Chapter 7

After Isabelle left New York, Allegra was busy at work. She was working with two new writers, a man and a woman. Both were interesting first-time authors. The male author had written a medical novel which she found fascinating. She had never met him. He was an older man, close to retirement, and did his writing on Cape Cod. They only communicated in letters. His style was a little pedantic, but his plot was excellent. She'd been assigned by her senior editor to work on his book, and help the author to tighten the writing. She was assigned to the female author's manuscript as well. It was faster-paced, more modern, and livelier, since the author was very young.

Jane March had written a thriller, which Allegra thought had definite film possibilities. Allegra told her boss, Philippa Parkinson, how much she liked it. Philippa was a longtime editor who had worked for the house for twenty-seven years. She had snow-white fashionably cut hair and lively blue eyes. She was British, and Allegra admired her. She was seasoned in the business, and had given Allegra helpful pointers since she'd started working for her, after being promoted. She thought Allegra had talent and she was grooming her to take on some more experienced authors. Allegra was young, but Pippa thought she had a good eye for books and good instincts about what would sell.

Pippa had a dry sense of humor, which Allegra enjoyed. Allegra asked her if she thought Jane March had a shot at selling the manuscript for a movie. After she read it, Pippa agreed. She called Charlie Zang, a dramatic agent she knew at the William Morris Endeavor Agency, and sent it over to him. Two weeks later, he called Philippa and said he wanted to show it to some producers to option the book, and get it made as a movie. The author was overjoyed, and her literary agent was pleased too. Jane was a young girl from Utah who had written a dazzling book. She was deeply grateful to Allegra for having brought it to Pippa's attention, and Charlie Zang's, with a very exciting, hopeful result. One of the Hollywood producers Charlie knew optioned it. The author got very little money for the option since she was an unknown and the book was as yet unpublished, but if they made it into a film at a later date, she'd be well on her way.

Allegra invited Jane to lunch to celebrate and she asked Pippa to join them, so the two could meet. At Pippa's suggestion, they went to P. J. Clarke's, and the author was thrilled. The two young women had Pimm's cups, and Pippa had a dry martini, which seemed very grown-up to them. It felt like a very sophisticated lunch to Allegra and Jane. She told them she'd been raised Mormon, had eleven brothers and sisters, and had grown up in Salt Lake City, Utah. Coming to New York and getting her book optioned were the most exciting things that had ever happened to her. Allegra was happy for her.

Jane had left Salt Lake when she graduated from Brigham Young University two years before. She was working in a bookstore in Greenwich Village and avoiding her family, who wanted her to come home. She was working on a second book. Her personal story was fascinating to Allegra. Contrary to church rules more than a century old, her grandfather had broken with the church and had become the leader of a small fundamentalist group that engaged in polygamy. He had had four wives simultaneously, and twenty-one children, of which her father was the youngest. Jane March was twenty-four years old.

"You should write about that," Pippa told her over her second martini. "People would be fascinated. Write about what you know," she advised.

"I didn't think anyone would believe me if I wrote about my family. It sounds so weird to normal people. Even Mormons frown on polygamy and outlawed it."

"People are mesmerized by stories about things like polygamous relationships," Pippa assured her, as they ate their hamburgers and drank their way through lunch. They were all slightly drunk by the end of it, but were still making sense. Philippa was convinced that Jane's family would be fertile material for a book.

"My parents keep sending missionaries to show up at the bookstore where I work to talk me into coming back. I'm afraid I'm going to get fired," she confided.

"If Charlie Zang at WME can sell your first book as a movie and if it gets made, you can quit the bookstore job," Pippa reassured her. "And Allegra will find you a publisher for it."

"Even if they don't make a movie of it, I'm not going home," Jane said. She was a pretty girl with dark hair and big brown eyes and girl-next-door looks. She had four roommates in an apartment in the Village, and a boyfriend, and she loved living in New York. So did Allegra. The conversation was lively all through lunch. "My grandfather died years ago," Jane said, "and the kids all grew up, although most of them still live around Salt Lake, but his four wives all still live together in the same house. They're like best friends or sisters. One of them is my grandmother. She was the youngest of his wives. I think he was sixty when she married him, and she was twenty-one. She talks about him like he was some kind of god. It's a very strange phenomenon. Polygamy is against church law and has been for years, but in some remoter areas of Utah, there are small groups of fundamentalists like my grandfather, and it still goes on. They're considered outlaws, and the practice of polygamy is frowned on, but it still happens," Jane told Allegra and Pippa. They were fascinated by what she described.

