Bones of the Lost(14)

“I Skyped with her this morning. Night there. Her unit was just back from a training exercise.”

“How’d she look?”

“Wired. Tired. Bunch of GIs shouting nearby. How much can you tell?”

One year ago, Katy was a researcher at the public defender’s office, bored, bitching, but safe in Charlotte, her single joy in life her boyfriend and absentee landlord, Aaron Cooperton. Out of college and completing a stint in the Peace Corps, Coop had joined the International Rescue Committee and volunteered for aid work in Afghanistan. He was on his way to Kabul to fly home to Katy when an IED blew up his convoy.

Katy was devastated by Coop’s death. Unaware of her close connection to him, the Cooperton family had excluded her, even barred her from the private funeral they held in Charleston. Katy was left with no closure and no way to grieve.

I watched my daughter start her mornings red-eyed and ragged, drag through her days. I listened and did what I could to comfort. Took her with me on a working trip to Hawaii. Nothing helped. It gutted me to see her in such pain.

Maybe I should have guessed what was coming.

Suddenly Katy was sparkling again, enthused about life. The dark shadows under her eyes slowly faded. Her chin reclaimed its cocky tilt. When she visited, it was no longer for hours, but for minutes squeezed in between pressing commitments.

It was Pete who told me she’d enlisted. In a call like this. Katy had kept her plans secret until the papers were signed.

“Don’t worry,” she’d said when finally we’d talked. “I won’t be in combat.”

Right.

On May 14, 2012, the United States Army opened HIMARS, High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, and MLR, Multiple Launch Rocket System, units to female soldiers for the first time. Early the next year, the military lifted its long-standing ban on women in combat.

Upon completion of her BCT, basic combat training, Katy requested MLR as her military occupational specialty, or MOS. Following AIT, advanced individual training, she was off to Afghanistan.

WTF?

I’ve consulted to JPAC, the military’s central remains-identification lab in Hawaii. I can play the acronym game, too.

I brought my mind back to the current conversation. “But how did she seem?”

“Psyched. Talked about doing the same training as the men. Artillery. Cannon platoons—”

“Oh, God.”

“She’s a tough kid. She’ll be okay.”

“You’re right. It’s just—”

“I know, sugarbritches. You see violent death every day.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“She’ll probably end up a general.”

“You think she’ll make a career of the army?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Why do you suppose she chose not to enlist in an officer candidate program? She’s a college graduate.”

“I think it was the time commitment.”

But Pete hadn’t called about Katy. He’d have done that this morning after he talked to her. I waited for him to get to his point.

“So what’s the long story?” he asked.

Really?

I summarized my adventures at the courthouse and was shifting to the hit-and-run case when Pete cut me off.

“Sounds like your day sucked. How about dinner?”

“What’s the occasion?” Wary.

“Can’t I ask a soon-to-be ex-wife to dinner?”

I had a hunch what he wanted. Wasn’t about to get roped in.

“No way I’m playing marriage planner for Summer, so don’t ask.”

In midlife, most men lust after sports cars. Pete had set his sights on a trophy wife. Summer was my fiftysomething ex-husband’s thirtysomething bimbo fiancée. Best in show for tits. DQ for lack of IQ.

“You know how she is,” Pete said lamely.

I knew only too well. I’d agreed to mediate for Bridezilla once already. Ended up catching flak from both sides.

“She needs guidance.”

She needs a muzzle and a tranquilizer dart. I didn’t say that.

The wedding from hell, postponed twice, now loomed near. At least five million people had been invited. School friends, work friends, friends of friends. Facebook boasted fewer chums than Summer.

“The wedding’s in less than two weeks.”

“Wait a day. That will change.”

“She’s panicking.”

“Give her a Valium.”

“She likes you a lot.”

“Look, Pete. Summer is your problem, not mine.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that I have depositions all week and a trial on the docket the instant we get back from Tahiti. I’ve been running around auditioning photographers, picking up thank-you cards, crap you wouldn’t believe. Every day there’s a new crisis.”