To Love and Heal (The Power of Love Series) (16 page)

There was a
momentary flash of pain in Susan's green eyes, but her voice remained calm.
"They said he died during a rescue mission – that he was shot while saving
others."  She paused, looking at the floor for several moments, then
back up at Caleb. "I took that to mean there was gunfire during the rescue
and Dwayne was shot while trying to help wounded soldiers back to the
helicopter.  He told me about the nature of his job, so I always knew the
dangers involved.  And yet I still … I never expected to get that knock on
the door just weeks after he left."

As Susan's voice
wavered slightly, Caleb's heart dropped and he knew she deserved to know the
truth about that fateful day.  "Dwayne did die helping to save
someone," he began, choking on the next three words. "He saved
me
."  

Shock registered
on Susan's face, followed by calm acceptance as she slowly nodded her head.
"How did it happen?" she finally asked.

"We were on a
rescue mission, like you were told.  There were two wounded pilots from a
downed Apache, and still enemy fire in the area.  We got them on board and
Dwayne and I were about to climb back into the chopper when Taliban soldiers
came over the hilltop and started firing at us. I told Dwayne to get inside and
shot off a round to hold them off, but a bullet struck my helmet and I fell
back and …"

Susan reached over
and squeezed his hand, helping to pull him back to the present. 
"It's okay," she quietly.  "I know how hard this is to talk
about."

"He thought I
had been wounded and jumped back out and covered me with his own body,"
Caleb continued, the disbelief in his voice over Dwayne's selfless act as real
now as when it actually happened.  "He was shot moments later –
bullets that were meant for me."

Susan was silent
for several moments as she digested his words.  "No, Caleb – bullets
shot randomly at anyone they perceived to be the enemy. You can't blame
yourself for Dwayne's death – that's the last thing he would have wanted."
She released her grip on his hand and rose from the couch. "There's
something I want to read to you. I'll be right back."

His mind already
swirling with a surge of emotions, Caleb wondered what could possibly be
next. 

Susan returned
less than a minute later with a letter in her hand.  "I didn't
receive this from Dwayne until shortly after he died, but I think you need to
hear what he wrote.

Caleb nodded
solemnly, his mind two steps ahead of himself as he tried to imagine what in
the letter could possibly pertain to him.  Susan resumed her spot on the
couch and took a deep breath before reading its contents:

Hey Babe, I miss
you so much already, but I'm sure you already know that.  Things are
happening so fast since I got here.  I went on my first rescue mission
today, and I wouldn't admit this to any of the guys, but the truth is I was
pretty damn scared at first that I might get my ass shot off.  I know I
trained for this sort of thing, but it's a whole different ballgame when you're
actually landing on a battlefield in the middle of gunfire and explosions
everywhere.  I'm still a newbie here so I just followed everyone's lead,
and pretty soon I wasn't even thinking about myself – just about getting the
wounded on board and making sure the rest of the crew was safe.  Our
leader Captain Brown is a hell of a guy, and he really looks out for us. 
I swear a live grenade could be dropped at his feet, and his first response
would be to calmly look around and make sure everyone else was okay and at a
safe distance, then he'd grab it and hurl the hell out of that thing like there
was no tomorrow.  I heard some of the guys say that he was injured pretty
badly once while running directly into enemy fire to rescue a wounded soldier
and crew member off of the field, and I don't doubt it one bit.  I know I
have a ways to go and a lot to learn, but if I could be one-tenth of the
soldier that Captain Brown is, I'd feel like I accomplished something pretty
damn good in life.  Well, gotta go but I'll be in touch again soon. 
Rub your belly for me and tell our baby I said "hi" with lots of
love.  Love Forever, Dwayne."

Susan looked up
from the letter, her red-tinged eyes matching Caleb's. 

"Caleb, I
know it wasn't easy to come here and tell me about Dwayne's death, but I don't
think you realize what it means to me to finally know the whole story. 
There are countless ways that Dwayne could have died in the war.  He could
have been killed by a roadside bomb, by a helicopter shot down – for that
matter he could have been killed in a crash on the plane ride over before he
even landed in Afghanistan.  But he died saving a life –
your
life.  And I know …
I
know
… he had no regrets at that
moment when he gave his life so that you could live – just like you would have
done for him."