"I wouldn't want to share my husband, if I had one, with a bunch of other women," Pippa said, and Allegra couldn't imagine it either. But Jane seemed surprisingly normal, despite her unusual story.

"I just lost my grandmother in April," Allegra shared with them. She felt relaxed and enjoyed being with them. She worked hard and hadn't made many friends at the publishing house so far. She was introverted and shy.

"I'm sorry," Pippa said politely. "Were you close to her?" She knew very little about Allegra and was curious to know more. Allegra was very private about her life.

"Not really, although a little more so in the past few years. She and my grandfather were very old-school, and not that engaged with children. I really only got to know them once I was in college here in New York. I used to spend school vacations with them when I was in boarding school in Massachusetts."

"Were your parents dead?" Jane asked cautiously, curious about her too.

"No. My father was in the army, in military intelligence. He passed away this year too. He spent my entire life in war zones all over the world. I saw him for a few hours about once a year. He was killed in Iraq just before he was going to retire." Hers wasn't an ordinary story either, and Pippa was intrigued by both of them. Young authors and her protégées at work were substitute children for Pippa. She enjoyed mentoring them. It seemed easier than real motherhood, which had never appealed to her.

"It sounds like you both have some interesting stories to tell," she commented. "Allegra, have you ever thought of writing?"

"Once in a while. I don't know if I have the talent. I've never tried, but I love to read. It was my fantasy life as a child. The characters in the books were my only friends." She was speaking of a lonely life Pippa could only imagine.

"Ninety percent of writing is discipline and hard work, as much as talent. I have a feeling you'd be good at it," Pippa said gently to encourage her.

"I don't know what I'd have to say," Allegra said shyly.

"I think you'd figure it out," Pippa said confidently. "What about your mother? Where was she?"

"She lives in England. She left when I was six," Allegra said matter-of-factly, as though it were a normal occurrence. And to her, it was by now.

"Your father was in war zones all around the world, and you saw him once a year, and your mother left when you were six, and you grew up in boarding school. What I could do with material like that!" Jane said longingly, and all three women smiled. "I could never get a minute away from my brothers and sisters. Your life sounds like a dream." Philippa could guess otherwise. Allegra had led a lonely life, and probably a painful one.

"It never seemed like much to write about," Allegra said modestly. She hadn't processed it with the thought of writing about it, although the idea of doing so intrigued her.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" Jane asked her. "Mine went to medical school at NYU. I hardly ever see him. He's an intern now."

Allegra hesitated before she answered Jane's question. The Pimm's cups had relaxed her usual reserve. "I'm actually married. My husband is in Iraq. He's in the army, in military intelligence, like my dad. They both went to West Point. He wasn't going to stay in the army, but now he has decided to. He loves his job. Working in military intelligence is addictive."

"That must be tough, having him so far away," Jane said, "and in danger all the time." Allegra nodded. It was true. She worried about Shep constantly, particularly after his last leave, when he went back for another tour of duty in Iraq, despite what it was doing to him, which she could plainly see and he denied.

"He'll be home in a month, in December," Allegra answered.

"Which reminds me," Pippa chimed in. "I give a big buffet lunch on Thanksgiving every year, for people who have no families to go to. You're both welcome if you'd like to come." She jotted down her address on two paper napkins and handed one to each of them. "You both qualify." She smiled at them. Allegra had no family and Jane's was in Salt Lake.

"This is perfect," Jane said, as she put the napkin in her purse. "My boyfriend just started his internship and he's on duty for Thanksgiving and Christmas, of course."

"My husband will be home for Christmas," Allegra said quietly, and didn't add "if I still have a husband by then." In the shape he'd been in when he left, with his nightmares and shaking hands, there was no telling what condition he'd be in when he got back.

