For All Their Lives (30 page)

He was driving too fast, Casey thought as he careened around a corner on two wheels, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the butt of his pistol. They were rounding the corner of Thong Nhut Boulevard when an explosion ripped through the night. The corporal slammed on the brakes then threw the jeep in reverse. The .45 was out of his belt in a split second. “Get down!” he ordered. He debated three seconds too long. Automatic weapons fire followed by more explosions ripped through the embassy. In the glaring firelight, Casey saw the great seal of the United States come loose from the embassy wall. Four gaping holes looked like giant eyes. It was the last thing she saw before the grenade hit their jeep.

 

A
T
8:35
IN
the morning, the American forces regained control of the embassy compound. The counted dead were seven: four MP's, a marine corporal from Miami, Florida, and two women. A third woman had been airlifted to Thailand with burns over thirty percent of her body and face. The name on the quickly-filled-out tag pinned to the woman's blouse said Lily. It was the medic's mistake when the only identification he could come up with was what the woman whispered:
“Lily, Lily.”

Lily
was in truth Casey Adams.

 

T
HREE DAYS LATER
, when Saigon was back to what passed for normal, Mac Carlin burst through the embassy doors like a human tornado. He demanded answers and cringed when he got them. His hands trembled so badly, he could hardly hold the flimsy piece of paper Geoffrey Hollister handed him.

In a voice that was so deadly calm it made Hollister turn as white as flour, Mac said, “She was safe where she was. Why in the name of God did you order her brought here?”

“Because,” Hollister said coldly, “she told me she was some muckety-muck's mistress. Christ, how was I supposed to know it was a lie? I was covering my ass, just the way you would have covered yours, and don't stand there and try to tell me anything different. Look, no one is sorrier than I am. We lost five of our own. Six if you count her. Seven if you count the WAC.”

Mac's fist shot out. Hollister went down. Tears burning his eyes, he stepped over the flabby body.

His dream had become a nightmare.

Mac ran then, every demon in hell on his heels, down the air-conditioned corridors, through the doors to the blistering heat outside. He kept on running, his eyes searching for landmarks that would lead him to Lily Gia's small apartment.

Hollister didn't seem to know very much. From what he'd said, five people were dead and two more were missing, and perhaps dead too.

He started to call Lily's name the moment he recognized the building. He thought he was screaming, shouting so loud everyone for miles around would come to offer news of Lily. Only silence greeted him. The building was empty, its doors hanging wide open. Lily's door was closed. He slammed at it with both his hands, pushing inward. Nothing. He called her name again and again as he walked through the sparsely furnished rooms. Lily's things were in the tiny bedroom, a baby's rattle and nursing bottle on the dresser. He yanked at the drawers, looking for the Mickey Mouse satchel, for a sign that Casey had really been here for over a month.

The moment Mac saw the cellophane and wax-paper bundle, he knew what it was. The blue dress. He cursed then, so richly, so ripely, that he stunned even himself as he ripped and gouged at the surgical tape protecting the dress. How soft it felt. He thought he was holding the most beautiful thing in the world. He closed his eyes, trying to envision Casey in the dress. He brought the material close to his cheek. He thought he could smell cornflakes. Casey was going to wear this dress on Christmas Day. It took him all of three minutes to shred it. When he was finished, he was so light-headed he had to sit down.

In the bathroom that wasn't big enough for him to turn around in, he saw the gold bracelet and Cracker Jack ring on a small wicker shelf over the tiny sink. A roar of pain tore from his mouth as both his hands pounded down on the sink. He was jolted backward when the sink came away from the wall, teetered, and then fell. He took the ring and put it in his pocket.

Outside in the hot, still air, Mac looked at the ring. It was all that was left to him. And his memories. His vision blurred for a moment.

Still looking for Lily, hoping he might find her and, through her, a clue to Casey's whereabouts, he went to her parents' house and then the hospital. He wanted to cry when he was told that both Lily's parents were caught in crossfire as they tried to get to the hospital. No one had seen Lily or heard from her.

Mac stood helplessly on the curb, his eyes wild. He bellowed his pain again. No one paid any attention to him.

