable seventy-five degrees, the weather cooperated, thank the Lord. The luster allowed me to wear the cute poppy printed sundress wrap that accentuated my emerging baby bump.

In the backyard, we had those paper lantern lights on strings, you know, those round ones with the crinkled paper that you can get in certain colors? Ours were interspersed blue and pink, strung up like an X across the backyard, able to light up when the sun went down.

On our patio we had a long wooden table, with precious blue and pink question marks fringes around the edges. Every inch on top was filled with delicious food like I had promised. The aroma of the assortment smelled so delightful that I swore I felt the baby try to kick out to get to it.

Shawn and his friends had put out picnic benches beneath our twisting pine tree, and others out into the sun for those who could stand the glare, enough to accommodate everyone comfortably. You should have seen the dour expressions on the big, tough army men's faces when I asked them to staple the question marks along the edges. Of course, that irritation only lasted until they began to wrestle over the staple gun I had bought to put them up.

It was a wonderful day.

The laughter of children played through the air, running together like a flock with the neighborhood dogs, going nowhere but seemingly having a blast doing it. Looking at them, laughing and giggling as the pups jumped at them, darting here and there, I smiled, seeing our child joining them in my mind. 

I stood by the table with Shawn, who eyed the food and presents beside it like a hungry dog drooling for a bite.

“There better be diapers in those boxes,” he muttered to me as he glanced about.

“Hush,” I replied, with a soft swipe of my hand.

Hey Linda!” I heard someone shout. Looking up, I saw Terrence near the fence gate. “You know this guy?” He said, hands cupped beside his mouth.

Head and shoulder above the fence, I saw Henry waving at me. I smiled, and waved back, a sign Terrance took as an okay to let him in. Henry walked in, saying hello to Terrence, who still eyed him with suspicion as he closed the gate behind him. He wore jeans and a forest green t-shirt similar to Shawn’s - a common look for service members I had noticed - holding a dish covered in aluminum foil.

Even from that distance, I could see his face flush as the guests began to stare at the stranger in their midst as he walked a beeline toward me.

“Hi Linda,” he said, reaching the table. I could smell his cologne again, that was just subtle enough to not offend the nose. Up close, I could see that Henry had let his beard grow, just enough for a thin brown shadow to form about his jaw which highlighted his blue eyes.

“Hello Henry. Trying to be fashionably late?” I replied.

He laughed. “No, this just took longer to make than I expected,” he replied, indicating the dish in his hands with his head. Balancing the dish on one hand, he peeled back the foil, revealing a thick mound of meat, blackened at the top with different spices that smelled divine. “I started it last night in a smoker, but dang thing still wasn't done this morning.”

“Shawn, take a look at this,” I said, pulling on Shawn's shirt, “Henry made a delicious looking... brisket?”

 That superman-like smile returned as Henry nodded.

Shawn turned, chewing some food he had taken with his fingers, even though I told him how gross that was.

“Damn, that looks good,” Shawn said, getting a knock on his shoulder from me for the curse word.

“Shawn, this is Henry Collins. Henry, Shawn Mark, finally,” I replied.

“Hello Shawn,” Henry said. He glanced at his dish. “I'd shake your hand but mine are busy right now.”

“No problem. Want me to find a place for that?” Shawn replied.

“Uh, actually I need to cut this, and I left my utensils,” Henry replied, looking a bit embarrassed.

“Oh, well, I can take you to the kitchen Henry--,” I started.

“No,” Shawn interrupted. “I'll take him.” Henry looked up at Shawn, a smile brightening his eyes, and I thought nothing of the exchange, more thankful that I didn't have to walk on my swollen feet.

Shawn looked at me, cracking his own warm smile. “Besides, we need more beer already,” he said.

“Okay honey, but hurry back,” I replied. “We will eat in a few minutes and the baby wants some of that brisket.”

“The baby won't be disappointed,” Henry said, lifting the dish. “Wouldn't be a true Texan otherwise.”

“Okay hun,” Shawn replied, soft lips pecking mine. Then, squinting in the sun, he said, “Okay Henry, follow me.”

****

“So that brisket took you all night, huh?” I asked.

There was no answer, so I looked over my shoulder. Henry walked several feet behind me, eyeing the backyard, taking in all the details.

Finally, he answered. “Uh, yeah. Damn thing was denser than the size I usually get, so I misjudged the timing.” He looked at me. “Interesting layout of your backyard here. Y'all built it like this?”

Our backyard was shaped like the letter L, the curve leading to our master bedroom patio, with the dining room on the other side, closer to the fence. The door was not flush with the house; Linda wanted a mud room so our future kids could have some place to put their dirty shoes before going inside, creating a small alcove.

