Broken Soldier: A Novel

by Clara Frost

  #

  Emily wasn’t sure what Rafa and her dad were talking about out on the balcony, but it had to be serious for them to be out in the cold so long.

  “Stop sighing, dear,” Emily’s mother said. “They’ll be along in good time.”

  “I’m not sighing.”

  Her mother smiled.

  Well, maybe she was. She hadn’t realized it, though. She turned her attention from the balcony to the Christmas tree. Her parents still had it up, and it was as heavily decorated as ever. They spent a ridiculous amount of time on it, covering each individual branch with a strand of lights. She remembered the hours it had taken to decorate it when she was a child.

  The balcony door cracked open, letting a cold blast of air into the house. Footsteps tramped inside, and Emily’s father came into the living room. Rafa followed him, his face red with the cold.

  “Well,” Emily said, “did you boys get whatever it was worked out?”

  “We did,” her father said. “I think you found a good man, Em. I’m proud of you.”

  Emily stared at him, shocked. Had her father just said he liked Rafa? “I... Uh...”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hale,” Rafa said. He sat beside Emily and slipped his hand into hers. It was frigid, but she didn’t mind.

  “None of that, Rafa, you can call me Karl, I told you that. Now, I think we have some presents to open, don’t we?”

  Emily’s mother did the distributing, passing boxes wrapped in bright Christmas trees and snowmen around the room. They alternated presents, each opening boxes and finding a sweater or a pocket knife or perfume.

  Emily edged forward on the couch as they finished. “I have one more for Rafa. Stay here,” she told him.

  The skis were specially made, and she’d had her mother pick them up for her from the manufacturer while she’d been in Spain. Emily slipped into her parents’ bedroom and retrieved the yellow and blue camouflage planks. A red ribbon wrapped around them from top to bottom, holding them together. A wide bow completed the package.

  “Rafa, close your eyes,” Emily called into the other room.

  “Alright,” he said.

  She carried the skis to the living room, stepping over discarded wrapping paper, and stopped in front of him. “You can open your eyes.”

  He looked up, his eyes scanning the skis and stopping on the special bindings meant to interface with his prosthetic leg. His eyes grew wide.

  “Do you like them?” she asked.

  “I love them.” He held out his arms, and she passed the skis over. He plucked at the bow and unraveled the ribbon, lifting and admiring. “You didn’t have to do this.”

  “Of course I did. It’s purely selfish. I love skiing, and the best way to get you to go with me is to ensure that you have a good set of skis of your own.”

  Rafa laughed. Behind her, her father murmured something to her mother.

  “So,” Rafa said, “I have one more gift for you, too.”

  Emily looked at him, confused. Where had he hidden another gift?

  “Sit and close your eyes.” Rafa stood up, wrapping paper rustling as he moved. “Okay, you can open them.”

  He kneeled before her, his left knee on the ground. A plain blue box lay on his outstretched palm, a single word embossed in gold on the lid: Amor.

  Emily reached for the box, her heart beating like she’d just run a marathon. Her fingers would barely close around it. Hope swelled in her chest. Part of her knew what was in the box even as she opened it to reveal a gleaming diamond ring.

  “Emily, will you marry me?” Rafa asked.

  She looked at him, blinking back tears for the second time in a week, and said one word: “Yes.”

  Chapter 29

  EMILY worried about Rafa. He jogged along beside her, his breath forming great clouds in front of him, but he’d barely said two words since they’d entered the trail.

  “Alright, Rafa, something’s wrong. Talk to me.”

  “I’m fine. Not even a twinge.”

  His strides were long and steady, his shoe and his blade alternately crunching on the frosty gravel. It was the furrows on his forehead and the tension in his arms that bothered her.

  “I don’t mean your knee. Are you worried about the wedding?”

  “Huh?”

  “We need to work out a date and decide who to invite and work on colors.” He was watching her out of the corner of his eye, but his expression was one of surprise. So the wedding wasn’t the problem. That was a relief. At least one of them still had the brain capacity to think about something else.

  “Rafa...”

  “I’m still here.”

  The week after the proposal had been one long high. Christa had been giddy when Emily had shown her the ring. In between bouts of jumping up and down and grinning like a Cheshire cat, Emily had started planning the wedding, and she’d hardly given a thought to anything else.

  But if he wasn’t worried about the wedding, what else could it be? Afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees that lined the trail, casting him in shadows as he moved from light to darkness and back to light. His muscles flexed with each stride. Realization dawned on her: tomorrow was his first day at his new job at the Air Force Academy.

  “Are you worried about your first day of work?” Emily asked.

  “I don’t know how a bunch of Air Force cadets are going to respond to an Army vet.”

  It was gratifying how she was beginning to read him, even if she couldn’t understand his concern. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Rafa frowned. “No. Intra-service rivalry is a real thing for some people. It’s really bad at the academies.”

  “Rafa, you’ll be fine. You’re experienced, knowledgeable and if anyone doubts it, all they have to do is look at your arm.” She meant it to be encouraging, but his frown deepened.