It wasn't right. Didn't anyone care? Was he the only one in this godforsaken country who cared? He thought about Luke Farrell and all the dedicated doctors and nurses. They cared. Such a goddamn small group. He wondered if he had the guts to send off a note to Luke Farrell. (Did Luke know Casey was missing and maybe dead?) Jesus, what if he didn't? Of course he knew. Hollister would have sent word to Maureen Hagen. Luke knew. Luke had to know. And if anyone could get a lead on Lily and her son, it would be Luke. As for Mac, his tour would be up in three weeks. There wasn't much he could do.

Mac wrote his note at the airport, sealed it in an envelope, and handed it over to a young marine who promised to turn it over to the first chopper pilot to set down at the airport. The pilot did his best to keep his promise to the marine, but he was shot down ten miles from Pleiku. Mac's letter to Luke burned in the dense jungle.

Three weeks later Mac Carlin climbed aboard a Flying Tiger plane in Saigon on the first leg of his journey. (He'd accepted the fact that Casey was dead and it left him feeling dead inside.) He didn't look back.

It was time to go home.

“D
OCTOR, DO YOU
think she was beautiful?” The voice was soft, cultured, and full of compassion.

“I imagine she was,” Singin Vinh said helplessly as he stared down at the patient. He'd managed to stabilize her, but just barely. “Has she said anything?”

From a faraway place she couldn't identify, Casey Adams strained to hear what the voices were saying. She moved restlessly. She must be in a hospital, nothing else would explain the pain she was feeling. Once before, when she was conscious, she thought she smelled hospital odors, but in a second she was asleep. God, where was she? Then she remembered. Her bandaged arms flailed. She was filled with more pain. From a long, dark tunnel she heard a voice whisper. “Shh, you're in good hands, Miss Lily. If you remain very still, I will tell you what we know. You were in Saigon, probably for the New Year festivities. There was an offensive action. The Viet Cong attacked your American embassy. It was quite brutal. We think you were headed for the embassy, since the car you were in was firebombed on Thong Nhut Boulevard, which is where the embassy is located. The driver of the car, a marine, was killed, along with two other women. We were told their names were Casey Adams and Sue Collins. Both women's bodies were so badly burned it was difficult to identify them. We understand there was a child, a baby in the car too. He was taken to an orphanage. This is what was told to us when we called the embassy in Saigon. They made your identification from a small colorful suitcase and Miss Adams's dog tags. The American embassy said they sent a driver to pick up Lieutenant Adams, who was an army nurse. They don't know why or how Sue Collins and the baby came to be in the car, or you for that matter. The little suitcase was thrown clear and so was the child. Fortunately, the little one landed on it when he was thrown from the jeep. The suitcase had half a name tag on it. The marine medic who had you airlifted said you kept saying Lily, Lily, so we assumed that was your name. We did our best to make a proper identification. It seemed logical to him and to us you are Lily Simon. Does any of this sound familiar to you?”

Of course it was familiar. She'd borrowed fellow nurse Nancy Simon's Mickey Mouse suitcase at Christmas time when she'd gone to Saigon to meet Mac. When the marine arrived to take her and Lily to the embassy, she'd thrown underwear and her toilet articles into the bag. Lily had the baby and an armful of diapers in her arms. Did she remember? She would never forget. She herself had been sitting on Sue Collins's lap. She remembered sailing through the air, her body on fire. The baby must have been thrown clear the way she was, while Sue and Lily were trapped in their seats. Lily, because of their likeness in size, had been taken for her. But if that was the case, how did the embassy and the military account for her being here? And what about Lily? Did anyone know if Lily was dead? Was anyone mourning for her? Of course not, no one knew she was dead. The enormity of her situation hit her full force then. Lily's parents didn't know their daughter was dead . . .

“I think she's asleep again,” the nurse said quietly. “Will she die, Doctor?”

“No, she won't die, but before she is well again, she will wish she were dead.” The doctor closed his eyes wearily when he thought of what the faceless patient was going to endure in the coming months. He couldn't even begin to imagine how many grafts it would take to repair her burned body. “Twenty-four-hour nursing care, Maline.”

The tiny nurse's eyes shimmered with tears. “Does this mean you won't be going to Vietnam to help your friend Luke Farrell?” She held her breath, waiting for the surgeon's reply.

“That's what it means,” Vinh said tiredly. He'd gone without sleep for forty-eight hours as they worked tirelessly to stabilize their patient.

“Do you realize we missed every New Year festivity, Maline?”

“There will be other New Years. Miss Lily had only this one chance to be made whole again,” Maline said softly.

