Chương 2
Now she said nothing.
Chloe picked up the flag and walked out of the room.
The officers moved apart for her. Their dark uniforms formed two silent walls. She could smell shoe polish and the faint sharp scent of aftershave. At the end of the line stood a Black woman with a narrow silver streak in her hair. Her salute had dropped, but her right hand remained curled near her hip.
Chloe stopped in front of her.
“Did you know him?”
“Yes,” the officer said.
“Did you come yesterday?”
The woman swallowed. “No.”
“The day before?”
“No.”
Chloe continued down the hallway.
Denise started after her, but General Hale touched two fingers to his own sleeve, an uncertain gesture that stopped short of touching Denise.
“Mrs. Miller.”
“It’s Ms.”
“Ms. Miller. I owe both of you an explanation.”
“You owe my daughter space.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t. You brought five strangers in uniform to surprise a ten-year-old beside an empty bed.”
“They asked to come.”
“So did she.”
Denise went after Chloe.
General Hale remained outside room 214 with his cap under one arm. The five officers waited behind him.
Marisol entered the room and stared at the cookie on the mattress.
“I told him she was in the building,” she said.
Hale looked at her. “Was he conscious?”
“On and off. He asked the time every few minutes. He kept saying she came at nine.”
The Black officer rubbed her thumb along the seam of her trousers. “Did he say anything else?”
Marisol glanced toward the hall where Chloe had disappeared.
“He said not to let anybody throw away the cookie.”
Denise found Chloe in the stairwell between the second and third floors. She sat on the concrete step with the folded flag across her knees. Her brown braid had slipped forward over one shoulder.
The stairwell door clicked shut behind Denise.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Denise sat two steps lower. Her practical shoes squeaked against the painted floor. She smelled of lemon disinfectant and the powdered gloves she complained made her hands itch.
“You can be mad at me,” she said.
Chloe traced one white star with her fingertip.
“I should’ve gone in when we got here.”
“I should have taken you.”
“You said Mr. Leland would write you up.”
“He probably will.”
“You said five minutes.”
“I know what I said.”
Chloe pressed her lips together. “He was alive for those five minutes.”
Denise turned around on the step. “Chloe, listen to me. The nurse said his heart was failing. He had pneumonia, and his kidneys weren’t working right, and there were other things I didn’t explain because you’re ten. Five minutes did not do this.”
“He stayed awake.”
“That general may have been trying to make you feel better.”
“He lied?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You always say people lie when they’re trying to make you feel better.”
“I say people sometimes tell the version they can live with.”
Chloe looked toward the gray stairwell door.
“Which version can we live with?”
Denise’s mouth opened, then closed.
From the floor below came the muffled thump of a laundry bin striking a doorframe. Someone cursed. The ordinary sound made the silence between them feel worse.
Denise reached into her uniform pocket and removed a paper napkin folded around two packets of crackers.
“I saved these from breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I know.”
“You can eat them.”
“I don’t like those crackers.”
“You always eat them.”
“They taste like the box.”
Chloe almost smiled. Her face moved toward it and stopped.
Denise put the crackers back in her pocket.
The stairwell door opened above them. General Hale stepped through alone. He had left his cap somewhere. Without it, he looked less like a picture from Chloe’s social studies book and more like an old man who had not slept.
“I can leave,” he said.
Denise stood. “That would be a start.”
Chloe kept her eyes on the flag. “Why did he call himself Mr. Arthur?”
Hale remained near the door. “That was his name.”
“He didn’t say Colonel.”
“He stopped using the title after he retired.”
“How did he save you?”
The general looked at Denise, asking permission without words.
Denise did not grant it, but she did not make him leave.
Hale sat on the landing across from Chloe. The stairs forced his knees higher than he seemed comfortable with.
“It happened in Iraq,” he said. “More than twenty years ago. We were moving between two bases outside Baghdad. Colonel Arthur Reed was responsible for the convoy.”
Chloe waited.
“There was an explosion near the lead vehicle. We couldn’t see. We couldn’t hear much. Some people thought the safest thing was to stay inside the trucks.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He ordered us out and moved us behind a concrete wall. A second explosion destroyed the vehicles.”
“All six of you?”
Hale looked through the railing toward the lower flight.
“Not only us. There were nineteen people in that convoy. The officers you saw today are the ones who could come on short notice.”
“Did anybody die?”
“One soldier did.”
“Then Mr. Arthur didn’t save everybody.”
“No,” Hale said. “He didn’t.”
Chloe seemed to consider whether his willingness to admit that changed anything.
“Why was he here alone?”
The question landed differently. Hale’s shoulders shifted.
“We lost contact.”
“All six of you?”
“Over the years.”
“That means yes.”
“Yes.”
“Did he lose your phone numbers?”
“No.”
“Did you lose his?”
Hale looked at her then.
Denise sat beside Chloe and put one arm around her. Chloe did not lean into it, but she did not move away.
“I had his number,” Hale said.
“Did you call?”
“At first.”
“And then?”
“Not enough.”
Chloe stared at the medals on his chest.
“Maybe you shouldn’t say everyone ignored him like you weren’t one of everyone.”
Denise whispered, “Chloe.”
May you like
“She’s right,” Hale said.
The general stood slowly, one hand braced against the rail. He reached into the inside pocket of his uniform and removed a small white envelope.
