Time of Gifting

by Taki Drake

  Pam and Patty had groups of six each. Patty’s group included the camp cook and his assistants, as well as a few others with interest in cooking. She made sure to give them all her restaurants’ addresses, extracting promises of visits from each soldier. They pledged to look for unusual spices for her and send her pictures and their notes.

  Pam had a more eclectic group. These were the men with no particular interest focus. They seemed to gravitate to Pam’s energy and enthusiasm for everything. Her unprompted hugs, unbridled love for life made them stick to her like moths to a flame. Her insistence that they each send her a list of three good things in their day every day was met with assurances that they would do so religiously.

  The group around Naomi was the largest, numbering ten. She was intently explaining photography techniques, talking about action photos and lighting, and making software suggestions. She took careful note of the equipment and the tools that each man had and seemed to be organizing a photography book that would include each soldier’s juried photos.

  The card players swarmed around Jean, sitting on a cobbled-together chair with rugs cushioning her back. All nine men were ardently discussing poker tours, bridge versus whist, and various competitive games. The gesturing crowd was uniformly happy, involved, and enthusiastic. Mary was overjoyed to see Jean’s smiling face in the middle of the mass of men, reflecting that unbridled joy had been too long absent from her friend’s face.

  Connie was ceremoniously handing over her box of dice to the six gamers. They intended to set up online gaming sessions that would work with their duty schedule, while the woman was promising to send them hex paper and other important RPG items.

  Mary looked at the four men standing next to her. Her eyes landed first on a pair of men that were carefully marking down the characteristics of the rugs that the women had purchased during their trip. They seemed to have an affinity for textiles and were quite interested in leveraging their presence in the country into a possible career after their enlistment was over.

  The other two were the ones to whom Mary had taught knitting. She found it heartwarming that they were enthusiastically discussing their next project and talking about what yarns they would use. Both were struck speechless by her gift to them – her entire set of needles and all of her unused yarn. She even included her half-completed project.

  When she told them that she trusted them to finish it well, they surprised her with hugs and whispered thanks. This time when she looked at Morgan, the man that had so poignantly reminded her of Matthew, there was no flash of pain, just a fond, warm feeling. He had become a person now, not a shadow. His angry, defensive nature had softened, leaving behind a man that could have been mistaken for her son’s brother.

  The sound of a helicopter approaching was suddenly loud. The camp was boiling with last-minute hugs, admonishments, promises, and shared final laughter. As the medevac flight landed, the dust blew everywhere. Shielding their faces from the wind, the women were helped onto the chopper by willing hands, their belongings stowed by others.

  The pounding of additional feet announced the advent of three stretchers. Even though Jean had forced her body up off her bed to say goodbye to the men, she still needed a lot of mobility help until a doctor could apply additional remedies. Abdul and Jumal were still fading in and out of consciousness. Mary wondered if they would even remember that the American soldiers had helped them.

  The suddenly teary group waved goodbye to the men watching them. Each strained to look for “her” guys, smiling when they responded. The men were equally intent on finding “their” lady, making sure to make eye contact and smiling at the sight of them, many surreptitiously wiping eyes.

  As the helicopter began to lift, Sergeant Brown was shocked into making explosive noise, which then turned into a full irruption of belly laughs when Mary stared into his eyes before smiling mischievously and holding up a small spotted dog to the window. She smiled and waved, the last sight for him to remember as the helicopter rose and headed for headquarters and the base hospital.

  <<<>>>

  The helicopter ride was exciting. All of the women were plastered against their windows, entranced by the view of the mountainous terrain. Each had been given a headset to both protect their ears and allow them to hear what the pilot was saying. Soon they would be back with the rest of their belongings, back to showers and soft beds.

  Naomi was in heaven, taking pictures as fast as her shutter could move. Her flashing eyes and brilliant smile almost glowed in the dim light of the helicopter, echoing the emotions from the rest of their group. The small dog was calm and happy. Alternating between watching out the window alertly with an ever-changing choice of lap and wish to sleep, his tail never quit wagging.

  Each woman contemplated their last couple of weeks, and Mary could see that none of them would have traded their experiences of the previous few days for convenience. They had each gained something, and each had lost some degree of their grief. It was a good bargain all the way around.

  Mary’s contemplation was interrupted when she felt the crackle of paper inside her pocket. Curious, she pulled it out and saw a long-retained crumpled, dirty piece of paper with longitude and latitude numbers written on it. Unexpectedly, her contentment was brushed aside by a wave of longing and sadness. Caught by uncertainty, the woman sat frozen for a moment.

  Making a sudden decision, Mary leaned forward to the soldier ahead of her and asked, half-shouting to be heard over the noise of the helicopter, “Is there any way that we can fly over this location?”

  The group leader gave him the piece of paper. The soldier looked at it, curiously and motioned for her to wait. Getting up, the man carefully made his way to where the pilot was sitting and bent over to show him the note.