How pretty Maline is,
Singin thought. And how very tired. Maline had lost as much sleep as he had. He wondered why he'd never noticed before how pretty she was. In fact, Maline was beautiful. He ran his fingers through his thick, black hair. “Do you have many boyfriends?” he blurted.

Maline didn't blush, didn't stammer, and her color didn't change. Her heart, however, skipped a beat. Long ago she'd given up hope of having Singin notice her, and now he was asking such a personal question. She thought about the question before she replied, and when she did, her response startled her. “Why do you ask, Doctor?”

“I thought it might be . . . nice if we went on a picnic, but I can't very well ask you if you're . . . spoken for.”

“I'm a modern Thai, Doctor. If you want to ask me to go on a picnic, then ask me.” She held her breath waiting for the invitation. When it didn't come, she wanted to stamp her tiny foot in frustration, but that would have been unprofessional.

“I'll be back in an hour, Maline. I have to see about getting word to Luke Farrell that I'm on hold for the time being. Call me if there's any change at all. I'll be staying at the hospital until Miss Lily is ‘out of the woods,' as they say in the States.”

He was gone, the door swooshing closed behind him. Maline sat down and let her shoulders slump. She'd been in love with Singin since she was a little girl. When he went to the United States for his education, she went too, but not until he was serving his residency in Seattle. When she finally got up the nerve to call him at the hospital where he worked, he'd been so polite, so reserved, so . . . so . . . she coined a new word—doctorish. He'd worn sneakers and blue jeans and parted his hair on the side. She'd bought sneakers and blue jeans too, and had gone one step further and got a permanent wave, which had been a disaster. He'd teased her unmercifully, until she'd been forced to cut it all off. For the longest time she'd walked around with her hair cut like a boy's.

When she returned to Thailand, with a fashionable hairdo, gold jewelry, high heels, and Western clothes, she'd seen Singin blink in amazement. His neck got red and he said, “Maline, is that you?” It was such a stupid question, yet endearing somehow. She hadn't bothered to respond, simply because her tongue was too thick in her mouth. So she winked and batted her eyelashes before she sashayed down the hall. Halfway down she'd turned and said, “I'll be working with you, Doctor.” Even at that distance she could see the red in his neck travel to his face and ears. She'd felt so powerful then. But all that was five years ago, and nothing had transpired since. She still loved him—that would never change.

Her patient stirred restlessly. “Shh,” she said. “Please do not move, first listen, Miss Lily. You're in good hands. The best hands in Southeast Asia. You've been in a terrible accident, but you will recover. I'm Maline, Dr. Vinh's nurse. You're safe here. Nothing more will happen to you.” She wanted to say more, but her patient was asleep again, full of painkiller.

Dutifully, Maline wrote on the patient's chart,
Fretful for several minutes. I calmed her.
Maline logged the time. Her vision blurred when she looked at the long list of things wrong with her patient. Ruptured spleen, broken shoulder, shattered jaw, broken wrist, fingers smashed, shattered ankle, four cracked ribs. Burns over thirty percent of her body. Face burned, cheekbones shattered, nose broken, damage to eyes.

It could all be dealt with, Singin had said. Reconstructive surgery was his specialty. Skin grafts were the important thing now, and doing every thing possible so the patient didn't develop pneumonia.

 

D
AYS PASSED, THEN
weeks, and finally months. It was summer before Casey was able to respond to her surroundings. She wanted to communicate, to tell Maline and Dr. Vinh her name wasn't Lily Simon, but her jaw was wired shut and her hands were heavily bandaged; all her fingers were broken, as well as one of her wrists. She'd tried wiggling her toes as a means of communication, but the Thais hadn't picked up on it. She'd had optical surgery and now had permanent contact lenses implanted. Her eyes hurt and watered continuously, but she could see. For so long she'd been “blind,” with patches over her eyes. Now, for a while, she had to wear dark, wraparound sunglasses. Her ribs were healed, her spleen removed. Her ankle was reconstructed, and she would walk, but with a slight limp. She still had many skin grafts to go, and the work on her face would take even longer. At least another year.

Months ago she'd lost track of time, and only when one of the nurses read an American paper to her, her only entertainment, did she know what day or month it was. It was done religiously, at four o'clock every day, on the hospital terrace where she sat in the shade, bundled from head to toe. Each day, as she waited for her reader, she also waited for Mac to find her, or for someone, anyone, to say, “Thank God, we finally found you.”

