Chapter 8

After a sleepless night, the day after Shep left, Allegra took the train to Washington. She tried to get an appointment with Shep's commanding officer, but he was too busy to see her. She was no one, just a young officer's wife. He had more important things to do, but she was finally able to see a counselor, and told him that Shep was suffering from some form of PTSD and needed treatment. She related the incidents that had occurred when she tried to wake him from his night terrors to comfort him. The counselor listened quietly, and didn't look surprised.

"Some of the men have a hard time adjusting when they come home. There's an element of culture shock, and in some cases battle fatigue. Most of them get over it once their tour of duty is over. If Captain Williams is found to be suffering from PTSD, he will probably spend some time here in Washington before he gets reassigned to a combat zone." He looked unimpressed by what Allegra had said, didn't seem to believe her, and treated her like a na?ve young girl. She didn't want to show him the bruises on her throat as proof. She didn't want to get Shep in trouble, or humiliate him, she wanted to get him help. Instead, she told him that her grandfather was General Tom Dixon, and who her father had been. That impressed him more. But in spite of it, he assured her that Shep had had no problem carrying out his duties in Iraq, and had shown no signs of what she described. She got nowhere with him and went back to her hotel.

She tried to call Shep, but he didn't return her calls. He finally called her and was angry about her seeing the counselor.

"What were you trying to do? Get me locked up or put in a psych ward?"

"I was trying to get you help." Her voice cracked as she said it, as she felt desperation filling her lungs. "I don't want you to drown from what they're having you do over there."

"It's too late for that, Allegra," he said sadly.

"What are you going to do now?" But she already knew before he answered.

"I'm going back. I belong there now. I don't want to hurt you. I could have killed you on either of those nights. I didn't even know who you were, until I'd nearly choked you to death." She was fully aware of that. She had known all along that the army would ruin him. He wasn't a born killer like her father, and it had damaged even him. He was unable to feel anything for another human being, not his daughter, his parents, or his wife. Allegra didn't blame her mother for leaving him. She blamed her for not taking her with her when she left. But Isabelle had viewed leaving Bradley as a convenient escape route to get rid of her daughter too. That was what Allegra reproached her for, not divorcing her father. She would have divorced him too, or never married him in the first place. Isabelle hadn't understood what she was getting into. Allegra understood it all better than her mother ever had. And she didn't want to lose Shep now. She wasn't running away, she wanted to stand by him.

"I don't want you to go back to Iraq," she begged him. "Can I see you?"

He hesitated, and then sounded harsh when he answered. "No, you can't. Wasn't that enough? What more do you want? For me to kill you in my sleep the next time I have a nightmare? Forget me, Allegra. I'm not the boy you fell in love with at sixteen in Newport. That boy is dead."

"You're the man I married," she said staunchly.

"No, I'm not." He firmly believed that. "I don't know where that man is anymore. He got lost in the last two years. He's not coming back, Allegra."

"He can if you stay here and get help."

"What can they do, make me unsee everything I've seen over there, forget what I've done, what they had me do? I've killed people, I've seen men tortured. I've ordered some to be tortured. You don't forget that." He was crying and so was she. "I have to go back. I belong there now. If I come back to you, I'll end up hurting you sooner or later. You're young, you've got your whole life ahead of you. You'll find a better man."

"I have nothing without you, Shep. I'm begging you, don't give up on us. Don't go back."

"You don't even know who I am anymore. And neither do I." Everything she feared had happened. Her worst nightmare had come true. They had ruined him, broken him. She could feel him slipping through her hands like a drowning man, sliding below the surface. "I have to go," he said in a dead voice.

"Don't go away again, Shep. Will you see me tomorrow?" He didn't answer. "Please," she whispered.

"I'll call you," he said, and a minute later he hung up. She lay awake all that night, waited to hear from him all the next day in her hotel room, and called him that night. The person who answered the phone in his barracks said he was gone. The way he said it sounded odd to Allegra.

"Gone where?"

