Page 71 of Single Malt
When she stepped back, I held out the plant. “It’s not even close to the thank you that you deserve for taking care of operations while I was gone.”
“Thank you.” She seemed genuinely pleased. “Unnecessary but appreciated. I just did my job.”
I shook my head. “No, you did your jobandmy job.”
She smiled and carried the cactus over to her desk. “Well, whatever I did is thanks to you anyway. You hired great people who did their jobs and never once slacked off or caused problems because the boss wasn’t here.”
“They’re used to me being gone on business trips,” I reminded her. “But you’re right that they’re great people. I do select excellent people to surround me.”
She gave me the same look my sisters did when they knew I was teasing to deflect from something serious. Just like them, she didn’t let me get away with it.
“How’s your family?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think there’s a single word that can describe how we’re doing.”
I headed into my office, gesturing for her to follow. The last few days had taken a lot out of me. I’d only been up for an hour or two today, but I was already exhausted. I waited until she sat in her usual place across from me to explain. She’d only met a few of my family members over the years we’d known each other, but we were close enough that I was going to tell her the whole story.
“Eoin and his unit were in a convoy when the vehicle he was in hit an IED. It was a total ambush. Shooting. Another explosion.” I ran my hand down my face. “One of the men killed in the ambush was Eoin’s best friend. He and Leo were friends since they were kids. They enlisted together.”
“Oh, no.” Adela breathed out the words.
I hadn’t been as close to Leo as my younger siblings, but I’d known him and his family. He’d spent a lot of time at our house, and his house had been one of the few places Eoin had always been allowed to go, no matter what trouble my brother had been in. Leo was a good kid and an even better man.
Had been.
I cleared my throat. “Eoin was shot in the shoulder and in the leg, but neither one did a lot of damage. He was close to the second explosion, though. We don’t know if his body armor was faulty or if it’d been damaged by everything else that’d happened or if it was just how strong the explosion had been, but he ended up with a lot of shrapnel wounds.” I closed my eyes for a moment, collecting myself before I went on. It’d been too close. “One piece ended up only a centimeter or two from his heart. Some of the wounds are infected.”
Adela let out a gasp and put her hand over her mouth.
“He’ll survive,” I reassured her. “They flew him to Germany, and he’s on some serious antibiotics, but he’s out of danger. My parents called me this morning with an update.”
“They’ve talked to him?” Adela asked.
I shook my head. “They flew to Germany on Saturday. They’ve only been allowed to see him for a few minutes, and he’s been in and out of consciousness, but the doctors say he’ll be okay. How much physical therapy he’ll need or…” I swallowed hard, “or how bad his scars will be…” I shrugged, unable to even go there just yet.
I’d heard the hesitation in Da’s voice during that last bit, but I was glad he’d told me. At least I’d be able to prepare myself before I saw Eoin. Not because it would bring up memories of what’d happened to me, but because my own scars might make Eoin more self-conscious of his own. Especially since at least one of his would be far more visible than any of mine. Da said there’d been a deep cut down the side of Eoin’s face. The doctors said he’d been fortunate to not lose his eye and that nerve damage was still a possibility.
“If he struggles, I’m sure he’ll come to you to talk,” Adela said. “He knows he has someone who understands what it’s like to have a life-changing moment mark you.”
Since I did wear short sleeves to work on occasion, everyone who’d worked with me during the summer had seen some of the scars on my right arm. Thanks to a faulty valve five years ago, Adela had seen me without a shirt, so she knew that the ones on my arm weren’t the worst. But no matter how bad some of mine were, I could still hide them.
I didn’t do it because I was vain or embarrassed about them, but because I didn’t like telling the story about how I got them. It wasn’t a bad memory, exactly, but I didn’t like how people reacted to it. And my story had a happy ending.
When Eoin looked at his scars when people asked about them, he’d not only be uncomfortable with any “war hero” talk, but he’d also remember the people he’d lost. He’d have to remember that he survived when Leo didn’t. What I’d been through and how I looked wouldn’t make Eoin think that I knew how he felt because I didn’t. Not really.
“He’ll get through it,” Adela said. “He’s strong, and he’s got a lot of people to support him.”
I nodded. “You’re right.” I let out a sigh and leaned back in my chair. “It won’t be easy, but he’ll be okay.”
I really hoped I wasn’t lying to myself.
Forty-Seven
Freedom
I’d checkedout Neutral Ground and hadn’t been able to find anything that I could use to convince Aline that she shouldn’t go anywhere with that particular agency. Even after I’d volunteered to go with her, I’d held out hope that I could get her to withdraw her application and then convince her to wait to do any charity work until she had at least a couple years of real experience under her belt. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe what she wanted to do was worthwhile, but it just wasn’t practical.
Danger was also a factor, but I knew my sister well enough to know danger wouldn’t be a good excuse either. The best I could hope for with that reasoning was her choosing another country, but I doubted even that would happen. She had a way of looking at the world that made her believe that things would always find a way to work out. She’d say something along the lines of how she could teach anywhere in the U.S., whether she started looking right after graduation or after she returned from Iran in October.