Casey listened to the breeze ruffle the leaves overhead, and to the soft squish of the nurses' rubber-soled shoes as patients were wheeled in and out of the terrace. She loved the clink of glassware and the sounds of birds chittering nearby. Part of her wanted Mac to appear, to take her in his arms and say, “Marry me, I don't care what you look like.” The other part of her didn't want him to see her ugliness, and she knew without having to be told that she was scarred and ugly. There was nothing she could do about it but cry behind the sunglasses.

All she did these days was to think. Think and cry, cry and think. Did everyone believe she was dead? What was Mac told? Had he extended his tour of duty or had he returned to the States? He would be out of the army now, a civilian, if he had rotated back home. And Lily? She was dead; Casey knew it, felt it. Sue too. Sue who only lived to see Rick for twenty minutes a month. The child, she seemed to remember, was in an orphanage. Half the time she didn't know what had been said and what was in her thoughts. The drugs they had her on fogged her brain. If she came out of this in one piece, she would never take another drug, not even an aspirin, for as long as she lived.
Oh, Mac, where are you?

Sooner or later she was going to have to think about Pleiku, Saigon, Luke Farrell, and all the wounded, but not now. Her heart was too sore and bruised, and she was in constant pain; but the dreams, the cold sweats were the worst.

She smelled Maline's sweet scent before the girl came around her chair to sit opposite her.

“It's a beautiful day, isn't it?” Maline didn't wait for a response but rattled on. “It's the kind of day that is wonderful for a picnic with one's lover. Today is Sunday, Lily. I checked with the office before I came on duty, and no paperwork has arrived in regard to you. Dr. Vinh is staying on top of it. It's taking much too long, but you are not to worry. Your army has other things to concern itself with besides paperwork. You're alive, and that's all that matters. Now,” she said cheerfully, “I have two newspapers, and they're only three days old.”

Casey leaned back against the soft pillows. This was the best part of the day, the
only
part of the day she liked. She half listened to the words, paying more attention to the soft, musical, cultured voice. It wasn't until Maline said, “The political news is that Major Malcolm Carlin of McLean, Virginia, has thrown his hat into the senatorial ring. There's a picture of Major Carlin, his wife, baby daughter Jennifer, and his father, Supreme Court Justice Marcus Carlin. Everyone is smiling. It says Major Carlin served in Vietnam for two years, and then it mentions all the medals he was awarded.” With her eyes riveted to the newspaper in front of her, Maline failed to see Casey's back stiffen and the tears rolling down her cheeks.

Wife and daughter. A child. Mac was married with a child. It wasn't possible. He'd never given any indication of a child or that he was married. At least Eric Savorone had told Lily that he was married. She, Casey, was no better than Lily, and she'd had the nerve to chastise the Asian girl. She swayed sickeningly in her nest of pillows. Married. She felt herself slipping into blackness, powerless to stop what was happening to her. When she awoke, she was back in her room, the nest where she'd been for so many months. She could hear voices coming from a long tunnel, those of Maline and Dr. Vinh.

“Did something happen?” he asked sharply.

“Nothing, Dr. Vinh. We talked about how nice it was today with no monsoon rain. I read the paper to her. It was political news, nothing alarming. Perhaps it was the heat.”

“It's not your fault, Maline,” Singin said kindly. “I'll feel so much better when we can unwire her jaw and she can talk. Another week or so and she can tell us what happened. Her vital signs are fine now, but I still want her watched carefully. I don't want her left alone even for a moment. Is that understood, Maline?” He knew it was understood. He'd never had to admonish Maline and didn't know why he was doing it now. She was a dedicated nurse, and Lily seemed to grow calm and respond only to her. He was worried though and didn't know why.

Casey wanted to cry, to sob her heart out, but she lay still, sick with humiliation. The beautiful memories, the wonderful notes and letters, were all lies. Her love, like Lily's, was based on a lie. How fitting that they should call her by Lily's name now. She cowered in the bed, tears of shame at her own stupidity sliding down from behind the darkened glasses.

In her drugged daze, Casey listened to the conversation from a faraway place, her humiliation so total, so secret, she wanted to die, until she heard Luke Farrell's name mentioned. She tried to struggle up from her cocoon, but she was powerless to speak, to tell them to get in touch with Luke.