It wasn't a secret, so he knew he could tell her. "He flew to Baghdad this morning." It sounded like a death knell to Allegra. It also meant that he already knew he was leaving when they'd spoken the night before. He had requested to go back, otherwise they wouldn't have sent him back so soon. She knew how that worked, from her father.

"Thank you," she said in a crushed voice, and hung up. He was gone, without seeing her again. She took the last train back to New York. She couldn't spend another night in the hotel room.

She got back to her apartment at two a.m. She felt dead inside when she walked into her apartment. His civilian clothes were in the closet, but nothing else. She lay down on the bed where he had attacked her. She didn't blame him for it. She knew he was sick. And Shep knew it too. The army denied it. He was much sicker than they realized. They had seen it a thousand times before. It didn't surprise them. If he hurt someone they'd have to deal with it, but until then, as long as he continued to function and did what they needed him to do, they would turn a blind eye. If they sent everyone home who was damaged by the rigors of what they had seen in places like Iraq, where all the rules were different, there would be no one left on the ground to do the job. Shep had gone back to do the job for them, and he had abandoned Allegra. He loved her too much to stay with her. He had told her she deserved better, but she wanted him. She loved him, and she was his wife. He was her family as well as her husband, and the only piece of her history she had left. She had loved him for seven years, since she was sixteen years old. She loved him with all the love she had to give and that no one had ever wanted. And now Shep didn't want it either. He was giving it all back. He didn't want her to love him anymore. It was his final gift to her. And he was leaving her all alone. It felt like a mortal blow.

—

With enormous effort and ironlike discipline, Allegra went to work the next day. Pippa thought she looked terrible and asked if she was okay. She was deathly pale with dark circles under her eyes. She had worn a scarf around her neck to cover the bruises she still had. There was a devastated look in her eyes.

"Did your husband go back to Washington?" Pippa asked her gently. It didn't occur to her that he'd gone back to Iraq, and Allegra didn't tell her. She was still hoping he'd come back, that he'd change his mind, or they would see something was off, or he'd break down and they'd send him home. Anything was better than his going back to his duties, for another tour, to worsen the damage that was already destroying him. She was waiting for fate to intervene somehow, magically, but it didn't, just as it never sent her mother back, or made her parents love her.

She knew that Shep had loved her. Initially, he had wanted their secret marriage to protect him, but even her love wasn't powerful enough to save him from what he'd had to face in Iraq. It went too far against the grain with him, it tore his soul right out of him, and turned him inside out. The man who went back to Baghdad wasn't the boy she had met in Newport. A dangerous stranger had taken possession of him, a dragon that devoured him, just as she knew it would. Even men like her father didn't survive it unscathed. Men like her father had sold themselves to the devil years before, even before he had met her mother. The devil Shep had encountered in Iraq ate innocent boys like him for lunch.

—

Allegra went through all the motions of her job for the next two weeks, with no idea what to do next, except keep working. She wrote Shep a letter in Iraq, telling him how much she loved him. She knew it was a futile gesture, like all the letters she had wanted to write to her mother. She did it anyway, and knew the letter would find him, even if he didn't respond. At least she'd said it. She knew he had loved her before, even if he was no longer capable of it. He had left her to protect her, which was the only way he could still love her, to remove himself completely.

—

She managed to work on two manuscripts and complete them, although she could barely keep her mind on the work. Pippa could see how much pain she was in, but Allegra shied away from close contact with anyone. She didn't want to talk. She was fighting to keep her head above water. She had been through pain before, but never as sharp or as devastating as this. It was like having her heart torn out, or a leg ripped off. She was struggling not to bleed to death, and still hoped that Shep would come to his senses, that what was left of him would come back, even though in her mind, she knew it wasn't likely.

Jane March called to invite her to lunch, and Allegra didn't return the call. She just couldn't. She did her work and that was all. She was deep in her shell, and deeply wounded, just as she had been when her mother had left.