—

They left each other on the sidewalk outside P. J. Clarke's. Allegra and Jane had both had a wonderful time, and Pippa had enjoyed getting to know them with their confessions over lunch. Allegra's life sounded brutally lonely to her, and Jane's overpopulated, as one of twelve children, although she made it sound like a TV sitcom. But it hadn't been funny all the time, and she had mentioned that her father was a tyrant, and her mother never stood up to him to defend them. But she had also said that she and her siblings got on surprisingly well. She missed them, but she said she was much happier in New York. Some of her older siblings were old enough to be her parents, and she wasn't as close to them. She was closer to her younger ones, but she hadn't seen them in a year. She couldn't afford to go home on the pittance she made at the bookstore. Even so, she said she loved her life in New York.

—

Pippa had no children and had been divorced for twenty years, and the gathering she organized every year on Thanksgiving was cozy and warm, and included editors she worked with and others she had met over the years, authors of all ages and categories, people from outside publishing, and new people she collected every year. She had a full, busy life, and had a knack for finding interesting, unusual people, who loved meeting each other for a holiday they might otherwise have spent alone.

Her apartment in the East Eighties was full of eclectic objects she had collected on exotic trips. She loved going to India, had traveled in Nepal, the Middle East, and throughout Asia. She'd made several trips to Morocco and loved to comb the bazaars. The items she brought home were as varied and intriguing as the people she gathered. She knew a young chef, who cooked the meal every year. There was Thai food and Moroccan food, and special treats from around the world, and a beautiful golden turkey, carved to perfection, with three different kinds of stuffing. The meal was a feast for the eyes as well as the palate.

Allegra was happy to see Jane March there. They chatted for a few minutes before they each got lured into other groups for conversations about books and publishing. It was a perfect gathering for people who had no place else to be and no one to spend the holiday with. Pippa's relatives were all in England, and she hadn't grown up with Thanksgiving, so she had a less traditional interpretation of it and dedicated herself to making it a special event for others every year. The guests were invited for two o'clock, and by nine that evening, many of them were still there. Some came early, others later, but they settled into small conversation groups by the end of the evening, and Pippa kept the good feelings flowing with carefully chosen French wine, which went well with the varied meal.

Allegra was talking to some of the senior editors when Pippa came by to check on her.

"Having fun?" she asked, and Allegra smiled at her.

"It's the best Thanksgiving I've ever had, and the food was fantastic." There were half a dozen homemade pies by then, all provided by the young chef. Pippa had discovered her at a small French restaurant and hired her every year. And it amused Pippa that a French cook and an English editor concocted an international Thanksgiving that everyone enjoyed.

Allegra left with the last of the guests at ten p.m. Jane had left earlier, and Pippa hugged Allegra when she left. Allegra was sorry Shep hadn't been there. He would have loved it. She had found everyone she talked to interesting and intelligent, with fascinating stories to tell. She didn't feel like the odd man out. No one seemed to have a family they were close to. Pippa had met everyone's needs so generously by inviting them. Allegra had loved every minute of it, and went home feeling as though she had met a room full of new friends and people she hoped to see again. She felt lucky that Pippa had invited her.

Shep called her at midnight, and she told him about it. He'd had Thanksgiving with the officers from the intelligence team in the mess hall. They had turkey and stuffing and all the trimmings they were used to for a traditional Thanksgiving meal, despite their surroundings, and being far from home.

"I'm glad you had fun," he said. "I was worried about you." She thought he sounded sad. It could have been a hard day for her, with her father and grandmother having died earlier that year, and no one to spend the holiday with, but Pippa had saved her, and given her the best holiday of all. Like all holidays, it was hard when you had no family to spend it with, but Allegra never really had. She had always been the add-on, the mercy guest at her grandparents' Thanksgiving meals, the duty they felt they were required to perform, and she couldn't remember the last holiday she had spent with her father. He was never home for Thanksgiving, and rarely for Christmas. Shep said he had spoken to his family earlier, and one of his brothers had come home with his wife and children to spend Thanksgiving with his parents.

"I'll be home in a few weeks," he said to Allegra in a tired voice. She thought he sounded more subdued than usual. He didn't tell her there had been a sniper attack and two of his friends had been killed that morning. He never shared news like that with her. He didn't want to frighten her or worry her unduly, and he wasn't allowed to tell her much. Their conversations had to be neutral. He couldn't share his griefs with her.