  After a brief shouted exchange with the pilot, the soldier returned to his seat, smiling and gesturing a thumbs-up to Mary. She felt hit with a bolt of quaking and nervousness, one that resonated from her core, and chaotic emotions swirled and smashed until she was nauseous.

  The helicopter abruptly changed direction, heading slightly off to their left. It traveled for about ten minutes before hovering in the air. Mary stared down at the rocky terrain below them, recognizing the same type of outcroppings and steep slopes that had nearly been the site of her death. The reality of their survival had a painful poignancy that burned her eyes and changed every inhalation into one that ached.

  The pilot’s voice sounded in their headsets. “Ma’am, this is the location you wanted,” he said, “Was there something specific you wanted to see or do? I am afraid it is not safe for us to land.”

  Naomi continued taking pictures, moving from side to side of the helicopter as needed. The other women looked at their group leader curiously, unsure of what she needed or why they were here.

  Mary’s eyes were full of tears, and her voice was noticeably shaky as she answered the pilot, “Is there any way that we can have an open window or door?” A sudden comprehension flooded Geri’s face, and the oldest group member clutched the small dog in her lap against her chest before dropping her face to sob into the dog’s coat.

  There was no answer from the pilot, but the soldier ahead of Mary unfastened the door on the side of the helicopter. The wind force was considerable, and the noise was worse.

  All of Mary’s friends continued to stare at her with questioning expressions on their faces. Mary reached up and pulled something out of her bag before making her way carefully to the open door. The helpful soldier grabbed the back of her jacket firmly, stabilizing her against the shifting wind and moving helicopter.

  The wind brushed the free-flowing tears from her face as she opened the box that she had carried for so many miles. As the air currents started to blow the box’s soft gray contents around in a spiral, she quickly dumped the ashes out of the helicopter. Watching as they spun and dispersed, the crying woman took a step back from the doorway and said, “Goodbye, my love. Rest well with our son.”

  Chapte
r 22 – Remembrance Group

  It was the second meeting of the Remembrance Group since they had returned from the trip abroad. Mary looked around the room at her friends, thinking that things were a lot different now.

  The energy in the group had changed, somehow moving past their shared stuck stage of overwhelming grief back into life. Patty had returned to cooking, using the spices that she had obtained to create innovative, elegant dishes that were getting rave reviews from culinary critics.

  The chef’s energy had returned, and she almost crackled with enthusiasm as she talked about sending another box of cookbooks and useful tools over to “her boys.” Her pride in them was evident in her expression and posture, especially learning that their increased understanding of food preparation and flavoring had earned them both promotions.

  When the first of the young cooks was scheduled to leave the military, she promised him a job at one of her restaurants. Patty had even talked with Mary about the idea of sending him to culinary school, which the older woman had thoroughly endorsed.

  Patty’s twin had also come to some internal decisions during their trip. Jean now had company when she went to the gun club. Something deep within the motherly woman had found a different energy channel on that dusty road and their encounter with a black vulture. Nowadays, Pam moved confidently and assertively, filled with an energy that Mary had not seen in the years since Pam’s children had been killed in that horrific car accident.

  Geri was talking to one of the newer members, a widower, about remote chess games with Lieutenant Hampton and the Skype sessions that she was conducting to teach chess to the soldiers in the platoon. He was looking very interested, and Mary was very sure that he would be committed to joining them by the end of the evening.

  There was a lot of giggling coming from the other side of the room. Mary smiled as she saw that Connie was talking about the remote gamers in her latest D&D game. Apparently, when some of the platoon soldiers had been transferred to a different unit they begged Connie to start up a regular game with their new squad.

  The new players’ mistakes were amusing Connie and her veteran gamers in the platoon, but they were coming along nicely, she thought. Every care package the group sent over it begun to include more RPG supplies, and the game master had even created a simple website so that they could download summaries of the adventures they had missed.

  The number of players had increased, and even platoons without “her boys” were expressing interest in the scheduled games. Enough of them had come forward that Connie was thinking of occasional intra-platoon adventures. Occasional flashes of grief still flitted over her face, but Mary was very pleased that the withdrawn, tentative woman had transformed into a more confident and assertive one.

  Of course, it may be that some of that confidence is coming from the motorcycles that Connie and Pam managed to ship back to the US. I still want to laugh when I think about the report of the local motorcycle club meeting and how the big male bikers reacted when the two older women walked in, saying that they wanted to join.

  The men certainly changed their attitude when Pam told them nonchalantly, “No, we do not ride Harleys or rice burners. We have these two great military bikes we brought back from Afghanistan. We know those will not fail us.”

  Mary acknowledged that their trip to Afghanistan had changed them all. Moving them out of their rut of discomfort into a place where they were unsure and needed to rely on each other had blasted them free of their frozen stance in the middle of their regrets and sorrow. They had been inches and even seconds away from death but had come through transformed.

  One of the most powerful records of their evolution would be published in another few months. Naomi had taken her myriad of pictures and organized them into a book format, which also contained contributions from each woman and the surviving tour escorts. She had even been asked to do a showing at a prestigious local museum.