“Yeah,” I replied, “we wanted quick access to the backyard, so we set it to the east. Linda likes to come out here sometimes to watch the sun rise.”

“Good idea on the motion sensor lights on the patio. Plus, having that mudroom right outside your bedroom gives you that narrow view from the doorway,” Henry said. “Natural bottleneck.”

I stopped at the door and looked back at Henry. The narrow view was one of five angles taught in close quarter battle. If someone were breaking into our home from the mudroom, I had a perfect view from my bedroom doorway to safely take them out during the breach.

It struck me that was something going through Henry's mind, given the nature of the party, although I knew from experience that situational awareness was hard to turn off, even as a civilian. Hell, I have been there too. I still go there on occasion.

“Right. Can't lie and say it wasn't something I thought about when she asked for it. You can never be too secure, right?” I replied.

“Right,” Henry replied with a nod, and I led us inside.

Pushing the door into the mudroom, I held it open for Henry to go through, then followed him past the dining table, into the kitchen.

Walking inside, the loose board squeaked under Henry's weight, and he pushed it down with the tip of his foot, but it would barely give.

“Board sounds a little loose,” he said between squeaks as he bounced on his foot. “I can fix that for you?”

“No,” I replied, and guided him to the island. “I took care of it.”

Having to duck from the hanging pots, Henry slid the dish onto the countertop, and peeled off the rest of the foil.

“Well, what do you know,” he said, picking up a two-prong grill fork, and a long knife with a silver handle from the plate. “I did pack the utensils after all. Guess I forgot.”

“How about that,” I replied. “Guess I'll let you get to work, Henry.” I finished as I passed him to head towards the fridge.

With deft skill, Henry spun the butt of the knife on his palm, before catching the handle by the tang and stabbing the fork into the juicy center.

Head bowed, Henry cut into the meat as he asked, “So you and Linda have been a thing since college, right?”

“Yup. Guess she's told you all about us, huh?”

Juices slid off the knife as Henry cut thin slices from the brisket. “Guess she's told you everything about me as well?” He replied.

“Yeah,” I said, pulling open the refrigerator door. “Said you were special forces, is that right?”

Henry nodded, concentrating on the meat he was carving. “Was part of the fifth SF group out of Fort Campbell,” he replied.

“Oh yeah. I worked with some of you guys in Afghanistan. Internal defense. Helping set up police, anti-insurgents, and all that,” I replied as I leaned past the door.

“Mhmm,” Henry mouthed, then said, “that wasn't my unit. I was part of the CIF ODA, doing D.A. in Iraq.”

“Direct action huh?” I said, as I slid out a twelve case of beer with one hand, and two singles between the fingers of the other. “Anything you could talk about?”

“I could--,” Henry replied, head down, cutting the last of the brisket.

“--But then you'd have to kill me,” I replied with a laugh.

“Exactly,” Henry said, finally looking up from butchering with a wan smile.

As I approached him, I noticed that the brisket was cut in thin layers. Precise as I had ever seen, as if he had measured each slice when I knew he didn't. Yet, if someone had told me it was done by a machine, I would have believed them.

I sat the case of beer on the island and offered Henry one that I had between my fingers.

“I don't drink,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Can I have some water though?”

Before I could answer, Henry had walked to the cabinet - his footsteps silent as a stalking cat - and retrieved a glass cup, pouring water from the tap. I leaned against the island, watching as he walked over to the large opening that looked out into the living room, taking small sips of water.

“Not an open-concept type guy huh?” Henry asked.

“Nope,” I replied. “Not a fan of wide-open spaces. Takes me back.”

Hand on the lip of the opening, Henry leaned his head through, looking left and right with a long whistle. “How long you been out Shawn?” He asked, leaning back in, eyes regarding my paunch.

“A while now,” I replied, twisting open the bottle top with a hiss, then slapped my gut to let him know that I saw him looking. Yet, Henry didn't seem to care. “Did my years, then discharged.”

“This is quite the house,” Henry remarked, crossing his arms over his chest. On the arm holding the cup, I could see the skull tattoo Linda had mentioned. A stiletto dagger stabbed through the top of the skull with twin arrows crisscrossed behind it, the green cap covered by the rest of the sleeve.

“You were commissioned?” He asked.

I shook my head while taking a pull. After the cool beer cleared my throat, I replied, “just a grunt in the seventy fifth.”

Henry laughed. “You got all this as enlisted? What, did you smuggle something back with you from the good ol desert?” Our eyes met, and Henry's hand went up. “Hey, I'm not judging over here. Some guys did some bad things. It was chaotic over there.”

I laughed with him but didn't find it quite as funny. “No. I just paid attention when they had those investment classes. Linda and I scraped by as we put those reenlistment bonuses into the right stocks. They paid off.”