—

Allegra and Shep were planning to spend Christmas alone in New York, go to Boston a few days later, and then come back to New York for New Year's to watch the ball drop in Times Square. They had done it before and loved it. She was starting to look forward to his coming home. She hadn't dared to before now. Life seemed so fragile and ephemeral when he was in Iraq. She wondered what kind of shape he'd be in when he came home, if his ten-month tour of duty had corroded him further, or if he was becoming hardened to what he saw there. Neither one was a good scenario, and she wondered how soon the nightmares would start, and if his hands still shook. They were the things she'd seen when he was back in New York with her, and she couldn't judge by phone, except from his tone of voice. But she could never guess the horrors he had seen. And he never told her.

She decorated a tree for him before he came home, as she had done before. There would be no call from her father this year. She didn't know if she'd miss it. She was going to wear her grandmother's ruby heart pin on Christmas, and had worn it to Pippa's for Thanksgiving. Pippa had noticed it and commented on how pretty it was. It was an antique and had once belonged to Katharine Hepburn, which made it seem even more magical and special.

—

Allegra took the train to Washington the night before Shep was due to arrive in Washington. They both knew the drill. She rented a car in Washington to pick him up on the base and drive back to New York. He was going to be stationed in Washington for several months, and she hoped he had changed his mind about not leaving the army. She was going to do everything she could to convince him not to reenlist in June. She wanted him to leave the military before it destroyed him. She hoped it wasn't already too late. Ten months was a long time. Long enough to create a baby, or destroy a man. And there were no babies in their life, and couldn't be for now. She didn't want one yet. She only wanted Shep to survive, body and mind.

—

Shep didn't rush toward her when he saw her this time, and she didn't run to him and fly into his arms. They saw each other, and a long, slow smile appeared on his face as she walked toward him. He looked weary and battle-worn. When they were standing in front of each other, he reached out and held her. She looked far healthier and more alive than he did. He put an arm around her and they walked to the rented car. He looked and moved like an old man, and she wondered how long it would take to drag him back to the real world and to feeling normal this time. He got in the car and let her drive. He was asleep within minutes, as she talked to him. He had slept on the plane but he was exhausted. Something in his face softened when he saw the tree she had decorated for him, and then his eyes hardened.

"We don't really need that," he said, pointing to the tree. He was still mourning his recently lost buddies who died in the sniper attack on Thanksgiving, and there had been three more since then. The army was hemorrhaging men in Iraq. But he didn't tell her that, or even mention his lost friends. One of them was the same age as Allegra, but war was the great equalizer. It took whom it wanted, young or old, and left the others to try to glue their souls back together once they got home, so as not to frighten their relatives with the truth over the holidays. He was grateful that Allegra had no relatives they had to visit. He didn't have to put a good face on it with her. He just wanted to be left alone to get through the days as best he could. And eventually, he'd start to feel like himself again, whoever that person was now.

After the last ten months, he no longer had any idea who he was and what he believed in, what his moral code was, what his ethics would allow him to do, or even what he wanted in the future. He had violated his own honor code so often that it no longer mattered to him when he did. It was no longer a matter of right or wrong, but simply of survival, and whom you had to kill in order to protect yourself and your unit. The acts they committed were equally shocking on both sides, he had seen men tortured and participated in it willingly. He no longer hesitated when something unthinkable had to be done. You did what you had to do, and he could tell her none of it. He couldn't have described it to her or put it into words. He didn't even have the words for it. There were no lines he wouldn't cross anymore. His morality was on hold until the war was over. It had to be that way, or none of them would survive it, and too many of them were being killed anyway, whatever they believed in, and however they had been before. They were no longer the same men they used to be.

He had spent almost two years in Afghanistan and Iraq by then, and he knew he wasn't ready to come back to the real world he had known before. He was only suited now to live in the gray zone of suspended morality. There were no dreams in that world, no plans, no love, and when you went home on leave, you had to fake it until you went back to that gray world again where anything could happen and did every day.

The nightmares started the night he came home. His hands no longer shook, but there was a smoldering look in his eyes, a searing glance. He was burning up from inside. He threw the Christmas tree away the next day. It felt like a symbol of everything he no longer deserved.

