Operation Oleander (9780547534213) (12 page)

“You would say that.” Was it just that Sam was a commander's son? Or was it more than that? Maybe Sam's just a rules-and-order person. His world is black and white. “I'm glad I'm not in the army.”

“I bet the army is too.” Then Sam smiles at me, just a little, and he nudges my shoulder.

The honor guard marches forward in unison. Their rifles snap to their shoulders as if they're one.

The three-volley salute is fired. I cover my ears after the first shot. Next to me, Sam stares straight ahead, his arms at his sides. On his other side, the girl from the PX jumps at each shot.

In front of us, Mr. Scott and Meriwether sit tall and straight. They stare ahead. Meriwether doesn't even flinch.

Afterward, the bugler plays taps while a soldier folds the American flag and hands it to Mr. Scott.

 

Fades the light; and afar
Goeth day, and the stars
Shineth bright,
Fare thee well; day has gone,
Night is on.

 

The words come to me, though I don't want them to.

“Come on,” Sam says. “Let's get in line.” Mourners are filing by the Scotts to pay their respects.

My feet go in the right direction. I'm walking in a bad dream and I can't stop.

“It's my fault, isn't it?” I say the words out loud. The words that have circled around me like a swarm of mosquitoes, droning in my ear. Day after day, gathering strength.

We step closer to the front of the line.

“It's not your fault, Jess. You didn't detour to the orphanage that day.”

“So it's my dad's fault?” My voice rises.

“I didn't say that,” Sam says, his voice softer as if to counterbalance mine. “Come on, we're almost there.”

In front of us, the girl from the PX has made it to the family. She shakes the grandparents' hands. She speaks to Meriwether, who stands there, back stiff. She's holding the folded flag.

I can't tell what she's saying to Meriwether. But she's listening, because she nods once or twice. Other mourners weave around the two of them. The girl finishes, and when she looks my way, her eyes are shiny as wet grass.

“What's her name?” I nudge Sam's arm. Sam knows all the kids on post practically, since his dad's the commander. Sam and Mrs. Butler often meet the whole family, not just the service member.

“Aria. Her dad just left for Afghanistan.”

“Oh.” What did Aria say to Meriwether that made her listen?

In the last video Dad sent, even Warda had smiled for the first time I'd seen. A timid smile, as if she didn't trust herself to move her mouth upward. Then the bombing happened. If Warda is still alive, will she trust enough to smile again? Does she hate American soldiers? Or blame me?

Suddenly, it's our turn. I follow Sam's lead, holding myself back.

First we pass by the grandparents. When Sam steps on, I reach out my hand to them, but words don't come out of my mouth.

They whisper “Thank you for coming,” a line they must have been repeating all day. Meriwether's grandfather wears dark sunglasses. Her grandmother has black smudges under her eyes. When our hands meet, she touches my arm with both of hers. Whether for her support or for mine I can't tell.

The blond boy with the protest sign looms in my mind. How could he do what he did? Doesn't he think of his own mother or father when he carries those posters of dead soldiers to their funerals?

But are we so different?

I am Sergeant Westmark's daughter. The one to blame for your daughter being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Me. Maybe I am the face of evil too.

If Meriwether's grandmother wonders about me, who I am, she doesn't ask.

“Thank you again for coming,” she repeats in a voice fragile as moth's wings.

And, then, before I am ready, Sam steps toward Mr. Scott, and I stand before Meriwether.

She clutches the flag that draped her mother's coffin close to her heart. With her right hand she reaches out to shake mine. As if she doesn't recognize me.

I take her hand. Even in the heat, her hands are cold.

“Meriwether, it's me, Jess.”

When I say her name, her eyelids flicker. I don't release her hand. I lean in close to her.

“She knows, Meriwether. Your mom knows you love her.” Present tense. I say the words.

Meriwether nods, but her eyes don't meet mine. Behind me, others are waiting for the line to move ahead. I let her hand go, finally, and step down the line.