Two weeks after Shep left for Iraq, she got a thick envelope from the army legal department, with a bunch of forms in it. She glanced through them, and it was the final death blow to her heart. Shep had filed for divorce before he left. It was a relatively simple procedure for a short-term marriage. Two years was nothing, and they had no children, and no property. It cited irreconcilable differences as the cause for the divorce. He had written in a regulation amount, based on his army pay, as monthly support for two years, the length of the marriage. She wrote on the form that she declined the financial support. She didn't want money from him. Even if she'd been starving, which she wasn't, she wouldn't have accepted it. It saddened her too that his family had never known about their marriage. Shep had been afraid that his family would object when they married, because they were both so young, and then he had left for Afghanistan, and it seemed simpler not to tell them. Now they would never know that they'd had a daughter-in-law for two years. She was sure that Shep would never tell them, since he was divorcing her.

It felt like the ultimate rejection, as it had when her mother had left her. Isabelle had abandoned her daughter, and now her daughter's husband was abandoning his wife. Allegra's father had abandoned her in his own way. She felt as though she had gotten the wrong start in life. It was a pattern she couldn't seem to break. She had no one now. Not even the grandmother who had been hesitant about her for so long, although Allegra would have embraced her early on, if she'd been allowed to. But she had been an inconvenience to her grandparents until she grew up.

There was always some reason for the important people in her life to abandon her or reject her. But Shep was the only one she had loved, and who had loved her in return. Now he was doing it too. It was the worst blow of all.

It took her three weeks to face them, but she filled out the divorce papers and sent them back. Shep wouldn't respond to anything she sent him. He had totally shut her out. He had been gone for five weeks when she filled out the papers with a heavy heart. She didn't want to be divorced. She wanted to be married to him, and had never had a chance to enjoy their life together. He had married her because he was being sent to Afghanistan and thought that their marriage would magically protect him. Now he was divorcing her to protect her, or so he said. It was all for the wrong reasons, but whatever the reason, he was leaving her alone in the world, with no protection. He wasn't willing to fight for the marriage or get help. Instead, he went right back to everything that had damaged him so badly in the first place and sought refuge there. He felt it was the only place he belonged now, with others who were as broken as he was.

The men he worked with in military intelligence were all career army, and they were often married to people who came from military families and knew and accepted that way of life, so they understood what the downsides were. Or they married people from the "outside world," outside the military, and their marriages usually didn't last long, with an absentee husband on the other side of the world. Or they did what he had promised to do, one tour of duty and then looked for a job stateside, in or out of the military. He could have done that but hadn't even tried. The war in Iraq had overwhelmed him, chewed him up and devoured him, and now he was trapped by his own choice.

Allegra didn't know what to do. She had enough money to get by for some time, with what her grandmother and her father had left her. She could live on it long enough to find another job. She liked the one she had at the publishing house, and working for Pippa, and the authors whose books she worked on. But it had all made sense while she waited for Shep to come home, and now it didn't. Everything she did reminded her of him, the apartment where he had spent time with her between tours of duty, the city where she was going to live with him. She no longer had any ties to New York, and nothing to anchor her there except the memories of what might have been and the hopes that had died so brutally when he left. She had nowhere to escape to with the cottage in Newport gone. It had sold very quickly, with all the furnishings, much to Isabelle's relief.

Allegra turned twenty-four in the spring, and she felt like a leaf blowing in the wind. She'd thought about it for two months, and then went to see Pippa after her birthday. She had never explained to her everything that had happened, but Pippa knew something terrible had and didn't want to pry until Allegra wanted to tell her, which she didn't. She felt like a giant failure, a reject. She had flunked and been abandoned again. She wanted to run away and hide, but she had nowhere to run to, and no reason to go anywhere, except her own misery. She had looked devastated for three months before she walked into Pippa's office, after a lonely weekend when she had read about various cities she had never been to. She had lived her whole life on the East Coast: New York, Washington, Massachusetts for boarding school, camp in Maine, Newport to visit her grandparents after camp before she went back to school.

There was no important book publishing to speak of on the West Coast, but she didn't care. She needed a fresh start, a place where no one knew her or anything about her and she could start over. She read about San Francisco, but decided it was too small. There were good tech jobs there, but she had no training for them. The film industry in Los Angeles sounded interesting, but she had no background in that either. In the end, she decided to just pick a place and go there, and look for a job later. And if she hated it, she could always come back.