Caleb shook his
head, his voice choked.  "I'm so sorry …" 

"Listen to
me," Susan said with a forcefulness beyond her years.  "Are you
going to beat yourself up and miss out on so much that still lies ahead of you
because you can't forgive yourself for a situation you had no control
over?  Or are you going to take this gift of a second chance and live your
life to the fullest?  Because that's what will honor Dwayne's memory, and
that's what will give meaning to the sacrifice that he made."

As Susan's words
reverberated deep inside him, Caleb felt the entire weight of his being
suddenly lighten.  It was as though the guilt and regret that he had been
carrying around with him could be measured in physical pounds, and the
connecting cord had suddenly been cut.  But there was one more revelation
that needed to be shared − perhaps the most important one for Susan to
hear.

"Dwayne asked
me to tell you something," he said quietly.

Susan's eyes
widened.  "He did? When?"

Caleb took a deep
breath, not wanting to delve up more pain after all that Susan had been
through, but knowing she needed to hear this.  "After he had been hit
… I was holding him and telling him to try to hang on.  He … I know how
this must sound, but at that moment, he looked me in the eyes and I saw a sense
of peace come over him.  Then he told me to tell you that he loved you,
and that he was so sorry to leave you, but he would be with you again one
day."

As tears began to
stream down her cheeks, Susan asked, "How long was he alive for after he
said that?"

Caleb closed his
eyes, reliving the moment but this time as a memory and not a flashback.
"As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he was gone."

"I never knew
that he was thinking of me at the very end," she said, tears flowing
faster than she could wipe them with her sleeve. "It gives me a sense of
peace, too, knowing that the love we shared was with him when he took his last
breath."

"It truly
was."

"It just
makes me realize how we should never take anything for granted. Ever. Because
you never know when it could be taken away. I know some people might think I go
overboard, but ever since Dwayne died, I feel like I'm always telling the
special people in my life how much I love them.  Maybe it's because I
wasn't there to say it to Dwayne in his last moments, and I want to make sure
that nothing important goes unsaid."

"I think
that's something we could all do more of," Caleb replied quietly. And as
his thoughts turned to Anna, to all that he felt and had yet to voice … he
couldn't help but realize just how true this was. 

Caleb glanced over
at Haley's empty car seat as he drove back to the hotel.  Though he knew
she was being well cared for at her brother's home while he was away, he still
missed her calming presence and couldn't help but wonder why he had opted for
an eight-hour drive instead of a ninety-minute plane ride to
Pennsylvania.  He had made the decision in part to allow himself time to
think during long, quiet hours at the wheel.  Yes … he who had tried so
hard to
not
think since the war was now welcoming the flow of thoughts –
perhaps because they were no longer limited to the same troubled images that
replayed in an endless loop.

He did feel a
certain degree of closure after meeting with Susan, but at the same time,
Dwayne's death, the sacrifice made on his behalf, would forever be a part of
him.  And there was a growing pang that gnawed at his stomach, a little
voice in his ear that continued to nudge at him, asking if perhaps there was
something more that he was meant to do.  Unease returned as he thought
about Anna, and how this trip was supposed to be the final step to closing the
door on the past … and pursuing a future with Anna.  He sighed, wondering
if she would even still want to be with him at this point, and he certainly
couldn't blame her if she didn't.  He had basically abandoned her when she
needed him most, leaving her to deal with the aftermath of a miscarriage all
alone.  Yes, he was in no state to be there for
anyone
immediately
after his breakdown, but what about in the months since when he had started to
make progress in peeling away the layers of painful memories?   He
missed her and yearned for her with every fiber of his being, and yet now that
he had confronted his deepest regret from the war − the one thing that he
had felt stood in the way of being with Anna – he was just as confused as
ever.  Would seeing her again bring him back to the dark place that he was
in when he was with her before – the place he had been so desperate to
escape?  Or was he capable of separating the two – the love he felt for
Anna, and the blackness that had been eating him up alive when he was with her,
not because of anything she did, but because it had been part of every moment
of every day.  He sighed, wondering if a "side effect" of
endless therapy sessions was that he was now was overthinking things instead of
listening to his gut.  It had served him well in the past, but now it was
strangely silent. 