Mr. Scott shakes my hand too. Formal, as if I am not the girl who spent long summer evenings in their backyard under the magic white lights before Mrs. Scott deployed. I whisper “I'm sorry” and follow Sam out from under the canopy.

T
HAT NIGHT
after supper the phone rings. I stand by the door to my bedroom, listening for Mrs. Johnson to pick up. It's after midnight in Germany. If it's Mom, the news won't be good.

Maybe it's Meriwether.

My body presses into the door frame. After the funeral, I came home and went to my room. For once, Mrs. Johnson didn't lecture me. Or quiz me sixteen ways to Sunday about what happened at the funeral. At supper we ate without talking much either. Only Cara chattered the way she always does.

“Jess? It's Sam,” Mrs. Johnson calls from the living room.

I take the call in the kitchen. Sam and I didn't say much on the way back from the funeral. Even Commander Butler was quiet. They just dropped me off out front and headed home.

“Turn on the news,” he says.

“Why?” Was there another bombing? More soldiers dead?

“They're running a piece on the protest.”

“I'll call you back.” I hang up and run into the living room. “Sam says there's something on the funeral.”

Mrs. Johnson flips the channel to the local news, and there it is. Shots of the plane coming in, the long line of dark cars at the cemetery, and, finally, the Angustan protesters.

“I can't believe they showed up here, of all places,” Mrs. Johnson says. “You didn't say much about them.”

“Maybe we should turn it off,” I finally say as the footage gets closer and closer to the protesters. The angle of the shot shows the blond kid. And then a shadow blurs past and a figure is running toward him. The camera catches the back of the person. It's a girl in a skirt. A girl with a ponytail. Her arm raises like a sword and slashes at the sign.

Mrs. Johnson sits there, not speaking, but her mouth drops open. This is the first time I've ever seen her with nothing to say. That should be funny. But not today.

I watch myself as if I'm someone else on the television footage.

“J—Jess?”

“I know. I couldn't help it. They made me so mad. Did you hear what they said? At a funeral?” The words fire like scattershot out of my mouth.

“I told you going was a mistake.” Mrs. Johnson shakes her head. She sighs long and hard.
My fault.
She's thinking it was my fault. How is she going to explain this to my mother?

“Didn't you see those signs?” I say.

“Oh, I saw them.”

We watch the replay, the shot where Sam grabs me. This time I see what happened after I turned away. The blond boy cheered. His face lit up like fireworks, white and bright, a starburst of celebration.

“Did you hit him?” Mrs. Johnson asks, her face flat as pancakes.

“No. But I wanted to.”

She turns back to the television.

“I did rip his sign. A little.” I wince, as if my hand is seared where I touched the poster.

Duty, honor, country.
Where did my actions fall?

“Well, I think they deserved anything they got. But I don't want to burden your mother with this news. Heaven knows it'll be on Armed Forces Radio.”

Fear scratches at my insides. Mom might see me on television in Germany.

And Dad.

Then he would know. Corporal Scott is dead. Private Davis, too.

 

The phone rings again.

I pick up. “Sam, I can't believe—”

“Hello?” The voice isn't Sam's. It's a woman's, clipped and proper. “Is this the Westmark residence?”

“Yes, this is the Westmark residence.” My voice goes formal.

Mrs. Johnson cocks her head at an angle.

I shrug.

“This is Carmina Sanchez-Ryan. I'm with the
Clementine Times,
and I'd like to speak with Jessica Westmark.”

“Jess Westmark. It's just Jess. That's me.”

“Okay, just Jess. I'll make a note of that.”

From her voice I can't tell if she's teasing me or not.

“As I was saying, I'm Carmina Sanchez-Ryan, and I want to do an article on Operation Oleander. A feature story.”

The moisture in my mouth evaporates.
A feature story.

The woman continues. “The piece would go in the People and Places section of our paper. You know, this is a local story with international connections.”

When the woman pauses again, the silence stretches on and on.

“Yes.” I say to say something. Anything.