Pippa had dealt with young editors for many years, and she could tell from the look on Allegra's face and the sag of her shoulders that she hadn't come to deliver good news. She had seen girls beaten by New York before. It was a hard city. She'd seen others leave because of a broken heart, relationships that didn't work out, canceled weddings and engagements, and divorces. But there was something so profoundly sad about the look on Allegra's face that Pippa's heart ached just looking at her. She could see that Allegra had had had a tough time for the past few months. The shiny, excited look she'd had in the beginning was gone, and all Pippa could see now was sorrow. She wore it like a shawl around her. Her eyes were full of grief and loss, and even her bright red hair looked suddenly dull. Her hair was pulled into a severe bun, and she hadn't worn makeup in months. She was wearing flat shoes, an old black skirt that hung on her, and a gray sweater she had left over from college and should have gotten rid of when she graduated. Philippa poured her a cup of tea, and waited to hear whatever Allegra was going to tell her. Whatever it was, she sensed that Allegra wasn't going to tell her the whole story, just as she hadn't told her she was married for the first few months she worked there. She was a very private person.

"I get the feeling things haven't been going so well lately," Pippa said gently. "Is it the job?" Allegra shook her head and looked apologetic.

"No, the job is fine, and you've been wonderful to me. And I like most of the authors I work with. With a few exceptions." She smiled, Pippa laughed, and knew who they were. She had a few difficult old ones, but someone had to edit them, and Allegra had always been a good sport about it, and never complained. "It's me. Some things have changed in the last few months." She took a breath before she went on, and Pippa waited. She was a patient woman and good with young people. She was used to listening to their problems. "Shep decided to stay in the army and went back to Iraq. He's having…he's dealing with some issues around his work in a combat zone. His leave over Christmas didn't go well. He needs help and he doesn't want to get it. He filed for divorce when he left," she said with a heartbreaking glance at her boss.

"Oh, Allegra, I'm so sorry. I know that must be hard," Pippa said. "I wish you'd told me."

"There's just nothing here for me now, except this job. I don't want to stay in the apartment. He's not coming home, not to me anyway. I have nothing to look forward to here. My father's gone, and my grandparents. I have no family. I don't know where to go." Tears filled her eyes as she said it. "I need a change. I'm thinking of going to Los Angeles to see how that feels."

"I thought you loved books and publishing," Pippa said.

"I know, I've thought about it. Maybe movies. Maybe I'll be a waitress," Allegra said, looking lost.

"I think you can do better than that. Starting fresh might be fun, but the geographic solution isn't always the right one. You'll take your problems with you." Pippa was thinking that Allegra needed the right man, or a more challenging job. She was a very bright young woman, and a talented editor. Her biggest problem was that she didn't have a single human being in the world to care about her. It wasn't fair, but it was the hand she'd been dealt, and Pippa could sense that she was trying to make the best of it. It wasn't easy, and never had been. Her mother had given her a push in the wrong direction at a very early age, and her father's defection hadn't helped, or cold, elderly grandparents, none of whom really wanted a child underfoot. And now her deeply troubled and emotionally damaged husband was divorcing her. It was a terrible blow for her. Pippa could see it on her face.

"Wherever you go, you can always come back," Pippa reminded her. "You're not stuck wherever you are. I assume you have enough money to hang on for a while, so you don't have to take a job you hate."

Allegra nodded assent. "I don't have a lot, but I have enough to live on if I'm careful. I refused Shep's offer of support. If he doesn't want me, I don't want his money, and his parents aren't keen on me. They don't even know we were married. He wanted to keep it a secret until he came home from Iraq and we settled down here and both had decent jobs. But he changed his mind about leaving the army, so we never told them. We wanted to prove to them how responsible we were. And now I'm the only one here," she said sadly.

"Why L.A.?" Pippa asked her. "Do you know anyone there?" She was curious.

