The Way Home

Chapter 32

Kabul, Afghanistan, mid-December

THE OPEN-AIR MARKET TEEMED WITH life and scents and colors. It was the life that Rabia needed. She had mourned long enough. It was time to renew the process of living again with an open heart and get past the grieving.

She pulled her heavy coat tighter around her to ward off the December chill and, with a small basket handle looped over her arm, browsed through the market. Taking her time, she soaked it all in as she walked among the vendors, searching through racks of dresses and lovely, colorful scarves. She even stopped at the food vendors and bought loaves of fresh-baked bread and tender nut meats. Kabul markets had one hundred times as many vendors as Salawat.

Thoughts of the little village where she had spent time with Jeffery and her father came unbidden, reminding her of what would never be again.

Not only had she lost Jeffery; twenty days ago, she had lost her father.

“It is his heart,” the doctor had said, after her father had collapsed and she had rushed him to a hospital. “His condition has been left untreated for too long. I am sorry. There is nothing we can do but make him more comfortable.”

Two hours later, her father was gone.

Her last link to Salawat had died with him.

So Allah wished it.

As Allah wished for her to go on. Her life was rich here. She could walk freely without covering her face and hands, drive her car without fear of punishment. She could teach. The imminent threat of the Taliban was far away in Kandahar Province.

And here she had family and friends. She had renewed her ties with the Afghan women’s movement and worked to reach out to outlying villages to encourage more fathers to allow their daughters to attend school.

So yes, she must look toward the future now. This she reminded herself daily. For while the past held her heart, the future held her promise.

She added a daily newspaper to her basket, then stopped and stared in disbelief when she saw her own photograph on the front page.

Heart slamming, she looked up and around to see if anyone was watching her if anyone had recognized her as the woman in the news. Then she ducked into a small alcove and quickly scanned the article. Each word accelerated the beating of her heart and added to her sense of doom.

It was all there. How she had harbored Jeffery, alerted the Americans of his existence, and helped them with his rescue and that she now taught school in Kabul.

Panic, huge and breath-altering, stole the blood from her head. Sent it all to her heart, which pounded so hard she felt it in her fingertips. She swayed on her feet and would have fallen had someone not reached out and taken her hand.

“You all right, ma’am?”

Through her racing thoughts, she recognized the voice as that of an American.

She looked up and into his eyes, just as he glanced away and nodded to someone behind her shoulder.

She followed his gaze. Another American. And another. She quickly counted six in all.

“Ma’am,” the first one said, nodding to the photograph of her in the paper. “We’ve been turning this city upside down looking for you.”

IT TOOK A little convincing before Rabia accepted that they had been sent by Nate Black to help her. It took little persuasion, however, to make her realize that her only option was to get out of Kabul.

The next thing she knew, she was in a vehicle. Shortly after that, she was on a plane.

Everyone treated her well and kindly. They provided her with food and a pillow and a blanket and told her it would be a long flight, so she might as well sleep.

She was going to America. Where she would be safe, they assured her. Where she could start a new life. She would not be on her own. She would have help. She would have support.

Yet there were certain truths that could not be ignored. She was a woman, a Muslim, in a foreign land. There was no war in America. Not with guns and bombs. But there was a culture war. She had read of it. Because of the Islamic jihadists, Muslims were often regarded with suspicion and ostracized in the United States. She understood why that would be so. As she understood that no matter what they said, she was alone.

But she was alive. Something she would not be in Afghanistan.

Weary and wary, she did everything she was told by the people who had pulled her off the streets and then boarded the plane with her. They stopped once. To refuel, they told her. Then they were in the air again.

She slept again because she was exhausted. She slept because in sleep, she could avoid the questions that plagued her about where she would go. How she would live. Whom she could trust.

She slept because she could escape from the sadness of knowing she would never see her homeland or her family and friends again.

And she slept because she could then avoid the truth that every worry, every concern, every fear, was attached to the impossible hope that somehow, some way, she would see Jeffery again.

Her selfishness shamed her. Jeffery did not belong to her. He had a wife. And he had a life she had no part in.

Only the grinding of the landing gear woke her. She looked out the window at the snow-covered fields and city below.

“Welcome to America, ma’am,” someone said, as the wheels touched down on the tarmac.

She touched a hand to her abdomen, where the child she and Jeffery had made slept.

“Here it begins,” she whispered, and prayed to Allah that her baby would grow as safe and as strong as the father it would never know.

SHE NOW UNDERSTOOD how Jeffery must have felt to have been totally dependent on and at the mercy of strangers. Upon landing, she was escorted to a car with dark-tinted windows. After they’d ridden almost two hours over winding roads and through gently rolling snow-covered hills, it had grown dark.

Houses dotted the countryside, most of them adorned in brightly colored lights. Many with nativity scenes in the front yards. Most with evergreen trees—the first time she had seen any—draped with more lights. Evergreen wreaths hung everywhere. She had read of the Christian Christmas tradition and had even seen photographs of elaborate light displays. Nothing had prepared her for the grandness of the spectacle that played out on house after house. While she did not fully comprehend the connection of colorful lights and Christianity, she found herself mesmerized by the twinkling lights and the festive mood they created.

Soon, however, there were fewer houses, the traffic became nonexistent, and she noticed tall, industrial-strength fencing bordering either side of the road.

She saw lights ahead—not Christmas lights—and concluded that they were security lights when the vehicle slowed, the driver rolled down his window, and a uniformed guard checked his identification.