“No shit?” Henry said before taking a drink with a smack of his lips. “Guess I had my mind on other things back then.”

“Yeah. After my enlistment, we had enough for me to start a small construction company, well, building material. Linda helped when she could, but I didn't want to uproot her from her coworkers who became family while I was deployed.”

“She's a wonderful lady,” Henry said, walking to the sink to deposit his cup. “Made me feel at home in the company. Reached out when no one else did. Listens and doesn't judge me on my actions. She's really special.”

“Yeah, she's good like that,” I replied, then I tried to change the subject. “So, how long have you been out?”

“Little over a year. Caught a round in the shin that took me offline,” he replied, lifting his pant leg to show me the leftover of a nasty scar of puckered skin from a round that went through the bone, but I never noticed a limp. “Took it pulling one of the team from a sniper at an elevated position. Damn that dress wearing faggot could shoot.” He shook his head, eyes closed from the memory. “Put so many holes in me, I could have been mistaken for a bloody field net.” Henry said, throat scratching from a laugh.

“You take anything down there?” He asked.

The bottle swished as I shook my head, taking a drink. “Nope. Nicks and scrapes, but nothing like that at least. Guess I got lucky. That's how I got the nickname Bandit. Guys always said I got out of sticky situations.”

He nodded slowly. “Doing internal defense.”

There was a moment of silence between us.

 “Hope you got full medical,” I said, ignoring the inference.

“Got some, but the boys did right by me. Pulled their money to give me a ACOG as a going away present. For home defense, of course.”

“A trijicon? Now that is a nice scope,” I replied, taking another drink, the bottle nearly empty. “My friend John used to swear he could see the Taliban in their caves at six hundred yards during operation Achilles with one of those.”

“So, you did see some action, huh?” Henry smirked.

I glanced at him but looked away.

“Yeah, well, that scope was about all I got. No family. No kid on the way,” Henry continued, hand on the sink behind him as he looked down, “wish we all could have been as smart as you.” His eyes found me again. “Or lucky enough to have someone like Linda to fight for. Bet having her got you through some dark times.”

“In a sense,” I replied. The shoulder on Henry straightened as I spoke. “It was her and the thought of our business that kept me going. The idea of giving our kids a better life that we didn't have. I knew the army wasn't our future, but that was what I was fighting for.”

“So, you really weren't there for the brotherhood? Or defending the country?”  He asked. There was a tone to his voice as if he were making a statement, not asking a question. Judging me. “Sounds like you were barely even there for Linda?”

Our eyes never left one another, as I tossed the empty bottle in the bin in the island cabinet.

“Speaking of Linda, we better get that brisket out to her before it gets cold,” I replied. “One thing you don't want to see is a pregnant woman who is hungry. Trust me.”

I grabbed the top of the case of beer.

The glass Henry had drunk from tinkled as it fell over in the sink when he leaned off the counter. “Hey, that crack about the plunder? I was just joking man,” Henry said, then sounding contrite. “Didn't mean to offend. I just know sometimes you must do bad things to be happy.”

“Don't worry about it, water under the bridge,” I replied, forcing a grin. “Let's get going.”

Henry wiped his hands on his jeans. “Thanks for the tour, Shawn, and for inviting me to your home.” And reached out his hand, a thin smile on his lips.

I took his hand into mine. His hand was like a tensile grip, thumb digging into the top of mine. He kept that smile and held my gaze, eyes blue like a glacier, his fingers tightening before finally letting go. It took several seconds before the white on my hand rushed red.

Henry patted his stomach. “Looks like I might have drank too much water, Shawn. You mind if I use the bathroom before we go back out there?”

I pointed to the west door. “Through the door and down the hall,” I replied. “Second door on the right.”

With that same tight grin, Henry went to push the door in, but it stuck on the jam.

“You have to pull from this side,” I told him, and he nodded up, pulling on the door that clacked closed behind him.

Rubbing my sore hand, curiosity got the best of me, and I walked over to the sink. Inside, Henry's cup was on its side, a streak of water trickling from the inside out. How full was that glass, I wondered. Just how much did he drink?

Then I heard the toilet flush and moved back to the case of beer on the island before Henry made his way back into the kitchen.

“This is really some home,” Henry muttered as he returned. “It reminds me of this one home we took in Baquba.”

I set the beer back down as Henry leaned forward on the island with both hands, recounting his story.

“It was around two-thousand six, soon after they bombed to hell that monster that was beheading people. You remember how that city was terrorist central?”

I nodded. “Heard briefings about it.”

“Well, there was another HVT in that city, Abu Min-Qunbula,” he continued.

“Father of bombs,” I replied, remembering my Arabic lessons.