“Oh, good. You're there. Thought I'd lost the connection. I always hit a dead zone along the parkway. Anyway, as I was saying, I understand you and your friends formed this group to help an orphanage in Kabul.”

“We did.” I know what comes next.

The bombing.

“I'd like to learn more about the operation.”

What is there to say? It all ends the same way. Meriwether's mother and Private Davis dead. Dad injured. Who knows about the orphans. That part hasn't made the news yet.

A thought, a prayer, comes to me. Maybe if I talk to her, she could find out about the orphanage. Maybe some good could come out of publicity too. Something to counteract the Angustan group. Something to continue Operation Oleander's work.

“Tell me how you got started,” she says.

“Well.” I twist the cord in my hand. “Could you hold on just a minute?”

My hand over the receiver, I tell Mrs. Johnson about the reporter. “She wants to hear about Operation Oleander.”

“My goodness. First the funeral and then the Angustans and you on television. Now a reporter's calling. What next, a plague of locusts?” Mrs. Johnson shakes her head. “What would your mother say?”

She harrumphs. Not a yes, but not a no, either. It's as if she has plausible deniability this way, the way they say it on the news. In case it turns out badly. She wriggles out of Dad's recliner, where she shouldn't be anyway, and heads outside. “For a smoke,” she says over her shoulder.

“Okay,” I say to the reporter. “I'm ready.”

I plunge in and recount Dad's e-mails and photos of the orphanage they'd been near. I talk about Warda, too, and how I kept talking to Meriwether and Sam, getting them interested in wanting to help. First it was the goat, and then school supplies.

“Sam Butler? Commander Butler's son?” Her voice tweaks up at the end like a mongoose with a snake.

“Yes.” I twist the cord harder. Suddenly, the story links Commander Butler to this charity group, and maybe he won't—certainly he won't—want to be part of it.

“And you said someone named Meriwether? Is that Meriwether Scott?”

I panic.

“Meriwether's going out of town. I don't think we should use her name in this.”

“Okay, well, that's fine,” she says, but her voice doesn't sound okay.

Guilt like a hot pepper slides down my insides, and I don't know what to do.

“It's just the three of you?”

“Um, yes.” But not really, not anymore. Meriwether, she won't. And Sam, he was never that crazy about it.

“Do you have a photo of the orphanage?” she asks.

“Yes.” Tons of photos. The one of Dad and Corporal Scott and Warda sears through my brain, like the blink of a camera flash. Another one shows the building—before the bomb—and the goat clambering over stones to reach some weeds. “I have some.”

“Good. We'll see if we can use them. Now another question.”

I hold my breath.

“The bombing.”

Eyes closed. Focus on breathing.
“Yes?”

“That was a tragedy. Followed by accusations of complicity by the United States. Maybe even that the U.S. caused the bombing. That's not supported by the facts, as far as I can tell, but sometimes facts don't matter.” The woman laughs. “Well, don't quote me on that. Facts are my business. What now for Operation Oleander?”

With my free hand, I tug at the hem of my T-shirt, the way Cara does sometimes. What now? That's the question, isn't it?

“After what's happened, we're not sure.” Weak answer.

“Unintended consequences. Yep, got that. If people want to help, and our readers here in Clementine are the best, what should they do?”

Do?

“Send money?” she asks.

“No, not money.” After the goat, we focused on collecting in-kind items for school supplies. The military let us ship the boxes when space was available, and Dad took care of the rest. Now, after the bombing, there's no one to take the supplies, and everything is off-limits. And the investigation. Who knows where that will lead.

“Grass roots—I understand. Okay, how about we just refer people to the big international-relief efforts?”

“Okay.”

“One last question. I heard talk of an investigation.”

“Investigations are routine when tragedies happen and someone is killed,” I say. “Soldier” doesn't come off my tongue.

“Do you think that will affect Operation Oleander?”

Of course it will. “We'll have to see,” I say. My dad lies in the hospital in Germany, and Commander Butler said an investigation will look into what he and the others did with the orphanage and whether they drew the enemy there. Determine if they are to blame.