He only knew that
he loved Anna … but maybe it still wasn't enough.

SIXTEEN

Anna pulled up her
Internet homepage to log into her e-mail, her eyes first scanning news
headlines for anything of interest.  It was the usual roundup of
international conflicts and U.S.  economic challenges, but her eyes did a
double-take as she moved on to the local headlines.

Area resident
heads to Washington, D.C., to lobby on behalf of war dogs

It couldn't be,
she reasoned … yes, Caleb had apparently come a long way and was locally
promoting the cause of dogs left behind in the war, but this article couldn't
possibly be about
him.
Fingers trembling, she clicked on the link:

Caleb Brown, a
former Marine captain now residing in Medfield, Mass., will be joining Sen.
Michael Flannigan (R-Mass.) later this month on a trip to the nation's capital
to spread awareness about the plight of stray dogs in Afghanistan and Iraq who
bond with the soldiers – and in some cases save their lives. Flannigan, a
member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, reached out to Brown after
witnessing a televised interview in which Brown explained how a stray dog in
Afghanistan befriended his unit and ultimately saved their lives when she
alerted them to a suicide bomber just outside their barracks.  Initially
unsuccessful in his attempts to bring the dog home with him, Brown was
eventually reunited with the black Lab mix he calls Haley, and now he's making
it his mission to educate lawmakers on how these dogs can be immensely
beneficial to returning soldiers who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder
(PSTD) in the hopes that more will be done to bring these dogs back to the
states.   A former Marine Corps. helicopter pilot who served three
tours of duty in Afghanistan, Brown is now a helicopter pilot for a medical
transport company based out of Boston. 

"Many people
don't realize the important role that dogs have played in the Afghanistan and
Iraq Wars," Brown said during an interview yesterday.  "They
serve beside us as part of our own military forces and are trained to sniff out
IEDs [improvised explosive devices].  This makes them a prime target of
the enemy, and many of these dogs have been killed in the line of duty as a
result.  The strays that befriend the soldiers and also look out for them
are ultimately left behind when units return back home, and that's what I'm
trying to change."

Rep. Ellen Lawton
(D-Mass.), who was instrumental in helping to bring Haley back from Afghanistan
so that she could be reunited with Brown, will be joining Brown and Flannigan
for the hearings before a joint session of the Committees on Veterans' Affairs.

"I was
fortunate enough to have someone close to this situation educate me on the
importance of bringing these dogs back, and the role they play in helping
returning soldiers heal – both physically and mentally," Lawton said
earlier this week.

The hearings are
scheduled to begin on March 26th, and with record numbers of veterans from the
Afghanistan and Iraq Wars suffering from PTSD, they are expected to be followed
closely by the media.

Anna looked away
from her computer screen, a jolt to her stomach as though kicked by an unseen
assailant. Unseen, but not unknown.  For hadn't she been rolling with the
punches from the get-go with Caleb?  It wasn't really his fault – this she
could concede despite all the hurt he had caused her.  He had been dodging
his own set of unrelenting punches since returning from the war, and that was
enough to make anyone unclear about what they really wanted – and
who.   But enough was enough.  Everything connected to this
situation was like a dagger in her side. She could understand Caleb needing to
pretend that she never existed, but Representative Lawton?  The
congresswoman, too, was now relegating her to merely "someone"? Anna
shook her head in a mixture of hurt and disbelief.  Her father's words
came back to haunt her … his warning of how trying to help someone could
sometimes mean being pulled down along with them.  But that clearly didn't
apply in this case.  Caleb hadn't stayed down – he was in a much better
place and for this she was grateful.  And yet she couldn't stem the
feeling that she had been violently shoved out of the picture, her efforts to
help him – her love – entirely inconsequential.