“We’ve been expecting you, sir,” the soldier said, and then advised him which building to approach.

Fighting a slight measure of unease, Rabia told herself it would only be expected that she would have to undergo some sort of military questioning to ensure that she was not, in fact, a jihadist. There would also be paperwork, she assumed, authorizing her entry into the country.

So she did as she was politely asked and followed another uniformed soldier into a building and down a long hallway.

“These are your temporary quarters,” the young soldier said. “Someone will be in to see to your needs momentarily. Have a good night, ma’am.”

He left her standing in the hallway, watching him walk away. Off-balance and disoriented, she finally looked through the open door, then gingerly stepped inside.

It was a roomy apartment. She stepped immediately into a sitting area with a sofa, chairs, TV, and artwork on the wall. Very uncertainly, she explored the rest of the apartment, which consisted of a small cooking room that opened into the sitting area. There was also a modern bathroom. A single bedroom housed a huge bed with soft pillows and a pristine white bedcover.

For a long moment, she stood there, looking at the bed. Then she walked into the sitting room, wondering what it meant that she had been left here. Was she to go to bed? Was she to find food in the cooking room and prepare a meal? Was she free to go where she pleased?

The open door said so. But where would she go?

Feeling suddenly exposed, she crossed the room and closed the door. Then she walked around, touching things. The fabrics were of fine quality. The wall colors were soft and comforting.

She sat down on the sofa, folded her hands on her lap, and stared at the dark TV. She considered turning it on to fill the emptiness of the room with some noise, but a knock sounded on the door before she could figure out the remote control.

The door was not locked. Whoever was out there could come in at will, so although she was apprehensive, she walked over and opened it.

And there stood Jeffery.

She raised her hands, pressed them to her heart, and stared, not certain she could believe her eyes.

But it was him. He had gained some weight. His hair was short, and his beard was gone. But it was him.

He smiled at her, and her heart rocketed into the clouds.

“How? What? I do not—”

Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She did not care that it was wrong; she kissed him back. Not thinking about his wife. Only reacting to the loneliness, the missing him, the fear and the love she would always and forever feel for this man.

JEFF COULDN’T BELIEVE he had Rabia in his arms again. The waiting had been hell. The worry that they wouldn’t get to her in time was crippling. Then Mike had called with the news.

“They’ve got her, Jeff. She’s on her way to the States now.”

“Thank God, thank God.” Jess had teared up with joy beside him. And for the first time in a very long time, he thanked God, too. “Where will they take her?” he finally had the presence of mind to ask.

“That’s up in the air for now.”

Jess had gotten on the phone then and told Mike the way things were. “Now, you figure out how he’s going to get to see her,” she’d ordered like a drill sergeant.

So now here they were. In some top-secret military facility, one of several in the U.S. that only the top brass and immediate personnel knew about. Sharing a bed in an apartment that was generally reserved for the men with stars on their uniforms.

Jeff didn’t even know where the post was. Mike had sent a plane to International Falls. Between Brad and Jess, they’d managed to run interference with the press that had been camped out at the store since about two hours after the story broke. Using a couple of Brad’s buddies as decoys, Brad had driven him to the airport and put him on the plane—but not before he’d said his good-byes to Jess.

“You’re an amazing woman.”

“I know,” she’d said with a grin. “And you, my dear friend, are going to be just fine.”

He’d hugged her hard.

“You haven’t seen the last of me,” she’d promised, as more tears threatened. “No matter what, we’re family. Now… go to her. She must be scared half to death.”

Yes, she’d been scared and confused, he realized, as he watched Rabia sleep beside him in the bed that, in her eyes, was larger than any man and woman would ever need.

She wasn’t afraid anymore. She was thoroughly loved and blissfully sated. And now she slept in his arms, and all the missing her was behind him. She was here now. She was his now, and he was never letting her go.

He’d told her about Jess. There would be paperwork, but since he’d been declared legally dead, they weren’t even certain if they were considered married at this point. They would work it out.

Then he would be free, with Jess’s blessings, to marry her.

“Marry me?” Her onyx eyes had glittered with happy, bewildered tears as he’d brushed the hair away from her face.

“In America, we marry for love. I love you, Rabia.”

“Yes, I will marry you, Jeffery.”

Then, to his amazement, she’d fallen asleep. Just like that. Because she felt safe and because she could finally give in to the exhaustion and let him share in the sorrow over her father’s death that she’d carried by herself for too long.

With her sleeping peacefully beside him, he, too, finally gave in to the pull of exhaustion.

WHEN JEFF WOKE up several hours later, Rabia was lying on her side, watching him.

“Hello.” He smiled into her eyes.

She found his hand, brought it to her lips, and kissed it. Then she lowered it to her abdomen, pressed it against her. “Someone else would like to say hello.”

Her expressive eyes relayed both excitement and uncertainty. And as she held his hand there, spreading her fingers wide over his, her meaning finally dawned.

“A baby?”

She nodded, still uncertain.

He felt a smile spread from his heart to his eyes. “We made a baby?”

Seeing his happiness, she smiled, too. “On the roof. Under the stars.”

It humiliated him that he cried so easily these days. He’d done enough of it in the past month to last a lifetime. But these tears didn’t bother him. These tears were born in wonder and steeped in joy.

These tears celebrated the hopeless improbability that in the midst of such suffering and terror and ugliness, something as beautiful and miraculous as life had been created.