"No one. I looked at some employment ads, and they sound okay. There seem to be a lot of agencies to find jobs. The rents look reasonable, and the weather is good." Everything she said made sense, but to take on a new city, knowing no one, at twenty-four, sounded ambitious to Pippa. Allegra was a strong girl and she could see her managing, and doing okay, if she didn't panic. She had a good head on her shoulders. Pippa had seen evidence of it in the seven months she'd worked for her.

"If it doesn't work out, and you come back, I want to make it clear to you that I would hire you back in a hot minute. You're a very capable editor, Allegra. And I suspect you've got some writing talent of your own, if you ever decide to exercise it. I have great faith in you." There was a lot of competition for jobs at her age, but Allegra already had seven months of experience, and Pippa was going to give her a good reference. She was a bright, attractive girl. Someone would hire her.

Pippa just hoped she'd come across a decent person, and go to a good agency. She urged Allegra to be careful of that, and she nodded. Pippa wanted her to find a great job and a new life that made her happy.

"When do you want to leave?" Pippa asked her, hoping it wouldn't be too soon, so she could train another person to take her place. It would take time to find a reliable replacement.

"I have to give up my apartment in ten days if I'm leaving. I was thinking two weeks. I can stay at a hotel for the last few days." Pippa wasn't thrilled at the short notice, but it was respectable. She nodded, genuinely sad to see Allegra go.

"So that's it, I guess. Will you promise to stay in touch? I want to know what you're doing, who you're working for, and what kind of job you get. Don't just forget about us," she said, sounding like a concerned aunt, and Allegra was touched. There wasn't a single other person on the planet who cared about what she was doing or where she was going, not even Shep, after eight years in his life. It felt good that someone did care. Allegra had always kept to herself and had few friends. The only person she was close to was Shep.

"Thank you," she said. Pippa hugged her and Allegra struggled not to cry. She wanted to be brave.

—

They gave Allegra a little farewell party with a cake in the editorial department, and she was very touched. Pippa had organized it. Allegra had packed up everything in her apartment by then. She had sent all her furniture to Goodwill, where most of it had come from, except for the new pieces she had bought for Shep. She got rid of all of it. She wanted no souvenirs of their life together now. She gave away her books at work. She sent everything of Shep's to his parents in Boston, without explanation. He could tell them whatever he wanted to, when they asked him where it came from. Her few kitchen utensils and the toaster and microwave went to Goodwill too.

She had three suitcases of clothes, most of which she used for work and would be too warm for L.A., but she had nowhere to leave them, and she'd need clothes to work in once she found a job. They were all severe-looking skirts and sweaters, some blouses, shoes, a few purses, and a warm coat. She wasn't extravagant and hadn't needed a fancy wardrobe in publishing. She could buy what she needed when she found a job. She found that it was easier and faster to take a life apart than to build one. She had no souvenirs of her father either except his medals, in a box that fit easily in her suitcase, and she had an envelope of photographs of her parents. She didn't have many of those either. Her life was eminently portable. It was a defining statement, how little she had accumulated. She had kept the photographs of her and Shep, and put them in a separate envelope. She wasn't going to look at them. She just liked knowing she had them. She had spent a third of her life with him.

She felt emotional when she said goodbye to Pippa.

"Remember, you can come back whenever you want to. We'll find a place for you," Pippa said, and meant it. "And Allegra, make sure that wherever you land, people treat you right. You deserve it. You feel like you have no roots right now, but you will one day. This won't happen to you again, like it did with Shep. He's a casualty in his own life, which is why you got hurt." She was sad as she watched Allegra get in the elevator, and Allegra was too. For now, Pippa was her only friend, and she was a good person. There hadn't been many in her life.

Allegra got on the plane to Los Angeles the next morning, and watched New York shrink from sight. She was excited and sad at the same time. She hoped Pippa was right, and this wouldn't happen to her again, having no home, and nothing to anchor her. The next time she gave her heart, it had to be someone who would take good care of it, and not walk away and forget to say goodbye, like her mother and Shep. She was worth more than that. For the first time she believed it, even if she'd had no evidence of it yet. She felt like a balloon everyone had let go, and she was rising into the sky, floating on the wind, alone.