  “It doesn’t work like that. They’ll see-- I don’t know what they’ll see. It won’t be good.”

  “Seriously, you have to stop worrying about your disabilities. They’re part of you, but you don’t have to let them define you. Go in, be professional and you’ll be fine. It can’t be as bad as the stuff you dealt with in the Army.”

  “They won’t shoot at me, I suppose.”

  “Well, it’s the Air Force, right? Even if they did, they’d miss.”

  That drew a chuckle, and his arms started to move more easily at his side. “Talk to me about the wedding,” he said.

  “Well, we need a date.”

  “How about early summer? It will be beautiful in Madrid in June.”

  Madrid? She didn’t want to walk back into the lion’s den at all, never mind for her own wedding. “We can’t even get a church booked in that amount of time.”

  “Do you want to go later? August?”

  “I was thinking next Christmas. And something in Boulder or Denver. Or what about the Air Force Academy, they have a chapel there, right?”

  He hesitated. “They do.”

  “But you don’t think they’ll let you use it?”

  “I don’t know. They might.”

  “Okay... we can come back to that later. We need to see what’s available closer, anyway.”

  “Or farther away?”

  “Maybe. Let me think about it some more first.”

  “How about we think while we run?”

  “Sure.”

  He sped up, forcing Em to really stretch her legs to stay with him. Her need to breathe overcame her desire to talk, so she ran along beside him a while, sucking wind and focusing on the trail. The cool mountain air seared into her lungs with every ragged breath.

  “I need to slow down,” Emily said after a mile or so. She dropped to a more sedate jog, her heart thumping from the near sprint.

  August was just too soon if they wanted to book anywhere that his mother would remotely approve. Emily really wanted a Christmas wedding, with garlands and trees and lights, but at the same time, she didn’t want to wait 11 months, either.

 
“What about Thanksgiving?” she asked.

  “What about it, amor?”

  “For the wedding. It’s close to Christmas. I could decorate how I want. And it gives us time to book.”

  “Hmm.” He scuffed the trail, sending stones skittering. “What about the honeymoon? I’ll have class before and after.”

  “You can’t take a week off?”

  “Right before finals? And as an adjunct?”

  “We could delay the honeymoon until your semester ends.”

  “Let’s check the calendars when we get back to the apartment.”

  It wasn’t perfect, but wasn’t that what marriage was all about? Compromising. And at least they had a date in mind.

  Chapter 30

  SITTING in the shared adjunct office for a long lunch just didn’t have any appeal. After two morning lectures, Rafa wanted to get outside into the sunshine and stretch his legs, even if it was cold. What he needed to do, though, was to read essays so he wouldn’t have to do everything at home with Emily.

  Surely she’d understand that he wanted a little exercise, too. He trotted out of the building, smiling and nodding at the passing cadets as he made his away across campus to where his truck was parked. The January breeze sliced through his dress pants and sport coat, and he wished he’d brought a proper jacket. It was cold, but not so cold he wouldn’t warm up once he got to running.

  In the truck he dug up a pair of sweatpants, a jacket with the word “ARMY” stenciled in big, black letters and his running shoes. He changed in the truck, shivering against the cold. His right knee had an ache to it, but it was the ache of cold weather, not infection.

  Rafa trotted across the parking, taking things easy, not trying to push himself, not yet. He pumped his arms, working the kinks from his shoulders. His right sleeve ended in an empty cuff, but unless someone was really paying attention, his missing hand would be hard to notice.

  The absence didn’t bother him as much as it had those first few months after he’d left Walter Reed. And if he told himself that enough, he might start to believe it.

  An older guy, hair gray as the clouds that scudded over the Rockies fell in beside Rafa as he neared the building that contained his classroom. “Ho, Army, long way from home, aren’t you?”

  “You could say that,” Rafa said.

  “I reckon you’re our new SERE instructor.”

  “You reckon correct, sir.”

  The older man laughed. “I’m Hal Peterson. It’s good to meet you.”

  Rafa looked over, eyebrows raising appreciatively. General Peterson was second in command of the school. “Rafael Carpenter.”

  “I know.” The general’s mouth turned up into a smile. “I didn’t expect to get an instructor with your... background. What’s keeping you in Colorado?”

  “Found something I couldn’t walk away from.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Rafa laughed. “Emily. How’d you know it was a woman, sir? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “I may be old, Captain, but I remember what it was like to be young. So how far you planning to run today?”

  “Couple miles, I think.”

  “If you want to make some cadets feel inadequate, we’ve got a company about to leave the parade ground.”

  “It would be my pleasure, sir.” Rafa jogged along beside the general. Even in the cold, he could feel his muscles loosen, feel the old familiar rhythm of a jog start to take over.

  The general himself was tall and fit, maybe 50 years old, but had the build of someone that hadn’t stopped doing PT just because he’d been promoted. He reminded Rafa of his dad, actually.

  They hit the parade ground at a steady clip and found the cadets lined up in rows, listening to their company commander give instructions. The general fell in beside the group, and Rafa fell in beside the general. The cadets looked over at them, but in their jogging gear, the only thing of note was the name of the service stenciled across Rafa’s chest. More than a few did a double-take, but they knew better than to comment while they were in formation.