"Christmas trees are for kids. We're not kids anymore," he told her, and she quietly put the decorations away. She didn't put the Christmas music on. All he wanted to do was watch TV and sleep. They went for a walk, and he didn't speak to her until they got home. There was no point pretending he was the same. He wasn't. A man with Shep's dog tags had come home, but it wasn't Shep, or anyone she knew.

"You're going back, aren't you?" she asked him when they lay in bed in the dark, on his second night home.

He didn't answer her for a full minute. "I have to," he finally said. "I don't belong here. I thought I could come back, but I can't. At least I'm useful there."

"I need you here, Shep," she said, with tears in her eyes. "I need you to come home, for real. Not like my father, for a few weeks and then leave for a year again. You can't run away." She knew it would destroy him forever if he did, just like it had her father. Shep was a gentler person than her father had ever been. She could tell that Shep was suffering deep within, but she couldn't get to the wounds to soothe them this time. He wouldn't let her. He was rough when he made love to her, and his nightmares were so terrifying that he screamed out in agony in the night. When she tried to wake him up, after he'd been home for a week, he leapt on top of her, crushing her, with a choke hold on her throat as he shook her. She screamed until he tightened his grip and she couldn't make a sound, and then he woke up and looked down at her and jumped away. He cowered in a corner, realizing what he'd done, as she fought for breath. He was terrifying. He had become a killing machine in the last ten months, filled with anger and fear. He locked himself in the bathroom afterward and cried, and when he came out, she was sitting on the couch in a bathrobe. The marks of his hands were still on her throat, and she could barely swallow. Their eyes met and there was raw pain in his, and despair in hers. She didn't know how to bring him back this time.

"You need to get help, Shep," she whispered to him. "I know this happens to other people. It's not just you. Will you go to see someone?"

He shook his head. "It won't change anything. It's too late." He sat, his shoulders slumped. He couldn't even look at her again. He was too ashamed of what he had become and what he had almost done to her.

"For God's sake, Shep. Don't go back. Stay and get help."

"It won't change anything. What if I kill you in your sleep one night, like I just almost did?" There were tears in his eyes when he said it. He still loved her, but there was too much venom in him now. He was afraid of himself, and for her.

"You can get help. I'm your wife. I love you. I'm here."

"You shouldn't be. You don't know me anymore." He didn't know himself either, which frightened him. He had brought a monster home to her, like a disease. The monster was inside him and controlled him. He was afraid to go to sleep after that, and only slept in the daytime, when she was awake.

She had taken time off work to be at home with him, but they didn't leave the apartment. He slept by day and prowled the apartment at night, refusing to lie down with her, afraid he'd lose control again during a night terror. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes. He refused to go to Times Square with her on New Year's Eve, as they'd done before and had planned to. She had bought a small bottle of champagne and he didn't touch it. He bought a bottle of tequila and took a few swigs from time to time. It helped him relax. He hardly ate, and she could see he was losing weight even at home. He'd been back for ten days and looked worse than he had when he arrived, and she could sense that he was eager to leave.

He stayed for another week of sleepless nights and exhausted days, sleeping off the tequila he drank. And then he told her he had to go back to Washington.

"I'll drive you," she volunteered, and he shook his head. She had to go back to work, but was going to call in sick. "You're exhausted." So was she, from watching him constantly, checking for danger signs. He had a temper he'd never had before, and a short fuse. He got furious over nothing and shouted at her, and then apologized.

"I'll take the train. You have to get back to work." She had babysat for him long enough. He'd been home for almost three weeks of hell for both of them. He had come back as a dangerous animal, and they both knew it. A rogue lion, ready to kill her in an instant. She was afraid of him, and tried hard not to be. At times there was a moment, a few seconds of tenderness, when he was the man she had married and the boy she had loved. She knew he was still in there, and she wanted Shep to find him again, and send away the wild beast that he had become. But Shep was both men now, and he couldn't separate them, or control either one. The glimpses of the old Shep were rare.

"I can get additional time off," she reassured him. "I'll come to Washington with you. You're based there till June. You can get help until then." He looked at her blankly, like she was speaking another language he didn't understand, and didn't want to.

"I need to go back to Baghdad. They need me there."

"I need you here," she said, more sharply than she intended. But she needed him whole and sane, and he was far from it. He shouted in his sleep whenever he slept, and woke up drenched in sweat, the bed soaking as though he had emptied buckets of water onto it. She quietly aired the mattress and changed the sheets when he got up.