  Right now, she was busy organizing her pack of photographers back in Afghanistan to contribute their own pictures to an expanded showing. Naomi even provided a quick slideshow to let them see the newest images captured at every meeting.

  Mary had a collage of images that played on her computer screen, continually reminding her of the trip’s highs and lows, supplemented by those pictures captured by the increasingly expert self-named Photo Scouts. She loved the enthusiasm that Naomi and her group displayed, almost as much as she loved seeing the landscape of the harsh country she had come to like.

  Abdul was slowly recovering. After they had gotten back to Kabul, it had not been difficult to get the young man the care he needed. All the women had worried about leaving him without family to support him but were surprised when help came from an unexpected source.

  The day before the group was scheduled to fly back to the US, Jamila’s granddaughter, Mir, had calmly walked into the hospital room in Kabul, accompanied by an elderly female. After greeting Mary, the self-possessed young woman had informed the stunned patient that she was there to take care of him until he could be moved to her grandmother’s house for his recovery.

  It took every bit of self-control Mary had not to start hysterically laughing at the look on Abdul’s face. Turning her head to the side and muttering to Geri, “I am so sorry we are not going to see this play out! He really does not have a clue of what is just happening, does he?” Also grinning, Geri uttered no reply but simply shook her head.

  The young woman proved to be impressively competent, navigating the sometimes frustrating hospital policies, working with Jumal to organize transport, and even taking her chaperone on travels with the two men when they went to pick up goods from the various places and merchants that Mary had established while she was there.

  On their last call, Abdul had requested Mary’s assistance in negotiating a marriage contract with Jamila, admitting that the old woman frightened him terribly. Although she had laughed, Mary knew that it was just another wise action, one that was establishing Abdul as her voice to the traders.

  The goods they were getting from Afghanistan via a fledgling import company that Mary and Jean had created were outstanding. The associated online store offered the embroidered items as well as spices and rugs. Although the store was not very old, Mary found that they were consistently getting sold out and that the village women were extremely pleased with the results and the various traders were ecstatic.

  Jumal was acting as Abdul’s driver until he recovered but was also going into partnership with the two soldiers who wanted to leverage their knowledge and contacts to build up a rug buying business. The small selection of unique and distinctive carpets that they had shipped to Mary was offered for sale in the online store. However, the high-quality products had caught the attention of a few well-known interior designers, who usually grabbed them before the general public got a chance to buy them.

  Mary found herself busy also. The small import business, coupled with the online store were not too much of a load since she split the necessary tasks with Jean. Rather than going back to volunteering, Mary had stayed involved with her two knitters in the platoon, learning how to draft knitting patterns so that she could design items and garments that the two men would find useful.

  They had entered into the spirit of her ideas, and somehow it had transformed into the creation of a book, using soldiers as models. Naomi and her crew were taking pictures, both of the drafted patterns and the garments made from them. Mary knew that even if the book never made any money, the pride that the young men took in showing their skill and contribution was one of the best gifts she could give them.

  Mary heard the light, silvery laugh the told everyone around that Susannah was present. The young therapist had worried about her charges the whole time they were gone. She had gone so far as to meet them in the greeting area of the returning international flight, visibly relaxing as she realized that everyone had come home.

  They had all ended up going out to a restaurant partway between the airport and home,
hungry for the tastes of familiar foods and responding to the young woman’s echoes of frantic fear.

  The women took turns recounting their ventures, and the young therapist was whiplashed from changing high emotions and the liveliness of their dialogue. Mary had not realized that they gained an audience until, at one point in her recounting of the scouting trip where they recovered Jumal and Haji’s body, she had paused for a drink of water. After a few seconds of silence, a youthful voice asked, “How big was that bird?”

  The unexpected question had made Mary look around to see that the entire restaurant had turned toward them. Even the waitstaff and the bartender had leaned forward attentively.

  Blushing deep red, Mary had continued her story. When Naomi pulled out her laptop and began to cycle through some of the images, the crush of people around their table became so dense that the restaurant owner arranged for them to tie into the building’s audiovisual systems. One of the people there owned the gallery where Naomi was now showing her photographs.

  Connections, we move through this life connecting with people because of our decisions and actions. Just like our connection with Susanna helped us recover enough to go to a place that helped all of us restart our lives, now we have Susanna in our club, learning how to move through her own grief.

  Mary picked her knitting back up and resumed the complicated pattern that she was stitching into the socks that would go off into the next care box for the platoon. She smiled contentedly to herself and thought that their time of gifting also was a time of healing. It felt good to be alive again.

  Knitting at a steady speed, humming Christmas carols under her breath as she counted her stitches, Mary looked happily at the spotted dog curled up at her feet. She was content.

  Author’s Notes

  A short story about this subject was published initially multiple years ago in a small anthology. When I decided to write another story that explored a later point in the characters’ lives, I thought perhaps I would publish a compendium that included both the first and second short stories.