  The company trotted forward, Rafa and the general with them. Steam rose from each of the runners, and their feet made a low rumble on the packed earth. One of the instructors, a squat, powerful sergeant jogged up beside the general.

  “Sir, we’re taking them on a ten mile circuit.”

  The general looked over at Rafa. “You want to show these pups how it’s done?”

  If Rafa wanted to get a shower before his next class started, ten miles would push him to the limit, but if he got into a good groove and really stretched his legs... “Yes, sir.”

  The general chuckled. “When’s your next class, Captain?”

  “Fourteen hundred, sir.”

  The general did the same math Rafa had just done, then nodded. “Sergeant, we’ll meet you at the parade ground.” The general picked up his pace, Rafa matching him, and they began to overtake the front line of runners.

  They hit the first real hill after about a mile and a half, but the general didn’t slow. His legs kept churning with a metronome’s regularity. The lead runners from the cadet company stayed with them, a couple chatting as they ran. Rafa recognized the pair as students from his SERE class, one of them maybe even the wiseass that had commented about the ‘doggie instructor.’

  Rafa looked over at the general, catching his eye, then at the cadets. “Time to make them earn it, sir.”

  Rafa accelerated, pushing himself to just below a full sprint. Without a pack of gear on his back, he felt strangely light. The only problem was his footwear. The prosthetic leg he had attached was for casual walking, not the blade he’d become accustomed to for running.

  The general picked up on it, too. “You alright, soldier? Wound causing you trouble?”

  “I’m good, sir.”

  “Drop the ‘sir’ while we’re out here.” The general wasn’t quite struggling to talk while he ran, but Rafa could tell that he was pushing hard, too. “If you’re hurting, fall out and get it addressed.”

  “I’ll make it,” Rafa said. He wasn’t going to quit, not in front of the cadets. And if he told Emily he’d even considered it, she’d mock him for weeks.

  They continued on, the general glancing over at him occasionally. At the five mile mark, Rafa was well into a rhythm and had the discomfort compartmentalized in the back of his mind. It hurt, but it was just weakness leaving the body.

  They passed the Academy chapel, rising in high, peaked sections like God’s own comb dropped into the Colorado landscape. Rafa shook his head at the sight of it. It was nothing like West Point, but at the same time, given the mountains in the background, it seemed fitting.

  They kept going, leaving the cadets behind by mile seven, and cruising into the parade ground alone.

  Rafa’s shirt stuck to his chest and back, drenched in sweat. As he stretched beside the general, the chill started to seep in though his jacket.

  “What unit were you with before your discharge?” the general asked.

  “First battalion, Twelfth Special Forces group,” Rafa said.

  “Company commander?”

  “For a time.”

  “Well, I’m glad that lady of yours brought you to us.”

  “It wasn’t entirely by choice, General.”

  “How’s that?”

  Rafa pulled up his right pant leg, exposing the metal pole. He laid his right arm across it. “Can’t exactly keep up in the field these days.”

  The general raised an eyebrow. “You kept up out here just fine.”

  “All due respect, sir, that’s without a pack full of gear, and these hills are a far cry from the Afghan mountains.”

  “Duly noted, Captain.”

  They finished stretching as the first wave of cadets flooded into the parade ground. Their sergeant led them through stretches while one of the cadets barked at the late arrivals. The general gave Rafa a nod, then went over to the sergeant at the front of the formation. They exchanged a few w
ords, and the general trotted off toward the opposite side of the parade ground.

  Rafa checked his watch, saw that he was cutting it close on class, and headed toward his truck.

  “Excuse me,” the sergeant said, jogging over beside Rafa. “General Peterson asked if you’d mind addressing the company.”

  “Sergeant, I’ve got a class in fifteen minutes.”

  “It’ll just take a minute, Captain. I’ll do the talking.”

  What kind of embarrassment did the sergeant have in store? Rafa just wanted to get to class, make it through his first day and get home to Emily, not be held up as some example of what could go wrong in war.

  “Cadets, this is Captain Carpenter. You may have noticed him running with us. Or should I say running ahead of us.”

  Every eye in the platoon was locked on Rafa, and a few heads were nodding. He had their attention.

  “Last year Captain Carpenter lost his right hand and his right leg from the knee down to an IED in Afghanistan.”

  The eyes on Rafa went suddenly wide.

  “Keep that in mind when we go out for our run tomorrow, people. Dismissed!”

  The cadets saluted and headed for the showers.

  “I hope it helps inspire them a little, Sergeant,” Rafa said.

  “It will, Captain. And it will shut them up about having the Army teaching one of their courses.”

  Rafa wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or a subtle dig. He nodded and turned toward the truck.

  “Carpenter,” the sergeant said.

  Rafa looked back at him.

  “I thought you looked familiar. I recognize you from Baghdad, summer of ’09. You and your men saved some airmen, and one of them was my brother. Thank you, Captain.”

  “You’re welcome, Sergeant.” Rafa trotted off, a feeling of hope pushing the cold away.