"Why do you want me around?" he asked her bleakly in one of his saner moments, with eyes filled with regret.

"Because I love you and I'm your wife," she said without hesitation. She had saved a lifetime of love for him, and it wasn't close to running out. She intended to see this through until he was sane again. She was sure he could be cured. Other wars had created men like him, and many had been healed. She was sure that love could do anything. She was willing to try. She refused to give up on him. Philippa called to see how she was, when she extended her Christmas leave saying she was sick.

"I'm okay," she told her, but she didn't sound it.

"Is it him? Did he come back in bad shape?" Pippa asked, concerned. She knew that Shep was coming home. Allegra had been living for that all year.

"He's all right. It's always an adjustment when he comes home," Allegra said, trying to sound more cheerful than she felt.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No, we're fine," Allegra said, trying not to cry. She didn't want anyone to know how bad he was, and there was no one to tell. There was nothing Philippa could do. He needed to go to the professionals in the army who saw men like him every day, men who were broken from what the army expected them to do. Only they could heal him now. She knew it, and Shep refused to admit it. He didn't want help. All he wanted was to leave, before he hurt her again or did something even worse.

He did try to choke her again one night, when he fell asleep on their bed watching TV, and she lay down next to him, just to feel his warmth beside her for a few hours. The same thing happened during another night terror, and he almost succeeded that time. She was losing consciousness by the time he woke up. He made sure she was all right, and then locked himself in the bathroom for several hours. She was afraid he would do something drastic and begged him to come out. Her voice was hoarse, and when he emerged, he was wearing his uniform. He was clean and shaved, and looked orderly and sane.

"I'm going back to Washington," he said, with the whole story of what had happened in his eyes. "I don't want to hurt you, Allegra. I can't stay here." She didn't argue with him. She knew it was true.

"I'll go with you," she insisted. "You need to be in a hospital, Shep."

"Yeah, a psych hospital," he said with wild eyes, "like a lunatic." He hated himself at that moment, for what he had done to her.

"You're not a lunatic. You have PTSD, battle fatigue, whatever you want to call it."

"So does every soldier in Iraq. You can't put them all in a hospital." The others weren't trying to choke their wives during their night terrors. But they were expected to kill people almost every day. Shep didn't even know who the enemy was anymore. It was him.

"I'll call you from the base," he said coldly. His bag was packed and his mind was made up.

"Why won't you let me come with you?" she asked, pleading with him, her voice hoarse from his attack.

"Because this is up to me to deal with. You don't deserve this," he said quietly, and almost seemed normal for a moment. The Shep she knew was still in there somewhere, being held captive by the sick one. His eyes gazed at her longingly, but he didn't approach her or try to kiss her. She wanted to put her arms around him and comfort him, and she knew she couldn't. He wouldn't allow it. He was too afraid to lose control again, maybe while he was awake this time. Neither of them knew what he was capable of at the moment.

He walked to the door with his duffel bag in his hand. He had packed everything he'd brought with him. He wasn't due back in Washington for another week, but he knew he had to go now. He turned back to look at her, didn't say a word, and left the apartment. After he was gone, she realized he hadn't said goodbye. He didn't know what to say to her, so he said nothing. She heard his footsteps echoing down the stairs as she stood there, and memories of her mother flooded back to her. Shep had forgotten to say goodbye too. Allegra hoped it meant he was coming back, and this was just a bad time they had to get through. She tried to be brave, but she cried anyway. She felt as though she had lost the only man she had ever loved, and who loved her.

She wasn't ready to give up. She was going to fight to save him, and bring back the Shep she knew and loved. She loved the sick one too, but he was dangerous. They both knew it. She was shaking when she sat down on the couch, remembering the look in his eyes when he left, as tears rolled down her cheeks. All she could think of was that she had been braver when she was six. But it had been seventeen years of hard road since then. She could face anything except losing Shep. Everyone she had ever loved had abandoned her, and now Shep too. She prayed she wouldn't lose him, and was terrified she already had. A stranger had returned from Iraq this time, and had taken the Shep she loved with him, and left her all alone again. It was a special kind of hell she knew only too well. And it was Shep's hell now too.