Henry nodded. “We had intel he was holed up in the northeast, squatting in a house that was abandoned by some sheikh or Baathist official after hearing we were coming. Well Mr. Qunbula had decided a terror bombing campaign was the proper answer to the killing of Zarwali. He bombed the shit out of us for days. Roadside bombs, suicide trucks, hell, even women like those Shahidka's in Chechnya. We lost eight U.S. soldiers and a few dozen Iraqi police in the weeks that followed.”

It was as if Henry looked past me, staring off as he spoke. “My team went in at night. The op plan was to use this massive chimney the previous occupant had built, so we parachuted in. It all had to be done in under twenty minutes, and we had to maintain silence being in the lion’s den, which made PLF a hell of a thing on a tiled roof.”

“I can imagine,” I said, but I could only imagine. I had trained doing jumps in the Ranger Airborne course, so we practiced parachute landing falls. Yet, I found it hard even landing the technique on grass in controlled environments, let alone a slick tile in the middle of a war zone.

“When we made it inside, we surprised a few jihadis that we took out quick and silently. Eight minutes later, I led the team down the hallway that intel said Mr. Bomber was sleeping, clearing each room as we passed,” Henry slowly walked toward me. “I opened the designated door and don’t you know, there he was, sleeping like a baby in a small cot, surrounded by porn, drugs and wires.”

He had stopped in front of me, glacier-like eyes looking into mine. “You expected to see a demon, or the devil himself, booby trapped to take you with him, but when I touched his shoulder he flinched, and when I rolled him over all I saw was a man, no better than me, living in a house he didn't deserve. I took my knife out,” Henry lifted his empty fist, pretending he held the knife in a tight grip. “Then I put it to his throat.”

I resisted taking a step back as he lifted the hand to my neck, pantomiming that night. His breathing increased, eyes wide and gleaming. “Mr. Bomber was awake then, and I looked at him in those dark brown eyes as I slid the knife across his jugular, covering his mouth to stop the scream.”

I freed my hands and held them at my sides. “And what happened then?” I asked.

Henry's lips turned into a wistful smile, “No more bombings. Another liberation of the oppressed. That's when the boys gave me the nickname Rip. Made sense after all.” Then he picked up the plate and balanced it on one hand. “All set here. Lead the way, Shawn.”

To him, it was as if he had said nothing at all.

For some reason, I thought about the utensils he had on the plate, the knife and fork slicked with grease, and moved to the side. “After you, Rip,” I said.

As he past, Henry grinned at me. I followed him, stepping over the loose board on the floor to follow him outside with beer in hand.

****

“I can't believe you're leaving already,” I said, leading Henry through the gate. “We haven't even revealed the baby's gender yet.”

“Sorry Linda,” Henry replied, closing the gate behind him. “But I told you I had other plans.”

Gone was the congenial tone he normally had, as if something had soured his mood. We walked down the small incline, me with a hand on my stomach as if it would balance me in case of a fall.

“Yeah, but I was hoping after being here awhile you would want to stay,” I replied, looking over my shoulder. Over the fence I could see Shawn talking to Terrence and John, glancing over at us before the incline took them out of view.

Henry sidled up next to me, carrying his plate that was picked clean.

“If it's a hot date, then I'll forgive you,” I said, poking his side.

Henry huffed a laugh. “It's something like that,” he replied. “Have some calls I have to make. People to see.”

We reached his pickup truck parked on the street whose engine compartment was nearly as tall as me.

“Is that Shawn's?” Henry asked, indicating the red sedan we had parked in the driveway with a nod. 

I grinned. “Yeah, that's his mid-life crisis mobile, as he likes to call it.”

“Fancy.” Opening the cab, Henry put down the empty plate and stood beside the open door. “Well, thanks for the invite, Linda. It was good to get out,” he said.

He kept looking away, not wanting to meet my eyes. It was the same sullen expression he would get whenever he spoke of the war.

I rubbed Henry's arm, which made him look at me. “You okay?” I asked.

Looking at me, his shoulders straightened, and his back stiffened. The walls going up like Shawn’s would often do.

“Right as pink,” he said. “Hale and hearty.”

“Nerd,” I replied with a chuckle. He may not have wanted to confide in me at that time, but at least life had returned to countenance.

“I'm fine, Linda. My mind is clear,” Henry said, with that commanding military tone. “Well, let me get going.”

Then he leaned over, giving me a kiss on the cheek. His cologne had a woody fragrance, masculine, yet, sweet. I felt the heat from his body as he held the kiss, rough fingers brushing against my hand. Then Henry leaned back. I glanced over my shoulder but didn't see Shawn looking over the fence at us. I could feel my face flush but tried not to show my embarrassment.

I felt a warmth over my stomach and saw Henry's hand there. He was looking down, his smile growing.

“I hope it's a girl,” he said.